Worlds Apart (18 page)

Sullivan’s behaviour, however, surprised me more than anyone’s: he became protective towards me. He’d go out of his way to be by my side; be it on exercise, in the classroom or on parade. Sometimes he’d even make a beeline for me, causing a stir amongst the recruits. But I think he purposely did this to send a message.

‘Alright, Ahmed?’ he’d say.

‘Yes,’ I’d reply. I can look after myself, I wanted to add, and remind him of the ‘sticks and stones’ rhyme.

He’d make a point of walking me out of the barracks, causing some of the soldiers to stop and stare. Sullivan
would give them a hard stare back, at which point their faces would soften and then they would smile at me. I wanted to stick two fingers up at them but resisted.

As time went on and the government’s reasons to invade Iraq weakened, my views began to waver. On the one hand it was what these lads had been waiting for – to put their training into action – but I couldn’t agree that the war was fair. A lad once told me in the unit that the army’s main roles were to prevent wars and stabilise conflict areas, which was heart-warming, but this intervention didn’t feel like it fulfilled either of these roles.

It was at this point that I began to pay attention to the army’s role in global conflicts, past and present. I turned on the news more to follow current events. I reflected back on the last invasion, after Kuwait was attacked, and began to understand Dad’s obsession. Nobody else in the household took an interest. I wish I knew then what I know now and had taken the time out to watch the news with Dad and debate matters.

It was difficult to voice my opinions at the barracks. If I said I wasn’t sure about the Iraq invasion I might have been accused of being a traitor, I thought. But if I said I fully supported it, I could imagine the surprised looks I’d have got. Would they react the same way if Becky opposed the war? I wondered. I shouldn’t care
what anyone thought of me, I told myself. I couldn’t change the way other people thought, but I could change the way
I
did.

‘C
agney! Lacey! Over here.’

Becky and I grabbed our weapons, like the TV cop girls, and scurried over to join the line of men sat on the classroom floor with their weapons in front of them. Tonight we were back at Chelsea Barracks doing our regular weapons class.

Staff Carter was one of our trainers on this phase. He was a tall, lanky chap with hawk-like eyes. His voice was far more controlled than the others, which made him scarier in my opinion.

He had it in for me from the moment we met, especially when I took his weapon by mistake and used it all weekend without realising. I still have flashbacks from the punishment I received from him.

‘Anyone want to start off by telling me what this is?’ Carter held the same model weapon in his hands, pointing it down to the floor and looking through the eye piece. ‘Ahmed?’

I looked up at him, wide eyed, heart in throat.

‘Thinking?’ he intervened.

I stared down at my weapon, trying to remember back to my notes from last week’s class.

‘The gun…’

‘It’s a weapon, Ahmed.’

He turned round to the lads and started talking to them, then knelt down on the floor and took the weapon apart, overwhelming us with information about each piece. His eyes flickered in my direction a few times but no further questions were asked – thank God.

I saw Sullivan out of the corner of my eye. I didn’t want to look at him. I’d overheard one of the lads talking to him on the phone earlier before class as he made his way in on the train from Sheffield.

‘What’s he doing in Sheffield?’ I had asked, wondering if his parents lived there.

The lad looked round, surprised at my curiosity. ‘He lives up there with his girlfriend and kid.’

Thankfully the lad then looked away to check his text messages and didn’t see my face drop.

I felt cheated. Sullivan had flirted with me when he had a family at home, which upset me more. For some reason I had thought I was special and now I felt like an idiot for thinking it could be anything more than friendship.

We followed Staff Carter’s instructions, pulling our M16 weapons apart and going through the pieces and then putting them back together. I watched Becky
clicking the pieces in place, and copied, but couldn’t keep up, especially the last bit with the two semi-cylinder shells which were difficult to click into place because the weapon was long. Frustrated, I stood the weapon on its butt, wrapped both hands around the cylinders and firmly slid my fingers up and down a few times.

‘Take a grip of that, Ahmed!’ Carter shouted.

The lads looked round at me and roared with laughter.

I didn’t understand the joke and carried on clicking it back in place. I wasn’t in the mood for childish pranks. We were a week away from finishing, and I was anxious. The numbers had now gone down to about fourteen men left on training.

Past memories and future anticipations became one big blur in my head. The strange world I’d stepped into seemed to have impacted on me more than I’d bargained, not knowing from one day to the next what I’d be doing, except that it would be tougher. But there was also a strong sense of belonging to something, like a family. I recalled the first time we were taken for a warm up on female selection and spewing my guts out behind a tree, wanting to quit. Weeks passed, girls fell by the wayside; some from injuries, others just not turning up. The irony of how it ended, with the physically strongest and weakest girls together, no one would have guessed, not even the trainers.

There was a lot of guessing amongst the lads about what would be next for Becky and me, but nobody knew. Whatever it was, it had all been worth it to get here.

A young officer suddenly entered the room. Carter didn’t seem to mind. He walked over to me. I was taken by surprise when he quietly asked me to go with him. I looked up at Carter, who gave me the nod. I placed my weapon down and followed the young officer out.

I wondered why Becky wasn’t joining me. Perhaps they were giving us some assessment results, I thought, but couldn’t remember anything being mentioned. I made my way along the empty corridor, behind the officer. The only sound to be heard was our boots squeaking on the shiny floor. It reminded me of my first visit; quiet and deserted.

I was summoned into an office where another officer was sat behind his desk busy scribbling away. He looked like he was in his early forties, with short, dirty-blond hair, matchstick moustache and sleeves rolled up to reveal hairy arms. He glanced up at me then looked back down and carried on writing. A female officer was stood behind him, which was strange. She was also wearing khaki, was in her late thirties, tall and slightly overweight, with hazel eyes and full lips. Her dark hair was tucked beneath her beret. I didn’t recognise the
regiment she was from nor did I know why she was joining us.

Finally, the officer put his pen down, told me to stand ‘at ease’ and began talking. The next ten minutes were a blur of confusing words, a lot of military terms that made no sense to me. Perhaps I wasn’t meant to understand. He finished and I was dismissed.

Outside, I stopped by the stairway trying to catch up with everything I’d just heard. Something about not being allowed to finish the training course and for me to hand my kit back in. I stupidly hadn’t asked any questions and had just stood there like a lemon. But what was I supposed to do, challenge my superior? It wasn’t that Becky and I had been thrown off, I reminded myself – the whole programme had been cut, including the girls coming in behind us.

I suddenly felt angry. What was it all for? All those terrible panic attacks, the sleep deprivation, being ostracised, not to mention that my personal life had been turned upside down, my career was now non-existent and I was skint. Any chance of a relationship was now long gone, with or without my parents’ blessing, as I had become a different person now.

I took a deep breath, tried to disregard the girl inside me screaming ‘it’s not fair’ and headed back to the classroom in a zombie-like state. Carter looked over
at Becky, signalling her turn. She looked across at me for clues, but I just picked up my weapon and began dismantling it.

Carter was part of this, I was sure. I wondered if any of the lads here knew, but guessed that if they didn’t now, they soon would.

Fifteen minutes later Becky returned, looking devastated. The expression on her face was how I was feeling. Everyone couldn’t help but stare at her.

‘Are you OK?’ Carter asked, as if he had to.

Becky shook her head slowly. ‘No,’ she replied. ‘No, I’m not.’

I left the barracks after handing in my kit. It still hadn’t sunk in. What was I meant to do next week: report to Captain Wood? I checked my phone and had a missed call from a number I didn’t recognise, followed up with a voicemail. It was Liz, my friend from female selection. She was in the area at our usual place across the road.

Liz didn’t look any different to the first evening we’d met; same hairstyle, same accessories, probably the same suit under that same coat. It did make me wonder if I looked any different. She began with the tradition of talking about the weather, then went on to the horrific train journey she had getting here, then to the latest headline on the news about the internet bubble burst
and recession. I wasn’t sure if she was saying this because she knew I was about to walk away from my company, but I didn’t react. What surprised me most was that she didn’t ask me anything about the training. Time ticked on and we got on to the second round of drinks and still not a word on the subject. Had she known that Becky and I would get thrown off? Why ignore me for months then call me up tonight of all nights if not?

‘I was in Birmingham last week.’ She took a sip of wine and looked me straight in the eye. It was a strange look, one I’d never seen before. ‘Gorgeous Eid celebrations, did you get a chance to go home?’

I looked at her blankly as she carried on. I didn’t know where this conversation was going but I didn’t like it. She knew there was no way I could have gone home because of the training. I wasn’t sure if she was doing all this on purpose, but it felt like a kick in the stomach.

Despite this, it was also pleasant to learn how culturally in touch she was. I wondered why I’d felt the need to hide this side of my life from the army? Just because I couldn’t talk to my family about the army didn’t mean I couldn’t talk to the army about my family. It suddenly dawned on me that some of the lads probably knew more about Islam than I did from all the travelling they’d done around the world to Muslim countries.

‘Liz,’ I cut in.

She looked surprised by my interruption. I wasn’t sure if it was because she wasn’t used to being interrupted or just that it was coming from me.

‘We got thrown off the course.’

I studied her face for traces of pretence but it all looked genuine. Her expression morphed from ‘shock’ to ‘not surprised they’d do that’ to ‘anger’. The anger stage reminded me of Becky before I left tonight. For some reason she’d stayed behind to talk to the trainers about the decision and why the programme was cut. I wasn’t sure how that would help; it’s not civvy street where you can speak to someone superior to oppose a decision. The army had made their mind up and there was no going back.

‘They can do what they want,’ she finally said.

I couldn’t argue with that and being a private I was more of a pawn in their eyes. I suddenly thought about the new colonel. Perhaps it was his decision to end it; perhaps he felt the regiment wasn’t ready to have women coming home in body bags.

‘Do you think they expected us to fail?’ I tried.

A small smile escaped Liz’s lips, more sympathetic than patronising, then she looked out of the window at the traffic on the King’s Road.

‘We can sit here and speculate all evening but we’ll
never know the truth,’ she said. ‘But look at it this way, it would be worse if you got through then were given a desk job, especially as a private.’

I didn’t know what she meant but knew she could see further ahead than me.

‘So they had no intention of letting us get through?’ I was going round in circles and she wasn’t giving me a straight answer.

‘’Course not.’

Was this why she left, because she knew? Was this training just some political point-scoring game behind closed doors?

‘You didn’t think they would allow you both to walk through the barracks wearing a blue belt and sandy beret, did you?’

‘Well, I…’

‘You didn’t think they would put women in patrols with these lads behind enemy lines?’

I opened my mouth to say something but she got in first again.

‘You didn’t think it was anything more than an experiment?’

I sat back for a moment and tried to soak it all up. How could I have been so stupid to have thought it anything more? I remember our colonel once saying that if the lads didn’t take the women on training seriously,
then it was a reflection of how the full-time 22 SAS soldiers felt about the TA lads doing the training.

And here I was, the bottom of the pile; a civvy trying to do something that people with years of military experience were trying to achieve.

‘I don’t know what I thought would happen,’ I said. ‘But this wasn’t it.’

For the next few months I went on autopilot. Work was pulling me down; I clock-watched until 6 p.m. then went straight back to my empty flat. Very few things got under my skin, but this vacuum that the army had left was unforgivable, a betrayal at all levels. I thumbed through an old address book in an attempt to re-engage with friends I’d lost touch with since the training. Hardly any got back to me and I couldn’t blame them.

I called home a few times, which surprised Mum.

‘Is everything alright?’ she asked.

‘Yes, of course,’ I lied. ‘Just very busy…’

I could hear laughter in the background. Mum was entertaining again. I would never move back home but I suddenly had an urge for Mum’s cooking, serving tea to guests, the noise, the chaos, my glitzy clothes. This had been my childhood, it was my family, my culture. It was me.