CHAPTER 57
I couldn’t wait for another evening, and so I loaded up the van with mugs and selected girls, Rachel and Emma this time, as soon as the meal was finished and the rest had settled down for yet another run-through of the pictures. I had taken twenty minutes for a quick internet search about Ms Stevens, and the results had left me feeling utterly horrified. I didn’t waste time asking myself stupid questions about how people could do such things, et bloody cetera, as I had met Cooper and Hamilton, so had an intimate knowledge of what alleged humans could be capable of doing to others.

The details were that awful. Bastards.

Rather than Splott, as it was a dry and warm evening and the working girls would most likely be busy with trade, I headed for the area of the City where Sparky usually had his doss, picking up some loaves and cheap sliced ham along with four bottles of squash. As soon as we pulled up, and the side door slid open, there were figures emerging from side streets and alleyways. Nothing seemed to change there, nothing ever got better.

Sparky ambled out with a grin and a wave to my two helpers, but clearly saw something in my face that worried him.

“What’s up, Debbie? One of the girls?”

I shook my head, calling over to my assistants to check they were okay on their own for a few minutes before leading Sparky off to the other side of the road, where we had at least a semblance of privacy.

“Got me worried now, woman. What’s going on?”

“Oh, shit, mate. Not with us, not this time. Do you mind if I ask a couple of personal questions? Might have some news for you”

He gave me a flat and measuring stare.

“Why am I feeling this isn’t a good idea?”

“Bear with me, just for a sec. If you don’t want to answer, I’ll understand”

“Go on”

“Now, I know this is probably not something you want to go back over, but I need to confirm you were a Marine. Falklands, yeah?”

“Don’t want to talk about that, Deb. Really don’t”

“Not what I want to talk about. Did you know someone, another Marine, called Mike Stevens? Supposed to be from Northumberland, originally?”

His eyes widened.

“Fuck, yes. Big bastard, good back-up in a ruck. Always thought he might be hiding the sausage with his mate… Oh shit. What’s happened? Got to be bad news, the face you’ve got on, Debbie”

I took a few deep breaths, before asking the next question.

“Bad news, yes. Can keep it to myself if you’d prefer”

“Not now, Deb. Get it out, please. How did he die?”

“Murder, Sparky. Pushed off a motorway bridge, went under some cars and trucks. Killers have just been given life”

His face worked for a couple of minutes, as he started to say several things, shutting up each time before arriving at the words he wanted, or perhaps the ones he could handle.

“Makes a change, Debbie. Having someone else who did it. Too many of the lads sorted themselves out afterwards. Makes a fucking change”

He took a few of his own deep breaths before fixing me with a stare.

“Where was this, Debbie? And what aren’t you telling me? I can feel there’s more. Wasn’t out with a boyfriend, anything like that? I always did wonder”

“Would that cause you a problem, Sparky?”

“You bloody joking? I know which pub you lot use, and I know what your girls really are!”

“What they really are is just that, Sparky. Girls”

“Probably not the best way to phrase it, was it?”

“Not really, love, but I know how you meant it. It happened in Crawley, near Gatwick Airport”

“Shit. No way I can get over there. They give him a good send off?”

I nodded. Get the next bit over with, woman.

“I really think so. Looks like the whole town came out for it. Even sorted her out a proper headstone”

His face twitched.

“What did you say?”

I took his hands in mine.

“What I meant to say, love. She. Had a date for her surgery, that was why she was out. Celebrating, wasn’t it?”

Suddenly, to my astonishment, he was in tears, so I tugged him into an alley and out of sight, until he could find some self-control again. I just held him to me, and in the end, I wasn’t sure who was really supporting whom. He spoke into my shoulder.

“Sorry, girl. Just, well, lost so many mates after that shitshow, more than I did in the actual war, isn’t it? Mike was a decent bloke, diamond, and here we are, and I never, ever got a chance to know him, her, the real one. Someone who… Shit. Not going there, Deb. Just leave it that once or twice, he was the only thing that kept me from being slotted. Killed. She. Oh, the poor, poor fucker!”

Once more, he took some deep, shuddering breaths.

“Which jail are the cunts in? No. Don’t answer. Somebody will know. End of subject. Now…”

More breathing exercises, as he fought himself back into control.

“Shall we go and see what stories those two girls have from their holiday? Don’t have to be true; silly and funny will do me tonight”

We wiped eyes, and made our way back to the van, smiles loosely attached, and I wondered what had actually happened in the South Atlantic to leave such wreckage in a man’s life. Whatever it was, it wasn’t the sort of thing I had ever seen in a war film, and I kept thinking the phrase ‘Not just me, then’. We made the most of the warm evening, seeing life come back into some faces that had lacked it for so long, and then closed up the van and headed home after another long hug from Sparky.

“If you are ever, you know, heading over that way, Debbie, and you have a spare seat, well…”

“Any time, love. You know that”

“Thanks, love. I know that… no. Not going there. Let me know, that’s all. And same goes for any work you need doing”

I left a shattered man by the side of the road, and neither girl said a word about my tears until we were home. As I parked the van behind the House, Rachel turned to me, laying a hand on my arm.

“He knew that woman, didn’t he? The one on the news?”

“Yes, love, he did”

“What can we do to help?”

“Seriously? Sorry; I didn’t mean that to sound rude. It’s just that there are some things people go through, bad things, and there isn’t really anything anyone can do. Except be there for them. Catch them if they fall”

I settled down in bed that evening rather earlier than normal, sleep taking a long time to arrive. Not just me, then, carrying my history like a millstone.

Cathy and Nell were home a fortnight later, and as I had warned them, they ended up sharing a room, which brought a series of bad jokes from Charlie about being used to sharing, just not in THAT way. The girl was clearly healing, more so than Tiff, but there was still a flat refusal, or perhaps inability, to leave the House, and she spent most of her time in her night clothes. The remnants of my own Summer disappeared in a swathe of short runs, as Bert called in the favours he had bestowed on me earlier in the season. I had been given my time off, and it was now my turn to allow other drivers to have their own breaks. Much as I loved Bert, he remained a very hard-nosed businessman, in a cuddly and avuncular way. I had to smile at one point, when he gave me a week of longer runs that included areas near the peregrine cliffs of the Wye Valley as well as the Pembrokeshire coast.

When I pointed out that I could hardly park an articulated lorry in a tourist car park, he just grinned and pointed to an old bike in the corner of the yard.

I took his advice, and the bike, and all I will say is that if god had meant me to pedal around on two wheels, why had he invented the internal combustion engine? My arse hurt for bloody ages. Nice thought, Bert, but next time I’ll try and load a fifty or something.

In between delivery shifts, I spent some time watching Alicia’s back, as her father seemed to be doing his best to construct a relationship with his daughter that he had clearly never managed when he thought he had a son.

Serena was the next surprise, as Heidi let me know that that girl’s mother was now following a similar route to Alicia’s father, and yet again we had the little dances of introduction, or perhaps re-introduction, and Kim, as was becoming her habit now, stepped up to cover when both Paul and myself were unable to play.

That season also brought the important letters, and I had a whole new set of worries as results came in for O and A level exams. It was a social event of an odd kind, because Heidi had arranged for the results to be delivered courtesy of her office address, as a way of keeping the House address out of the hands of those who might have less than kind intentions towards my girls.

A social event indeed, where so many futures opened up. All of the girls got something out of it, whether it be a chance to head off for A-levels or a vocational course, or, in the cases of Patricia and Serena, high enough grades for their offer from Cardiff University.

I felt lost, as every single one of them was still a child to me, still felt like someone I had to stand in front of and protect. Tricia and Serena were the toast of the House that evening, and when Tricia called across to Nell, “How’s it go? Climbing club first, or is it the dancing? Or shall we just dive straight into the shagging?”

Nell, bless her, blushed like a stop light, while both Cathy and Kim just looked almost insufferably smug. I looked a question at the latter, and she smiled, even more smugly.

“Phil’s got his place, yeah, and that’s the other thing. He’s got a flat share, another couple, both at Cardiff, yeah? Bus route to here, so I can get to work easy”

“Flat share”

“Er, yeah. Just the four of us”

She mumbled something, and I asked her to repeat it so I could hear.

“Two-bedroom flat came up, furnished. All of us share the rent, it’s cheaper than Halls of Residence”

Leave it, Debbie. The other girls will do the embarrassing later, Charlie for one.

Tiff was the next to speak, though, and I realised she had cut across Charlie, and it had been deliberate.

“Nell?”

“Yes, love?”

“Those pictures. In that river”

“Yeah… I told Cathy not to, didn’t I?”

“Um. Yes. But you didn’t have no top on”

In a very small voice: “No”

“Yeah, we could see that. Not going to ask about YOUR knickers, though. Just his. Theirs. The two lads”

Suddenly, Nell was grinning.

“Water wasn’t cold, not really. Like a sort of trapped pool, water dribbling in at one end, slowly out the other. It’s up in between two mountains in Glen Coe, the Little Buachaille and Beinn Fhada. When I say the water wasn’t cold…”

She started giggling, and then stopped as best she could, Cathy taking over with little snorting sounds.

“I know what Nell’s going to say!”

“You were the one who pointed it out, Cathy”

“Well, yeah! I was the one still dressed, wasn’t I?”

“Only till you’d taken the pictures, you sod!”

Kim was now chuckling, clearly having worked out whatever the joke was, so I just held up a hand.

“Get to the point, Nell, if there is one!”

“Yeah. That’s the point. Cool water, so there were no, er points. All shrivelled up, weren’t they?”

Maisie harrumphed, while trying not to smirk.

“What’s the point of a you-know-what when it’s like that?”

To my astonishment, the next voice was Gemma’s.

“I hear there are nice ways to, er, warm them up again”

I took a quick look to make sure Nicky and Tiff were okay, as Charlie sniffed, as theatrically as ever.

“Oh Georgie, may I warm you up? I know the nicest ways!”

It was one of the best evenings I had ever managed while sober, and although sleep was once more slow to come that night, it was only because I kept jerking awake with laughter.