going to die by nice clean sniper fire, but was going to be burnt to death, but there was nothing he could do about it, and it seemed he had plenty of time to think about other things and the peace and quiet to do it in. He could think about not being in a blown-up armoured vehicle in Iraq, but being in the back of the school bus with Kathy Hawkes. He could move his hand then, al right, every fingertip. And he could think about being in a caravan, a caravan with just Jack and Mum. He could even think about Marilyn Monroe. He knew now that he should have written to Jack, at least answered one of those letters that he’d dropped in a stove in Germany. He could see the red, round opening of that stove. He’d write now, if he had a piece of paper and a pen and could move his hand. He’d explain that when Dad had thrust the gun at him he hadn’t taken it, for the simple reason that he’d known he’d have used it on Dad first, then on Luke. Or on Luke first, then on Dad. A tricky question, but same difference. There were two barrels. And he’d known, from the look in his eyes, that Dad was half expecting it, even wanting it, and that’s why he’d said that thing about decency. He’d known, anyway, when Dad had turned away with the gun, that he, Tom Luxton, had the kil er instinct in him. And he’d have to put a lid on it.
So I joined the army, Jack. Now here I am in sunny Basra. Wish you were here. No, not real y. Remember me to El ie.
But he wasn’t here either. He was there. He was back there in Barton Field. There was the big oak, its leaves brushing a big blue sky. But there was no Dad, no Luke, no gun. And no Jack. But he was lying in Barton Field more or less where Luke had been shot and had known al along it was coming. It was summer, it was warm and the grass was ful of buzzing insects. And then he could hear something else, getting closer. He hadn’t heard that sound for a long time now, but he knew straight away what it was, and if he could lift his head he might just be able to see them.
It
was
the
unmistakable,
steady
“tchch … tchch … tchch” of browsing cattle, the slow, soft rip-rip of cows’ mouths tearing up grass. It was the most soothing sound in the world and it was utterly indifferent.
24
ELLIE SITS by Holn Cliffs, looking at the vanished postcard view. The occasional white, whizzing missile of a wind-hurled seagul is almost the only sign that there’s anything out there.
Their seaside life, vanished too now, toppled over a cliff.
Their Isle of Wight life. She’d come here once, al alone, to see for herself, when it was stil her secret, her gift in store, like some unborn child. Twenty-seven years old. Fine spring weather. The view had been glorious then. Her dad was in a hospital bed, knowing no more about this excursion of hers than he’d known about that spin she’d taken when she was sixteen. And thank God it wasn’t the same Land Rover. She’d taken the ferry to Fishbourne, gone up on the sun deck, as if she were on a pleasure cruise.
Their Isle of Wight life. The beauty of it: a whole separate land, with only a short sea to cross, but happily cut off from the land of their past. Not exactly their “isle of joy.” It wasn’t Tahiti. Look at it now. Or St. Lucia (that would come later).
But nonetheless it was a fact, and it had become their purpose, that they were in the business of pleasure. And it had become
She’d stood beside him, in a straw-coloured dress, in that registry office in Newport and not minded at al that she was changing her name. It seemed a good name.
Luckston. Later, outside their front door—it was a mild October afternoon and the caravans below even looked like something spread out for a wedding—she’d said, “Wel , come on, you won’t get another chance.” And he’d done it as if he’d been planning it al along. My God, he’d scooped her up as if she’d been as light as straw herself.
He’d come out of his mourning for Jebb, and not so slowly, and actual y started to look happy. Farmer Jack.
She’d even thought she might settle for there not being any other kind of birth, for the sake of this remarkable rebirth in him. And hadn’t she caused it to happen? And, anyway, was it so out of the question that there stil might be both kinds of birth?
So was it any wonder that she’d been both flattened and glad—glad—when that letter came?
“LEAVE ME OUT OF THIS, Jack.”
She should have gone with him, back into the wretched past. For a moment she sees before her not the November rain of the Isle of Wight but the soft flaps and veils of midsummer rain over the Devon hil s as she drove into Barnstaple the morning after her father had died. She’d cal ed Jack from a pay-phone in the hospital to give him the news without any tearfulness and with hardly a tremble in her voice. She’d wanted to convey to him that she was being practical and steady—and he was stil in the grip of his own father’s death. It was over, it had been expected (and, yes, al those years, since she was sixteen, were over too). In a little while they might start to think of their own lives.
“No, it’s okay, I don’t need you with me.” And he’d done two lots of milking.
And he’d needed her with him two days ago.
She should have gone too, been at his side, even wept a little. She was weeping now. But she just couldn’t do it.
Stand on some grim piece of tarmac, while it al came back, in a flag-wrapped parcel, by way of Iraq, their old, left-behind life. Then stand, again, in that churchyard. By Tom’s grave. By her father’s.
She just couldn’t do it—any more, apparently, than she could go and stand by her mother’s. She just couldn’t do it, even if Jack had to. She could see there was no way round it for him.
She’d listened to him leave, two mornings ago. It seems already like two weeks. Heard him moving downstairs in the kitchen, heard the front door, his feet on the road outside. The car starting. She’d actual y thought: Poor man, poor man, to have to be going on such a journey. None of his noises had sounded angry, there was no slamming. It was almost as if he’d been trying not to wake her.
How could she have let him do it without even seeing him off, without standing in the doorway, without so
