In The Garden Of Stones (15 page)

He
flattens the disturbed gravel with the sole of his boot. “It was
just a bit of rain. Nae bother.”

“
This isn’t just about the rain though is it, Colin. It’s
about you falling to the ground screaming with terror, shaking like
a jelly and crying and wailing in the mud, scared shitless by a
crack of thunder and a flash of lightning, which if it hadn’t been
for
me
,
would never have been here.” Grace lays her hand on Colin’s leg.
“It reminded you of the bomb, didn’t it? Brought it all back? And
now I think I know what’s wrong with you. You have post traumatic
stress disorder, don’t you Colin?”

His
shoulder and head shrug and tic in unison as she strikes the
metaphorical nail squarely on its head.

“
That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?” she says. “You made this
place for somewhere quiet and calm to come, to get away from all
the stress and the noise, all the things that cause you pain and
upset, and I turn up and drag them all in here with me and …
corrupt all your hard work, contaminate your paradise of peace.
Shit, Colin, I–”

“
You’re sorry. Aye, I know. Forget it, eh?”

He gets
up, pulls a pruning knife from his pocket, slides off its
protective sheath, and uses its curved blade to snib off a dead
head from a nearby rose bush.

“
I can’t forget it,” says Grace. “Just like you
can’t.”

Snib.

“
Yesterday, before we got wet, you started to tell me about
what happened to you, to your friends,” she says.

“
Fit ‘boot it.”

“
Will you finish the tale?”

Yet
another faded bloom falls. “Why?”

“
It might help you to talk about it?”

“
Trust me, it won’t.”

“
Then do it for
me
. Help
me
understand what it was like, what you went through, what
you’re going through now?”

A
brittle laugh. “I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy.”

“
I’m not your enemy, Colin. I want to be your
friend.”

He clips
off another dying flower, and another, re-sheaths the knife and
puts it back in his pocket. He gestures for her to come and stand
in front of him.

“
I dinna think I can tell ye,” he says, scrunching up one
side of his face. “Words canna do it justice, but … I think I can
show ye. Hold out yer hands.”

She
wipes her sweaty palms down her trousers and holds out her hands
for him to take.

With a
suddenness that knocks her dizzy, she is ripped out of the cool
garden and into a furnace.

It is
searingly hot under the Kevlar helmet. The body armour, rifle and
ammunition clips are heavy, but this is considered a relatively
safe area where the soldiers meet and greet the locals, drink tea
and crack jokes, and so he is in shirt sleeve order and spared the
full 70lb kit.

They
have been on foot patrol for nearly three hours and it’s almost
time to return to base. Out in the narrow street the wind whips up
a whirling dervish of sand and dust and the air smells of sewage,
wood smoke, and something spicy. On the shady side, outside a rough
stone box which could be his home, a small boy in a dirty grey robe
tethers a donkey laden with wood, sees the patrol, waves to them,
and then gives them the finger before laughing and running inside
and slamming the door behind him.

Cheeky
wee bugger.

The
street is now deserted save for a scabby cur scavenging for scraps,
the weary looking ass and the small knot of soldiers.

Too hot
for any other sane person to venture out.

Mad dogs and Englishmen.

Dan
McInnes walking next to him suggests they cross the street and into
the shade.

It is no
cooler on this side, just darker. A tree of sweat has already grown
on his back, darkening his shirt and sticking it to his skin.
Another trickle runs down his face. He wipes it away as he takes a
glug of water from his water pack. He grimaces. It is like drinking
stale tea; tepid and bitter.

Jimmy Buchan, to his left and slightly behind him, cracks a
joke about how he would be better off drinking the donkey’s piss.
He laughs, thinks of a pithy comeback, but before he can cast his
pearl of wit, his
world turns over as he is lifted off his feet by a wave of
pressure and heat hitting him full in the back and flipping him
over in a complete somersault, before slamming him face first into
the dust.

He can’t breathe, can’t see. Something wet and sticky clings
to his face, and his head is ringing, a bubble of silence blocking
his ears.

There is pressure on his legs and pounding on his back, and
his mouth is filled with the salty taste of hot copper and dust,
his nostrils sting with the smell of burning kerosene, scorched
fabric and the sweetly acrid stench of cooking meat.

With a
pop
,
the bubbles blocking his ears are pricked and sound rushes in from
everywhere and nowhere at once and he is assaulted by frantic
yelling; a woman shrieking, the barking of orders and the sound of
gunfire. A man nearby is calling for support, calling for the
medics, calling for anyone who is listening to help them, his words
rattled out staccato yet controlled.

And then comes the searing pain in his legs and buttocks, up
his back and his shoulders, flaring through him from his toes to
his neck as if he had been dipped feet first into molten
metal.

Fire! He’s on fire! He has to get up, get away from the
flames, but he can’t move. The pressure and pounding on his legs
and back is a firm weight holding him down.

“
Stay still, Sir. You’ve taken a knock, but
you’re going to be fine. Help is on the way!”

Someone is screaming and sobbing, wailing at the top of their
lungs, swearing, praying for the throat tearing agony to go away.
Only at the last moment, before darkness and silence enfold him,
does he realise who it is.

Released from the vision, Grace finds herself back in the
cemetery, nose filled with the
heady smells of lavender and rosemary,
ears with the fluting song of the blackbird, eyes bathed in the
golden light of sunset
.

Disorientated and confused, she reels. Colin grabs her and
holds her to him as she gasps for air, tears flowing down her face,
and he lets her sob against his chest until she has recovered her
shattered wits. He hands her a clean white handkerchief from the
pocket of his pants.

“
I’m okay,” she says,
wiping her
eyes on the pristine cotton square. “Just give me a
minute.”

She treads her way unsteadily along the path, through the
arch in the hedge to the soft grass of the lawn, and eases herself
down onto it.
Colin gives her the minute she needs before sitting beside
her, sweeping his hand over the fine cut blades.

“
How did you do that?” she says.

He
shakes his head, worrying the grass some more. “I have no idea,” he
says, his voice low and tender, his Scots accent reduced to a
gentle burr. “I knew I didn’t have the words to tell you properly,
so showing you was all I could do.”

She dabs
her eyes again. “It was so horrible. It hurt so much and the …
smell and the noise. It was truly awful. Terrifying. Oh Colin, how
can you bear it? You’ve been through hell.”

“
Still there,” he says tightly, and picks at the
grass.

Grace
hands him back the handkerchief with quiet thanks, and he stuffs it
into his pocket.

“
What can I do to for you, Colin?” she says. “To make things
better for you, or at least a little easier. Tell me what I can
do.”

“
There’s nothing to
be
done. It is what it is.”

“
There’s always something, even something tiny … like this.”
She takes hold of his hand, enclosing it in both hers. “The journey
is hardest for those who travel alone,” she says. “Let me help you
on your journey … just like you are helping me on mine.”

Colin
turns his rich brown eyes to her, and for the first time their eye
contact is long and meaningful. He looks as if he wants to say
something, but instead puts his arm around her shoulder, pulls her
to him and kisses her temple.

“
What does fit mean anyway,” Grace says, retaking her seat
at the rough hewn table in the hut. “I hear it about town all the
time, along with a lot of other words I can’t get my head
around.”

“
What,” says Colin, taking two bottles of beer from the
bucket of cold water he is using to keep them cool.

“
I said–?”

“
It means what.” he says.

“
Fit means
what
?”

“
Aye.”

“
So why don’t you just say what?”

“
It’s how I talk, ala’s have, and if a man canna speak his
ain mither tongue in his ain haim, where can he?”

“
Even if nobody can understand you? What about your men, you
being
officer and all, don’t you have to keep a couple of plums
in your mouth so that all your orders are crisp and clear and
unambiguous, or do they all talk like they are shagging a set of
bagpipes?”

The corners of his mouth twitch.
“I can be as hoity toity as I need ta
be.” He switches accents, putting on a pure cut glass English
drone, chiselling the edges off every word.

“
I can speak the proper hoy noy broyn coy if called upon to
do so. I say, Chivers, how utterly spiffing. More cucumber
sandwiches, vicar? Anyone for a spot of tennis on the lawn after
tiffin, eh, what?” Sniff. “How’s that?”

Grace
laughs and grimaces at the same time. “Urgh! That’s bloody awful.
Too far the other way. Too…Bertie Wooster.”

Colin’s
response is a garbled mess of noise, pure lingua Scotia, an
expulsion of nasal Doric incomprehensible to all but the local
sheep. At the sight of Grace’s expression of utter befuddlement,
Colin throws back his head and laughs until he runs out of air, his
face the colour of newly fired brick. Gradually the laughter
subsides into sporadic hiccups and his normal colour
returns.

“
Oh dearie me,” he says, wiping tears of mirth from his
eyes. “Yoor face. Oooh!” He presses a hand to his side and
flinches. “I think I’ve ruptured something inside. Oh aye. Ow, ma
ribs.”

Grace
just stares at him in censuring silence, arms folded, head cocked
to one side, chin jutted, face deadpan. “Serves you
right.”

Colin
clears his throat loudly, banishing the laughter, and points at her
bottle. “Ye want me to open that fer ye?”

She
hands it over.

“
What ye said, about fit ye hear around the toon,” he says,
fitting the cap of the bottle snugly against the table’s edge. “The
Doric is fair local ta Aiberdeen, and yoo
talk like a
Sassenach
.
So how come ye–” He
slams his hand hard down. The bottle’s top pops off,
releasing a crown of yeasty bubbles from the neck, and a curse from
the man. “Aya bastard!”

“
Would it surprise you to learn that I’m as Scottish as you
are?” Grace says.

Colin
looks over at her, sucking at his bruised hand.
“Seriously?”

“
Born and raised in the ‘Deen,” she says. “Moved about a
bit, but always within spitting distance of the city. I’m in
Ferryhill now, near the park. Where’s your home turf?”

“
Would ye believe Dyce?”

She
gasps. “You mean…Dyce Dyce, where the airport is?”

“
Aye.”

“
Can’t be.”

“
Unless ye ken another Dyce.”

“
So where is this hospital you are in? Is it too much to
hope that’s local too, that they brought you home?”

“
Aye, kind of.” He screws up his eyes, taps his fingers
against his forehead as if trying to remember. “It’s something
Chase, a new place out by Kemnay way. Duke of Rothesay opened it a
couple of years ago.”

“
Kemnay? Near Inverurie?” she says. “Do you mean
Pelham
Chase?”

Colin
snaps his fingers. “Aye, that’s the one.”

Grace’s
hands fly to her cheeks. “I can’t believe it. That’s just over an
hour away by bus.”

“
Aye, well then,” Colin says, grinning. “Ye’ve got no
excuse. When are ye comin’ ta visit?”

Chapter 17

“
I had a thought,” says Grace.

Colin
does not look up from agitating the soil with the hoe, tormenting
the weeds. “I thought I could smell burning dust.”

“
Not just now, you divot,” she says. “Last night when I was
lying in my bath. Do you want to hear about it?”

“
Does it involve nudity and bubbles?”

“
Is your mind always in the gutter?”