"Close Protection"
Disclaimer – As usual I own nothing but a large amount of debt, a severe lack of talent and a distinct lack of awesomeness!
Certainly nothing to do with Skins, (which still makes me very upset but not as much as before).
Authors Note – Woot, almost back on schedule. Hi to Lazyboo, who not only delivered an awesome new chapter of No Barrier, but has popped up to give me her thoughts on this little mess. Appreciate the thoughts Boo.
More filler, methinks and an excuse to tell "The Basement" 'fans' that the follow up, "The Kitchen' is on my blog.
Hope this one floats your boat…I'm really confused about it, but then after reading the latest chapters of ImagineAlex's Back to Front, how could anything I write compare?
Chapter 35 – Dead Mans Drop
The week following our 'date' went like a blur, Emily having meeting after meeting in preparation for the big arms expo in the States; and me tagging along behind like a puppy. I was doing my damndest to get my life back on track but between my job and my therapy sessions with Joanna I'd been struggling for time. Today though was different, today I'd managed to do some shopping and even a bit of flat hunting courtesy of a rare, and unwanted, day off.
"I'm not taking a day off." I'd said flatly when the subject was raised a day or so earlier.
"You are Naomi, JJ has arranged cover and I'm making it happen."
"Are you sick of the sight of me already Miss Fitch?"
"JJ will you talk to her please?"
"Emily is right Naomi, you need a day off; two ideally. You haven't had a break since you started working for us and you've had several stressful situations to deal with during that time. I have to say that you must take a break; statistics show that you are 43% less effective in your role if you don't take regular breaks. We aren't the Army Naomi, but tomorrow you are not working, consider that an order."
I'd slammed my hand down on the speakerphone at his words only to find it covered by a smaller one.
"Naomi, it's a good thing babe; you really do need a break. You've done nearly two weeks straight and you've been going to see Joanna most nights. Take the day off, if it makes you feel any better I promise not to do anything silly because you're not around."
It had made me feel better, yet I had woken up this morning with a continuing need to ring her or text her to make sure things were ok, it was only when I'd got back from a painful early morning run to a particularly terse voicemail message that I decided to do as she asked;
'Nomi hun look, I'm happy that you're trying to look out for me, and whether it's personal or professional it doesn't matter. But I've got another meeting to go to and you're supposed to be chilling out, so please will you, for my sake, fucking relax? I'll call you later now go and swim, or shop or something productive. Stop worrying about me, I'm in good hands today and I'm not going to be leaving the office…ok? I promise I'll be fine with Richard. Look, I've got to go, I'll speak to you later babe; have a good day."
So I had, I'd gone out and shopped, bought some work and casual wear, once again eating into my cash advance from Cook before wandering around some estate agents windows looking for somewhere to live.
Things hadn't gone well.
So with a mood born of the ridiculous nature of the flat prices in fucking London; and the stress about Emily being on her own gnawing away at me, I was not a happy bunny when I got to Joanna's that evening for my next session. Inevitably she knew it from the outset.
"Naomi, you seem to be wound up pretty tightly tonight, I think we should start by discussing what's wrong." she said as we sat over our now traditional herbal tea.
Five minutes into my rant about London and how expensive it was Joanna held up a hand.
"It's ok to be worried about Emily Naomi, you are allowed to say it."
It stopped me in my tracks, not because I was surprised she knew something about me without me actually saying it; even in the few short hours I'd spent with her I'd learnt that she really was that good. No, it was the abruptness of her statement that stopped me in my tracks, normally she began one of her 'make Naomi analyse herself' sessions with some kind of a question; not a statement like that.
"What?" I managed to stammer out. "I'm not, I'm not worried…she's in good hands today."
"Naomi, for the first time you put your phone on the table in front of you and you keep looking at it; especially when you mention having a day off. You're all wound up and it's not just because you've bought a few clothes and realised that London is actually quite an expensive place to live in."
"I'm that obvious am I?"
"Only to me, I'd imagine. But it is obvious to me that you're worried about something, and the logical assumption at the moment is that it's Emily. Have things not been going well between the two of you?"
I slumped back into my chair stretching out my feet and placing my newly bought trainers onto the glass table that was between us. "Everything is fine," I replied eventually, "I just don't like the fact that she's at work and I'm not around to keep an eye on her."
"Personally or professionally?" she asked, as usual pulling no punches with me.
"Probably a bit of both," I admitted, knowing that this was the best thing to do with her. "But mostly professionally right now."
"Would you care to elaborate on that Naomi," Joanna asked, leaning forwards suddenly acting less casual, moving into the 'therapist' role she sometimes played to let me know that we weren't just chatting anymore. I respected her for that, it gave me a chance to prepare, and ready my defences just in case. It didn't always work, but it was at least an opportunity.
"It's just something I feel Joanna, I've always had it. Amy, that's my ex," I explained, not remembering if I had mentioned her before or not, "she used to get angry that I wouldn't leave the Army, that I couldn't just abandon my boys."
"Yes Naomi, I believe you mentioned that the other day, you admitted that you sometimes used the Army to get away from Amy and her 'fucking clinginess' I think you called it."
I nodded, "that's right, but it's not everything. I used to get this feeling, like if I wasn't there with my boys that someone would get hurt, or that someone would die. If I was there then I could control it, you know? I could make sure that nothing went wrong."
There was a pause as Joanna looked across at me, then…
"and you're feeling that now, is that right?"
"Yeah," I admitted both to her and myself. "I'm feeling that now."
"Why?"
"Because," I answered, knowing that it wouldn't be enough. I paused for a second before continuing.
"Just because Joanna, because Emily's safety is my responsibility; because it's my job to keep her alive and well and most of all safe. Because it was my job to keep my boys alive and well and fucking safe and because I fucked that up good and proper didn't I? Whitey died because I took my eye off the ball, we got hit by the fucking Taliban in Gereshk because I didn't recommend a flyover by the Apache's. Even my mum got ill because I was being a fucking bitch to her for so long it brought her to her knees.
It's always because. Isn't it? I've fucked up so many times in my life and so many people have got hurt or died as a result, I don't want that to happen again. It's down to me to keep Emily safe; I don't want to get Emily killed because I'm on a fucking jolly around London whilst she's in danger; especially not now."
"Naomi," Joanna said softly, "I really think we need to examine that a little; are you saying the deaths of all your friends was your fault, because of something you did or didn't do?"
"Well who else's fault could it have been?" I asked in reply. "I told you, it was my responsibility to keep them safe, if I'd have done my job properly we wouldn't have been attacked, they'd all be alive and I'd still be in the Army, not slumming it as a civvy."
"Naomi, tell me, do you believe in fate? In chance? In sheer bloody happenstance?"
"No Joanna I don't, I believe in people, I believe in training and I believe in doing things right first time, every time; and I didn't do that."
Joanna stared at me and smiled wryly, a familiar face to me by now, one that told me that it was time for us to 'work' again; when she steepled her fingers once more I knew we were going to start looking deeper into my thought process.
It wasn't something I was going to enjoy, I knew that.
"Ok Naomi," she started, her voice low and soft. "I think it's time for you to relax and properly examine these thoughts; I'd like you to breathe with me and listen to my voice, I'd like us to go back to your safe place and I'd like us to talk about the events you mentioned in a calm and relaxed way; can we do that?"
I sat up and took a deep, purging breath; exhaling hard to clear my body and mind just as she'd taught me, taking my feet from the table and placing them evenly on the floor. When I was ready I nodded at Joanna and she smiled indulgently, like a teacher with her worst student who had finally managed to get something right.
Not too many days ago I'd have wanted to punch her for that look, today I felt a weird sense of pride as a result of it.
"Good, now when you're ready Naomi close your eyes and listen to the sound of my voice…my voice will go with you…"
She took me through the now familiar set of steps and within moments I felt the warm comfort of my safe place, my own personal swimming pool that I now carried everywhere with me.
"How do you feel Naomi?" Joanna asked, the ritual almost complete.
"Relaxed," I replied thickly, still fascinated in the change in my voice that this state always brought.
"Excellent. Now, if you can, tell me about your mother."
"Mum was wonderful, but she was totally weird," I said launching into the Naomi Campbell abridged life story, it didn't exactly take long to tell her everything I wanted to; the good bits and the bad. "I treated her like shit for years," I finished, "messing her about, hating her, the whole nine yards. Finally I saw a bit of sense and grew up, I think it was too late though; the damage was done. Not long after that she died."
"How did she die Naomi, if it's not too painful for you to discuss?"
I shook my head, brushing away a tear with my sleeve. "Mum was diagnosed with lung cancer, we fought it for months before she finally slipped away."
"Were you with her when she died?" She asked, causing my heart to lurch and creating a strange tension that infiltrated my calm; the tightness seeming to work its way up from my chest to my throat and finally into my eyes, resulting in two tears to fall, one from each eye.
Feigning a casualness I really didn't feel I nodded. "Sort of," I replied finally, the lump in my throat making it difficult to talk. "I was there, but I fell asleep; mum died sometime during the night."
"What happened after that?"
"Well, once I'd made the arrangements for mums funeral I joined the Army; there wasn't much left for me after she went. I sold practically everything to try and pay off our debts and get some money to bury her decently. I didn't want to do college, and couldn't afford it if I did, there aren't many jobs for a barely educated young girl so as soon as I was done with the funeral I signed up, then it was basic training, Germany where I met Whitey, and then out to Iraq."
I heard Joanna sigh softly as I wiped my eyes once again. "Thank you for sharing that Naomi, do you feel strong enough to tell me about your friend 'Whitey' and how he died?"
For the second time in days I found myself spilling my guts to someone about Paul, how we met, how we were friends and finally how he died; this time, however, it was more controlled, more analytical than the emotional outburst that had occurred at Fitch Manor. Slowly and carefully, Joanna took me through every step of the operation; right up to the point where I got back to base and boxed up Whiteys personal effects and how I'd finally carried them back home to Gill. How she'd rejected my offer of help, how she'd rejected me.
We sat in silence for a few minutes after I finished, Joanna presumably allowing me time to compose myself and find my safe place once more.
"More tea Naomi?" she asked, finally getting up from her chair and breaking that silence.
"Yeah, that'd be great."
I closed my eyes once more and tried to centre myself, reaching out instinctively for that void that I was taught during my martial arts training, extending my 'safe place' out into that blissful silence where my mind empties itself and my brain switches off for a fleeting second.
I tried, and I failed.
My mind was still filled with thoughts of Mum and Paul, how their deaths had affected me how they had forged me into the person I now was. I couldn't break free from them, they gripped me, and held me, and forced me to think about them.
Finally I opened my eyes to find a steaming cup on the table in front of me, and a thoughtful Joanna Foster standing by the window looking out into the late Spring evening. I picked up the cup and blew on the liquid, inhaling the peppermint smell that reminded me of my mother and taking a careful sip.
"It seems you have some unresolved issues that we haven't yet examined Naomi," she said, not turning from the window. "I think you're holding back a lot of emotions and that they're affecting your ability to function."
"Is that your professional opinion?" I asked smarting a little from that hidden accusation that I wasn't functioning properly.
"Naomi, if you want my professional assessment of you, then it's that you're the sort of person that suppresses things, you push things, like emotions, deep down inside you until they become so big you can't handle them," she said suddenly turning and walking across the room; placing her hands onto the back of her chair.
"Can I ask you something Naomi? Did you ever find time to grieve for the people you lost?"
"Of course I did," I snapped back, half offended, half wondering what kind of nonsense she was spouting now.
"How did you do that?"
"I just, did.." I replied, spluttering a little as my mind went blank.
"Exactly," Joanna replied to my flailing, "I'm not sure you did Naomi, I'm not sure you really allowed yourself to grieve. From what you told me earlier you were busy sorting everything out after you lost your mother to really grieve; and you had the same problem with Paul when you lost him. He was your best friend and you never got to say goodbye to him, these are all unresolved issues for you."
"No, that's not the case." I told her firmly. "It's fine, I came to terms with those things a long time ago."
"Then why do you still blame yourself for their deaths Naomi?" she asked, drilling into me relentlessly. "You can't have come to terms with things if you blame yourself, because none of this is your fault and somewhere in that brain of yours you know it."
"Paul died on my watch, Paul died because he took my place Joanna, I shouldn't have let him do that."
"No, perhaps you shouldn't Naomi, but you did. If you hadn't have let him, perhaps the sniper would have shot you, perhaps they would have shot Paul anyway, or perhaps they wouldn't have shot at all. You'll never know, but none of that means that it was your fault. From what you told me, Paul made that decision for himself; perhaps, in effect, it was his fault."
"It wasn't Pauls fault Joanna, it was mine, I made the mistake."
"What mistake was that Naomi?" She asked softly, with a voice I knew was supposed to be making some kind of point.
"I should have exited the truck first, it was my turn. He tricked me to get in front of me and then I let him go first, it was my mistake." I said slowly, as if I was trying to explain it to an idiot, exactly as I'd explained it during the after mission debrief, the one that had caused me to miss Whitey's homecoming, miss his funeral.
"Was it your job to exit first Naomi," Joanna asked causing my brain to take a little free fall. "I mean as Sergeant did you always leave first?"
"No," I told her wondering where this was going. "It was my turn to go first."
"How so?"
"Does it matter?" I asked, sick of this conversation and wishing I could be at home, or with Emily or in fact anywhere but here.
"Indulge me Naomi, please. This is something that is important to you and I need to understand it if I'm going to help you."
I sighed and finished off my drink, sitting back and putting my feet back on her table, a tiny sign of rebellion if you like but one that I felt necessary. Joanna smiled indulgently and waited.
"Ok, basically we took it in turns to do the dead man's drop..."
"I'm sorry?" Joanna interrupted, "dead mans what?"
"Drop," I clarified. "First person out the back of the last vehicle in a convoy, we called it the dead mans drop because as soon as you dropped to the ground someone might drop you...kill you that is. It's probably as dangerous as being the driver of the lead vehicle."
"I see," she said sitting back and staring at me. "So this trip it was your turn to go first?"
"Yeah, Whitey and I always did it, we'd been doing it like that since Iraq, if we were ever in the rearmost bus that is, only time it ever mattered. This was our first trip at the back in ages, the last time was about a month before, we were shuttling some business types around for the Embassy brass."
I smiled at the memory, "it was funny as fuck that trip, I stepped on a rock as I got out and went flying; Captain McClair had to haul me to my feet. I fuck near broke my ankle, swelled up as well when I got my boot off. Do you know how hard it is to get an ice pack on a forward base in Afghanistan?"
"So that was the last time you were doing this 'dead mans drop'?" she asked, "before the time that Paul was shot that is."
"Yeah, they gave me so much stick for it, and it was my shitty luck that the Captain was in the bus with us to see me make a twat of myself."
"So what exactly happened then Naomi?" Joanna asked laughing along with me.
"Well, it wasn't anything too complicated, the convoy pulled up and we got the message to decamp. I opened the back flap and dropped down; before I could bring my weapon up I was on my back. I'd landed on a rock and it caused me to fall over. I had to be put in the back of the bus and driven back to camp like a loser. It was pretty embarrassing at the time, but I was ok to work next day and we just laughed it off."
"So you nearly broke your ankle doing this 'dead mans drop' and you all laughed about it afterwards?"
"That's pretty much the size of it," I said, smiling away as I thought of the abuse I'd took from Whitey the next day when he saw me hobbling over to him pretending I wasn't hurt. He should have sent me on my way, but we had a big patrol to do and he knew why I was there, why I was always there.
"Naomi, I'm going to go and make us both a nice fresh cup of tea. Whilst I'm gone what I'd like you to do is think about that last patrol, and that story you've just told me." She stood up and leaned down to pick up my cup, patting me on the knee as she did so. With that brief gesture she was gone, leaving me sat in my chair confused, sifting through my memories for whatever it was she wanted me to find.
I was still sitting there when she arrived back, handing me the steaming drink and sitting down, looking at me expectantly with a small smile on her lips.
I stared back and shrugged my shoulders at her, feeling a little glow as that knowing smile slipped from her lips. The satisfaction was short lived, however, when she gave me a look of abject disappointment.
"Do I really have to spell this out for you Naomi? I was hoping that you would have worked it out for yourself given a bit of time."
"Worked what our Joanna?" I asked her, covered in confusion.
"You say it was your fault that Whitey was killed, correct?"
"Yes."
"And it was your fault because you let him do this 'dead mans drop' knowing it was your turn, despite the fact that he tricked to get you out of his way so he could go first, am I right about that?"
"That's what I said," I told her frustrated at the whole question-clarification thing she was doing.
"and it was your turn because the last time you were in the rear-most vehicle, Whitey went first, correct."
"Yes, that's right" I said shortly.
"No, it isn't" she replied, and the world as I knew it came crashing down around my ears.
o+o+o
I sat in the Range Rover, thumbing through the message pad on my phone. I'd left from Joanna's in a state of numb shock, driving away on virtual autopilot; no sense of direction, no idea where I was going. I drove around the streets of London's outskirts weaving my way in and out of the parked cars and the light traffic, rush hour long behind me and tried to process what it was that had just happened.
I was wrong, I'd been wrong all this time, it wasn't my fault; but yet it still was, it had to be.
What I really needed was a pool; what I needed was to immerse myself in cool water and swim. Swim and swim and swim; swim until my head was clear, swim until all the conflicting thoughts in my head made sense. The trouble was, I didn't want a pool right then, I wanted something else. Something else to lose myself in, and I only realised it when the autopilot I was running on caused me to pull up in an all too familiar street and stare up at an all too familiar window.
My thumbs crawled across the keyboard typing out the message on the tiny, unfamiliar, touch screen keyboard.
'Hi, its Naomi RU free to talk?'
Within seconds the ring of my phone shook me out of my stupor; some kind of withheld number, the screen flashing 'blocked'. I took a deep breath and tried to compose myself, try to be a professional.
"Close Protection, Naomi Campbell speaking." I said in the best approximation of that horrible telephone voice I'd created
"Are you ok Nomi? What's the matter?"
I breathed a slight sigh of relief at Emily's familiar voice; not wanting to worry her, I tried to play cool.
"I'm fine Emily; I just thought if you were free, it'd be nice to have a chat."
"Did you miss me that much today Nomi?" Emily said with the hint of a joke in her voice.
"Well of course I did," I replied, smiling despite myself, "I've spent the whole day worrying about you."
"I'd laugh if I didn't think that wasn't true Naomi, so come on what's up?"
"Nothings up Ems, like I say I just wanted a chat."
She called me on that line of crap almost immediately.
"Fuck off Nomi, I may not know you that well yet, but I know you well enough to know you're not the clingy girlfriend type. Plus you've never texted me before and you've never initiated a talk like this, ever. So it makes me think that something is up and I want to know what."
I didn't hear much of what she said after that first sentence, didn't hear anything after she used the 'G' word in fact; her voice tuning out to the kind of incomprehensible drawl that the school teacher had in Peanuts, shouting away at Charlie Brown. It's not that I wasn't ready to hear her use it, it's not like we hadn't discussed being an 'us' in some depth over the last couple of days. It just seemed strange to hear her say it to me; good, but strange.
"Nomi?"
"Yeah?"
"Where did you go, are you ok?"
I sighed again at the repetition of her question, prepared myself to tell the truth. I wasn't fine, I wasn't even close to fine. My world had spun around me so much, it had left me feeling like a rag doll in a washing machine.
"I'm fine," I said, bottling it again and kicking myself for doing so. I let the cowardly part of my brain tell me that I was protecting her, lying for her own good. I knew it wasn't true though, I was actually hiding away, protecting myself. "Joanna told me that I had a bit of a breakthrough in today's session."
"Where are you Nomi?"
"Outside," I admitted looking up at the window. Within moments I saw her appear, her red hair standing out as she looked up and down the street. "Don't stand in the window please Emily, we've talked about that."
"Get up here Naomi," she said, vanishing from sight, but not until she had gestured towards the car, waving me up. "Come on up or I'm coming down to see you; if you've had a breakthrough and you want to talk about it I'd rather we did it face to face babe."
I opened the door to the Range Rover and stepped out into the street, grabbing the keys from the ignition and my bag from the passenger seat one handed, cradling the phone on my shoulder as I attempted to multi-task. A few, agonisingly long, minutes later I was knocking on the door to Emily's flat and reacting instinctively as it was flung open.
"Emily, door rules, remember?" I scolded as she stood in front of me, eyes wide and bright.
"Fuck door rules," she replied, grabbing me by the arm and pulling me inside; she wrapped her arms around me and kicked the door with her heel. I heard it slam closed as she squeezed the life out of me.
"Missed you today," she told me. "I missed you nagging me about everything. That Richard guy isn't nearly as intense as you."
"That's not making me feel good about having a day off Ems," I told her, wondering who the fuck Richard actually was, and if she meant I was too intense, or he hadn't been doing his job properly.
"Well it should," she replied primly, leaning up on her tip toes and softly kissing me on the lips. "Cup of tea?"
"I'm all tea'd out Ems," I told her truthfully. "A glass of water would be good though."
"Go and sit down then babes, I'll get us a drink."
I wandered into her living room, absently drawing the curtains to her exposed window as I did so. As I glanced out over the London skyline I heard her call out from the tiny kitchen.
"So how was your day off Nomi? Did you at least have some fun today?"
"I went for a run and then after you bollocked me for checking up on you I went out shopping." I shouted back.
"You deserved it," she yelled back a laugh in her voice. "Did you buy anything nice?"
"Got some more clothes, thought it was past time to rebuild my wardrobe a bit."
"I wish I could have been there," she said reappearing at the door with a glass of wine and my glass of water. "I could have helped you pick out something pretty again. I really hope you bought something a bit nicer than sweats and gym gear this time."
"I got some nice stuff, mostly for work though," I replied taking the glass and sitting down on the sofa. To my surprise Emily sat down next to me, curled her feet under herself and leaned against my shoulder.
"That's good, I like you in your work gear too. It's not as good as your running gear, but sometimes it's good."
I felt the smile hit my lips at her attempts at flirting, or what I thought were her attempts at flirting. Ems took a long sip of her wine and sighed contentedly.
"Tough day again Ems?"
"They're all tough Nomi, they are at the moment anyway. I'm still having to try and organise everything for the Expo."
"I thought Katie was supposed to be the marketing type person, doing all the PR and that." I asked, wondering what the fuck her twin had been doing, a thought that had been going through my head all week.
"She is, but she's only really interested in the pretty bits, the look of the stand and organising the parties and approving the brochures and all that. She's never been bothered to get involved in the real hard work, the getting to meet the important people, the actual selling side of these fucking events." She drained her glass and dropped it carefully to the floor. "The bits that actually pay for all that shit. No, she can't ever get involved in that, that's always down to Emily, because 'Emily's really good at that stuff'."
I put my glass onto the side table next to me and slipped an arm around her shoulder giving her a gentle squeeze. I'm not really a very good hugger, I've always felt uncomfortable giving and receiving them. However, one thing I have learnt in this, admittedly short, complicated, 'relationship' that we have, is that a stressed Emily is bad, and one easy way to de-stress her is a quick hug.
"Thanks babe," she said as she snuggled, impossibly closer, into my side.
"For what?"
"For this," she said slipping an arm around my waist. "It's nice." We sat together for a while, barely speaking, exchanging a few pleasantries about the day, my shopping trip and my flat hunt. I could feel myself relaxing as we just shared the moment; I could feel the tension ebbing away.
Evidently Emily could too, and it wasn't before long that she asked the fatal question.
"So, you mentioned a breakthrough Nomi, do you want to talk about it?"
I felt the tension return to my shoulders, my body stiffening slightly as it was flung back into the emotional turmoil.
"It's ok if you don't babe, but I'm here if you do."
"It wasn't my fault Ems."
"What wasn't your fault Nomi?" she asked twisting her head to look up at me.
"Paul." I answered simply staring down into those dark, lovely eyes that regarded me with such honesty.
"Tell me about it?"
"Yeah, ok. I think I can do that; for you."
"Good."
.
.
.
A/N See you next week peeps?
Oh and have a great holiday Hawke (-: