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She slumped back onto the pillow with her head swimming and throbbing, realising that a) she was still fully clothed and b) she was still drunk. For a few minutes she contemplated calling in sick, but ingrained Army discipline got the better of her. She forced herself out of bed and took a cold shower to shock herself into consciousness. Nate was curled up asleep on the sofa and she crept out of the flat without waking him.
By the time she got back to the barracks she was feeling truly awful. ‘Nothing for it,’ she said to herself, opening the drawer where she stashed the whisky bottle. ‘Hair of the dog.’
The clinic was full of the usual Monday morning complaints: sprained ankles and bruised knees from football games, black eyes and cut lips from knuckle fights. For once, she was grateful to have nothing too testing to deal with, feeling proud of herself for holding it together and making some reasonable diagnoses. Her boss didn’t seem to notice a thing, even though she’d felt so nauseous that at times she’d had to rush to the toilet.
It was almost certainly the lad with the ear infection who gave her away, the little bastard. He must have smelled it when she’d leaned close to look down the otoscope. Not long after, the medic in charge had popped his head around the door.
‘A word, Lance Corporal. My office. Now.’ She stood to attention as he bent to bring his face within inches of her own and sniffed loudly, several times. She breathed as lightly as she could without passing out.
‘You stink of booze. Are you drunk, Corporal Merton?’
‘I don’t believe so, sir. Not at eleven o’clock in the morning. Sir.’
‘You certainly smell of alcohol, and I can’t have you on duty if there’s any chance of it. You are dismissed for the day. Report to me here, eighteen hundred hours.’
‘Yes, sir.’
She spent the day sleeping it off, and arrived at her boss’s office fully sober but with her head pulsing with pain that even heavy doses of Co-codamol hadn’t managed to shift.
‘I can’t have my medics drunk on duty, you understand?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I’ve had it reported to me that you are overdoing the booze in general, is that a fair observation?’
The anger started to swell as she wondered who could have grassed on her. ‘I wouldn’t say so, sir,’ she muttered, through gritted teeth.
‘How are things with you generally? Adjusting to life back home? Preparing for civvy street? Things okay with the boyfriend?’
How dare he bloody snoop into her private life? She could feel her cheeks flushing now, her breath stopping in her chest as she tried to control the fury.
‘Well, Lance Corporal?’
Her jaw ached from clenching her teeth.
‘It can be tricky, I know,’ his voice droned on. ‘If you need to talk to someone, of course we can lay it on.’
The nausea was rising again and she could feel her stomach turning over just as it had on Remembrance Sunday all those weeks back.
‘Excuse me, sir,’ was all she managed to say, before rushing into the corridor and puking all over the shiny linoleum.
‘I’m sorry I was such a bitch last night,’ she said to Nate on the phone later that evening.
He didn’t reply, not at first. Then he said, ‘Look, I can’t deal with this right now. I’ve had a rough day at work and I just want to chill out and not have a row with you.’
‘I haven’t rung you to have a row,’ she said, trying not to sound defensive. ‘I’ve rung to apologise and tell you that I’m going to cut out the booze completely, for a while, just to get back on an even keel.’
‘Sounds like a plan, Jess.’
‘Look, can I come and stay with you this week? I could catch a train tonight.’
There was a surprised pause at the other end. Then, ‘It’s Monday night. What about work?’
‘They’ve given me the rest of the week off – they’re calling it sick leave, but I think they just want to keep me out of their hair. I’ve only got five weeks to go now and they don’t want me causing any more trouble.’
‘What trouble?’
She told him about the ticking off, but not about being sick in the corridor.
‘The timing’s not great, to be honest,’ he said in a flat voice. ‘I’ve got a heavy week. There are rumours that Ofsted might come calling, I’ve got two parents’ evenings and a football trip on Thursday. Won’t be back till pretty late most nights.’
‘I’ll shop and clean and cook you delicious meals,’ she pleaded.
He went silent at the end of the phone and for a fleeting, frightening moment it occurred to her that he might be about to tell her it was over. Oh God, please no, she prayed. I love him, can’t do it without him.
Then, at last: ‘Okay. See you later. But Jess …’
‘Yes?’
‘What you said about quitting the booze? You’re serious?’
‘I promise.’
Each evening as she waited for Nate to return from work, she could feel her body shouting at her that it wanted alcohol, any alcohol, that nothing else would satisfy it. Several times, passing the off licence on the corner of his street, she sensed her feet pulling towards the door. Just one little drink. The feeling was almost irresistible but she marshalled her willpower and managed to hold it at bay, knowing that one would surely lead to another, and then several more. She drank cans of cola instead which made her burp unattractively and failed to satisfy the craving.
Without the sedative of alcohol she found it hard to sleep, sensing Nate’s every movement, hearing each little snore, and blasted to open-eyed wakefulness by any police or ambulance siren within half a mile. When she finally slept, the nightmares returned, but subtly altered. These were not of the breath-stopping panic, of torn flesh and limbs, nor the visceral howls of boys in pain, but of the aftermaths of those terrifying moments, of feeling so exhausted that her limbs would not move, of the heat which seemed to suffocate the air out of her lungs, and the dust storms that whipped her face as the rescue helicopter rose into the air taking the injured men to safety. And, always, the gut-wrenching anxiety that perhaps she could have done more to save a limb, or even a life.
One night she woke with her bladder aching and made it to the toilet just in time. She had been dreaming that she was back in the compound where the squats cabin was located twenty yards away. The men just pissed against the outside wall, the girls had to risk a scary dash in the dark across open ground. That, or pee discreetly into a yellow sharps container and hope the sound didn’t wake anyone. Either way it was enough to make you go easy on your intake of liquids after sunset.
She also dreamt of the poppy, just the once: not of the flower with its silky red petals gently fluttering in the breeze, but of the headless green stem, trembling and twitching like a dying man.
After dinner on the second evening, Nate said, ‘Tell me what’s going on, Jess?’
‘Going on?’
‘Those nightmares of yours.’
‘They come and go,’ she said. ‘It’s getting better.’
‘Doesn’t feel like that to me. Last night you started shouting and then you sat up in bed and seemed to be fighting someone off. You nearly clocked me one.’