Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
A fter a late night partying to the rest of Charlie’s set, and a busy day teaching, Grace was finally about to press send on the video to Will when a message came in from the man himself.
I’m back. Can we meet for a drink?
When?
Now, if possible.
Where? I’m in town.
Not in town, please. Can you come to the bar on the headland above the cove?
It was all a bit mysterious. Grace knew the place. It was very out of the way. She’d better start walking. She was excited to show him her DJ debut in person and maybe this would be her chance to talk to him about adopting Karen.
Ok, half an hour?
Fine.
When she arrived at the bar, Will was already seated at a table outside and waved her over.
As soon as she sat down, Grace could tell that something was wrong. For once, Will looked tired. He was unshaven, there were dark circles under his eyes beneath the tan, and when he spoke, she could smell alcohol on his breath. He’d definitely started without her. And a little while ago. The guy was admittedly on holiday and allowed some downtime, but the familiar smirk was missing completely. DJing and cat adoption would have to wait.
‘Beer?’
‘Yes, please, Mythos.’
Will raised his hand at the barman.
‘Two more please, Theo.’
There was only one other couple sitting outside, but Will looked around as if he was scanning the place for potential enemies. They sat in silence for the first few mouthfuls of beer, until Grace could bear it no longer. He was the one who’d invited her here for a drink, not the other way round.
‘Is everything all right?’
Will turned his face to hers, and Grace put her bottle back down on the table with a bang when she saw the look in his eyes. She knew that look only too well. It was the pain of loss. His eyes were the colour of conkers just after their green spiky shells had been broken open. They were usually as shiny too, but tonight they were dull.
‘What’s happened?’
Will took another sip of beer before speaking.
‘I’ve just heard that a good friend of mine has died.’
There was no satisfaction for Grace in being proved right this time.
‘That’s awful. I’m so sorry.’
Grace stopped herself asking any more questions. Will was the sort of man who would only speak when he was ready. There was no point pushing him. She concentrated on downing her beer instead.
‘We served together. Afghanistan, Iraq, Northern Ireland.’
Grace nodded.
‘It was years ago, but you never forget. Those men are family.’
It was what they were always promoting in the recruitment ads for the services, the idea that if you joined up, you’d be part of a new family, but up to now Grace hadn’t known whether it was true. She didn’t know anyone who was or had been in the army, navy or air force. And if she was being honest, she wouldn’t have been too keen on either of her daughters ending up with someone in the services either. Not that she could explain why, exactly; it just sounded like a tough life all round, both for those posted abroad and possibly having to fight and for those left at home.
Will lifted his hand at the barman.
‘Two more beers over here, please, Theo.’
Will was certainly going for it. He needed to talk, that much was clear, and for some reason she had been picked as the one to listen.
‘His name is… was Barney. Just a couple of years younger than me.’
Will’s hand tightened on the beer bottle.
‘Such a bloody waste.’
Grace leant over and stroked his other hand.
Will looked up in surprise. It was almost as if he’d forgotten she was there. Grace took her opportunity.
‘Shall we order some food? I’m hungry.’
She wasn’t really, but she thought that Will could do with something to soak up all that beer.
‘Yes, please get whatever you want.’
Grace left Will staring out to sea, while she wandered over to the barman.
‘Can we please have some fried calamari over there, a Greek salad, some bread, and a big bottle of water with two glasses.’
‘Of course.’
‘I’ll take the water now.’
The barman reached behind him to get the bottle of water out of the fridge.
‘Is Will OK?’
Grace couldn’t pretend to know Will well, but one thing she did know was how private he was. He’d hate to think that people were gossiping about him. She could see why he hadn’t wanted to meet in town. It was all too easy to bump into someone you knew.
‘Yeah, he’s fine. Just a bit of a rough day.’
‘Ah, we all have those.’
Grace smiled her polite smile and headed back to the table with the water. She poured out two glasses and put one in front of Will. She wouldn’t force him to drink it. He wasn’t a child, and if he didn’t want it, it was up to him.
Will ignored the water and reached for his beer.
‘Barney struggled when he left the army… he never settled to anything. Got a bit too fond of the drink.’
Grace tried not to look at the bottles mounting up on the table.
‘His wife eventually left him, and he rarely saw his kids. But in the last couple of years, he seemed to be doing better. He got sober and was working as a night security guard. Sent me pictures of himself every week at the football with his sons.’
Will drained the dregs of his beer.
‘I offered him a job out here at the villa in the early days. But he told me he could never leave Manchester again. If only he’d taken it…’
Will raised his hand yet again for the barman. Grace had barely touched her second beer.
‘Not for me, thanks.’
The man was on a mission. It wasn’t her place to stop him drinking, but she just hoped the food would arrive soon.
Will stared at the bottle of beer as if he’d find the answer to his problems in the contents of its green glass.
‘The landlord found him. No one had heard from him for a couple of days.’
Grace heard the break in his voice.
‘He’d hung himself in his room…’
Will turned to her and Grace saw that pain again in his eyes. The pain that was in hers every time she looked in the mirror. His eyes were full of unshed tears, and Grace welled up too. A couple of her tears escaped onto the tablecloth, and she dried them with a serviette before speaking.
‘Poor guy. To die all alone like that.’
Will wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.
‘Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I didn’t think…’
Grace didn’t want to bring Phil into it. This wasn’t about him.
‘No, it’s fine. You need to grieve for your friend, it’s important.’
The food arrived and by unspoken agreement they both plastered on a smile for the barman. Will raised a hand.
‘Thanks, Theo.’
Grace dealt herself a plate with a bit of everything and put some squid in her mouth.
‘Mmmm, delicious. You should try some.’
Will looked at her with some of the old scepticism. She had said it like she was taking part in an advert.
‘Are you suggesting I eat before I fall over?’
‘Something like that.’
Will tore off a piece of bread and put it in his mouth.
‘Happy?’
‘I think you’ll need something a bit more substantial than that.’
Why was she giving in to the urge to mother him? He was a grown man, and how much he ate was his concern. The need to constantly feed people was very Greek, so maybe she was going native.
Will tore off another piece of bread but left it on his plate.
‘I just wish there was more help available for guys like Barney. Guys who put their lives on the line day after day, and who are suddenly left out in the cold. One day you’re a hero, the next, no one wants to know.’
They were venturing deep into personal territory. This was a very different side to the Will she’d known so far.
‘But aren’t there organisations or charities who can help ex-service personnel?’
She was sure she’d given money to people collecting for the services in the past. Grace thought about her own position. She’d always seen the armed forces as something the country needed, but at the same time she abhorred the idea of violence or actual killing. Perhaps naively she hadn’t thought much about what happened when you were no longer part of a team who’d been through such intense experiences.
‘There is some help available, and it’s a damn sight better now than it was years ago, but it’s not enough. People try, but they don’t always understand what we’ve been through.’
Grace noted the change from ‘they’ to ‘we’. This was more than a simple mourning of a friend.
‘Mental health is a major issue. What we have to do messes with your head. And the longer it goes on, and the more tours you do, the worse it gets.’
Will turned to face her.
‘I knew I had to get out when I started being sick every morning before going out on patrol. I’d look at myself in the mirror and it was pure fear that looked back. What use is that to the men you’re leading? You could put someone’s life in danger. Keeping your men safe is more important than anything.’
Grace stayed still and silent. Whatever this was, Will needed to push through it. She knew from bitter experience that you couldn’t keep repressing feelings, because they’d come back to bite you. Immediately after Phil’s death, when people had asked her if she was feeling OK, she’d nearly always said yes, because that’s what they wanted to hear. It made them feel better. What she really wanted to do was stand up, scream and say, ‘Are you out of your mind? Of course, I’m not OK. How could I possibly be OK when I’ve just lost the person I’ve loved for the whole of my adult life and all our plans for the future are destroyed?’
Of course, she’d never done it– someone would have probably tried to have her committed– but it had only been with Sofia that she could tell the truth about how bad things really were. Three years on, the raw grief had almost gone, but there was still a dark corner of her bruised heart that made itself known every now and then. At least she had Sofia to talk to. She didn’t like to assume, but Will, being a man, was probably less likely to talk to someone about his experiences, especially as he lived alone.
Grace tuned back into what Will was saying.
‘And becoming a parent while you’re serving in the forces affects you even more. I saw an extra level of fear in the eyes of the men who were fathers. It makes you a whole lot more vulnerable too, which is dangerous in itself. I used to think about my son every time I left the camp, wondering if he was going to be left fatherless.’
Will missed the table completely when he tried to put the bottle down, and Grace bent to pick it up from the stone floor, where it was spilling its contents, miraculously still intact. She stopped worrying about being seen as motherly and put some calamari and salad on a plate.
‘Here, eat this, before you smash something.’
His salute held a bit of the Will she knew.
Grace waited until he’d eaten everything on the plate before speaking.
‘Have you ever thought about getting involved in some way with veterans yourself? Working with one of these charities? You’d probably have to do some training, but you’d be a damn sight more useful to people who were struggling, like your friend, than someone who knew all the theory but had never served.’
They needed to get away from subjects that were dragging them both under. She’d given Will pause for thought with her question.
‘I’ve never really considered it. When I left the army twenty years ago, I’d had more than enough of the whole bloody thing, and I didn’t look back. My marriage was well and truly over, my son was more or less lost to me, and the last thing I wanted was to be tied to an office job.’
A vision of a suited Will lashed to a desk was a disturbing thought.
‘No, I can’t see you in an office environment.’
‘So I became a close protection bodyguard instead, to anyone who’d have me, ambassadors, billionaires, celebrities, you name it.’
‘It sounds fascinating, but I’m sure it isn’t always.’
‘No, it’s a job like any other, but with the added possibility that you need to be prepared to kill or be killed.’
Grace took a deep breath. She was going to say it.
‘Have you ever knowingly killed anyone?’
Will took another swipe at the beer Grace had rescued from the ground. He looked her straight in the eye.
‘Yes, in self-defence, while under fire. To protect the life of the person I worked for.’
Grace took a moment. She had asked the question. What did she expect? Could she ever be with someone who’d killed another human being as part of their work? Not that she was thinking of getting together with Will– it was just theoretical.
‘How? Did you shoot them?’
‘Yes.’
‘And why did you have a gun?’
‘You’re allowed to carry a gun outside the UK if it’s been approved. We always flew PJ– private jet– so the guns are checked in and out each end.’
Will forced out a weird chuckle.
‘When I first started as a bodyguard, and the other guys were talking about PJs, I thought they meant pyjamas at first…’
Grace didn’t laugh along. It was a world she knew nothing about, and she wasn’t sure how much more she did want to know. But she couldn’t stop herself.
‘Are the threats of kidnap real?’
‘In some parts of the world, very much so. Particularly for billionaires and their children. And even in London they don’t like to take any chances.’
Her curiosity got the better of her.
‘And do these children go to normal schools?’
‘Some are home tutored, but in one family I worked for, the children were at an ultra-exclusive private school in the city. We took it in turns to go in with them.’
‘And then what did you do? Hang around until they finished lessons?’
‘No… sit in the classroom with them.’
‘Hang on, you mean you had to sit with them all day?’
‘Yep.’
‘And were you the only one?’
‘No, there were other bodyguards too.’
Grace thought her head would explode.
‘So, let me get this straight. There was a line of bodyguards sitting at the back of a classroom, where, presumably because the parents are already paying astronomical fees, there were only a few children anyway?’
‘Basically, yes.’
‘That seems ridiculous.’
Will shrugged.
‘As a teacher, I can tell you it’s not healthy. Is that the sort of life you’d want for your own children? Anyone’s children?’
‘No.’
At least she’d slowed down Will’s drinking.
‘How do you get into a job like that? Are they advertised?’
‘Not really. Everyone is basically ex-forces or police weapons trained. It’s all word of mouth.’
‘So they don’t let just anyone fly around the world using a gun whenever they feel like it? That’s a relief.’
Will ignored her outburst.
‘I got fed up with the travelling too. It may sound glamorous, flying to these people’s homes in the Caribbean or the Swiss mountains, but you’re always on duty. You’re not on holiday.’
‘Is there anything you do miss about it?’
Grace unloaded the last of the calamari and bread onto his plate in the hope that he’d finish it off.
Will forked a baby calamari into his mouth.
‘The food. The guy I worked for in London had a team of top chefs and each day one had to get the ingredients and prepare six potential meals for the boss and his partner. Then during the day they’d narrow down the choices to one.’
‘What a terrible waste.’
Will smiled for the first time that evening.
‘Oh, nothing was ever wasted. We got to eat food made by Michelin-starred chefs on a regular basis. That’s why it paid to be mates with the chefs. Get in there first before the nannies.’
Grace finished off her second beer.
‘What a strange life. For everyone involved.’
‘Agreed. I got fed up with it in the end. Wanted to be in one place for more than a couple of weeks. I came here on holiday and never left. Picked up the house for a song and did it up myself. Picked up a job at the same time.’
Will made inroads into the final beer on the table.
‘It’s suited me down to the ground.’
‘Why are you saying suited instead of suits? Is it about to come to an end?
‘Sadly, yes. I retire at Christmas. You don’t get many heads of security over the age of sixty.’
‘Oh, I see. And is that what you want?’
Will didn’t seem anywhere near old enough to be giving up work. He was obviously still very fit; she’d seen enough of his body to attest to that.
‘Not really. I’m not the type to give up work completely and sit twiddling my thumbs. I just need to sort out what the next phase will be.’
You and me both, thought Grace. Her life had split wide open over the summer. Before Greece was done and dusted, but she really wasn’t sure about After Greece yet.