41. Carl
41. Carl
Afterwards, she slowly traces over the poppies again. For so long it has seemed impossible that I could be this happy. But here I am, drunk on the sheer elation of being with Sarah.
Sarah, who is so close that I can feel the rise and fall of her chest on mine. Sarah.
‘It’s so beautiful,’ she says. ‘They were all lucky to have known you. To have known someone who would do this for them, to celebrate them. You were a good friend, and you’re a good person.’
Her words hit me like a physical blow.
I have tried to be. I have tried to honour Squadron and do good. I have tried to be the loyal soldier we all trained to be. But if I was all those things, then how come my comrades are dead. And how come Sarah is lying next to me with a face covered in angry red scars?
Like I said in my best man speech, I used to think I was a good man. But now I’m not so sure.
Sitting upright in bed, I pull away from her and push my fingers through my freshly barbered hair.
‘I don’t think I am,’ I say.
She sits up next to me. ‘I don’t understand.’ She looks puzzled and hurt.
I can’t bear her looking at me like that, but at the same time I can’t have her thinking that I’m this great guy. The tattoos were never meant to be a showcase for me being a hero.
What a good bloke I am for remembering my friends. Christ, is that what people are going to think? Is that what Sarah thinks?
It was for them . It was my way of saying sorry to them for not being there. For not being a good friend.
‘If it hadn’t been for me,’ I tell her, ‘things I did, things I didn’t do, things I should have done differently, they would all be alive now.’
‘That’s not true,’ she says, reaching out for my hand.
But I brush it away and shake my head. ‘It is, it is true. For starters, Fridge shouldn’t even have been out there. He signed up after me, when the war was big in the news. Ange was furious. Billy was a baby – she couldn’t understand why he would leave them. But he got it into his head that it was his duty to the country, but more especially to me.’
Sarah sits up, pulls the sheet around her.
I go on. ‘Fridge was working as an apprentice carpenter with his dad, and he would have just got on with his life if he hadn’t seen me with all my new army mates, having a great time. “I can’t let you take all the glory,” he joked when he got back from enlisting. Selfishly, I was thrilled, because it meant that he would be with me. That we would be going on this adventure together.
‘But the truth is, I had nothing to lose. I was excited to be running away. But Fridge, he had everything to live for. Amazing parents, a wonderful woman who loved him, and who he loved back, and a baby son.’
Sarah reaches out to take my hand – which is trembling – and this time, I let her.
‘Ange was furious,’ I tell her. ‘She said that it was me who had sowed the restless seed in him. I’d made him think there was adventure to be had out there with his mates, good to be done in the world, when there was more than enough good to be done at home, with his family.
‘The day we buried him, I remembered what she’d said. Just before she threw her handful of soil over the coffin, she looked at me, and I saw in her eyes … Sarah, she was so angry.’
‘But, Carl, that was just the grief talking. You can’t possibly be held responsible for what happened to Fridge. I didn’t know him for long, but I knew him well enough to know that he was a strong-minded man who made his own decisions.’
She brings my hands to her lips, kisses my fingers.
‘Carl, Ange may be heartbroken for losing her husband, but that doesn’t mean it’s your fault that he’s dead.’
My thoughts are spinning now.
Fridge lying dead on the ground.
Ange, the children, Michael and Kathleen, so dignified at his funeral. So gracious and kind to me always.
I’ve never been brave enough to talk about his death with Michael and Kathleen. Is it too much to hope that Sarah is right? That they think this was Fridge’s choice and his alone?
I shake my head. ‘Sarah, even if that were true – and I know in my heart that it isn’t – there are still all the others who I couldn’t save either.’
I need her to know. I need her to know the truth about why I had these tattoos done.
And when I start to tell her, I find that I cannot stop.