56. Sarah
56. Sarah
He starts to take off the blue cashmere jumper I bought him, and as he reaches up to pull it over his shoulders I glimpse the dressing over the fresh red poppy before his T-shirt falls back and covers it again.
It meant so much to him to get it done. A way to let Danny still be a part of our world. I know it is Carl’s way of saying sorry too. For not being able to save him. Just as the other poppies are his request for forgiveness from the other five souls they’re dedicated to.
The friends and comrades he still misses.
My sweet Carl. He still doesn’t believe he deserves to be this happy. He tries to prove himself worthy. Not just with me and Maggie but with all the others whose lives are being touched by the charity we’ve set up.
Watching him work with his reporter friend to track down Assami’s family, and with my dad to persuade the Home Office that Habiba and the children should be allowed to come to this country, has been like watching him come alive again.
With each new piece of good news, every new phone call from Dad or the reporter, his optimism would grow. Slowly at first. But then, the night after they finally arrived, just before he fell asleep, I realized that something had changed in his eyes.
There had been a darkness to them since Danny’s death, but that night the life came back into them. I saw the same clear blue that had dazzled me all that time ago, in the camp canteen. It was as if helping Habiba and her children had given him back a spark of hope and begun to restore his faith in the world. And every day, with each new person he helps, I see that faith grow.
Carl turns to look at me now. He arches his eyebrows, and I smile, reaching up to ruffle my hands through his hair – which is longer now, the curls finally getting their way.
He is just the same, and yet not the same at all. But he is here, and nothing will ever separate us again.
‘Are you playing the football?’ calls Mustafa from the field beyond the drystone wall that marks the end of the cottage garden.
Carl looks back at Mustafa, and beams. ‘I’m playing the football,’ he shouts back. ‘Do you need anything?’ he asks as he gets up from the picnic blanket.
I shake my head.
‘You sure?’
‘I’m sure.’
He turns and calls out to Rangina. ‘Come on, lass,’ he says, ‘you can come and play the football too.’
She appears at the kitchen door and rewards him with one of her lopsided grins. Then she skips towards him and holds out her hand.
‘We can do better than that,’ he says, swinging her into the air and hoisting her on to his shoulders. He clasps her ankles, easily enfolded in his enormous hands. ‘Are you ready?’
She giggles, then starts to scream as he turns and runs in zigzags across the garden to the far wall.
‘Everything okay?’ calls Roz from the kitchen where she and Habiba are busy preparing tonight’s dinner – a Ramadan feast of slow-cooked meats and sweetbreads. And, at Roz’s insistence, scones with home-made strawberry jam and cream.
I smile and nod at Roz. She is peering out of the kitchen window, a wooden spoon in one hand and a mixing bowl in the other. Next to her, Habiba, with her lilac silk scarf draped elegantly across her head and shoulders, smiles shyly and gives me a small wave.
Then Roz says something and they both laugh. Firm friends, they have bonded over the universal language of the kitchen. A language that is never better understood than when one of them is complaining about Carl’s unpredictable Rayburn.
Suddenly I see Carl sprinting back up the field towards me. For a second I panic, thinking something is wrong, but then I see that he’s grinning.
‘What’s up?’ I shout.
‘I forgot to say goodbye to the nipper,’ he pants, kneeling down beside me. He bends down to kiss my stomach, then he rocks back on to his ankles and stares at me. ‘You look cold,’ he says, reaching for his cashmere jumper.
He holds it above me and then gently pulls it down over my head. He brushes the hair that has fallen over my face out of my eyes, and stoops forward to kiss me.
‘I love you,’ he says.
‘I love you too.’
‘Are you sure you’ve got everything you need?’
‘I’m sure,’ I tell him.
Then he leaps up and is gone again.
I lie back down and close my eyes.
I can hear birdsong. I can hear Carl’s laughing voice telling me it’s the sound of a wood pigeon not an owl.
I see him standing over the Rayburn making scrambled eggs for me and Maggie. I see him stroking Elsa’s ears. I see his eyes light up at the news that I am pregnant. I see six poppies.
Somewhere in the distance I hear him calling for the ball, then the sound of the boys laughing.
I can smell lavender mixed with the occasional waft of freshly baked scones.
I rub my hand over the soft fabric of Carl’s jumper, stroke the smallest hint of a bump beneath it that will one day be our baby.
Yes , I think, I’ve got everything I need, and more besides .