Chapter Seventeen

EVERYTHING ABOUT FOB Carlsbad was too small. men tumbled out of their cots when they turned over in their sleep and hit the rock walls. Some preferred to sleep outside, no matter how low the night temperature. Food was served in a space so tiny that only about ten men could eat there at a time and most didn’t bother to try. The washing area was practically inside the Control Post. The Hesco never seemed to be more than an arm’s reach away. And the communal caves where commanders addressed their platoons were barely big enough for two sections, let alone three, so men spilled out into the eating area and had to keep asking other platoons to keep quiet so they could hear.

The night before the spraying operation began, 1 Platoon tried to crush on to the floor of the largest cave, feet digging into each other’s backs, as the boss gave orders. Chalfont-Price, at the front, was the only man with any space around him.

‘It is the Afghan National Police’s job to run the poppy-eradication programme and it is our job to protect them and the tractor drivers who are actually spraying the crop. I repeat: We are not here to engage in prolonged battle, search compounds or open fire on the Taliban. There is no role for the ANA because our mandate is simply to ensure that everyone involved in eradication can do their job, but let me emphasize again that we are not responsible for eradicating the crop. That is not the reason we are in Afghanistan.

‘Now, at 0700 hours we will be joining the convoy of tractors at the point where it turns off Highway One …’

He had asked Aaron Baker, commander of 2 Section, to hold the map and indicate the route. Dave, standing at the side of the cave, his arms crossed, thought that should be his job. But for some reason the boss was still asking the corporal to play the sergeant’s role.

‘It’s fucking insulting,’ Dave had complained last week to the sergeant major.

‘Only if you take it that way,’ Kila had replied. ‘I’m just relieved Chalfont-Price actually likes someone.’

Baker, the man whose map-reading skills were well known to be non-existent, was now showing the company Highway One, the FOB, the poppy fields and the route they would take to the RV.

‘Is that clear?’ Chalfont-Price asked the men when Baker had finished. He did not pause for an answer. ‘And I can assure you that our journey from Highway One to the poppy fields at least will be safe. The area has been thoroughly cleared of personnel and mines.’

When the boss used the word ‘safe’, Dave uncrossed and crossed his arms. Noticing, the young officer turned his small, thickset body aggressively towards Dave.

‘Do you have some sort of problem with that, Sergeant?’ he demanded. ‘Perhaps you’ll share it with us?’

And then there was that silence, the one Dave was learning to recognize, the special silence which fell among the men when he and Chalfont-Price were confronting each other. It wasn’t just that nobody talked. Nobody moved either; maybe they didn’t even breathe. The entire platoon was holding its breath.

Dave looked out of the cave towards the bright daylight. Helmeted heads were silhouetted against it. He saw Doc Holliday, watching him laconically, leaning against a rock. Doc raised his eyebrows. He disliked the boss even more than Dave did.

Dave turned to the men. ‘You heard what the boss said. The Americans have cleared the area. But don’t start thinking you can relax. You can’t. Stay alert and stay sharp. Nothing’s actually safe here.’

Chalfont-Price did not thank Dave before he continued. Instead he left a long pause which said the interruption had been unnecessary.

‘Let me remind you once more. If the tractors come under fire, the vehicles will intercept. At worst, gunners on top can put down suppressing fire, but this is to be kept to a minimum. Men inside vehicles must not dismount and treat this like an operation. The poppy fields are not to become battlefields. Is that clear?’

No one said a word.

‘I repeat. This is simply a protection exercise. Now does everyone understand what we are and are not doing?’ demanded Chalfont-Price. There was a cough. Dave smiled to himself. No orders would be complete without Billy Finn asking a question.

‘Sir, are you saying that we should only put down suppressing fire?’

The boss’s face darkened. Dave had to hand it to the man, Chalfont-Prick could use his eyebrows to maximum effect. His voice, when it came, was suppressing fire itself: ‘That is indeed the intention, Lance Corporal.’

‘Even in an ambush, sir? Even if there’s an ambush, do you want us to stay in the vehicles and not fire back?’

It had taken a while, because they were used to the open and approachable Gordon Weeks, but somehow the new boss had stopped the men asking questions. Sticking your neck out usually got it stamped on, so now people seldom did. Dave suspected that some of the lads found Chalfont-Prick more intimidating than the Taliban. But not Billy Finn. Dave knew he should put the lad in his place but he remained silent. He tried, unsuccessfully, to look disapproving.

The boss couldn’t lower his eyebrows much further but he expanded his chest and there was a small but noticeable rustle of anticipation all over the cave before the men became motionless, waiting for the eruption.

‘I can see,’ growled Chalfont-Price, his voice taut with irritation, ‘that I’ll have to go over everything again as some of you have not been listening.’

He sighed expressively and then spoke slowly and clearly, as though to a child.

‘We have been ordered to put down suppressing fire because the farmers will certainly attempt to protect their illegal crop from the sprayers. However, we know that these poppy fields are in valuable to the Taliban; they are some of the best in the province. We may therefore come under sustained attack, which may go beyond small-arms fire or anything local farmers can manage. There is even the possibility of serious ambush. Naturally, if that occurs, there will be fighting which requires more than suppressive fire. I should have thought that would be obvious, Lance Corporal.’

‘Ah! So then it’s all right for us to get out of the wagons?’

The boss’s eyes flashed angrily and he turned to Dave.

‘Sergeant, could you please deal with this man,’ he snapped.

Dave thought the best way of dealing with Finny was to slap him on the back and buy him a pint.

‘That’s enough, Finny, you’ve made your point,’ he said. He tried to sound tough but knew he hadn’t succeeded.

The boss glared and then synchronized watches before stalking out to join the other officers in their cave. He did not look to right or left. His departure was immediately followed by a pause and then there was an outbreak of voices as the men scrambled to their feet and began to file out of the cave. Some of them gave Finn a thumbs-up or a high-five.

As Billy Finn passed him, Dave raised his eyebrows.

‘Sarge, he sounds good but he talks bollocks,’ muttered Finny.

Dave’s voice was low. ‘Billy Finn, I’m letting you off shit duties for a week for that,’ he said. ‘But be careful.’

Iain Kila strolled up.

‘All right, mate?’

Dave nodded.

‘Have a word?’

Dave followed the sergeant major outside and they found a place to sit under camouflage netting. Kila’s tattoos were covered by the criss-cross of shadow tattoos from the netting.

Kila leaned across the table. ‘Are you sure you’re all right, mate?’

‘Yessir. Why?’

‘Because I was watching you in there and you looked seriously pissed off. Finny was cheeky and you didn’t tell him to wind his neck in, and that’s not like you.’

Dave shrugged. ‘I thought the boss deserved it.’

‘We don’t let our lance corporals grip officers in the British Army, and you know it.’

Dave’s face remained expressionless.

‘Yeah. Yeah, you’re right, Iain. Sorry.’ Probably better not to mention he had actually rewarded Finny.

‘I know why you’re pissed off. We all do,’ said Kila. ‘It’s not just Chalfont-Price.’

Dave felt his heart beat faster and he turned to face the sergeant major.

‘What do you know?’ he asked.

‘Everyone’s talking about it. The women are talking about it back in Wiltshire and they chatter on the phone to their husbands here and the next thing you know the blokes are all talking about it too.’

‘Talking about me.’ This was a statement, not a question, because Dave didn’t want to hear the answer. It came anyway.

‘About your Jenny. People think she’s doing a bit more than typing with this general she works for over at Tinnington. Coward-Hardy.’

Dave’s elbows were on the table. His chin was cupped in one palm. Now he closed his eyes. The gesture could be mistaken for defence against the long, low rays of the sun.

‘Do you want to go home?’ asked Iain Kila.

Dave looked up. A few lobster-coloured men passed carrying oil cans. The land still froze at night but in the day men took their shirts off whenever they could. Dave had handed out sun cream and a few used it. Others just turned red. He made a mental note to talk to them about that again.

His eye ran over the Hesco and beyond it the rocky hillside down which, distantly, a small, brown-skinned boy clambered with a couple of goats.

‘Nah,’ said Dave. ‘I don’t need to go home.’

‘Maybe you should.’

‘It wouldn’t be good for the lads if their sergeant sods off,’ said Dave.

‘We’d manage here. We’d call it R and R.’

‘Everyone in camp would know why I was back.’

Dave tried to imagine arriving home in an army car, the whole street peering through their nets at him as he pulled up outside and went in. And for the next week the camp would be studying their every move.

‘Steve Buckle’s going home from Headley Court soon. It would help a lot if you were there.’

‘No, Iain. That’s not a good enough reason for me to go back either. We’ve got Welfare in camp for Steve.’

Kila scrutinized Dave’s face now. Dave, aware that he was being appraised, closed his eyes again.

The sergeant major said: ‘The worst thing is rumours. Rumours can drive you crazy because you think there’s no smoke without fire and you run around looking for the fire. But sometimes there is no fire. People are just talking shit.’

‘Jenny admits it,’ Dave told him.

The sergeant major sat upright and wrinkled his brow. He was the only man in the FOB who stayed clean-shaven, and that included his head. ‘Jenny? Admits she’s having an affair?’

‘Jenny admits that she sees this man because she works for him. She admits that he’s picked the kids up once when she was working late. She admits that they’ve been out to the theme park with the kids because they got some special army tickets or something and he took his grandchild. But she says she’s not having an affair.’

‘Christ,’ said Kila. ‘It’s sounding like a fucking affair to me.’

Dave was silent. In the last few weeks he had been finding he had less and less to say. And the less he said, the more other people talked. About him. And Jenny.

Finally he spoke. ‘I trust her.’

Kila raised his eyebrows. ‘I hope you’re right.’

‘Until now, I’d have said we’re a happily married couple.’

Doc Holliday appeared in time to hear Dave’s words. He slumped down beside them, got out a cigarette and lit it, inhaling deeply and slowly. Then he said: ‘I used to be happily married and look at me now.’

Dave looked at him. He saw a stocky, hairy individual blowing smoke rings.

‘I’m looking. What am I supposed to see?’

‘A single bloke.’

‘Ah. You’re telling me that you were happily married but it didn’t last.’

Holliday shrugged. ‘Face it, mate, none of it lasts.’

Kila assumed the same world-weary expression. ‘One of the things I’ve learned about women is, the more you think you can trust them, the more you can’t. I’m sorry, Dave. But it’s true. There are women I would have put my hand on the Good Book for and said: Aye, she’s faithful. Well, those are always the very ones who’ve let me down.’

Dave remained silent. Doc Holliday blew perfect smoke rings into the still Afghan air. Lounging about outside a cave was a group of men with nothing to do. Dave could hear that they were talking about women too, but in a different way. An unmarried man sort of a way, their voices full of vigour and humour.

‘Let me tell you a story,’ Iain Kila persisted, ‘about my first wife. Long ago. She was such a meek, pretty, wee thing and butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. And she was a good wife too, or so I thought. Every man in the mess took me aside and tried to tell me she was working her way through the entire regiment and I didn’t believe them. And when she ran off with a colour sergeant I was knocked for six. I was distraught. I didn’t go out for nearly a year. And it took a few more years for me to learn all she’d been doing when we were married and who she’d been doing it with. And even now, as I sit here, it’s unbelievable to me.’

Doc Holliday’s brown eyes swivelled around to Kila.

‘Iain, isn’t it your job to persuade him everything’s all right at home?’

Kila smiled. ‘I’m his mate too.’

Dave said: ‘Not all women are like that wife of yours, you know. There are some women you can trust.’

Doc drew on his cigarette. ‘If you trust her, why is she making you so fucking miserable, Dave?’

Dave sighed in answer.

‘I often used to think,’ said Kila, squinting into the sun, musing out loud, ‘that if I’d listened to the blokes who were trying to tell me about my wife, if I’d confronted her and come on a bit heavy and kept her in line, we could still be married today.’

‘Nah,’ said Holliday. ‘A woman like that would carry on, only she’d carry on in secret.’

Dave squirmed. He said: ‘The thing is, Jenny’s not like that.’

‘The only reason I might agree with you,’ continued Kila, ‘is that they’re so public about it. He calls at your house, he picks up your kids from the corporal’s wife, they go to some theme park …’

‘Yeah, that’s not furtive,’ said Doc.

Dave couldn’t imagine Jenny being furtive. He couldn’t imagine her being anything but his wife. Except that recently he had tried to stop imagining her at all because whenever the idea of her appeared inside his head he felt angry and sad.

The sergeant major leaned forward and said in an undertone: ‘Between you and me, I don’t think we’ll be here for much longer. The sprayers are due tomorrow; I reckon we should soon be home after that. And then you can sort out this General Coward-Hardy bastard. He ran away at Chalee and a lot of people despise him for it and I reckon that’s when he left the army. But running away from the Taliban’s one thing; having an affair with a bloke’s wife while he’s away fighting is even more fucking cowardly. So when you get back, you go to his posh house and punch him on the nose. And tell him to stay away from men’s wives while they’re in theatre.’

Jenny had given the girls their tea but they showed no sign of going to sleep. She ran upstairs to the drawer where she hid the money to pay Adi for childcare. Then she put the children in the buggy and took them to the park, hoping some friendly mothers would be there. They weren’t. Only Sharon Kirk, who was just pushing her buggy smartly away. She gave Jenny a peremptory wave without stopping.

When they had played enough Post Offices, Jenny steered towards Adi’s to pay her. At least Adi was always welcoming. And then, as soon as the girls were asleep, she would put them to bed and sort out the mess at home. It had been that way since she started working. There was less time to get things done and the children had become more demanding when they were with her. Suddenly there were always piles of laundry and washing up. Sometimes when she got home from Eugene’s she found dirty nappies which had been left on the changing table as she rushed out in the morning.

‘Thank you, darling!’ said Adi, as Jenny handed over the cash. ‘You come in and have a cup of tea.’

Jenny went inside gratefully, only to find the Buckle twins on the rampage.

‘Leanne’ll be here soon for them,’ said Adi. ‘She had a staff meeting after work at the bakery.’

Leanne was always busy these days. Dashing off to work, up the motorway to see Steve, to the camp nursery, to the supermarket. Jenny barely saw her, and if their paths did cross as they picked up their children from Adi’s house, Leanne was invariably just rushing out.

‘You know what I’m saving up for?’ demanded Adi as she made the tea.

‘A new car?’

‘I need one of those too. And that’s what Sol thinks I’m buying with the money. But he’s wrong. It’s a big secret and a big surprise. I know you can keep a secret.’

Adi poured the tea. Jenny waited.

‘A trip home to Fiji!’

‘Oh Ads, what a great surprise for Sol.’

‘You know what I’m going to do when he gets off that bus in the square at last? I’m not going to be holding a Welcome Home banner. I’m going to be holding the family’s air tickets!’

‘That’s lovely, Adi.’

‘So you girls can do all the overtime you want. You’re buying me my tickets home. I’m thinking of writing to British Airways and telling them that Sol’s a front-line soldier. Maybe they’ll give me a discount …’

Leanne burst in. She was still wearing her blue bakery clothes.

‘Hi Adi, hi Jenn.’ She whistled to her twins. ‘Time to go home, boys!’

Ethan and Joel rushed off, giggling, upstairs.

‘How’s your Steve, darling?’ asked Adi. She and Jenny were sitting on the floor, surrounded by small children.

Leanne’s face drooped suddenly.

‘I dunno. I still can’t get much out of him.’

After Steve had spent just one day at home from Bastion, a car had arrived to take him to Headley Court. He had few physical injuries beyond a small piece of shrapnel, which had now been removed. But the explosion had opened another kind of wound, the sort you couldn’t see and which Steve never admitted was there.

‘Any idea when he’s coming back from Headley Court?’

Leanne shook her head.

‘No, but I’m trying to get in all the overtime I can before he does.’

Adi smiled. ‘When do you need me?’

‘Can you do tomorrow morning, Ads?’

‘Certainly. Eight o’clock?’

Leanne nodded, a pleading look in her eye.

‘No problem. Ethan and Joel can have breakfast with us.’

Hearing their names, the twins returned, trying to squeeze between their mother’s legs as she stood in the doorway.

‘Stop that!’ roared Leanne, scooping one up under each arm and holding them horizontally so they looked like tiny warheads. She turned to Jenny. ‘I’ll miss Tiff Curtis’s charity coffee morning tomorrow. Could you stick a quid in the pot from me, Jenny, and I’ll pay you back?’

Jenny looked blank.

‘You must be going!’ said Leanne ‘She’s invited everyone!’

Jenny blushed. Adi was quick: ‘Jenny’s too busy, but I’m going. So I’ll put something in the jar for you, Lee.’

Leanne swung the twins a little to prevent them from reaching round her to pull each other’s hair.

‘General YouTube asking you for overtime again next week?’ she demanded. Her tone was harsh. Jenny’s blush turned from pink to red. She buried her face in the baby’s hair. Jaime snuggled up against her.

‘Well,’ she admitted, ‘Eugene did ask if I could stay on Monday afternoon. The nursery says they can keep Vicks all day …’ She looked at Adi; the same pleading look Leanne had given her. ‘I’ve been trying to get his tax stuff up together for the accountant ever since the tax year ended but we haven’t even done last year yet …’

‘OK, Jenny, no problem,’ said Adi evenly. ‘You want to drop Jaime before nursery on Monday and I’ll keep her all day?’

‘Is that all right?’

‘Of course.’

Leanne was retreating now, roaring her thanks and goodbyes over yells from the kicking boys.

‘I’d better go too,’ said Jenny. She had been kneeling on the floor and as she stood up Vicky tried unsuccessfully to wrap herself around her mother’s arm and then a leg.

‘Come on, Vicks, let Mummy go or she’ll fall over,’ said Jenny. But Vicky did not disentangle herself, so Jenny shuffled forwards to give Adi a hug. For no particular reason.

‘Darling, this job of yours is taking a lot of time and you’re not seeing people like you used to,’ said Adi. ‘I mean, is it good for you?’

Jenny stepped back in surprise.

‘I would go to Tiff Curtis’s charity thing but she didn’t invite me.’

Tiff had not spoken to Jenny since she had spotted her at the theme park with Eugene. It wasn’t that Tiff was obviously avoiding her, but somehow she was always walking down a different street, using a different checkout at the supermarket. And she wasn’t the only one. Rose McKinley and Sharon Kirk always seemed to be walking in the other direction from Jenny these days.

‘Sometimes I think Tiff’s forgotten what it’s like for the rest of us – she’s got her Si home,’ said Adi. ‘You have some sort of argument with her?’

Jenny shrugged. ‘I don’t think so.’

Adi’s face creased itself up into sadness and sympathy. ‘Jenny, I hate all this tittle-tattle in camp but let me tell you she’s saying that you saw her in town and crossed the road.’

‘Oh!’ said Jenny.

‘And, according to Tiff, she called out a greeting but you didn’t reply. Of course, I don’t believe her.’

Jenny hadn’t heard Tiff call any greeting but it was true that she had crossed the road. Because the fact was that since Tiff had started to avoid her, she had been avoiding Tiff. It was the Curtises who had told Dave out in Afghanistan that they had seen her with another man. And what kind of a friend would do that?

Adi was looking at her closely. She said: ‘Jenny, darling, are you all right?’

Jenny shrugged.

‘Of course!’

‘Listen, if you ever want to talk … I mean, it doesn’t matter what you tell me, I won’t judge you and I won’t tell anyone else.’

Jenny forced a smile.

‘There’s nothing to tell, Adi. Everything’s fine.’

She passed Agnieszka’s house on the way home. It was empty. No buggy outside; no curtains at the windows. In fact, there was no indication that Jamie and Agnieszka and Luke had ever lived there at all. Soon another army family would move in and later another and they would be spared any information about the Dermotts’ tragedy. After five, ten, fifteen years, who would remember them?

Agnieszka was always the outsider, even when Jamie was alive. Only now did Jenny understand how you could feel completely alone in the middle of a busy army camp with people and vehicles buzzing all around. And it wasn’t like being alone in a city where you knew no one. It was a different sort of alone.

Agnieszka had become isolated when Jamie was away and people thought she was having an affair. People talked about her a lot but they didn’t talk to her any more. At the playground greetings and conversation were so restrained that Agnieszka started to avoid everyone: Jenny had seen the Polish girl dive down a side street rather than talk. And now she had done something similar herself. Because most people were still polite to her but there was a new restraint. And if there was any conversation at all, it was full of the small, everyday things they didn’t want to say because there was so much they didn’t dare to say.

As for Leanne, sometimes Jenny wasn’t sure if she was too busy to talk or if there was a new distance between them. But Leanne was a friend. She wouldn’t listen to gossip about Jenny. It must be that she was distracted by her job and by Steve.

Jenny turned up her front path and re-enacted the usual battle between the step and the buggy. At the sound of her key in the lock and the hollow click of the door opening into an empty house she longed to hear Dave, making a brew, watching TV, messing around on the computer. Then the house would feel like home.

She tried to ease the children from the buggy but they were falling asleep and remained motionless. And then, into the deep silence, there was the intrusion of the phone. Her heart leaped. Dave! It must be! And this time the call would be gentle and loving and they would apologize to each other for the terrible things they had said.

Jenny left the children in their buggy in the hallway and rushed to the kitchen, grabbing the handset breathlessly.

‘Hello!’

There was a pause on the line, the pause which always preceded the snap, crackle and pop of the satellite phone from Afghanistan.

‘Jennifer, is that you?’ demanded a crisp, clear voice. It did not belong to Dave and it did not have the strange hiss of transcontinental miles. It was a wealthy, educated, sure-of-itself voice.

‘Eugene! Yes, it’s me.’

‘You sounded rather unlike you for a moment there. Is everything all right?’

‘Oh, I just got home to an empty house, that’s all,’ she said, aware that her tone was flat and lifeless.

‘Where are the children?’

‘Here. They’re asleep in the buggy.’

‘Did you realize you left your bag here?’

She looked over her shoulder instinctively to the corner of the hallway where she always dumped the handbag on arriving home. It was empty.

‘I mean the big brown leather one which contains literally everything, possibly including a kitchen sink?’ he continued. ‘I’ve seen you get out a purse, nappies, make-up, pens, notebooks, a magnifying glass, scissors … and since you are the sort of woman who is always prepared, I suspect it also contains a screwdriver.’

She smiled. ‘Well, as a matter of fact, I do carry a small screwdriver around with me.’

‘I thought so. I knew that without looking in the bag, Jennifer Henley.’

‘I’ll come over and collect it now.’ She would have to carry the girls back out to their car seats, strap them in whether they cried or not, drive down the darkening lanes …

He interrupted her thoughts: ‘You said the children were asleep!’

‘They are, but they’re still in their coats so I could …’

‘Put them to bed, Jennifer.’ He sounded kind and capable. ‘I’m on my way over. Have you eaten?’

She paused.

‘Well, sort of.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘I gave the children tea.’

‘Don’t tell me. You ran around them eating the crusts and the leftovers?’

‘Something like that.’

‘Right, well, I’ve got a nice casserole which Linda left me …’ Linda was the woman from Tinnington village who came in to clean the house and make a few meals and feed the dogs if Eugene was in London. She had worked for the Hardys for many years. She regarded Jenny with beady-eyed suspicion and Jenny was sure Linda would not be pleased to know that Jenny had eaten her casserole.

‘I’m not really hungry and I need an early night—’ she began but Eugene’s kind voice interrupted her.

‘There’s more than enough for two and I’ll only stay half an hour.’

‘But—’

‘It won’t take long to heat up. I’m on my way.’

She put the phone down and stood quietly in the dark kitchen. The hall light shone on the children, fast asleep in their buggy. By the same light the mess in the kitchen was visible. Mostly it was piled up around the sink but it had spilled on to the table and the high chairs because she had gone straight out to the park after tea. Eugene would see it all.

As she carried the sleeping Jaime up to bed first, she recognized that she was not just ashamed of the mess, of what Eugene would think about it. She was ashamed that everyone in the street would see him park outside and walk into her house.