The Long Road From Kandahar, page 19
The truth was, she could not be bothered to be polite. She would never see them again, so she did not see why she should subject herself to Delphi’s scrutiny. She cared little if Ben’s parents approved of her or not. She had rung Kai’s home number from the prom, and he had been furious. ‘Hanna, you really don’t care who you hurt, do you? Grow up. Face life as it is. I love you, but I won’t hurt Sigrid again. Before I was married, you didn’t want me. You decided you were too young and buggered off travelling. I married Sigrid, who did want me. I was wrong to let you come and work for me. I was wrong to sleep with you. You and I are not going to happen, Hanna, it is too late. Sigrid is pregnant again and my life is with her …’
Ben had driven her back to London in a stony and angry silence. Hanna, miserable and stung by the finality of Kai’s words, knew she had stepped over a line, broken a social code. He had wanted his parents to like her and instead he had subjected them to her bewildering rudeness.
Ben had gone off on some army course without ringing her. Perversely, or perhaps, because of Kai’s brush-off, Hanna found she missed him. ‘Don’t fuck him about,’ Annalisa told her. ‘Ben’s a nice guy, why hurt him? You’re hardly a camp follower. Your affair with him has no future. Sleep around with someone else, Hanna. Preferably with someone who doesn’t give a damn, like you …’
But Hanna had rung Ben and apologized for her behaviour and asked if they could meet. She told him about Kai, confessed she was on the rebound, asked if they could still be friends. Ben had laughed politely and said no, he didn’t think so. He flew off to the Congo with the UN.
Hanna, reading how volatile the country was, sent him postcards with pictures of London or Helsinki to his regiment. She signed each one, Your friend, Hanna and hoped they reached him.
If she had taken Annalisa’s advice, she would not be sitting here in this candlelit church, hurting Ben once again.
Coming out into the cold air, Hanna surprised both Ian and Ben by taking their arms as they walked home. She felt abruptly grateful that her children were together tonight, sleeping in a warm, safe house waiting for Father Christmas in Delphi’s Fairyland.
Delphi breathed deeply in her kitchen and fought exhaustion. Finn and Izzy were upstairs. They had been wrapping presents together, but now the giggling and running about had stopped, and Delphi hoped Izzy was finally asleep. She poured herself a glass of wine and opened her front door and gazed out at the sea glinting in front of her, lit by the string of lights along the prom. The pubs were emptying, and bursts of drunken laughter issued out into the night air.
Delphi breathed in the raw dampness. She let the rare moment of being alone settle in a form of thanks. They were all here, together, under one roof. So precious. Yet, it hurt her to see the change in Ben. The same Ben, but something missing. He was safe home for Christmas, but Delphi caught glimpses of fatigue that was beginning to settle like the dust of Afghanistan into the pores of his skin. There was nothing she could do but be here and let him be. She longed for his quick, easy laugh, his lost happiness in Hanna. She longed to reassure him that his little family were fine, all waiting for him to return, but only Hanna could do that.
Ben moved downstairs in the dark avoiding the stairs that creaked. He could smell the resinous tang of fir and see the glint of baubles on the Christmas tree by the light of a lamp Delphi always left on. He stood in the large open-plan room remembering the pull of his childhood and that Christmassy feel of anticipation that faded with age.
He stood gazing at the tree as the decorations moved gently in the air. Around him the house sighed to the breathing of the sleeping people he loved. He stood listening to the steady tick of the kitchen clock. He stood in the silence of the hushed house thinking of Hanna asleep in the bed he had just left.
She was mercurial, like quicksilver, like water slipping between his fingers. He could not hold onto her. She eluded him. He had just made love to her, and there she was solid in his arms, but the essence of her dissolved as he held her to him. She was inexplicably absent, the spirit of her elsewhere. It felt as lonely and as disturbing as sex with a stranger.
Ben knew he had to draw back from introspection. It was too dangerous tonight, on Christmas Eve. He was bone-tired. He needed all his enthusiasm for his children, for the coming day. Hanna and Izzy were here with Finn, let him be grateful for that and not want more. He switched the kettle on and put hot chocolate in a mug and then went to the cupboard and got out the brandy bottle and added a slug to the mug. He sat in the dark room drinking it, drawing strength from the power of this house with Delphi and Ian at the heart of it.
He was afraid to fall asleep. Like a slow-motion reel of film, that morning would unroll behind his eyelids, unfurl like the snap of a green flag. The Jackal armoured vehicle in front of him avoiding the dead dog; the flash, the impact of the IED that flipped the vehicle over and blew the two soldiers manning the machine guns into the red dust.
The shocked, split-second silence. His own driver frantically reversing to a safe distance in the wheel tracks they had already made. His voice yelling into the phone for the medics. Trying to keep his voice calm and reassuring; reminding the boys of strict procedure, the need to wait. The endless minutes ticking by while a safe lane was secured to the injured. The slow moving forward with a mine prodder; the careful marking of their passage forward. Sweat and fear blinding them, horror driving them forward to get to the injured men. The smell of blood, the body parts, the terrified face of Lance Corporal Buckley with his arm blown clean away. Comforting him with meaningless words as Corporal Parton, known as Dolly, the team medic, tried to stem the bleeding and the boy cried out for his mum. Checking the injured while Dolly’s beautiful Welsh voice kept up a professional, reassuring flow of words to contain the shock and horror of the rest of his very young team.
Hearing at last the blessed sound of helicopter blades. Watching the Medical Emergency Response team assessing, working fast and professionally, running with the injured, with Buckley aged 23 and four days, towards the yawning mouth of the MERT helicopter. Watching it lift and clatter away into a clear blue sky. Within eight minutes Buckley had been in hospital receiving life-saving treatment. He, Ben, had escaped without a scratch, it was not his blood on his combats. The guilt that he was untouched, while young soldiers were mutilated, haunted him. His job was directing from the centre. He did not go out on regular patrols, but he had trained these men. He had needed to see the danger he was directing them into.
Christ! Here he was sitting worrying about Hanna seeming a little distant. She was always distant, for God’s sake. He had a wife. He had a life. He had lived to see this Christmas. Finn and Izzy had a father …
Ben heard a movement above him and then the slow stiff steps of Ian coming downstairs. Ian searched Ben’s face and, smelling the brandy, said, ‘What a good idea.’ He got out a whisky glass and poured a tot into it and sat in the chair by the window.
Ben’s breathing was loud and uneven in the room. Ian started to talk. His voice still held the soft hint of a highland inflection. He talked about fish; the beauty of a new mayfly he had added to his collection; the flash of kingfishers and of river trout jumping in crystal clear rivers. He spoke of the peace of the loch where he fished last summer, so silent that a leaf dropping sounded like a footstep.
His words flowed like warm waves over Ben and when Ian stopped talking, they sat in silence for a while. Then Ben got up and placed his hand on Ian’s thin shoulder and left it there a moment. ‘Thank you. Night-night, Ian.’
‘Night-night, old thing. God bless.’
Ben lay beside Hanna and remembered all the times when he was a child that Ian had opened his magic box of fishing flies to distract him with their mysterious delicacy and vibrant colours. To enthral and comfort him when nothing, and no one else, could.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
On Christmas morning Izzy and Finn carried their stockings up to Hanna and Ben’s room. Finn had managed to keep Izzy out of their room until 7.30, which he considered noble. They crammed into the bed together and disappeared under a mountain of Christmas paper as Izzy dived into her stocking. Delphi had even made little stockings for Hanna and Ben. ‘You think of everything. Thank you,’ Hanna said, when Delphi brought them up tea in bed.
The stockings were Izzy’s bit of the day, Finn thought. She always grew excited about every tiny wrapped present or orange. Delphi stood for a moment taking a photograph of them all sitting together buried in tinsel, paper, and oranges.
Izzy and Finn went off to church with Ben and Ian, but Hanna stayed behind to help Delphi. When they got home there was a delicious smell of stuffing and turkey filling the house, mingling with the brandy Delphi was pouring over the Christmas pudding. Ian poured drinks for everyone while Izzy bounced about desperate to open her presents.
Finn felt a surge of happiness and expectation.
Christmas at Delphi and Ian’s was like a ritual they always followed. He loved the adherence to it. Everyone held their glasses up and said ‘Happy Christmas’ to each other before the Opening Ceremony.
Hanna’s mobile suddenly started in her bag and she jumped up to answer it. Finn thought it must be Mummo and Uki, his Finnish grandparents, but Hanna didn’t call him or Izzy to talk to them. She turned her back on the room and walked over to the French windows and spoke softly into the phone.
Ben looked annoyed. Finn could see that Hanna seemed rude, but she was trying hard to get off the phone. She was well aware that present-opening time was sacrosanct.
Ben called. ‘Hanna! Can’t you ring whoever it is, back?’
Hanna quickly muttered something into the phone and ended the call. Her face was hot, and Finn thought she looked sort of guilty or embarrassed when she turned around. He heard Delphi whisper to Ben. ‘Darling, please … leave it.’ But Ben couldn’t.
‘Was that your parents? Didn’t they want to speak to Finn and Izzy, Hanna?’
‘It wasn’t my parents. Just a friend from Finland wishing me Happy Christmas …’
‘Right,’ Delphi said. ‘Everyone got a drink? Come on, then, Izzy-busy is bursting to open her presents …’
When Izzy was tearing her first big present open, Finn heard Ben say to Hanna, ‘What friend? Why not ring her back later? Why look so furtive?’
‘Ben, you don’t know them. Does it matter? I’m sorry they rang at the wrong time …’
Ben said after a minute, ‘Sorry.’ He went and sat on the floor next to Izzy and handed Finn a small parcel. ‘This is from us all. Hanna, me, Delphi, and Ian. We all think you deserve it …’
It was a small parcel wrapped in scarlet and gold paper. When Finn opened it, he found an iPhone. He stared down at it, speechless. This cost serious money and Ben and Hanna did not believe in big presents.
‘It’s why there are not quite so many parcels under the tree for you this year …’ Hanna said. ‘With a smart phone you will have no excuse not to ring or email me … everyone …’
‘Thanks. Thanks. Wow!’ Finn said, pink with excitement. ‘I really, really, wanted one. Some of the boys have them at school now … I can’t wait to tell Raz. He got an iPhone when he moved to Cornwall.’ Finn got up to hug both his parents, feeling overwhelmed.
Ian and Finn spent the next hour helping Izzy put together a little house for her collection of woodland creatures. Ben went into the kitchen to help Delphi. Hanna disappeared upstairs.
When Finn ran up to his room to find his old mobile, he found her sitting on Izzy’s bed texting on her phone. Hanna jumped when she saw him. Really jumped. She said, ‘Oh, Finn! You startled me. I’m just seeing if I can get hold of Mummo and Uki so you and Izzy can wish them a happy Christmas.’
‘Are you homesick?’ Finn asked. Hanna had always missed having Christmas Eve with her family. She smiled, ‘No, Finn, I’m fine.’
She patted the bed, and he went to sit beside her. ‘Ben won’t mind you ringing them,’ Finn told her. ‘You don’t have to hide upstairs. I think he’s still a bit stressed out.’
Hanna nodded but did not say anything. Then she said, ‘Are we okay, you and I, Finn?’
Finn didn’t know what to say. It was hard to stay angry with Hanna when she was in front of him, yet he instinctively sensed her secretiveness. He longed to ask her if or when she was coming home, but he didn’t want to hear the wrong answer.
‘Okay, for now, anyway?’ she whispered, nudging him hard. Finn smiled.
‘We’re okay,’ he told her because he wanted it to be true.
‘You better go back down,’ Hanna said. ‘I’ll be just behind you …’
Then she suddenly said, wistfully, ‘I always wanted you to call me Hanna, but just lately I’ve had a yearning to be Mum. When you were little, you used to swap between the two. But now you never call me Mum and I miss it …’
Finn stared at her. Oh, the irony. She leaves him, then wants him to call her Mum, from a distance. ‘It’s a bit late to ask me to change what I call you, Hanna,’ he said. ‘I call Dad Ben. He doesn’t mind.’
‘Ah, but you call him Dad too, when you are sad or anxious, without knowing it, because it’s instinct.’ She smiled. ‘I know I am not making any sense.’
Finn didn’t know what Hanna wanted him to say. He stood awkwardly by the door wanting to go downstairs. Hanna said, ‘I guess, I just wondered if you were still angry with me, inside?’
‘I’m not angry with you,’ Finn told her, not knowing if this was strictly true. He didn’t say that she was totally confusing him. He did not say, What the hell do you expect? You left me and Ben. He did not say any of the things that kept him awake at night, because Hanna seemed sad and it was Christmas.
Downstairs Delphi was basting an enormous turkey. When she realized that she had forgotten her apricot and herb stuffing, she got it out of the fridge and was fussing about it cooking in time. Suddenly, Ben snapped, ‘Oh, for goodness sake, Delphi, what does it matter? How many different stuffings do we need?’
There was a silence and Izzy looked up from her toys. Ian got himself up from the floor and moved towards the kitchen.
Delphi said, ‘You are quite right, darling, it doesn’t matter a jot … Stick this back in the oven for me will you, it’s enormously heavy.’
Ben put the turkey back in the oven. ‘I’m going to have a cigarette in the garden,’ he said. He opened the back door and went out and down the steps. Hanna had come down the stairs and she moved towards the door to go after him. Ian said, ‘I think it might be a good idea to let Ben have space for a moment or two, Hanna.’
Finn had never heard Ben snap like that at Delphi. He went and sat with Izzy. When Ben came back inside, he grinned at everyone. ‘Sorry I’m a grumpy sod,’ he said and went and hugged Delphi.
‘What’s a grumpy sod?’ Izzy asked, quick as lightning.
‘A lump of earth,’ Finn told her, and everyone laughed. She got up and ran to Ben and grabbed his legs. ‘You are a grumpy lump of earth …’
By the time they all sat down to Delphi’s huge lunch, Christmas cheer was restored. Afterwards they pulled on coats and blew along the prom to Newlyn so Izzy could try out her new scooter. Then everyone collapsed in front of the telly.
By the evening the grown-ups had drunk too much and got silly. They played stupid games and ate leftovers. Like every Christmas, Finn thought happily as he watched Ben and Hanna fooling about tickling each other. He felt pretty sure they wouldn’t do that if they were going to split up. He went up to bed and sat up amidst Izzy’s fairy lights jotting down the day in his diary so he would not forget it.
Finn listened to Izzy’s breathing. It had been a happy day, but now he was writing it down and thinking about everyone, it kind of changed to something different. He kept remembering things that did not seem important at the time but were still there in his head.
Finn did not believe Hanna was ringing her parents when she was upstairs. He always knew when she was lying. She had left her phone upstairs when Ben got cross, but he could hear constant texts coming in and every so often Hanna would run upstairs to check, as if they might be important. It seemed odd and he knew Ben had noticed it too.
Finn heard him say, jokingly, to her, ‘Why don’t you bring your phone downstairs, Hanna, instead of running up and down checking it all the time? Have you got an illicit lover texting you or something?’
Hanna had laughed. ‘Oh, I have several. It is extremely difficult to choose …’ She had put her hand on his arm. ‘My phone constantly bleeping annoys me, as well. I haven’t got hold of my parents yet and I asked them to get back to me. There are also a couple of old college friends I’ve recently caught up with and they keep drunkenly texting me …’
Ben had put his drink down and put his arm round her. ‘Why shouldn’t they, darling? I’m not checking up on you. Sorry I was irritable this morning. Bring the phone down or we might miss your parents …’
Finn put his diary away and started to check out some of the functions on his new iPhone. He texted Raz and told him he was bloated with too much food and all the adults had had too much wine. Raza texted back to say he was buried under Pakistani relatives he had never heard of, and he might never see Finn again …
Finn woke in the early hours of Boxing Day when he heard Ben coming slowly down the stairs from his room in the dark. He passed his bedroom door and trod on the creaky floorboard on the top stair as he went downstairs. Finn looked at his watch and saw it was only 4 a.m. He got out of bed and went onto the landing and looked down. Ben had a torch and was shining it into the bowl on the hall table, looking for car keys. Finn opened his mouth to whisper down the stairs that he wanted to go with him. Then he remembered Ian telling him that Ben needed space, so stayed silent. Ben found Ian’s lumpy bunch of keys at the bottom of the bowl and opened the front door. After a moment Finn heard the old Land Rover fire up and drive away.
