‘Sit your arse down.’
‘How they treating you?’
‘They dance around. The nurses. Doctors. You’re lucky if you see the same one twice.’
They discussed the hours after he was hit. He didn’t remember the song or the tourniquet, the morphine, the airlift. He didn’t care so much about the weed-smoking or the gamer mentality in the field. It was all nothing in the end, the sound of a different drum. ‘We ran into some bad luck. Or I did. And the wee boy did,’ was all he wanted to say.
‘It was a fuck-up,’ Luke said.
‘We brought light to those people …’
His bad eye was leaking. Luke handed him a swab from the top of the bedside cabinet. Another silence. ‘You nearly died.’
‘One thing I’ve learned. When death smiles at you, Captain — you’ve just got to smile right back at it.’
Luke didn’t mind the fakery. The man was in pain. Or was he actually proud of all the sacrifices?
‘We achieved a lot,’ he said.
‘Fucking zero,’ Luke said.
‘We deployed with confidence.’
‘The mission to make the country stable has made it less so and only the Taliban rose in confidence.’
‘Ah, fuck it,’ Scullion said. They were silent for a minute and Scullion wished he could resurrect the banter that had drawn the boys together. But when he spoke he found he was grasping for something larger. ‘Some of us are just two-sided men, Luke. The moment we look at anything we see its exact opposite. It’s a way of life.’
‘I understand, sir. Let’s talk about something else.’
‘You think I failed.’
‘I think you’ve suffered.’
Scullion’s smile had something wrong in it. It took the world at its worst and gave it his blessing. ‘Holy fuck,’ he said. ‘I sent my bitch of a wife away. I lost my legs. One of my eyes is fucked for good. And you
think
I’ve suffered?’
‘It was a terrible tour.’
‘That happens.’
‘Not to me,’ Luke said.
‘You know, Luke: some things are simpler than others. Maybe you just chose the wrong career.’
‘I know I did.’
‘You’ll be appearing at the tribunal? And you’ll be talking to the journalists downstairs?’
‘I thought you liked the truth, Charlie? Wasn’t that your thing? Alexander the Great and all that? Truth and enlightenment? Pulling the savage peoples out of the dark ages? But now that a few papers want to ask what happened, it’s loyalty, is it? It’s sticking together for—’
‘The regiment!’ he shouted.
‘Oh, Charlie,’ Luke said. ‘Is that the best you can do?’
He walked to the cabinet to lift the cakes, setting them out slowly on a plate and placing it on the edge of the bed. ‘This has nothing to do with the regiment,’ he said. ‘It’s to do with a bunch of kids from different regiments being mistreated by their superior officers.’
‘Is that what the boys say?’
‘The boys don’t know what to say. They’ve gone back home to see their families and pine for another chance to be heroes.’ Luke took one of the cakes and picked at it.
‘You always had judging eyes,’ Scullion said.
‘Calm the fuck down, Charlie. I came on the train to see you and there’s no point talking shit.’
Scullion was one of those actors. He had any number of selves to call on and he didn’t favour one in particular. That’s why he could do things other people couldn’t do, because, to him, at some level, it was always another person doing it. He was always above it. ‘I don’t know what any of you want,’ he said. ‘You’re all the same.’
‘Is there anything you need, Charlie?’
‘I need a year. If I can make it to a year I’ll go to India and none of you will see me again.’
‘India?’
‘I’ve never been happy, Luke. That’s a lie. I was happy for a term at Trinity College Dublin. I think I told you. Me and Madeleine up the stairs listening to jazz records and that was it.’
‘What?’
‘That was it.’
‘You were happy?’
‘Yes.’
He spoke for a while about the early days when he thought he would live in London and write a book. For a summer he haunted Senate House and the reading room of the British Library.
‘Then you joined up.’
‘I did.’
‘Why didn’t you just stay in that world?’
‘It isn’t a world, Luke. People who read books aren’t reading them properly if they stop with the books. You’ve got to go out eventually and test it all against reality.’
‘You’re from another age.’
‘That’s what she said. What they all said. And I made the mistake once of thinking you were the same.’
‘I just missed my da’, Charlie. And I thought I could show the difference between right and wrong.’
‘We all did.’
‘That’s right. We all did.’
‘There was a generation of men wrecked by Ireland,’ Scullion said. ‘A fair few of us. I saw those dead construction workers in Teebane, the ones that were blown up by the IRA. I was young and I hoped at the time that I’d never see such carnage again. But time passes and I’ve seen more dead men than I ever imagined. Hundreds more. It makes you hard. I’ve been shot at from
buildings in places you don’t even know.’
He sat up straight and wiped his good eye. Luke imagined it was now trained only on the dark places.
‘You should go to India,’ Luke said. ‘Go if you can and look after yourself, Charlie.’
He put his head back on the pillows. ‘We never had children. We were too busy trying to work ourselves out and we missed the boat. We missed our chance. And maybe they would have been my cause. Maybe that’s what people do to …’
‘What?’
‘Gain a foothold. Make their own news.’
‘Maybe.’
‘She never forgave me. My army career was a nightmare to her and it killed our marriage.’
‘Maybe.’
It was obvious to Luke that something final was taking place. He tried with words and gestures to reassure his old boss, but his heart wasn’t in it, and his attitude clearly irked Scullion, who saw only disloyalty. Scullion suddenly winced: it was obvious the whole thing felt to him like pain, the dull unravelling of his command. Being unable to shout orders, he could only stammer, his bad temper entering in gasps.
‘You don’t know what I’m talking about, Campbell. What … what have you had?’ he asked. ‘Girlfriends? Silly girlfriends? You’ve never risked anything, never mind your happiness, never mind your legs.’
‘People get over things, Charlie.’
‘Good luck with that.’
A nurse and two men came in. ‘Time for your scan,’ the nurse said. ‘The porters will wheel you along.’ She started fussing with
wires and tubes and Luke stepped back. When he came forward again he placed a hand on the major’s arm.
‘You taught me things,’ he said.
‘Like what?’ Scullion said. ‘How to put trust in the wrong people? How to become a two-sided man?’
‘Maybe you’ll write something.’
‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know. You’re the one with the stories.’
‘History’s always told by the deputies,’ Scullion said. ‘Men like you. You’re just the right age for revenge.’ Luke stared at his old mentor. Decency or pity demanded that he allow the major the final insult.
‘Goodbye, sir.’
‘This is real life.’
‘Aye.’
Unspoken words softened the air. ‘Why don’t you wait here,’ Scullion said. ‘I won’t be long at this thing and you can just sit and wait for me.’ But Luke kept his eye on him as the bed turned and was sure the major understood they would never meet again. ‘My hand’s warm,’ Scullion said. ‘You don’t get this in your video games, sure you don’t, son.’ Luke felt the years slide away as the major withdrew his hand. A look of complete spite came into Charlie’s face and he blinked his crusted eye, then rested his head on the pillow as the bed moved off, steered by his new lieutenants. Luke could hear his old friend complain about the bumps as he vanished down the corridor, setting out on his long journey to India.