Chapter Eight – Story Telling
True remorse is never just a regret over consequence; it is a regret over motive.
- Mignon McLaughlin
"I want you tell me about Louisa McNeil."
He looks like a man on fire, tense, pained, trapped. My handsome, wounded husband who's been hiding secrets behind those anxious eyes for too long. Head downturned, he stares at his hands in his lap and turns his wedding ring around and around on his long, elegant finger. It's a familiar, nervous habit. I wonder if it gives him comfort.
"Look at me please, Charles. I need you to talk to me about Louisa McNeil. Nothing you say is gonna make me leave or love you any less. I will stay with you afterwards, or leave you alone if that's what you need, but what I need is for you to tell me about Louisa."
His eyes lock on mine, large and dark–pupils blown wide with stress. His fingers creep towards mine across the bright white of the neatly folded sheet. The movement is slow, hesitant, like he's expecting to be rejected. I meet him half way, threading my fingers through his as he snatches up my hand, pressing his lips against it with a soft murmur of my name.
He swallows, takes a deep breath then starts talking and his voice is far from steady.
"I was asked to take command of a platoon from a Scottish regiment that was working with us on refugee relief duties that day. Their CO and had come down with a nasty strain of stomach bug. I didn't think anything of it, just got on with the task in hand.
"I left Two and Three Section at the refugee camp with Kingey to carrying on working, got on a truck to travel back to barracks with several sections from the Scottish regiment in a three-truck convoy.
"A boy, not much older than Sam pushed a barrow out in front of the middle truck, and knocked it over. I found out later that the driver was inexperienced, not long out of stage two. He didn't anticipate the danger in stopping.
"I didn't know the men I was leading that afternoon. If I'd thought about it… if I'd taken time to find out, I'd have taken a more experienced driver." He trails off, visibly upset. "The driver got out and the boy blew himself up taking the driver and the front half of the truck with him.
"McNeil was the Medic for her Section. Young, spirited, she reminded me of you the first time I heard her rinsing someone out for some remark or other at camp. Her CO thought highly of her, thought she had some maturing to do but that she'd grow into good soldier.
"She got out of the truck behind and went to help. I ordered her to take cover, to wait out until we'd secured the scene. While she was trying to get to a casualty, a sniper took her out along with two of the survivors who got out of the wreckage. She was shot through the neck."
"The same injury as Geriant?"
He nods, wiping a tear away with the back of his hand.
"We returned fire, killed the bastard, but it was too late. She bled out under my hands."
"Back in the UK, I insisted on meeting her family with her CO. Two strangers stood in front of me at that dreadful meeting and all I saw were Dave and Belinda standing there while I told them I'd lost you.
"Back home, the nightmares I used to have about being shot on the bridge came back. But this time it was you that Badrai shot in a hundred different ways. No matter what I did, how I tried to kill him or save you, you always died under my hands. Always.
"I thought they would calm down because they always had before, but they didn't. It left me feeling unsettled and exhausted. I woke up again and again with a sense of dread about the day ahead with too many thoughts my head. About Louisa, you, other people I'd lost under my command.
"I started to worry... it became an obsession in fact…how dangerous your job was, how many different ways I could lose you.
"I couldn't shake off how easily Louisa life had been snuffed out. It got mixed up in my head…her, you. Remembering you and that mine field…the explosion, clouds of dust, then an eternity of silence until you responded and I knew you were okay. Bashari, the bomb. It all kept going around and around in my head.
"Every day became this exhausting exercise in pushing down what I knew were irrational anxieties in the hopes that they'd stop. It was a fool's bloody errand.
"I tried to logic it away. To find a way to manage the risk…to take control. I thought if protected you better, you'd be safe. That the anxiety I was feeling would settle, and we'd be okay.
"I didn't recognise what I was doing it at the start. The need to know where you were all the time, trying to persuade you to take a UK based role. The hovering, need for constant contact. I thought I was protecting you, what I was actually doing was smothering you.
"I'd get anxious every single time you left the house. The more anxious I got, the more worried I was that I was going to lose you, the tighter I tried to hold on and I could see you were chaffing under the pressure of it. It became this ridiculous inescapable cycle of nightmares and dark thoughts and you were caught in the middle not knowing why I was being such difficult bastard to live with.
"After we had that dreadful argument about you going on Tour because of the Ebola outbreak, I tried to back off. To ease off and give you more space and I somehow left you feeling rejected. Everything I touched just seemed to fuck up. I knew I was the problem.
"I went on Tour to Nepal and I tried to throw myself into the work. I thought I was getting my head back on straight, but we ended up in Afghan. Even then I tried to tell myself it was going to be okay. I felt more comfortable here. I knew this place, these people. Trusted Azizi and had Elvis with me. I let myself relax into it. I was tense but better focused and thought my head was getting back into the right space finally.
"Then Elvis… Molly, I can't…"
His voice cracks as he sobs and I can't stand the distance any more. I move closer and he winds his arms round me tightly, his face against my neck and hands fisting the material of my t-shirt against my back. He's trembling in my arms.
"I'm here. I'm here." I murmured, rocking with him as I feel his tears, cool and damp, against my skin.
I break with him, because his pain is mine. We both lost Elvis. I wanted to be able to absorb him into my very skin to protect him from his own vulnerability. Openly crying with him, I hold him even tighter.
"It should have been me, not Elvis. I didn't listen to Richards when he said she saw Azizi speaking to the guy on the motor bike, I didn't listen to my own doubts when Azizi tried to get me to pull out of the mission. I thought he was fatigued after too long a war, doubting himself like I was. I projected myself onto Azizi, and missed opportunities to save him."
I wanted to argue with him. Tell him that there is no way any of that was his fault, but that isn't my role in this. Emily's advice was clear. I need to let him talk, not tell him what to feel or think, because his version of reality regarding the situation is real to him. I need to listen and support without judging or preaching but it's bloody hard, to hear him lay the blame on himself and feel the physically effect of the costs of that blame in his struggling breathing and shuddering muscles.
"It should have been me that got blown off that building."
I can't say the words, but I tighten my arms around him in complete, silent denial of what he's saying as he continues to talk, in a rushed anxious voice, the weight of the world in his words.
"Jesus, the sound of his body hitting the concrete. The way Lane tried to resuscitate when I knew he was already dead. His burns, blood…her tears, screaming. We had to pull her off of him. I don't even know how I functioned afterwards. It's a fucking blur, if I'm honest.
"Then I got home and it all escalated. Nightmares, flashbacks. I think I eventually started detaching myself all together because it became unbearable.
"I'd watch you and Sam playing, finding amusement in something simple and I'd have to fake it because I couldn't feel it anymore. I'd see you watching me, knowing that something wasn't right and I'd worry that you'd start asking question, and work out how broken I'd become and I'd withdraw more. Hiding I guess, I don't honestly know why.
"Holding you, touching you became difficult because I felt like such a fucking fraud. Not offering affection seemed better than you receiving it from the fraud I'd become. But I still wanted your attention. Every kiss that I couldn't instigate but you could I took from you willingly because I was starving for you. We shared a home and a life. You were right there in front of me and I missed you every bloody day.
"Work became the only thing that made sense, and even that went to shit. I started second guessing myself. Doubting my decisions, questioning my ability to lead.
"The night I stopped sleeping in our bed, I had a nightmare that we were back on that bridge. Badrai was shooting and my gun jammed, like with Azizi. The only thing I had to fight him off were my hands. You were on the floor bleeding, and he kept coming, and coming. I woke up about to put my hands around your throat.
"You woke up with me hovering over you, sleepy and confused and reached your arms up to me and said it was going to be okay. I nearly strangled you in your sleep and all you wanted to do was hold me and make things okay. That was the last night we made love.
"I knew I should have left you at that point, but I needed you too much and couldn't bear the thought of having to tell you how far I'd fallen. Part of me still needed you to see me the way I used to be, not the anxious broken failure of a man I'd let myself become.
"You of course caught up with my bullshit, and called me on it. I was a bastard to you that night. The things I said to you, my father. You were just trying to save me from myself. You were so bloody tenacious in the face of my denial and I was scared you were going to leave in the end.
"I could see the effect it was having on you, that it was making you unhappy. I thought by being away from home, I'd at least spare you some of the tension.
"I went on tour to Nigeria and I found myself looking at Georgie and seeing you in her. Dealing with her recklessness, and seeing more ways to lose you through your job. Everything just spiralled. It felt like I was free falling down a dark tunnel, tumbling and tumbling with no fucking way to escape.
"The further I forced myself away from you, the dark everything became. You were my only light and I was pushing you away deliberately.
"The night before I left for Belize. That final dreadful argument when you told me if I wasn't strong enough to get help, then I'd need to leave you and gave me your rings. I thought I'd finally lost you, because I knew I wasn't strong enough to do what you were asking.
"In Belize, the morning before we went into the jungle, I was hauled up in front the Brigadier and told in no uncertain terms how shit an officer I'd became. The investigation into Elvis' death, my report saying that Elvis and Georgie had been emotionally involved. He used that as a reason to called her into the office and gave her a dressing down as well. The look in her eyes, she genuinely hated me. I started to imagine that same expression on your face, if I kept dragging down with me anymore. It was my fault. I'd let it all slip through my fingers, and this was what I deserved.
"The bore trap, the fever. Everything in the jungle just went to shit. Georgie just kept on coming up with solutions to impossible problems while dragging my dead weight along with her.
"The fever…I kept seeing you, but it was always Lane. My thoughts we so fucking muddled. I told her about us, me, how'd let it all slip away. That is was my fault that Elvis died.
"She told me that she dreamed about him and that life without him didn't make any sense to her. I realised she'd lost everything, too, the way I'd lost you. She'd been through the same experience as me and understood what it cost…the despair…
"I asked her…suggested that we might be able to…I'm sorry, so sorry."
I can guess what he did, it's the only reasonable explanation for why Georgie would turn up at his bedside and Beck would have suspicions that they were drifting towards crossing lines. He offered himself as a replacement for Elvis.
He buries himself closer against my neck as he struggles to snatch breaths around his sobs. I make him look up and hold his face gently.
"I don't care about any of that."
"I offered to start a relationship with Georgie because I thought I'd lost you." he says, eyes black with pain.
"I still don't care."
"Why? You should hate me..."
"You were wounded, in the middle of a jungle thinking that your life back home was fucked and you were likely to die. Fever, infection, PTSD with additional trauma because of an injury and you want me to accept your self-inflicted blame for what you said to Georgie? No way am I willing to let you take that blame."
"I don't bloody deserve you, Molly."
"What are you feeling right now?"
"What do you mean?"
"What do you feel right now? I need to hear the words."
"A shamed, guilty, out of control, weak."
"Why?"
"I'm an Officer. I'm not supposed to be like this. I'm supposed to be the one in control, the one who takes control. This doesn't happen to good officers…"
"That's bullshit and you in your right nut would know that. You're not less than you were, you just ill. Just because it's an invisible sort of disease doesn't make it any less real. You're a man first, Charles, then the officer. The man in you needs to heal so you can be the officer you want to be."
"How can you hear all I've done, all the ways I've fucked up and still see anything worth staying with, building a life with?"
"I spent the afternoon Laugharne before I came here–thinking. I realised one important thing. Sometime life too bloody short. I want my life, however long to be with you. Nothing you've said makes me see you any different, or love you any less. All I see is my husband, the man that I love, struggling, and all I want to do is support you, be with you through all of it. You can't scare me off that easy."
"I'm not the man that I was, Molly."
"I know who you are, you're the same man in here"–I touch the centre of his chest–"who has a wound here" – I touch his head, running my fingers through his hair, letting them settle at the back of his neck–"that needs to heal."
"Molly–"
I put my fingers over his lips, silencing what he was trying to say because I need him to hear this more than anything else.
"Maybe you will heal completely, or may not, but it won't make me love that version of you any less than this version and every other version you become until the day I die. I swear to you. Please believe me."
"I don't deserve you after all that I've put you through."
"You know me, Molly Dawes, queen of the lost cause since way back in Afghan. I'm not going anywhere, mate."
"No, you're Molly James my beautiful brave wife. Who tried to save me even when I wouldn't save myself."
"But that was my main mistake, wasn't it? You have to admit that you need help before you can accept help. I understand that now. Trying to force you was the worst thing I could have done. I should have been there for you more, been more patient but I let my insecurities get the better of me and I tried to force the issue because I needed you to prove that you would pick me-us."
"And I left for Belize instead…"
"With my rings hanging around your neck. I think you choose me the best that you could at the time."
"I'm not going to make that mistake again. I'll get the help. Anything that gets us through this together. My career, the Army. None of it matters if I lose you."
"I'm with you one hundred percent. Don't ever doubt that."
ooOOoo
I left to go to hotel after nine when he started to flag and nurse in charge of his case dropped by with a gentle suggestion that it was getting late.
A quick shower and change into PJs was about a much time as I could bare before I sent him the text message he requested confirm my safe arrival at a hotel. He asked to Facetime, which I'd been more than willing to do, but seeing the new anxiety on his face, I'm wishing I'd never left.
"Where are you?" he asks.
His tired face is softly lit by the light from his iPad, dark stubble more noticeable than usual against the pale pallor of his too thin face. He's lying on his side facing his iPad, which I'm assuming he has propped up against the safety rail of his bed.
"A Travel Lodge off the M5. No need to go halves on this one, though. Single occupancy only." I'm curled up on my side on the bed, almost copying his position, but where his hospital room is mostly in darkness, I have the lights on here.
I can see from his expression that he understands my joking reference to our first date in Bath which seems lie a lifetime ago now.
"They haven't got any less boring since I last stayed in one." I move my phone camera around the beige walls, white bedding and ugly striped curtains, then turn it back to me.
His fingers stretch out towards his screen, as though he's trying to touch my face, even though I'm not in the room.
"I wish I was there with you. I've missed sharing a bed with you. The closeness."
"You had your reasons for stopping. I understand it now."
"I still miss it."
"Me too. Maybe once we've got some positive progress on that leg and counselling, we can work on that, too. I want you home."
"I'm still welcome then?"
"Always."
It's difficult to tell if he's joking or serious. He's been guarded with his words ever since the PTSD took hold. It makes him difficult for me to read in a way I never struggled before.
"I'm not sure I entirely deserve it, but there's nowhere else I'd want to be."
"I know I asked you to leave, but you know I never meant it. You were wasting away in front of me. I was desperate."
"You came back to me, Molly. I'll never doubt you–us–again. When I came to after the helicopter and you were there waiting… it was everything to me."
"You'll need to thank Colonel Beck for that. He was on a one-man mercy mission when he met me at Brize."
"We owe him a lot."
"But he owes you a lot, too, doesn't he?"
Charles looks surprised. "He told you about that?"
"Yes. Shared the whole story. Even suggested I spoke to Emily. A lot happened while you were away with the fairies, you lazy arse."
Suddenly he smiling, and it's bloody everything to see him smile again. I love him so much in that moment that actually hurts. The feeling is so intense.
"That's the second time you've called me that. God, but I've missed you and your bloody cheek."
"Plenty more where that came from." I reply, breaking off to yawn. "Sorry, I'm jet lagged to hell. I think it's finally catching up with me."
"You look exhausted."
"Well, not all of us had access to such quality drugs to sleep the days away. You're not looking too bright eyed and bushy tailed yourself. Maybe we should call it a night. Could you sleep if you tried?"
"Yes…" He almost looks embarrassed suddenly. A hint of unease in his eyes. "But I don't want to end the call. Could we…would you be okay if we stayed online. I'd like to fall asleep with you, if I may."
"As it happens, you're in luck. Decided to push the boat out with 24 hours of WIFI access for the budget busting price of £3. I didn't go for the breakfast option though. That seems like more than the joint account could cope with."
"My beautiful, irreverent spend thrift wife. What am I going to do with you?"
"Fall asleep with me now and have breakfast with me in the morning?"
"There is nothing I'd like better."
"Not like you've got many better options; do you, peg-leg?"
There it is again, that beautiful, warm smile of his. Lighting up his eyes in an aching familiar way I've missed so much.
"Even if I did, you'd still be my first option, every time."
"Goodnight, Charles. I love you."
"I love you, too. Goodnight."
Song for this one, Speaking A Dead Language– Joy Williams. Its very beautiful and very relevant to this story.
