How To Be Brave (13 page)

‘My Kath’s probably just knocked off work,’ said Ken. ‘She might have got my last letter today. I hope so. She won’t be worried, at least. We’re not even missing yet.’

‘How come?’ asked Bamford.

‘It’s a few days until the
Lulworth Hill
would have arrived in England,’ said Officer Scown.

‘So they won’t even be looking,’ moaned Leak.

‘Don’t start that again. We got the SOS out. Let’s keep talk on pleasantries, shall we? Who’s waiting for you, Leak? A lovely lassie?’

Colin wondered if being needed back home gave one greater incentive to survive. He had no dependents, no family responsibilities, no wife and no children. Colin desperately wished that his mother would not have to relive the grief of losing a child, and having no body to bury.

She had five sons, Colin, Alf, Gordon, Stan and Eric. Though she would no doubt mourn Colin’s absence and feel as she had when Stan was missing, she had support. She was a strong woman. As an army sergeant major’s wife she was often alone; son Alf was in the merchant navy with Colin, Gordon was in the royal navy, and Eric the army. The Armitages had a long history of service, going back to Colin’s great, great grandfather, who served in the navy under Nelson.

Even without being needed back home, Colin missed it desperately. He didn’t speak of it as easily as some of the others, preferring not to appear overly sentimental. He’d never been given to emotional outbursts, perhaps even been brutal on the ship when a man cried with loneliness. But being on the lifeboat with nothing to do but think left Colin vulnerable to the same longings as the crew.

In the growing dark, he relived childhood days with his brothers. Out hunting for brambles and sticks, and adventures in the woods surrounding their Yorkshire village. Arguing over who got first dibs on a swing they’d made from metal pipes and rope. Squabbling over who got the biggest slice of apple pie their mother had packed for them. Jumping into the stream when they’d been told not to and coming back long after sunset. Colin could smell the apple pie, the woods, the brambles, so sharply that he opened his eyes expecting to see food and his brothers. He saw only the deteriorating black shapes of his ocean brothers.

Stan’s voice had always risen above those of his other siblings – ‘Catch me, Colin, I bet you can’t! I can run faster than the wind! Faster than fire!’ Colin missed him acutely yet felt somehow closer to him on the ocean. This was where he’d passed. They were together here.

‘You’re not saying much, Armitage,’ said Weekes. ‘We’re on lookout in a few hours. You gonna keep me awake or bore me to sleep?’

‘What’s that, lad? I’ll shove you over the edge – that should keep you awake.’

‘It’s pretty black tonight.’ Colin could barely make Weekes out as he spoke. ‘Must be a new moon. Gonna be hard to stay awake. At least we could smoke a few ciggies on the ship night shifts.’

‘There was tea and all,’ moaned Stewart.

‘How about a prayer, John?’ This time Ken’s request met no argument; the men were glad of a bedtime story, of words they didn’t have to think up, of something to lull them into oblivion.

Softly, Young Arnold recited a passage; his tremulous voice all that existed in the dark.

Glorious and gracious God, who dwellest in heaven but beholdest all things below, look down we beseech thee, and hear us calling out of the depth of misery, out of the jaws of this death, which is now ready to swallow us up. Save us Lord or else we perish. Send thy word of command to rebuke the raging winds and the roaring sea, that we are delivered from this distress and may live to serve thee and glorify thy Name all the days of our life.

Colin settled down in a spot between Ken and Weekes, knowing what sleep he might find would be brief, and he’d soon be shoved awake for lookout duty. He wondered where Fowler lay. He wanted to make some gesture to show his regret for the thump yesterday, but darkness shrouded them all.

When he fell into a fitful slumber, Colin dreamed again of books; a rainbow of books: green, gold, blue, turquoise, all the colours of the sea. Among them was a brown one, the colour of his best suit hanging in the wardrobe at home. Colin wanted to pick it up but his dream fingers wouldn’t work.

Then he was no longer alone.

Someone came for the brown book. Someone turned, perhaps as aware of his presence as he was of hers.
She
– he realised it was a she – picked up the book and held it to her chest. Colin tried to speak, to ask who she was, to ask her to tell everyone he was at sea, and their ship had sunk.

But the harder he tried the fainter she grew, and the book and the girl disappeared, and Ken was shoving him, saying, ‘Go back to sleep, lad, you’re hallucinating, there’s no girl here, it’s just us, just us, just us.’

The morning Rose returned to school she locked her bedroom door by pushing the bed up against it, and I lost my temper. Just over five weeks of diabetes, of arguing with her, of being on my own, built up like ice in a broken fridge and shattered in a chilling explosion of language and threats.

I woke feeling morose anyway because it was Jake’s birthday and he wasn’t home to celebrate it. The day would mean nothing to the army. Those in his platoon might pat him on the back and sing a few lines of ‘Happy Birthday’ but he’d not be permitted a call home and I couldn’t be sure the card I’d sent last week would have arrived to let him know I missed him.

We always put up the Christmas decorations on his birthday (the seventh of December) and I promised Rose we’d do it after school, so she’d gone to bed last night in a cheerful mood, saying I couldn’t put Mary or Joseph in the mini wooden stable because she liked to.

‘You always do them wrong,’ she said.

I got out of bed, soft dread ever present at the thought of more finger pricking and fight. Last night I’d hardly slept. I’d read a news article about a diabetic girl who had died in her sleep; her blood sugars had dropped so low, she simply stopped breathing. So now, on top of the midnight blood test, I was up and down in the dark, watching Rose, checking she was still breathing.

I collected the diabetes box and went across the landing. Rose’s door wouldn’t budge. I knocked, panicked.

‘Rose!’ I cried, imagining her unconscious on the other side. ‘Answer me, please, or I’ll have to call an ambulance!’

‘I’m fine,’ she said.

‘Why won’t the door open?’

‘Because the bed’s there,’ she said.

‘Why on earth? Move it now and let me in.’

‘No. Because you’ll make me go to school.’

‘You’re damned right I will.’ I knocked harder. ‘Open it
now
.’

‘
Language
, Natalie,’ she said.

‘Stop with the Natalie!’ I tried to breathe slowly, stop the blood racing through my body, think of a way to cajole her. But hadn’t I done all that? Hadn’t I pleaded and promised and persuaded for weeks? Hadn’t I been patient and done my best? I was tired. Beyond tired.

‘If you don’t move the bed now I’ll smash this door up,’ I said. ‘Don’t think I won’t because I will. I’ll get your dad’s hammer and I’ll smash it up and you’ll be going to school.’

No answer. I’d either scared her or she was still refusing to budge. But I had no way of knowing. When I’d made the threat, it was empty; I’d expected her to open the door. Now, I’d finally had enough. I went downstairs, searched roughly through the kitchen drawers until I found Jake’s wooden mallet. On the landing I passed it from hand to hand, assessing the damage it might do.

‘Have you moved the bed?’ I demanded.

‘Nope,’ she said.

‘Are you going to?’

‘Nope.’ She didn’t think I’d do it.

‘Stay clear of the door because I’m coming in.’ I paused; was I really going to smash it down? ‘Where are you?’

‘Near the window.’ She sounded unsure, like she didn’t know me. Good. Let her be shocked. Let her see
me
have a tantrum for a change.

‘Stay away from the door.’ I raised the mallet. All the frustrations of recent weeks came down against the door with it. Smash, crack. And again and again and again. The flimsy wood splintered and broke. I could see Rose through the ragged gap by her strawberry curtains, mouth open, eyes two large plates, looking very small. Sweat coated my forehead.

‘Stop,’ she cried. ‘I’ll move the bed.’ She abandoned her corner and pulled it clumsily into the middle of the room. I opened the shattered door, went in, and dropped the mallet with a clunk by her bin. She backed away.

I kicked her bin over.

Furious, I said, ‘If you ever pull a stunt like that again, I’ll call Dad’s emergency number and tell him that he shouldn’t bother coming home again. Do you hear me? Because I will.’ Rose didn’t look at me. ‘Don’t you ever stop to think that maybe I hate all this as much as you? I
know
you have to endure the injections, that’s why I’ve tried so
fucking
hard to do everything I can think of to make it as painless as possible. But this behaviour stops now. Right now! I can’t help you if you don’t
let
me. You have to let me. I want my daughter back!’ My voice reached a crescendo, and then softened. ‘Do you hear me? I don’t like
you
. I don’t know who
you
are – I like Rose. You smell like her and you look like her, but you’re not her.’ I stopped to get my breath. Rose hadn’t moved an inch. ‘Right, we’re going to read your blood and do your injection without Colin this morning. I haven’t the energy for it. And then get your things together because you’re going to school. Understood?’

Rose didn’t argue or say
language
or call me Natalie. I followed her downstairs. My anger dissipated as quickly as it had flared at the sight of her spindly legs beneath a purple polka dot nightie. How could I have frightened her like that? Been so violent, spoken so brutally?

I pricked her fingertip; as it bled onto the machine’s strip I saw a thousand future readings, a thousand days of bloodshed, of numbers, of pain. Even if we conquered this disease, it would never be over. Rose would take it into her teenage years, into adulthood, parenthood, old age.

And I couldn’t even keep my temper in check.

While she ate her Bran Flakes quietly at the table, I washed the pots so she’d not see my tears. They fell into the bowl, bursting bubbles. She put her empty dish next to me and I turned to try and say sorry, but she’d gone back upstairs. Footsteps above; back and forth from bed to wardrobe to bed to drawers, pad, pad, pad. Packing for school. No arguing. I’d won the battle but feared I’d lost her for good.

When she went out of the door, silent as Santa Claus, I called after her, ‘I’ll come in to school at lunchtime with Colin’s diary, okay?’ and watched her disappear around the hedge.

To occupy myself until then I rang Vonny. We chatted for half an hour but I didn’t mention my outburst that morning. I couldn’t, I was afraid she’d think me terrible.
The words I want my daughter back, I don’t like you
followed me as I walked around the house with the phone. I tried to drown them out with trivialities; I talked about where we might go on holiday next year and the Christmas shopping and what I might buy Jake. But Vonny wasn’t stupid; she knew me better.

‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.

‘I’m fine,’ I lied. ‘Just tired.’

‘You’re not
you
,’ she said. ‘The bounce has gone out of your voice. Do you want me to come over after work?’

‘I’m okay. We’re putting the decorations up tonight so that’ll be nice. Rose is happy about it. We always do it on Jake’s birthday.’

‘It’s today? No wonder you’re sad. Must be horrible not having him there.’

Far more horrible, I realised, to endure the anniversary of your birth on a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean, as one of Colin’s crew had.

‘Is Rose okay?’ asked Vonny. ‘Feels like I haven’t seen her in ages.’

You wouldn’t know her now
, I thought.

‘She’s putting weight on,’ I said. ‘She takes the injections better now.’ What more could I say? I longed for lunchtime so I could maybe apologise; I dreaded it in case it the words wouldn’t come.

When I put the phone down, it rang again immediately. My boss Sarah asked how things were. I knew she probably needed to know when I was planning to return to work, but she didn’t ask. I was missed, she said. Everyone was thinking of me. Was there anything I needed? I needed so many things. Like Colin had in his diary –
ask and ye shall receive
– I asked only for a small thing. I asked Sarah if I might ring her in another few weeks, once Rose didn’t need me quite as much.

When I hung up I went upstairs to get the decorations from the loft and saw the broken door. Its top panel looked like a row of broken shark teeth. I’d have to replace it before Jake returned. He’d seen me lose my temper before, smash plates and swear at inanimate objects that wouldn’t work. But the knowledge that his wife had taken a hammer to a door with her child on the other side might be too much to take. What kind of person did such a thing? I’d have to tell him. But I’d do it when he was home and I’d made everything right again with Rose.

I carried two boxes of decorations into the living room and realised we didn’t have a tree. Last year our silver one had died. The threadbare six-foot twig had been passed down from Jake’s great granny and had served us well, if a little pitifully, throughout our marriage. Every year I’d squint as Jake plugged it in, say, ‘Surely this time it’ll blow up.’ Last year it had, with a smoky stench. Rose had jumped up and squealed. Jake and I had laughed hard.

That was a lifetime ago.

I’d have to buy another – a new tree
and
a new door. I spent the morning unhappily browsing online for a door that would match the others, and for a tree gaudy enough to please Rose. Before I knew it, lunchtime had come and I got together the diabetes paraphernalia and Colin’s diary and drove to school.

It was trying to snow. I hoped it would; it always reminded me of Jake’s surprise visit on his bike. Tiny flakes fluttered across the windscreen like the white feathers Rose often caught and wished upon. She sometimes said the swish-swish-swish of the windscreen wipers sounded like wish-wish-wish.

Did she still wish?

Mrs White met me in the school corridor with a pile of folders, holding the hand of a boy covered in yellow paint. The last time I’d been there was to persuade Rose to open a toilet door. How had I succeeded then but not this morning? I seemed to be getting worse at my management of things, not better. Mrs White was warmer with me and didn’t even mention the suspension.

‘Rose is in the staff room waiting for you,’ she said. ‘You can use my office while I go for lunch.’

In the staff room Rose sat alone, Hello Kitty rucksack in her lap and a tiny smudge of ink streaking her left cheek like a tick after the right answer. One sock had fallen down and wrinkled around her ankle; the other clung victoriously to her knee. She stared at the floor and hummed a melody I didn’t know. The enormous room dwarfed her.

I waited for her reaction upon seeing me. My heart hung on it. But at that moment a dinner bell rang and I flinched when children filled the corridor and so I missed Rose standing up and coming to the door.

‘Are we going to the cloakroom?’ she asked. It was where we’d done previous injections when a room wasn’t available.

‘Mrs White said we can use her office while she’s at lunch.’

We walked to it, Rose swinging her bag, shy somehow, coy. It was difficult to assess her expression so I tried small talk, asked about PE and what she’d done at playtime and got a couple of agreeable answers. Once in the office, I locked the door and got out the lancets, insulin, blood meter, and Colin’s diary. On the table the book looked out of place, like a prop from a period drama abandoned on the set of a contemporary play.

‘I’m gonna sit on Mrs White’s chair,’ said Rose. ‘See what it’s like to be boss of the whole school.’ She jumped into the leather seat and twirled it around a few times, her hair dancing flames. Just like the old Rose. ‘This is cool,’ she said. ‘I’d make a great headmistress, wouldn’t I?’

When she stopped spinning I knelt at her feet and she offered her hand. More than ever I didn’t want to cut her finger end. Like Grandad Colin, I often played the wish exchange game; I’d imagine that if I saw three birds on the washing line Rose’s blood sugars would be perfect, or if the bin men came ten minutes earlier than usual I’d find a book under her pillow again.

Now I held her finger softly between mine, wanting to kiss its pink tip before clicking the pricker against it, wanting to utter a million apologies. But I was afraid to speak. I was afraid to break the spell and stop her being an agreeable Rose who answered my questions (if a little reservedly) and swung on chairs with abandon.

‘Go on then,’ she urged.

‘Should we open the diary now?’

‘No,
after
my injection,’ she said, ‘because I want to read it this time.’

‘You do? Okay.’

We did her blood – seven-point-six – and I injected her tummy (Rose’s least preferred place). Then, between mouthfuls of cheese sandwich, in a careful, reverent voice, she read from another randomly opened page.

I have never forgiven myself for hurting Young Fowler. But I did worse. I can write now all the excuses. I can record that it was a particularly bad day, following a particularly bad night, but they were all bad, all enough to drive a man to do things he might later regret, things that might later wake him in the dark and have him lying there trying to ignore his demons. I do not now know for sure which day it was – it could have been the fifteenth or the twentieth. We were weak. I was weak. But some of the men began singing, ‘Two Dead Men and a Bottle of Rum’, over and over and over. It drove me half mad. It was King and then Bott. Bott sang it and sang it, his eyes wild, and I couldn’t stand it. I punched him, right in the face. He stopped at once. I don’t think he’d even known he was singing. But he stopped. He didn’t sing again. Yes, I can write now the excuses, but they do not lessen my anguish. They do not help me sleep. And it’s much too late to say sorry
.

When Rose finished reading, the last line hung in the air between us. The faraway sounds of chairs scraping on floor and a whistle in the playground hauled us back to reality again. I wanted to say sorry; sorry I’d scared her and behaved like a bratty child, sorry I’d said the F-word when she didn’t deserve it, sorry I’d been stupid and cruel.

But Rose spoke first.

‘I get why Grandad Colin got so mad,’ she said. ‘When you feel that tired you always act mean to the ones you like most. I just wish he didn’t feel so bad afterwards. Cos he really wasn’t.’

Was she talking about my behaviour too? Was she explaining how it had been for her, and excusing me for breaking the door?