Home Fires (16 page)

Outside, Caroline can hear the opening and shutting of doors, the metallic crunch of Andrew attempting to unfold Elsa’s wheelchair and then the muted sounds of struggle as he tries to transfer her from the car seat. Caroline makes no movement to get up. Until recently, the thought of Elsa coming to stay would have sent her into a spiral of self-doubt and manic preparation. She would have wanted everything to be just so: the carpets hoovered, the bookshelves dusted, the dining table polished. And yet, no matter how hard she tried, there would always be something for her mother-in-law to find fault with. It was never explicitly expressed, Elsa was too clever for that. It was always a dangerously subtle comment, slipped in around the edges of conversation so that no one but Caroline would notice.

‘You
are
lucky,’ Elsa would say, looking around her with that imperious gaze. ‘Such an easy house to clean.’

Or if Max were playing on the computer, it would be: ‘Is he all right up there?’ accompanied by a slight smile, a gently raised eyebrow. ‘All on his own in front of a screen. It can’t be good for him.’ And if Caroline ever felt hurt or defensive, Andrew would tell her not to be so sensitive, that his mother was only trying to help. She wasn’t, he said, implying that Caroline’s parenting was somehow defective, of course not. But Caroline knew better. It was a war of increments, but it was a war nonetheless.

She had so wanted for Elsa to admire her . . . No, she thinks, it was more than that. She had wanted Elsa to love her. But now Caroline feels that the fault was hers all along: whatever she did, she could never be lovable enough. Something about her was wrong; some characteristic fatally lacking.

The front door slams shut. ‘We’re here,’ Andrew calls out. Caroline pushes herself up off the sofa. It takes three goes before she manages it and then her mind takes a while to click into place. Her thoughts are misted up, like condensation on a bathroom mirror. She cannot think how to speak, what words are required of her.

‘Caroline?’ She shuffles out into the hallway and realises, almost as an afterthought, that she has forgotten to get dressed and is still in her pyjamas and slippers.

‘I’m here,’ she says and then she sees Elsa and she breathes in sharply at the sight of her. Her mother-in-law has changed beyond all recognition. In the wheelchair, she looks scrunched up and small, a squashed fruit with skin that has lost its moisture. The last time Caroline had seen her, Elsa had been in bed recovering from her first stroke. But despite the circumstances, she had been draped smartly in a cashmere scarf held in place by a cameo brooch and was able to issue orders to the hospital staff and speak to guests with her customary gusto. Her face had still been her own. Now, Caroline is taken aback to see that Elsa’s skin has been overrun by liver spots, blending into each other in splodges of yellow and brown. Her head is bent to one side and her left hand is curled in on itself.

‘Hello, Elsa,’ she says, trying to mask her surprise.

Elsa swivels to look at her. She groans and Caroline can see she is trying to say something but the words come out in an incomprehensible slurry.

‘She’s been like this all the way down,’ Andrew says, his hands still on the wheelchair handles. He is speaking quietly, as if Elsa won’t be able to hear.

‘It’s lovely to have you here, Elsa,’ she says, feeling the weight of the lie as it drops out of her mouth. ‘We’ve prepared a room for you downstairs. We thought that would be . . .’ she searches for the right word. ‘Easier. More convenient.’

In truth, it is Andrew who has done all the preparations, moving the old furniture out of the downstairs study, assembling flat-pack furniture and ringing round various care agencies to get the necessary equipment. In the last few days, they have taken delivery of a bed with a sliding metal bar at one side, a mechanical hoist to lift Elsa off the mattress when necessary, several industrial-sized packets of baby wipes and a red panic button alarm device that is worn round the neck. So much paraphernalia. The process reminds Caroline of the provisions they had made for Max’s birth – stocking up on nappies and Babygros, building the cot, hanging the mobile – a natural symmetry between the beginning and end of life.

Caroline has let it happen. She has found no energy, no strength to help. She cannot even think how many days have passed since Andrew first mooted the idea of Elsa coming to live with them. The weeks have melted into each other since Max died.

She has taken refuge, instead, in the twenty-four-hour news pumped out by television and radio stations. Her days are defined by the glossy faces of newsreaders, the movement of their painted lips conveying the details of yet another atrocity: a suicide bomber killing seventeen in a crowded marketplace; a soldier maimed by sniper fire; a grieving mother calling for a government inquiry into why her son died.

It is the mothers Caroline has become obsessed with. They become her companions, these women she has never met.

‘I’m going to settle Mummy in,’ Andrew says and he wheels Elsa through the hallway, leaving faint black marks on the tiled floor. Caroline does not reply. She returns to her spot on the sofa, yawning. She hits the mute button so that the sound of the news headlines once again floods the room.

The first story is one about a regiment that has returned safely from South Sudan. The cameras are following the men as they walk into a large anonymous space that looks like a school gymnasium, decorated with brightly coloured ‘Welcome Home’ banners and trestle-tables dotted with polystyrene cups and urns of tea. The soldiers are dressed in light khaki and their faces are tanned from months under the African sun. As they walk into the hall, their families rise to greet them.

Caroline watches one woman with dyed blonde hair and a tiny, sparkling stud on one side of her nose. She has a baby in her arms, swaddled tightly in a pink blanket, and although the woman is smiling, there is also something else – nervousness, maybe, that her husband will have changed. The woman is wearing a light grey velour tracksuit. When she turns away from the camera, Caroline sees that the seat of her trousers is covered with loopy gothic script that spells out the word ‘Juicy’ in an arc just above her bottom cheeks. Her figure is slim, almost child-like. Now she is passing over the baby to a man in a beret and the accompanying voiceover is saying that this is the first time Sergeant so-and-so has met his two-month-old daughter. Then the commentator says something else about ‘our boys’ and what a relief it is to their families that they have returned and Caroline shrinks back. She has always hated those words. ‘Our boys.’ The casual possessiveness of it. They aren’t
their
boys, she thinks to herself. Max is hers alone. While Max was alive, she could persuade herself that this was a purely superficial ownership, little more than a display of jingoistic patriotism on the part of strangers. But now that he is dead, she feels powerless. It is as if he has been swallowed up by the country, as if the man has become subsumed by the greater narrative. When the one hundredth British serviceman was killed in South Sudan two days ago, the
Daily Telegraph
had devoted its whole front page to
100
passport-sized photographs of the dead, reprinted against a black background. Max was there in the eighth row down, two in from the right, like a square on a crossword puzzle.

It makes Caroline sad that his smile is no longer just for her. Other people can see it now, gleaming out at them from a smudge of newsprint. People who have never met him. People who will not even notice his face amongst all the others.

The newsreader moves on to a different story about a state visit by the Queen to Canada so Caroline switches over, searching through the channels until she finds one that is talking about the Sudanese conflict. She alights on a daytime chat show. Across the bottom of the screen, written in white bold type against a blue background, is the question: ‘Is the government letting our servicemen down?’

A man in a suit and tie, not much older than Caroline, is speaking into the microphone, jabbing a finger as he makes each point. ‘I want to know three things,’ he is saying in a strong Yorkshire accent. ‘One: was my son given the right body armour when he was sent out there? Two: If he wasn’t, why wasn’t he? Was it some penny-pinching exercise by those crooks in Westminster? And three: if the government’s at fault, then I’d damn well like to know what they’re going to do about it.’ The man’s face is reddening. His collar looks too tight for his neck. As he sits back in his chair, the chat show host gives him a peremptory pat on the shoulder. ‘Thanks for that, John,’ says the host, nodding his head in an understanding manner, gleaming with faux sincerity. ‘I’m sure your story will touch many people watching at home.’

Caroline stares at John through the screen. He has loosened his tie and is breathing more easily. But his cheeks are still mottled and his muscles seem tightly coiled, as if the effort of sitting still is almost more than he can bear.

Body armour, Caroline thinks to herself. Would Max have been wearing body armour? She wonders who she can ask about this. Sandy, the visiting officer, perhaps. She is hopeless on military details. Until now, she has never wanted to take an interest, has never wanted to know too much in case it made her even more worried for Max’s safety. But now, she thinks . . . well, now there is nothing to lose.

‘Caroline,’ Andrew says, his voice slicing sharply through her thoughts. ‘Where are . . .’ He breaks off and glances at the television. ‘You must stop watching this stuff, it can’t be good for you,’ he says, walking up to the set and pressing the power switch so that the television goes black. Caroline keeps staring at it, watching her own reflection in the glass.

‘What do you mean,’ she says, ‘ “good for you”?’

He turns to her from where he is standing on the other side of the room and she notices how stressed he looks, how angular his shoulders have become.

‘I mean just that. It can’t be helping.’

‘Helping? There’s nothing that can
help
, Andrew. We’ve lost our . . .’

But before she can finish the sentence, he snaps back. ‘Look, Caroline, I don’t have time for this. I’m only trying to think of you, to do what’s best. You must know that.’

She wishes he would stop talking.

‘Now, I’ve got to go and settle Mummy in. I came to ask where you keep the sheets.’ He pauses. ‘You don’t seem to have got round to making the bed.’

Caroline frowns, stung by the criticism.

‘You didn’t ask me to.’

‘I did . . .’ he starts, but then he shakes his head and doesn’t complete the sentence. ‘Look, it’s fine, you obviously don’t remember.’

‘I wouldn’t forget something like that.’

‘It’s not your fault, it’s those blasted pills. I keep telling you . . .’

‘Don’t start,’ she says. ‘Please don’t start that again.’

He notices she is upset and he kneels down in front of her and takes her hands in his.

‘I’m sorry, darling,’ he says but the words sound rushed. ‘I’m just worried about you, that’s all.’ She sits there, listless, unresponsive. ‘Now, could you tell me where I can find some sheets? I don’t want to leave Mummy sitting there for much longer.’

Caroline presses her lips together and slides herself forward off the sofa, letting the blanket drop from her shoulders.

‘You don’t have to show me,’ Andrew says. ‘I didn’t mean for you to get up.’

‘It’s easier if I do it.’ She pushes past him to go upstairs to the airing cupboard.

When she opens the cupboard door, she is assailed by the warm, fresh smell of washed linen. The shelves are scrupulously labelled with stickers on which she has written in clear, rounded lettering: sheets (double; single; fitted), pillowcases, towels. She laughs when she sees the stickers, she actually laughs. They seem so pointless, so ridiculously unnecessary. Yes, the rest of my life is in chaos, Caroline thinks, but thank God my sheets and pillowcases are all in the right place. Thank God for that. She takes out the bedlinen for Elsa and goes back downstairs. She can hear Andrew trying to make conversation in the downstairs room. Elsa makes no reply.

As Caroline walks down the stairs, two words stick in her mind, the letters whirling and bursting into flecks of light like fireworks studded against a night sky. Body armour. She sees the four syllables written out, hears the sound of them. The idea has lodged inside of her, has taken root.

Perhaps, she thinks, that’s the answer. Perhaps, after all, there is someone to blame for his death.

For the first time in weeks, she feels a tiny spark of hope.

Elsa

She senses immediately that she is lying in an unfamiliar bed. It takes a moment for Elsa to place herself, to arrange her thoughts so that she can understand what has happened. In this short, confusing period between sleeping and waking, she has to remind herself not to panic or cry out and to remember that the answers will come to her soon enough. She tries to take a deep breath, but her mouth feels dry and her inhalation is wheezy and slight. Where is she? What is she doing here?

The questions press against her, trampling over her chest. They come at her one after the other, taunting her, jeering, because she does not know the answers. She has no idea where she is. She casts around the room, frantically trying to alight on some familiar object but there is nothing she recognises. There is instead a dressing table with a mirror cracked in one corner, a pine chest of drawers with round handles, a painting of the seaside. The sun shines thickly through the window, making her sight blur and blacken. Elsa squints, blinking away the brightness of it.