Chapter Ten – A Body Shaped Bump In The Road
The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
― Oscar Wilde
"Join the Army, see the world. Wasn't that the slogan? Can you explain to me how that works when today I'm clipboard-woman on a wet Wednesday in Frimley?"
Emily laughed, thanking the person behind the counter with a smile as he handed over a latte before joining the queue to pay.
"Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning."
"Large Vanilla Latte please." I say, dragging a smile out of somewhere for the man serving. Not an easy task given my sour mood this morning.
"I was doing fine until I got assigned to the Physio Department and issued with the clipboard. I'm a trained Combat Medic and they're using me like a glorified receptionist.
"Actually, can I have a large black coffee as well. Thanks."
"But does the receptionist have a clipboard?"
Coffees in hand I follow Emily to the till to pay.
"No, but what's that got to do with anything?"
"Then you're a step up from the receptionist in stationary terms, aren't you?"
Money exchanged, I roll my eyes at her. "I'm on a shitty placement, admit it."
Right there I admit to myself that I'm lying by omission because my shitty mood isn't really about where I'm working this week. It has absolutely everything to do with me being full of a growing list of emotional mines that I'm more invested in avoiding than able to find the courage to speak to my husband about because I'm scared that his answers might break more things between us than heal. We're stuck together just now with denial and a lot of avoidance, and it a flimsy sort of fix.
"Maybe, but you need rounded experience. It will be could for your course at BCU."
"I suppose."
"I was never fan of eyeballs. Surgical rotation on that service."
Emily pulls a cute little yuck face. Mind you, with the blond curls and freckles and pretty sure should could look cute in about any situation.
"It was grim, but it's not as though you can say sorry, I know I'm a doctor, but I just don't fancy working with eyeballs, is it?"
"Have you met the head Physio? Mrs We-have-a-muscle-emergency, who has a habit of looking down her rather large schnoz at me."
"You know how important physio is for patients going through rehab. You are being a bit of a brat. As for Valerie, she does that the everyone."
"Me and the clipboard won't take it personally then."
"That's the spirit. Where are you off to now?"
"Spend some time with Charles, then back to it. The clip board misses me if I stay away too long."
"The clip board…right. I'm off at four then I'm taking the girls to the outlaws for tea. So, I'll see you tomorrow."
"Yeah, bye."
I take the stairs because ward work isn't the same as P.T. and I'm not finding the time to run enough at the moment. Work, Charles, sleep and not much outside of those three more than fill my days.
Two coffees in hand, I catch the handle on his room door with my elbow, and shove the door open with my behind.
Backing up into the room I call out to him, "I brought you supplies, Captain Sicknote. You can tell me how much you love me later."
I turn to find Charles absent but the room in definitely not empty.
"What the actual fuck are you doing here?"
ooOOoo
Gotta love life and it's way of chucking a grenade in your path just when you least expect it. One minute you're on a coffee run and bam you're sitting across a table from your husband's emotional other-woman.
We're in the staff room on the second floor. I need somewhere more private than the café downstairs but still with other people around because, in my current mood, I'm not sure I might not throw punch. Of course, I keep telling myself I won't but my angry inner-teenager is very willing to obliged Georgie with a large dentist bill.
She sitting with her hands wrapped around a plastic cup of coffee flavoured tar from the vending machine. Perfect nails tapping against the ridges on the cup's surface. They are like mine, kept short and neat. Then I realise two things as she splays then clenches her fingers around the cup. One, that's she's sporting a French manicure, oh to have the time to be so bloody groomed, and two she nervous. Tight mouthed, nervously fidgeting with her drink type nervous and her lack of comfort in my presence is making my inner bitch really bloody pleased.
"What are you doing here?"
"I had a card from the lads. Thought I'd drop it off."
"They don't have stamps up in Burford then?"
"We're at Pirbright training, actually."
As if that makes a flaming difference. Her turning up here unannounced would be a bit like me rocking up to the Brigadiers house for tea and crumpets. Ten miles passed the line that marked acceptable and she bloody knows it.
"And they don't have stamps in Pirbright either?"
She pulls a little face. Lips tight, eyelids blinking a little bit too fast. "I didn't think Char–"
The power of the bitch stare with head tilt stops her, lucky for her, because if I hear the words Charlie leave her lips I not gonna be responsible for what I say next.
"I didn't think Captain James would mind." she says, self-correcting herself awkwardly.
Your right, you didn't think. About appropriateness, about the way things are done, about the fact that he's a married man, but then neither did he.
"Bones phoned me asking about arrangements for visitors." I'm enjoying the look of surprise on her face that I know her CO, never mind know him well enough to have conversations. "I said they should call first."
"Look, I'll just leave the card with you. I can see this isn't a good time."
Georgie moves to stand, but I grab her arm before she has a chance to leave. "Sit. Now."
She yanks her arm out of my hands and sits with a challenging tilt of her chin. "I'm sitting, what is you want say to me?"
"I don't blame you for what he said in the Jungle, or for even for maybe wanting what he offered. You lost Elvis and I can't even imagine how you get up every morning and keep going coping with the weight of that lose.
"Look Molly…"
"I do blame you for crossings lines between your ranks and not doing your jobs. I blame you both for that. He ain't Charlie to you or anyone else other than Elvis. He's your Captain, you're his Medic. It was your job to notice and report he was struggling for the safety of your platoon, and his job to admit he was suffering and step down from operational duties for the safety of himself and his men.
"You were both epic fucking fails at that. I was, too, for letting him hide in his bloody job for so long. The only person that's had his head screwed on right in this whole sorry shitty situation is Colonel Beck, and even he got too emotionally involved in some respects."
"So what are you saying, that I crossed lines? I'm not sure I understand where you're going with this, Molly. He and I have always been friends from before we ever worked together."
"You mean before the wedding that wasn't? You were his best friend's future wife, not his friend. After Elvis screwed up his life, he chose Elvis, you weren't even a blip to either of us. That's as far as it went. I was there Georgie. You can't re-write stuff to fit your version of the story."
"He came looking for me to join Two Section."
I've no idea why I'm letting this descend into a game of who's got the closest connection, because I'm going to win. It's tempting to flash my wedding ring at her– but unnecessary– because I've got the truth on my side.
"You want to know why he ask you to be is Medic before Kenya? Elvis. New Year's night in Royal Crescent, a bottle of Malt and drunk off his face maudlin Elvis. I was sat between them on the sofa when Elvis asked and Charles promised he'd keep an eye on you for him."
I've surprised her. It's clear on her face.
"You two together have a bond with losing, Elvis. Wasn't that what he said? Yeah, he told me everything by the way. Or what he remembers around the fever at least. I don't disagree there's a bond, but it's toxic for both of you."
"You're making it sound like I pursued him."
"That's thing though isn't it? I've no way to know. Since you've seemed more than a bit on edge everytime I've seen you; I think it's fair that I'm suspicious. Then you turn up here today. Put yourself in my shoes."
"It's more complicated than that."
"I've got time, explain it to me."
"In Belize we both got hauled up in front of the Brigadier over the results of the board of enquiry about Afghanistan. I was given a dressing down. Too emotionally involved to function after Elvis died. He put that in his report…I was angry with him afterwards.
"In the jungle he tried to tell me off for getting emotionally involved when I was treating the mother of a local boy. It wasn't really about that. There'd been a bad atmosphere simmering between us since the meeting. He said I was emotionally involved, I said he knew something about that with you and him. Then he said it was his fault, too. That he'd crossed a line because of Elvis with his feelings for me and that Elvis dying was his fault."
"And you needed someone to blame. I am right?"
"He ignored Richards when she saw Azizi being suspicious. Trusted Azizi–"
Suddenly she's on fire with her words and every protective instinct in my wants to shoot her down.
"What? Trusted an ally of more than three years. Wouldn't you? What he did was human, Georgie."
"If he'd listened. If Azizi hadn't be on the mission to the compound Elvis would never have had to be on that building in Kabul with that bomb in the first place. So, yeah, in that moment while he was laying there blaming himself, I blamed him too because I needed someone to blame. I needed it. But it's never that bloody simple is it?
"When he was feverish, he kept thinking I was you. The look in his eyes when he realised you weren't there. Like he'd lost everything that mattered to him. I looked at him and he was the same as me–lost– and I couldn't blame him anymore.
"Later he tried to say that we both had lost everything, but maybe we could have something together. But that's what you do, when you drowning isn't it– try to find a way to survive. That's what I was to him then; something to hold onto but you were the one he kept calling out to.
Just like, the fire is gone, as she sighs, leaning back in her chair like she's got the weight of the world on her shoulders.
"You can accuse me a number of ways of messing up, but I've never pursued your husband, Molly."
I not sure what to say to her. Thank you? For being honest, for not taking what he offered. One thought keeps circling in my head: they'd never had a chance to explore it, had they? Tom Becks actions in getting me here stopped that, but what if I'd not been here. If the distance and miscommunication between Charles and I had kept me away, what then? I don't know that I've got a clear enough head to think about that right now.
"I don't know what's gonna happen to Charles after he gets out of hospital. He may never return to operational duties, or even full fitness, or he might. He might even go back to the Regiment and Two Section. But I do know he can't go back to working with you or you with him."
"Let me guess, you want me to transfer."
"One of you needs to move, and I'd suggestin' that he's saved your recently developed reckless neck enough times for it to be you."
"I might have known you'd find a way to make this my fault."
"Are your ears not working properly? I told you, I blame you both but he's earned the option to be able to go back to his boys if he wants. The meeting with the Brigadier. He got hauled over the coals and a black mark on his record because a humanity mission went Pete Tong. Not you. Beyond reporting your relationship with Elvis, as you and Elvis should have done without needin' Charles to do it for you, he took all the blame. I suspect he's been covering up more for you. He's earned your transfer papers."
"What about what he said in the jungle, him pushing for a relationship. How'd that look in my report?"
"You can let your anger get the better of you. Blame him, file a report. Even claim he was inappropriate. I don't think it will go anywhere but you could do it. A man dying from onset of sepsis, with a ranging fever and no morphine raves while running a fever, sure that muds bound to stick.
"Fuck-sake, Georgie. Do you hear yourself. The poison that's coming out of your mouth? This ain't you in your right nut. You must know that."
I'm not sure if it's what I'm saying, or the grip I've got on her arm again, but she seems to shake herself mentally. Like something cleared in her head or something. She pushes my hand away, and sits back in her seat, like she distancing herself somehow.
"You're right, I'm sorry. I don't mean that. I'm not even sure why I said it. Nothing has made fucking sense since Elvis died. I don't know what's going around in my head sometimes."
It's there in her eyes–the weight of her loss– and despite myself I feel sorry for my former friend.
"I look at you Georgie, and think how I would be if I lost Charles, and I can't find the words to explain how much just the thought terrifies me. l can't get my head around the hell it must be for you being without Elvis. I see what carrying on costs you and I hurt for you. I do.
"You and Charles do have a bond because of Elvis. He died tragically, too soon, and it was a fucking waste to the world of a bloke that had a huge heart and a lot of courage. None of that changes the fact that he's gone and you've no connection with Charles without Elvis. It's gone, anything that you had together and you need to make sure that it stays gone. For both your sakes.
"What if we both need that connection?"
"You're a threat to my family, Georgie. I can't have that."
"I saved his life in that jungle."
"No, you both put each of your lives in danger in that jungle. Him by taking a short cut and you by trying to be a hero. You cited medical need when we both know you had a Section full of able-bodied men to move your injured CO to a safe space where the radios would work. Of course, Kingey should have had the balls to knock you back into line where you should have been but I suspect that just more evidence of thing going wrong in that Section with Charles being ill."
"Can't you see, carrying on like this isn't good for either of you?"
"He called me at the hospital. Asked me to come. That wasn't my doing."
"I know."
"What he said in the jungle wasn't fair. Putting those thoughts in my head. He crossed the line."
"I won't defend what he did. It was wrong."
"After we got back to barracks, all I heard was how 'our Molls' was here, flown in by the Colonel to her wounded husband side. Molly James the model wife and Medic come to save the day and all I could think was it wasn't fucking fair, because you'd thrown him away. Why did you get a second chance that I could never get?
"Protected by the Colonel, a legend to Two Section. What do I get? Reamed out in a corridor for answering a phone call. Brains looking at me like I'm something not be trusted, it's not–"
There is an explosion of sound from the other side of the room of metal cake tin and smashing china falling on to the floor and the scrape of chairs as people move out of the way of spilt drink while laugh at somebody at the table's klutziness. It made me jump, I'll admit it but it's had an altogether bigger effect on Georgie.
She's on her feet. Eyes wide and pupils black with stress, hand reaching to her side for her non-existent rifle. I've served long enough to recognise the movement in colleagues.
"Georgie, it's okay." I reach to touch her arm but she steps away jerkily like I burned her or something.
"Of course, it's okay, why wouldn't it be." she says, smoothing her hair with noticeably unsteady hands. "Have you finished the lecture? Yeah, good. Well message received. I'm out of here, just like you wanted."
She pulls an envelope out of her pocket and drops it onto the table. "You can give that to him yourself. I wish I'd bloody forked out for the stamp after all."
Watching her leave the room, all I can think is what the fuck just happened? In all the ways I'd dread this meeting, I hadn't dreamed it would end up with me feeling worried for Georgie Lane.