Chapter Twenty-two

LEANNE DROVE INTO headley court. Usually she zoomed up the motorway feeling anxious, wondering what mood she would find Steve in. But when she arrived she always relaxed. Headley Court didn’t feel like a hospital. It was normal to be wounded here. One-legged, no-legged servicemen buzzed around, busy and focused on a tight work and exercise regime. Nobody stared or made excuses for them or looked at them with pity. Only when he got back to Wiltshire was Steve distanced from everyone else by his injury.

She went to look for him and passed another patient she recognized.

‘Hi, Sergeant Smi!’ she said and Smi spun around on his prosthetic leg, grinning at her. He was an immense Fijian, broad as well as tall. He’d had a reputation for being a tough sergeant before he was blown up but Leanne couldn’t imagine him being anything but fair and generous. If only Steve was more like Smi. He had accepted the loss of his leg with a sweet grace and devoted his time to supporting and encouraging others.

‘Hey, Leanne! You coming to take the boy away?’

She nodded. He frowned.

‘Well, baby, you don’t seem too pleased about it.’

That was all it took. Smi’s concerned look, his sympathetic voice and suddenly, without warning, she was crying.

‘Oh shit, Smi, sorry!’ she sobbed.

He gestured to a seat in a corner away from all the busy people.

‘So what’s the problem?’ he demanded. ‘Is it harder to love a man with only one leg?’

Sobs shook her. ‘No!’

‘Well, that’s a relief for a one-legged man to hear.’

She still could not speak. Smi waited. Finally he said: ‘You won’t believe this, but Steve had everyone laughing till their prosthetics fell off yesterday. In a group session.’

She did not believe it.

‘He’s a funny guy,’ said Smi. ‘If he wants to be.’

Gasping for breath, as though the sobs had robbed her of air, she said: ‘He used to be. He hasn’t been funny for a while.’

‘Listen, I’ve seen him make roomfuls of people laugh quite a few times.’

Steve: relaxed, chatty, thinking out loud, coasting further and further with some mad idea while anyone around him picked up the thread and followed it, laughing loudly. She had seen it often enough. But not lately, and certainly not since that second IED.

‘He’s not like that at home, Smi. At home he’s really angry or he’s really withdrawn. And when he laughs it’s not nice. He’s laughing to make a point or he’s laughing at me. And he’s ratty with the kids.’

‘Was he ratty with the kids before he lost a leg?’

Leanne considered. Well, actually, yes. ‘Sometimes,’ she said cautiously.

‘Before his accident, if he’d been sitting around at home or doing things he didn’t enjoy, how would he have been?’

That one was easy: she only had to think about Steve with flu or Steve off work to do a bit of DIY. ‘Impatient and nasty.’

‘So it’s not losing a leg which is a problem for Steve, it’s losing all the things he used to do. Listen, Leanne, I can’t talk for Steve, I can only talk for myself. I was a good sergeant and I want to be a good sergeant again and I want to be useful and busy and work hard and look after my family. That’s all it takes to make me happy. I haven’t changed that much, personally. I still want the same things. I just have to achieve this in a different way.’

She pulled out a matted tissue. Her pockets were always full of disintegrating Kleenex these days.

‘I wish Steve was a bit more like you.’

‘Oh, baby, I wish I was a bit more like Steve. That is one clever guy! But it seems to me that all the problems he’s got now he’s always had. He dealt with himself by joining the army, soldiering, doing a job he loved. Now he has to find a different way, that’s all.’

Leanne allowed herself, briefly, to think the unthinkable. That Steve had not been a lamb before his accident but difficult, demanding, bad-tempered. That the army had channelled his anger and aggression. Shit, it was true. He had masked it with his humour and his charisma; that’s why she had married him. And now the mask had gone.

Smi seemed to read her thoughts.

‘Let’s not be too harsh. Before he lost that leg, apart from being difficult, was he kind?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘Was he generous?’

‘Very.’

‘Was he funny?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did he love you?’

‘Yes.’

He put a weighty arm around her shoulders. ‘See, the psychiatrists keep telling us we have to accept change. I think what we amputees have to accept is that nothing’s changed. It’s just some of the things we used to cover up are exposed now.’

She nodded and blotted the tissue over her damp face once more.

‘And one other thing,’ said Smi. ‘You’ve probably noticed. Booze doesn’t help.’

When she found Steve, it seemed to Leanne that he was more relaxed than he had been for a long time. He kissed her fondly. She hugged him for longer than he expected. Then, after all the noisy farewells, they got into the silent car. They were alone together.

Until they reached the motorway they said nothing. Steve was the first to speak.

‘I’m having a week off,’ he told her.

‘Good. Then what?’

‘I have to phone Welfare.’

‘What will they do? Visit us?’

‘No, I have to phone them about a job.’

‘In Welfare?’ She tried not to sound surprised. One gram too much surprise and the scales could tip dangerously towards fury.

‘Yeah, they think I’ve got a lot to offer other wounded soldiers and their families.’

‘Oh!’ Careful. Not too enthusiastic. Not too astonished. ‘Well, I’ll bet you do,’ she said.

‘Just part-time initially.’

‘To see if they like you?’

‘Yeah, and to see if I like Welfare.’

‘Good! Should be interesting. You could really make a difference there.’

She thought she had got that just about right: she had sounded interested without going overboard. She sneaked a glance at his face and was relieved to see his features were still even and relaxed.

They drove on in silence, Leanne occasionally breaking it to talk about the twins or about the nursery or about the bakery. He listened to her but asked no questions.

‘Adi’s been fantastic about taking the boys. Considering she quite often has Jenny’s kids there too,’ she said.

He gave a snort of derision.

‘So the cow can spend time with General Coward!’

Leanne wished she could rewind the conversation and erase the mention of Jenny. Steve’s face was darkening and his voice had a dangerous undertone which threatened anger.

‘So she can work,’ she said soothingly. She agreed with Steve, but she didn’t want to go there if it made him angry.

‘Jenny Henley’s cheating on her husband and everyone in camp knows it,’ he said.

‘What makes you so sure of that?’ demanded Leanne evenly, uncomfortably aware that she had made a contribution to camp knowledge on this subject.

‘Si Curtis. He phoned me the other night. What a slag! She’s been seen out all over the place with her general and apparently she dumped the baby with Adi for hours the other day because she was going out to lunch with him.’

Shit! Leanne took her foot off the accelerator for a moment with the realization that she herself had given Tiff Curtis that information.

‘I can tell you what they were having for lunch,’ said Steve, his voice full of implication. She knew he was spiralling into anger and she wanted to stop him. Only she didn’t know how.

She tried: ‘It’s none of our business.’ But this just angered him more.

‘Of course it’s our fucking business! Dave’s been a good mate to me. The best. They’re having a rough time out in theatre and what’s she doing to support him? Bonking half of fucking Wiltshire, that’s what.’

‘Calm down,’ said Leanne. She knew it was a stupid thing to say before she had even opened her mouth. It was like lighting a touch paper.

‘Leanne, I will not fucking calm down. Jenny Henley’s cheating on my mate. I’ve never really liked her. I only got on with her for Dave’s sake. I always thought she was a snotty bitch.’

‘Stop it, Steve.’

‘Look at how the camp nursery isn’t good enough for her kids. Look at the way she was all over the cameras at Martyn Robertson’s party. Couldn’t keep away from them in that million-dollar dress she got poor old Dave to buy her. It was embarrassing. He was embarrassed, I could tell.’

Her voice was smooth-calm. Icy-calm. ‘That’s not true.’

‘She’s a slag, and you can’t deny it,’ said Steve, more quietly. It was all too familiar to Leanne: after the anger came the withdrawal.

‘I hardly speak to her these days,’ said Leanne.

His voice was a near-whisper now. ‘I won’t be speaking to her at all.’

They drove on in silence, Leanne thinking of Smi, the man who could find a smile and a kind word for everyone. Smi had probably always been that way. And, underneath, maybe Steve had always been like this. So he was unlikely to change.

She sighed. At least the sun had arrived extra early this year. The car was full of light and the steering wheel was hot to touch. Thank God. It meant Steve would be able to spend plenty of time out of the house.