CHAPTER 61
“What brought this on, Pete?”

He was silent for just the few seconds it took me to realise how worried he really was.

“Ah, Gerald, mate, it’s how he is. Bloody stubborn, pig-headed, independent, call it what you will. I can’t tell him… Shit, mate, he thinks I’m lining him up here cause I don’t think he can cope on his own, find his own…”

Another short silence, and again I waited.

“I nearly said ‘find his own feet’, and that would… I’m not making sense, am I?”

“Perfect sense, my friend. He thinks you see him as damaged goods, return to sender, aye?”

Yet another silence, and that one worried me. When he came back on, his voice was much softer.

“That was my real worry, mate. Return to bloody sender. I thought… I thought he’d not cope, take the easy way out. But it’s not bloody easy, is it? No, he thinks I see him as broken, needing charity”

“There’s more to it, though, isn’t there?”

He gave yet another deep sigh, a sound I was getting very used to. “Gerald, mate, I think it’s like nursery food. Comfort eating, if you take my point. He joined up from Yorkshire, did his basic training up here even if his tiffy course was in Arborfield, and I really think, in the back of his mind, he sees Yorkshire as a sort of extension of Afghanistan. Get away from here, get back to the nursery, where he went to school, and it’s all rose-tinted glasses. Scaring me”

“Pete?”

“Yeah?”

“What is he looking to study? Engineering course?”

He laughed, at last, but it wasn’t as happily as he normally did. “You won’t credit this one, Gerald, but he wants to do books and that. English Literature!”

“Beg pardon? Where did that one come from?”

“Oh, he’s always been a reader, my lad. Always one for the books, and the comics before that. Used to… Used to share them with his friend. Friends. Anyway, he’s got the necessary points, and the Legion are sponsoring him for a place to live, if he needs one. That limits his choices a bit, to where they actually have a home”

“They’re good people, the Legion, Pete. Where’s he looking?”

“Oh, Southampton, Pompey, Winchester, that area. We used to live in Grot Spot… You know, Gerald, I just realised: he’s doing what I did, just in reverse. I mean, I went down there when I was young, and when… When things didn’t go as well as they could, I came straight back up here, back to the old house, back to my own bloody nursery. He’s got a lot of me in him, I think”

It wasn’t like Pete to hesitate so much when talking, and I guessed there must be deeper issues he didn’t want to discuss and he was filtering what he said to me. Val’s words came to mind, and I wondered who the woman in question had been.

“Grot Spot?”

“Gosport. We passed it on the ferry, remember? I know there’s a Legion or Cheshire home somewhere near Southampton, so that’s the easiest one for him”

“Is he up to it, though? Physically?”

“Short answer? Nowhere near, but he’s getting very in-your-face about being a cripple. That’s his word for it, and he’s getting rather good at embarrassing and upsetting people he thinks might be looking at him the wrong way”

“What way’s that?”

“With any hint of pity. Don’t get me wrong, don’t include yourself in that; he thinks far too much of you”

“So what’s to do, then?”

“You know, I really don’t have a clue, mate, apart from just being there when he decides he does want me. He’s not the lad he was, but he still is, if you get me”

“Pete, aye. I know what you mean, and I know you’re not the sort to let him down, either. So what can we do to help?”

He laughed, but it was gentle. “You’ve gone all domesticated, mate! Saying ‘we’ all the time; I think that girl has been good for you. Anyway, just be there. You’ll know when, I’m sure”

I took his point, and after we had said our goodbyes I rang Rodney, and then Matthew, both of whom were very much in favour of the ‘do’. Last of all was Ernie.

“Gerald Barker! When are you going to get off your backside and visit us, instead of dragging him off all over continent?”

“Hiya, Ada. I suppose it’s you I really need to talk to, anyway. Talk to Powers That Be, like. Organ grinder rather than monkey”

“You cheeky pup! Ernie’s off down his garden with a bag of stuff for compost heap. What do you need my permission for this time?”

“It’s the lass, Ada”

“That… That lass as went on trip with you?”

“Aye. Susie”

“Our Ernie says she wasn’t what he expected. Proper lass, even if she might have needed a razor now and again”

“Aye, happen he’s not wrong there. What it is, lad’s asked her, you know, set his cap proper, like”

“What? Engaged? Does he know?”

“That’s funny thing, Ada. He took her out first time as a joke with his mates, so he knows full well. Just, well, our Susie has a way with her. Hard not to see her for what she is rather than, well, rather than what she’s supposed to be. Lad’s got the eyes for that”

“Gerald, I have to say one thing, so hear me out. I don’t hold with all this modern stuff. Lads are lads, lasses are lasses, but. And that’s word: but. We know you. If you are happy with it, then we’ll go with your judgement. Anyhow, Ernie was right taken with her. Got head screwed on right way, he says. So what’s plan?”

I ran through the ideas for the Ship and the accommodation, and she laughed. “Proper bed for us, Gerald! Too old for messing about in boats, Ernie and me. Who else is coming?”

“Her workmates, a few other friends, and I’m going to ask the Officers up”

“She be happy with that?”

I thought for a moment, but the answer was obvious. Susie moved in two worlds of friendship. If one of them was full of geriatrics, well, it was essentially how we had saved each other’s life.

“Aye, Ada. She will be”

A fortnight later, we sat down to a meal in the Ship. Andy had done the obligatory, and even though it wasn’t the biggest ring in the world, its sparkle almost matched that in her eyes and those of her mother. In some unexplained manner, Matthew had appointed himself Master of Ceremonies, and he went through a prolonged series of humorous character assassinations of what might be called our inner circle, which included references to my height and the colour of the hair I had once had. We had toasts, there was what passes for dancing afterwards, and I caught young Pete at one point clearly comparing the quality of his wheelchair with that of the one bearing Maurice.

The younger man looked better than he had seemed at Christmas. The pallor was still there, and he was not far from being emaciated, but there was a smile back on his face, even if it didn’t quite match that of my memories of him before Afghanistan.

He was waking up again, but I couldn’t be sure if it was true healing or just the prospect of what his Dad had called running back to the nursery. I stayed out of the conversation, leaving a broken man to find his own way home, and joined Susie, deep in conversation with her doctors. Julian was ever so slightly drunk, Charles much more so, and I resolved to detail one or two of my lads to keep a quiet eye on them, before reminding myself that ‘my lads’ were probably working hard to reach a similar state, and that this was actually their night off. Gaffer’s job.

“Trooper Barker! Dear boy, we come bearing gifts, two wise men, what? Magi? Colonel-eye, what? Where was I?”

I grinned, revising my estimate of Julian’s sobriety downward. “You were offering gifts, Julian”

“Oh yes! Of course! Susie, dear girl, work finished, job done, what?”

She wasn’t that steady herself. “You what? Er, beg pardon? Andy, love, top my glass up? Ta!”

As he went off to the bar, she turned back to the medics, much more alert than she had been seconds before.

“You mean what I think? You’re signing me off?”

“Absolutely! Thought it would be better in person, as---“

She stepped forward, grabbing each in turn and kissing them on the cheek. Charles was snorting with laughter.

“Absolutely, my dear! One doesn’t get such a delightful thank-you by letter! Now, dates to avoid?”

She shook her head. “Nope. Got to start saving first”

Julian was shaking his head, in that insistent but imprecise manner of the rather drunk.

“Not at all, dear lady. Expense is covered”

Some of the girl I had first met came back to her as she drew herself up, arms folding across her chest.

“You run businesses, you two. You can’t just, you know…”

“But we haven’t! Strings have been pulled. This will be under the eggs---the aegis of the National Health. Waiting list manipulation, influence exerted, and---“

His voice dropped to a rather loud whisper: “And a little bit of blackmail, don’t you know. Nothing heinous. Now, here’s your young chap with your drink. Mum’s the word, what?”

I left them to their plotting, yet again being given hints of an entire world in parallel with my own, and walked straight into Darren.

“Mr Barker, got a favour to ask. Lads want to say a bit about Susie, and it’s been handed to me as, well, you know”

“That you’re one with gob? Aye. Have word with Colonel Folland over there”

Five minutes later, and a ting-ting of cutlery on glass.

“Pray silence, my friends! We are here to celebrate a betrothal, and we do so as friends. One such friend wishes to speak! Darren…”

He looked very out of sorts as he stood at the head of his table, looking from face to face for any criticism.

“Ladies and gentlemen, friends, aye, that’s right word here. Look, people tell me I’ve got a big gob, but I’m not right good with this sort of thing, so here it is. Now, not being nasty, but everyone here knows that lass over there with the shy lad, that she has some issues. Well, I were going to say that we don’t care, but that would be wrong, cause we do care, and she came into our workplace, did Susie, and we knew what issues were, but that were not what we met. Not who we met.

“We all met a lass with a sense of humour, a hard worker, a good sport. Always found time to talk to us, never talked down, even though she’s in office and we’re ones with dirty hands. That’s her character, but it’s her nature that we could see. Sometimes you don’t realise how badly-off others can be till you get your nose rubbed in it, but that’s not her way. Then there’s lad standing with her.

“Andy, we all know what were going on, cause Susie told us. I’ll be honest, I wanted to give you a smack for that, but she says, no, she says you’re not really like that. Most of all, she says you’re not your mates and, well, neither are your mates anymore. I mean, they’re not your mates. Oh, you know what I mean. And you’re doing right thing by Susie, and if I have it right, it’s never a small thing for lasses like her. So, in a bit, I’m going to come over there and shake your hand as a friend should. First of all, though, ladies and gents: traditional thing. All got a drink? Aye? Toast, then. Andy and Susie: long and happy life together!”

We drank, Susie cried, and young Peter drank so much he had to be put to bed.