"I believed it, didn't I? every fucking word he said, all of it, all that happy ever after shit about our lives in the States, well, I wanted to believe it I s'pose, what a bleeding muppet" She was still staring into space but was now drawing circles with her finger on one knee of her jeans as she thought about what to say, how to explain "It was all a load of bollocks, of course, should of known, but he let me make these plans, tell everyone at home 'n that and he only told me the night before they shipped out, told me not to bother packing me stuff cos I weren't going anywhere"
"S'pose I should be grateful that he told me before I got on the sodding plane but he had to cos the thing was" She gulped "The thing was, you see, he'd forgot to tell me that he already had a wife waiting at home, seemed to have sort of slipped his mind or summat, and he'd forgot that he'd got a kid as well, little boy, he never mentioned him neither"
"Anyhow, he went back to his family and left me to tell everyone what a fuckwit I was"
"Shit" He thought for a moment "That had nothing to do with him being a soldier though, Molly, that was just him, not all soldiers are like that"
He wanted to tell her that none of it had been her fault, but he'd promised to keep his mouth shut, not to say anything to try and make things better, however much he wanted to.
"Might of bleeding known it"
"What?"
"That you'd stick up for soldiers, you being one of them"
"I'm not sticking up for anyone, especially not him, believe me I'm not"
He wanted to put his arm round her shoulder, to try and comfort her, but he couldn't of course, and anyway she'd been right, none of this was any of his business and he'd pushed and pushed her into re-living something that obviously still hurt, something that she'd have preferred to forget. He'd just told her that it had had nothing to do with this bloke being a soldier, but even as he'd said it he wasn't sure that it was true, being a soldier on deployment had meant that there'd been opportunities, he could lie to her and get away with it, and even though he and Molly hadn't got the type of relationship she'd had with the American, he hadn't been entirely straight with her either which made him very uncomfortable. She'd already found out about Rebecca from someone else, but there were other things that he hadn't told her.
"Do you still care, still love him, even after all that?"
"I did care for a long time, course I cared, I couldn't just switch it off. I was really bleeding angry with him, I mean, I thought he loved me and that I was gonna have this great life …. but I sorta knew that he'd used me, so it weren't brilliant for a bit. On top of that there was people told me I were a total muppet for believing in any of it at all and others what kept saying that I must have known which made me some sort of home-wrecking little tart …. " She shrugged and avoided his eyes "I am sort of over it now, I don't trust bloody soldiers though, I won't ever make that mistake again"
"Listen to me …"
Afterwards Molly couldn't have said with any degree of certainty whether it was the force of the blast that had flung her face down in the dirt or whether it was him throwing himself on top of her in an instinctive move to protect her from flying debris or further explosions. The deafening noise had ripped through the air before he could finish what he was saying, leaving a complete and utter silence as the shock waves died away, although the debris kept on falling over them, like gentle dusty rain, and then the air was filled with the sounds of someone screaming. He lifted his head and got up as he yelled at her to stay down while he checked to see what was happening and the other soldiers appeared in her peripheral vision all running towards where the UN porta-cabin was, only it didn't seem to be there anymore.
As soon as he'd lifted his weight from her and begun to move with the other men, she tried to stand up, her ears still ringing from the explosion, she was spitting out bits of dirt and grass and rubbing dust from her eyes while her body hurt all over, then her ears were filled with the sound of screaming. He looked back to where they'd been sitting to check that she was okay, and saw immediately what she was trying to do and began repeatedly screaming at her to stay the fuck down as he continued to run towards where the cabin had stood. She ignored him, the only thing she could focus on was that she had seen Grace, laughing, with children pulling on the bottom of her shirt and clinging onto her hands, her sheets of platinum blonde hair shining in the sun as she disappeared through the door of the office taking two of the kids with her, an office that didn't seem to be there anymore.
She could hear someone screaming Grace's name over and over, but it wasn't until the blonde girl grabbed her by the shoulders that she realised that it was her who was yelling and that her friend was, like her, in one piece, although just as shaken as she was. They clung onto each other in shocked disbelief, neither of them sure what had just happened, it didn't seem possible that anyone had wanted to kill them.
-OG-
"You okay?"
She nodded as he put out his hand and lightly patted the back of her knuckles as she clutched the bundle of soaking wet tissues that were balled up and disintegrating in her hand. She had been sitting there for quite a while and the tissues had been used to scrub at the fresh flow of tears and snot that had been pouring down her face, that was until she'd seen his tall figure come out of his office and start striding towards where she was sitting, when she'd taken a deep shuddering breath, straightened her shoulders and done her best to get the tears under control. The trouble was that she couldn't sleep so she was exhausted, every time she shut her eyes she could see the devastation and could hear the blast and the noise of the screaming, but not only that, every time things went a bit quiet, when there wasn't anything that needed urgent attention, the waterworks started and she didn't want him to remember her with slitty, swollen eyes and snot pouring down her face.
"You know we're off home tomorrow, don't you?"
She bit her bottom lip, she hadn't seen him for more than a few minutes in passing during the last week, and she had no idea what he'd thought when he found out that the workers who'd been there the longest were being sent home, or whether he even knew. He hadn't made any attempt to spend time alone with her since the bomb had gone off, something which was now being called the "incident" as if wrapping it up in what Grace called a euphemism made it any less shit than it was before.
Eight people dead, including the young lad, nobody even knew what his proper name was, who'd strapped a bomb to himself and detonated it in the cabin. Bloody good riddance to a total fucking arsehole was Molly's private thoughts about him, but she'd learned over the years that personal opinions could be dynamite and it was better to keep your private thoughts to yourself; it was far better to go along with the official versions of things, whether you agreed with them or not. Some group or other had claimed responsibility for what he'd done, but no-one seemed to have any sort of explanation as to what he thought he was achieving, apart from killing a whole load of people, mainly kids, that he probably didn't know, that he hadn't even met.
Four children and one aid worker from Northern Ireland who'd only been in camp ten days, so Molly hadn't even come across her, together with a couple of other women, mothers, but not the mums of the dead children, so that there were other kids who would never have a proper family again. Seventeen people injured on top, some badly enough to need immediate medivac to Ankara including an aid worker who'd lost her leg and a baby, the rest followed by road. Two other aid workers were hurt but fortunately no more kids, however since it had happened almost all the children were too scared to play out or to go to bed at night, as if living in a camp and away from their homes wasn't bad enough, and still no-one could say why.
"Yeah, I heard, you're welcome to use my flat again if you want to, you only have to say the word"
"Nah, you're alright, I promised me mum I'd go home for a bit, she's freaked cos she never realised that it was so bleeding dangerous here, actually I'm not sure that I did neither"
"That'll be good, to see your mum, the rest of your family, won't it?"
"Yeah, I s'pose"
She stole a sideways glance at his tense, stern face, he looked a million miles away from the person that she'd teased endlessly, the friend who'd had this way of throwing his head back when he laughed, this bloke she'd begun to see as, if she was being honest, a bit more than a friend. It was as if that person had put up this great big wall round himself, put up a screen to mask all his feelings and to distance himself from her completely. She wanted to pat his arm, to say something to comfort him, she'd have done it without thinking before the 'incident' but somehow it would now feel all wrong.
"I'm sorry, Molly"
"What for, what you done?"
"I'm sorry about all this" He waved his arm round indicating the twisted metal remains of the porta-cabin which were still there, waiting to be removed and replaced with a new one "It was my job to keep everyone safe and I took my eye off the ball, I got complacent and I spent far too much time letting myself get distracted"
"None of it were your fault" She suddenly registered what he'd said "Oi, hang about a minute, are you saying that this were somehow something to do with me, that it were my fault in some way, that I were the one what was distracting you?"
"No, of course not, it wasn't anything to do with you, this was totally my fault, I had a job to do here and I didn't do it very well, I let everyone down" He half turned to smile at her, a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes "Do you know where you'll be going next?"
"Greece I think or maybe one of them Italian Islands, well that's what everyone's saying anyhow, so, good thing is I'll be able to work on me suntan"
Neither of them wanted to be the first to break away and terminate the conversation, that would make them the one who was putting the final nail in the coffin of the friendship, but their conversation was stilted, uneasy, a world away from the way it had been before and neither of them could think of any way to restore their camaraderie, everything had changed and there didn't seem to be anything else to say.
"Look after yourself Molly, and do me a bloody favour, wear that vest if some Rambo tells you to, it'll be for your own safety"
"Nag, nag, nag" She gulped and swallowed hard trying to get rid of the huge lump that had formed in her throat "Wouldn't have helped much with what happened here though would it? Still, as you ask so nicely I might do what you say, and listen, you look after yourself 'n all, and don't forget me"
"As if I could, bloody pain in the bum most of the time"
"Nah, you love me really, you know you do"
There was a huge silence when she'd said it, once the words were out there she couldn't take them back and quantifying or explaining them would just make things worse, but she hadn't planned or thought about what she was about to say, the words had just slipped out of her mouth.
"Yup" His voice was terse as if he'd retreated even further behind his mask "Be safe for me, won't you?"
He didn't look at her as he got to his feet, dusted the seat of his trousers and started to stride away but somehow she wasn't upset or angry with him, because even though he hadn't said or done anything she could put her finger on, and had done his level best to be completely detached and unemotional, she knew that he was finding the whole thing as difficult as she was.
"Course, you too"
He didn't turn to look at her, just waved his hand in the air as an acknowledgement that she'd spoken, so she sat and watched as he walked back to his office, then picked herself up and went to finish packing her belongings, belongings that seemed to have miraculously multiplied since she'd been there, which was strange considering there weren't any shops for miles.
-OG-
"You got everything all packed then?"
"Nope, I don't want to go, you know that, so I've been sitting here trying to come up with a really good reason why my Mother shouldn't have gotten her own way, why I shouldn't have to go back to Washington if I don't want to, I am an adult after all"
"You sure about that, mate?"
"I hate you, Molly Dawes"
"No you don't and how did your Mother get her own way?"
"I have no idea, she probably offered the High Commissioner a blow job knowing her, anything to pull strings to get her own way and make me have to go back to Washington, so I'd have to live with her and dad"
"Grace! She's not going to be too impressed if you go home talking like that, is she?" Molly thought for a moment, then frowned "She wouldn't have really though would she? Give him a blow job I mean"
"I have no idea" Grace giggled "My mum and I don't talk about sex, it's not a suitable topic for a lady" She looked closely at her friend "Talking about sex, have you seen your soldier?"
"What has he got to do with your mum or sex for that matter? But, yeah, I have seen him as it happens and I keep on telling you, he's not my bleeding soldier, and we haven't had sex, okay? I've never touched him, anyhow I think he's a bit upset with me, I sort of got the feeling that he thinks this shit was somehow my fault, well, not in so many words of course, but I got the idea that he thinks I distracted him"
"Jerk" Grace put her arm round Molly's shoulders "Of course none of this was your fault, or his for that matter, bloody men! Just as well he didn't make your bits twitch, isn't it?"
"Well I might have lied a little bit there"
"Oh" Grace picked up a handful of her underwear and threw it into the holdall which was open on her bed. She wasn't sure what to say in response to this 'about face' "I'm sorry Molly, but look on the bright side he's a soldier and you don't do soldiers, do you?"
"No I don't, but you might like to think about what you just said before you say some'ing like that in front of your mum"
"Oops, sorry" She pulled a face, then giggled, acknowledging her questionable choice of words, as she decided to try and change the subject because she was horribly afraid that Molly was actually upset and trying to hide it but she couldn't think of anything to say which would make her feel better "I am really, really going to miss you, can I come and stay with you when I've gotten sick of being at home with my mother?"
"Course you can, mind, one night in a bunk bed at mine and queuing for the bathroom with your legs crossed and you'll be running back to your mum's house, what with your posh bedroom with its en-suite and however many bathrooms you've got, especially when me Dad comes home steaming and starts yelling about how everything's not fair to him … In fact, now I come to think of it, I might gonna have to come and live with you in your house"
-OG-
A/N: Thank you for your feedback; your reviews are what keep me going. I know that the atmosphere of this changed abruptly mid-chapter, but I imagine that that's what happens when something like that happens, that it comes completely out of the blue and changes things in a heartbeat.
So, back home for Molly but CJ is still out there ….
