The Poppy Factory (20 page)

What she wanted to say was that she didn’t really need any help, it was something she’d be able to work out in her own time, she was only here to please her family, she honestly couldn’t be bothered to go over it all again and anyway she was bored with her own voice. But somehow, haltingly, she had begun, and before she’d even said a few words she’d found herself weeping uncontrollably, using up almost a whole box of tissues. Alison made no move towards her, continuing to sit upright in the chair opposite and regard her with those sympathetic eyes, but saying not a single word as the seconds ticked loudly by on the wall clock above the door, and the session drew to an end.

Afterwards Jess had felt raw and exhausted, and even more certain that dragging everything up again was not going to do any good. Yet here she was for a second time, obediently making her way up the stairs to this dull, unremarkable room and taking her seat on the pale leather chair, determined that she would make a more sensible, reasoned attempt to describe her problems this time.

‘As I said last week, I’ve been struggling at work, you see? I get angry and have nightmares and flashbacks. But you get on with it, you know, everyone does. It’s what you do, in the Army.’

She paused and looked up. Alison nodded encouragingly, her expression ripe with the confident assumption that her client would continue to unburden herself and make everything all right.

‘To be honest I don’t think it’s anything I can’t deal with myself, given a bit of time and space. Anyway, I’ve decided to leave this job and do something different. Have a complete change of scene.’

Another long pause, another kindly smile from the other chair.

‘What matters most to me at the moment is the relationship with my boyfriend – it’s been under a lot of strain. I did some fairly horrible things and he broke up with me. We’re back together now, thank heavens, but it’s early days and I don’t want to risk …’

Oh God, the tears were prickling the back of her eyes again. She hadn’t seen Nate for a couple of weeks and, although they’d texted almost daily and talked on the phone several times, she had bottled out from telling the truth when he’d asked her about work: ‘It’s fine, thanks,’ she’d said. ‘Going really well.’ Not a word of the accident, her conversation with her boss, the ‘gardening leave’ that he’d gently but firmly proposed. She’d have to confess soon enough, but the thought of the disappointed look that would come across his face when he learned that she’d been lying to him, the lowering of his eyes, the small frown that would flicker across his forehead, made her feel sick inside.

She reached for a tissue and blew her nose. Alison was waiting, and something about her nondescript features and compassionate smile were somehow so infuriating that Jess pulled up short, hardly able to believe that she was confiding her own, very personal thoughts about her relationship to this perfect stranger. The half-empty bottle of whisky, hidden in a drawer in her bedroom, was calling to her.

‘Do you mind if I stop now?’ she said, glancing up at the clock. Only a quarter of an hour had passed.

‘You may do as you wish, Jess,’ Alison said in her quiet, well-modulated voice. ‘These sessions are for you to use as you want. I am absolutely confident that we can make progress but you are going to have to stick with it a little longer if you want to get to the bottom of what’s troubling you …’

As she spoke, Jess could feel her heart contracting as irritation fomented into anger. She’d gone along with this through a sense of duty to her mother but found herself hating every minute. It wouldn’t do any good anyway. How could anyone who hadn’t been there ever understand? She tried to bite her tongue but the words burst out of her mouth all the same, cutting off Alison in mid flow.

‘I’ll tell you what’s troubling me, if you want,’ she heard herself saying in a threatening whisper. ‘I’ve lost friends, beautiful, talented young men with their whole lives ahead of them, who bled to death in the desert fighting for some spurious made-up bollocks about weapons of mass destruction which never existed. I’ve seen young men maimed for life by IEDs, trying to save them while the fucking Taliban went on firing. And I’ve been that close to death myself – there were definitely times when I thought I’d never make it home.’

The energy of anger brought her to her feet, and she began to pace the room.

‘So is it any bloody wonder it’s taking me a bit of time to readjust to dealing with drunken idiots on Saturday nights and trying to help poor vulnerable old people who can’t get any ruddy support from the state after working hard and paying taxes their whole lives? Is it?
Is it?
Go on tell me, is it any
bloody
wonder?’

Alison’s stick-on smile had disappeared but her voice was still calm. ‘No, it isn’t any wonder. But we can help you with your anger …’

Jess stopped pacing and glared down at her. ‘Help me with my anger? Oh
please
, spare me the clichés.’ She hated herself for being so unpleasant to this inoffensive, well-meaning woman, and needed to get out, fast, before it got any worse. ‘D’you know, I really don’t care anymore,’ she said, grabbing her coat and bag and heading for the door, pausing in the doorway to add, ‘It’s not your fault, Alison, but this simply isn’t going to work.’

Vorny and Hatts were still away on exercise, so Jess had the flat to herself. Even as she sucked the last drops from the whisky bottle in her bedroom and later, as she prowled the drinks aisle of the supermarket, purchasing six more, plus two cases of wine and a carton of cigarettes, she promised herself that it would be just a temporary refuge.

‘Just giving myself a little break,’ she’d reasoned, pouring the first glass. ‘Enough of trying to save people’s lives, being all dutiful and responsible. I need to forget things for a while, to do what I want without anyone getting all holier than thou about it.’

To stop Nate worrying, she texted him: Last-minute place came up on HART training course. No signal. Will phone when I get back. XX

The drink eased the pain of remorse and helped her postpone, for the moment, having to think about what to do with the rest of her life. She recalled the overwhelming wave of relief when she’d admitted to her mother that she couldn’t cope with the responsibility for saving lives any more, and felt sure that giving up being a paramedic was the right, indeed the only, thing to do. But in her more sober moments she experienced all over again the reciprocal swell of panic at the thought of giving up her life’s career. It felt like standing at the edge of a chasm so deep you couldn’t see the bottom, yet knowing that you would have to jump.

Vorny and Hatts returned late one evening, filthy and exhausted from two weeks of bivouacking and fighting mock battles in torrential rain on some remote stretch of bleak moorland in the west country.

‘Bloody hell, what’s going on here?’ Hatts said. ‘Looks like dossers have moved in.’

The air was thick with the stench of stale alcohol and cigarette smoke, and every surface of the living room, the coffee table, mantelpiece, sideboard and part of the carpet, was covered with empty bottles and glasses, take-away cartons and overflowing ash-trays. On the sofa was a tangled pile of blankets, cushions and a sleeping bag from under which they could hear gentle snores. Vorny pulled back the blanket and shook Jess’s shoulder, gently at first and then more firmly.

‘Wake up, Jess, we’re back.’

Jess groaned quietly before falling back into sleep.

‘She’s out of it. However did she get herself into this state? I thought she’d sworn off the booze, and she quit smoking when I did, when we got back off tour.’

‘Not any more, she didn’t,’ Hatts said, grimacing at a saucer brimming with cigarette butts. ‘Come on. Let’s just clear up a bit and leave her tonight, let her sleep it off.’

Waking at dawn, Jess had a vague memory of hearing their voices but thought it must have been a dream until, in the dimly rising light, she saw their backpacks and waterproofs piled high in the corner. The room seemed to have been cleared of the bottles and take-away cartons she had so defiantly strewn around her.

She slumped back onto the sofa and pulled the sleeping bag over her face but the alcohol was dissipating from her body, leaving her edgy and fidgety. She sat up, looked around and cursed her friends for hiding the bottles before recalling that the wine had gone a few days ago and she’d finished the last of the whisky yesterday evening. The shops wouldn’t be open yet – she’d have to wait.

Vorny found her in the kitchen making coffee.

‘What have you done to yourself?’ she said, watching Jess’s hands shaking as she spooned the grounds into the cafetiére, the yellow pallor of her skin and dark lines under her eyes.

‘Long story.’

Hatts arrived in her dressing gown, tousled and sleepy, they took their mugs into the living room and Vorny opened windows to let out the fug. It was a chill, bright October morning and the smells of autumn, falling leaves, newly-turned earth, floated into the room along with the rumble of morning traffic and the faraway wail of an ambulance siren that made Jess’s guts clench.

‘You haven’t answered me,’ Vorny said. ‘What’s happened? Why aren’t you at work? Why all the booze and fags?’

‘How long have you got?’

‘We’ve got three days’ leave. Take all the time you like.’

Explaining to her friends what had happened that day in the high street, and why she felt that she could not carry on as a paramedic, was relatively easy – they could understand exactly what she was going through. In their own separate ways, both girls had experienced flashbacks to their time in Afghanistan. No-one could do what they had done or see what they had seen without suffering some long term impact.

To her relief, they did not insist that she should return to counselling, but accepted her own analysis: the anger and panic attacks were caused by the fear of making mistakes which might cost someone’s life. However hard she tried to persuade herself that she was perfectly competent and at least as skilled as any of her colleagues, the anxiety could not be quelled. The best solution, they agreed, would be to remove herself from situations which made her anxious, for a while. Taking a break from working as a paramedic seemed the best plan.

They helped her write a letter of resignation and, when she wavered, talked everything through again and again with her, for hours on end, until she felt certain enough to post it. As the letter dropped into the box, she felt the weight lifting from her shoulders and knew that she had done the right thing.

What they couldn’t help with was the harder part: facing the future.

‘First things first,’ Vorny said, that first morning. ‘You’ve got to sort yourself out, not drink any more, not even a sip. Do you promise?’

Jess nodded.

‘Say it.’

‘I promise not to drink any more, not even a sip.’

‘We’ll be watching you,’ Vorny said.

Later that evening she rang Nate, apologising for not returning his calls. She’d been poorly with the flu, she lied, off sick from work. To her great relief he sounded genuinely sympathetic and pleased to hear from her, saying he hoped she’d feel better in time to come to the wedding of his old friend Barnie, for whom he’d been invited to be best man, and then chattering on about how they would get there and where they would stay.

‘It sounds great. I’m really looking forward to it,’ she said as brightly as possible, trying to persuade herself that, by then, she would feel strong enough to admit to him what had been happening.

‘Me too, Jess. It’s been ages.’

‘I’m sorry. It’s been so manic here.’
Stop now, no more lies.

‘I love you,’ he added quietly, almost as a throwaway.

Her heart felt ready to burst. ‘Me too, Nate. See you soon.’

Brimming with new resolution, she went shopping for a new outfit for the wedding only to discover that she seemed to have gained a whole dress size from lack of exercise, too much booze and unhealthy eating. In the dressing room mirror she saw a short, pallid, slightly pudgy person, who seemed to have gained not only several kilos but also about ten years in age. The face that was once smooth and bright-eyed was now hollow-looking with dark rings under the eyes and lines on her forehead even when she stopped frowning. How could Nate ever love me again, she asked herself, sighing with silent despair. She thought of his beautiful long brown limbs, his wide surprising smile, the soft look in his eyes, the way he towered over her and made her feel both vulnerable and safe at the same time.

Whatever else was happening in her life, however unsure she felt about her future she knew, more than anything in the world, that she wanted to be worthy of his love, and she would do her damnedest to make sure that she didn’t ever disappoint him again.

BOOK Four

Rose Barker - PRIVATE

Saturday 20th March 1920

Alfie is recovering, slowly. He’s starting to eat properly again and today, when we went to the park to feed the ducks, I even caught him smiling at the sight of the little troupes of fluffy ducklings. Tomorrow we are invited to Sunday dinner with his parents – the first time he’s agreed to socialise since what we are calling ‘the incident’.

Saturday 27th March

At Alfie’s insistence I’ve told no-one about what we now know was some kind of breakdown, although I am certain the stories had been circulating the neighbourhood. For the moment it is unspoken, even between me and Freda, and even though I am certain she knows all about it she is respecting our need to pretend that nothing has happened.

I think she was being kind when she invited me to go with her to the Ideal Home Exhibition at Olympia to get ideas for furnishing the house she says Claude is going to buy for them. She even suggested Alfie might like to come too, because they’re offering free tickets for returning soldiers as part of the so-called ‘Homes for Heroes’ plan, but we both know he hasn’t the slightest interest in that sort of thing, so in the end it was decided that just me and Freda would go.

We were looking forward to having a bit of fun, which, in a way, it was. The exhibition hall itself is as tall as a cathedral, with a beautiful arched glass roof. Seeing that alone would have been worth the journey. But when, after an hour of queuing, we finally made it to the turnstiles and walked inside, the sight that greeted us was quite simply jaw-dropping.