The Poppy Factory (4 page)

She checked the drunken squaddie over, swabbed him down, shaved an unnecessarily wide strip of hair on either side of the wound, stitched him up and told them to wake him every half hour to check for concussion, with a bucket of cold water if necessary. That’ll teach him, she thought to herself.

One day she diagnosed a case of ‘housemaid’s knee’. The spotty lad gazed at her in confusion: ‘I ain’t been doin’ no housework.’

‘It’s an inflammation of the tissues in front of the kneecap. You just need to take it easy for a couple of weeks and it’ll sort itself out.’

‘Can’t tell me sergeant I’ve got housemaid’s knee,’ he muttered. ‘Never bloody live it down.’

She would normally have found this funny, but for some reason his pathetic embarrassment irritated the hell out of her. She took a deep breath, wrote ‘
Prepatellar Bursitis
’ on a note and passed it to him. ‘Will that do?’

He tried to pronounce the Latin and gave up.

‘Thank you, ma’am,’ he said, with a brazen smile. ‘Fancy a drink sometime?’

‘Get lost, you cheeky bastard,’ she said, showing him the door.

‘I just can’t cope with the pettiness of it all,’ she shouted to her mother as they struggled along the shingle beach in the face of a bitter cold wind whistling off the North Sea. She’d been given a few mid-week days off and, to be honest, was pleased to have her parents to herself. ‘Their stupid little complaints. I feel like slapping them, telling them to man up.’

Her mother had suggested the walk after she’d come downstairs at three in the morning to find Jess watching the shopping channel with a large glass of her father’s whisky on the table in front of her.

‘What’s up, love?’ she’d asked, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. Jess noticed for the first time that her mother’s hair, the gingery side of auburn like her own, was turning grey.

‘Can’t sleep. It’s just too quiet here,’ she replied, trying to make light of it. ‘What are you doing up, anyway?’

‘Saw the light on when I went for a pee.’

Jess had been looking forward to a few days by the seaside, where she could take long walks in the sea air and hopefully knock herself out with physical tiredness, but it hadn’t worked like that. For the second night running she had lain awake for hours before giving up and going downstairs to raid her father’s drinks cabinet.

‘You shouldn’t drink so much of that stuff,’ Susan had said, looking pointedly at the glass.

‘Don’t worry,’ Jess said. ‘I’ll buy Dad another bottle. Go back to bed. I’ll be fine.’

Later that morning, out on the beach, she found herself almost enjoying the distraction of physical discomfort as the wind slashed at their faces.

‘Tell me about this drinking,’ her mother had started.

‘Oh, it’s nothing,’ Jess said. Admitting the nightmares to her mother would only make her more anxious – better to gloss over it. ‘Just fed up with work. It’s so boring. I can’t wait to get out.’

‘You haven’t got long to go now, have you?’

‘Four weeks, that’s all. I can deal with it. Thanks for being so understanding, Mum.’

But that evening she lost it again. Her father had insisted on doing a barbecue in spite of the fact that it was still only February, and bitterly cold. The wind had dropped, he said, and besides the barbecue was under cover of the patio awning. He would be perfectly dry, and once everything was cooked they could eat inside. Except that it began to bucket with rain, and while Jess tried to persuade him to abandon the idea, Susan had been placatory.

‘He does it all the time, don’t worry,’ she said. ‘He enjoys it, and the food tastes so much better on the barbecue. You’ll never dissuade him, so you might as well give up trying.’

‘But it’s pouring, Mum. He’ll get soaked, and so will the food.’ She felt her chest tightening, the tell-tale heat tingling at the back of her neck, and tried to take deep breaths, but it came out anyway. ‘He could perfectly well come inside to cook, and we could have a lovely meal but he’s just determined to spoil our evening with his pig-headed insistence. It’s so fucking stupid,’ she shouted.

‘Watch your language, young woman,’ Mike called through the patio door.

She exploded then, shouting, ‘I can’t bear to watch. I’m going out.’

She’d stomped off to the only pub in the village, hoping there would be no-one who recognised her or engaged her in conversation. Fortunately the place was deserted, so she sat by the fire and read a dog-eared red-top newspaper, sickened by the photos of semi-naked women on what seemed like every other page, while downing three double whiskies in quick succession. She paid the pub premium for a bottle to replace her father’s Johnnie Walker and hid it inside her coat as she headed home.

Her parents were watching a nature documentary on television.

‘We left you a plateful – it’s on the side,’ her mother said mildly, without a hint of reproach. How could they be so forgiving? It almost made her angry all over again.

‘Not hungry,’ she muttered. ‘Going to bed.’

‘Sleep well, sweetheart,’ they chorused, to her departing back.

In the morning nothing was mentioned until she was alone in the car with her mother on the way to the train station.

‘Forgive me, darling, but do you think you might need some help?’ her mother said, pulling out onto the main road.

‘What do you mean, help?’

‘Adjusting to life back home. I know it’s hard.’

‘Leave it, Mum. I’m fine.’

‘Except you’re barely sleeping, drinking way more than you ever used to and losing your temper at the drop of a hat. We’re worried about you, love.’

They arrived at the station just in time and she kissed her mother on the cheek. ‘See you soon,’ she said, ‘and don’t you go worrying about me. I’m a big girl; I can take care of myself.’

The following Sunday evening was the Pinot incident.

As she drank her way purposefully through the bottle, Nate said barely a word and she was too angry to engage him in conversation. Next thing she knew, she was shocked awake by her phone. She peeled open her eyes and squinted at the numbers: 06.00. He must have set the alarm for her, knowing that she had to catch the train in time to get back for a nine o’clock clinic.

She slumped back onto the pillow with her head swimming and throbbing, realising that a) she was still fully clothed and b) she was still drunk. For a few minutes she contemplated calling in sick, but ingrained Army discipline got the better of her. She forced herself out of bed and took a cold shower to shock herself into consciousness. Nate was curled up asleep on the sofa and she crept out of the flat without waking him.

By the time she got back to the barracks she was feeling truly awful. ‘Nothing for it,’ she said to herself, opening the drawer where she stashed the whisky bottle. ‘Hair of the dog.’

The clinic was full of the usual Monday morning complaints: sprained ankles and bruised knees from football games, black eyes and cut lips from knuckle fights. For once, she was grateful to have nothing too testing to deal with, feeling proud of herself for holding it together and making some reasonable diagnoses. Her boss didn’t seem to notice a thing, even though she’d felt so nauseous that at times she’d had to rush to the toilet.

It was almost certainly the lad with the ear infection who gave her away, the little bastard. He must have smelled it when she’d leaned close to look down the otoscope. Not long after, the medic in charge had popped his head around the door.

‘A word, Lance Corporal. My office. Now.’ She stood to attention as he bent to bring his face within inches of her own and sniffed loudly, several times. She breathed as lightly as she could without passing out.

‘You stink of booze. Are you drunk, Corporal Merton?’

‘I don’t believe so, sir. Not at eleven o’clock in the morning. Sir.’

‘You certainly smell of alcohol, and I can’t have you on duty if there’s any chance of it. You are dismissed for the day. Report to me here, eighteen hundred hours.’

‘Yes, sir.’

She spent the day sleeping it off, and arrived at her boss’s office fully sober but with her head pulsing with pain that even heavy doses of Co-codamol hadn’t managed to shift.

‘I can’t have my medics drunk on duty, you understand?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I’ve had it reported to me that you are overdoing the booze in general, is that a fair observation?’

The anger started to swell as she wondered who could have grassed on her. ‘I wouldn’t say so, sir,’ she muttered, through gritted teeth.

‘How are things with you generally? Adjusting to life back home? Preparing for civvy street? Things okay with the boyfriend?’

How dare he bloody snoop into her private life? She could feel her cheeks flushing now, her breath stopping in her chest as she tried to control the fury.

‘Well, Lance Corporal?’

Her jaw ached from clenching her teeth.

‘It can be tricky, I know,’ his voice droned on. ‘If you need to talk to someone, of course we can lay it on.’

The nausea was rising again and she could feel her stomach turning over just as it had on Remembrance Sunday all those weeks back.

‘Excuse me, sir,’ was all she managed to say, before rushing into the corridor and puking all over the shiny linoleum.

‘I’m sorry I was such a bitch last night,’ she said to Nate on the phone later that evening.

He didn’t reply, not at first. Then he said, ‘Look, I can’t deal with this right now. I’ve had a rough day at work and I just want to chill out and not have a row with you.’

‘I haven’t rung you to have a row,’ she said, trying not to sound defensive. ‘I’ve rung to apologise and tell you that I’m going to cut out the booze completely, for a while, just to get back on an even keel.’

‘Sounds like a plan, Jess.’

‘Look, can I come and stay with you this week? I could catch a train tonight.’

There was a surprised pause at the other end. Then, ‘It’s Monday night. What about work?’

‘They’ve given me the rest of the week off – they’re calling it sick leave, but I think they just want to keep me out of their hair. I’ve only got five weeks to go now and they don’t want me causing any more trouble.’

‘What trouble?’

She told him about the ticking off, but not about being sick in the corridor.

‘The timing’s not great, to be honest,’ he said in a flat voice. ‘I’ve got a heavy week. There are rumours that Ofsted might come calling, I’ve got two parents’ evenings and a football trip on Thursday. Won’t be back till pretty late most nights.’

‘I’ll shop and clean and cook you delicious meals,’ she pleaded.

He went silent at the end of the phone and for a fleeting, frightening moment it occurred to her that he might be about to tell her it was over. Oh God, please no, she prayed. I love him, can’t do it without him.

Then, at last: ‘Okay. See you later. But Jess …’

‘Yes?’

‘What you said about quitting the booze? You’re serious?’

‘I promise.’

Each evening as she waited for Nate to return from work, she could feel her body shouting at her that it wanted alcohol, any alcohol, that nothing else would satisfy it. Several times, passing the off licence on the corner of his street, she sensed her feet pulling towards the door.
Just one little drink.
The feeling was almost irresistible but she marshalled her willpower and managed to hold it at bay, knowing that one would surely lead to another, and then several more. She drank cans of cola instead which made her burp unattractively and failed to satisfy the craving.

Without the sedative of alcohol she found it hard to sleep, sensing Nate’s every movement, hearing each little snore, and blasted to open-eyed wakefulness by any police or ambulance siren within half a mile. When she finally slept, the nightmares returned, but subtly altered. These were not of the breath-stopping panic, of torn flesh and limbs, nor the visceral howls of boys in pain, but of the aftermaths of those terrifying moments, of feeling so exhausted that her limbs would not move, of the heat which seemed to suffocate the air out of her lungs, and the dust storms that whipped her face as the rescue helicopter rose into the air taking the injured men to safety. And, always, the gut-wrenching anxiety that perhaps she could have done more to save a limb, or even a life.

One night she woke with her bladder aching and made it to the toilet just in time. She had been dreaming that she was back in the compound where the squats cabin was located twenty yards away. The men just pissed against the outside wall, the girls had to risk a scary dash in the dark across open ground. That, or pee discreetly into a yellow sharps container and hope the sound didn’t wake anyone. Either way it was enough to make you go easy on your intake of liquids after sunset.

She also dreamt of the poppy, just the once: not of the flower with its silky red petals gently fluttering in the breeze, but of the headless green stem, trembling and twitching like a dying man.

After dinner on the second evening, Nate said, ‘Tell me what’s going on, Jess?’

‘Going on?’

‘Those nightmares of yours.’

‘They come and go,’ she said. ‘It’s getting better.’

‘Doesn’t feel like that to me. Last night you started shouting and then you sat up in bed and seemed to be fighting someone off. You nearly clocked me one.’

She laughed. ‘I’m so sorry. I’ll try and keep my arms to myself tonight.’

‘Are you sure you don’t need to get some help?’

‘Quite sure. It’ll be fine once I’m out of the Army. Only a week now.’

She rose exhausted each morning but found that she could not sit still for more than a few minutes. Trying to use up her restless energy, she went for long walks or jogged round the local park, observing the yummy mummies so distracted by their gossip that the babies crawled into flowerbeds to eat soil. Their pampered pedigree dogs ran out of control and, she hoped, were having unprotected sex with all the wrong species. Planning her life ahead with Nate, she visited a couple of letting agents and viewed four flats in the area; more spacious, two-bedroomed places that cost a fortune in rent.

On Friday evening he returned in high spirits, having been to the pub with his mates to celebrate the end of a tough week, and ate two helpings of her carefully-prepared lamb tagine with appreciative enthusiasm. Sitting beside him on the sofa, watching television with a mug of tea in her hand, she imagined that this was what their lives might be like forever. She felt more at peace than she’d known for months.