Patel checked the details on the first page and then turned the form over. He looked up, smiling.
“You haven’t covered the last four years, Mr. Walker. Generally people can’t remember the first bit when they left school. Let me fill it in for you. Right now … let’s work backwards from now. What were you doing last year? How many jobs?”
George Walker sat without answering and after a few moments Patel said, “How many jobs, Mr. Walker? How many lines do we need to use on the form?”
Walker was looking past Patel towards the window and he was trembling.
Patel said quietly, “Are you OK, Mr. Walker? Are you all right?”
And then Walker was shaking, sweat pouring down his face. Patel was sure then that he knew what the problem was.
“Have you been serving a prison sentence, Mr. Walker?”
Walker shook his head violently, but didn’t speak.
“The company has a liberal attitude to such problems, Mr. Walker. We would liaise with your probation officer without anything going on your file.”
Even as Patel was finishing Walker vomited, and the Indian reached for his internal phone.
“Get the nurse up at once, Judy. Quickly.”
George Walker was nearly 26. He had done well at school and at the grammar school. He had got one “A” level and four “O” levels, and his parents were proud of his achievements. Both in their different ways.
His father was a ticket-clerk at Stockport railway station, five minutes’ walk from the row of terraced houses where they had lived for twenty years. His father was not a communicative man, not even with his wife. But that was not in any way abnormal for men born and bred in that part of the country. Southerners often interpreted the silence as surliness, but in fact it was an inborn reticence overlain with shyness. Men like Harry Walker had little to say, and their upbringing and environment had taught them that talking was dangerous. Talking could lose men jobs; and talking could make men look fools. In Stockport and Manchester silence was equated with dignity. Chatter was for women. When his father had been told the exam results when he came home that evening he had nodded his approval, and the only outward sign of his internal emotion was leaving the Evening News unread and his meal uneaten. He had spent most of the evening tidying up the small wooden shack in the tiny garden.
Mrs. Walker had made no attempt to hide her pleasure. She and her only son had always been close. Close enough for her to understand why he chose to join the army for a four-year enlistment with the hope of getting a commission. His talents and enthusiasms were latent and unformed and he needed to experience the world outside. She would have liked to experience it herself.
When he came out of the army she was surprised that he failed so many interviews that had looked so promising. Patience was a well-developed virtue in the Walker family, but she was shocked that morning when she took him his cup of tea in bed and saw the tears on his cheeks.
Being a calm woman she opened the curtains to let in the sunshine and then she sat on the edge of the bed, her hand placed gently on the cover, touching his foot. When he eventually turned to face her she was shocked by the pallor of his face and the tortured look in his eyes.
“What is it, son,” she said softly, “tell me what’s the matter.”
“I don’t really know, mom, I just don’t know.”
“Are you worried about not getting those jobs?”
He sighed. “That’s part of it.”
“What’s the other part, boy?”
He shook his head slowly. “I have nightmares.”
“What about?”
“About killing people.”
“You mean when you were in the army?”
“I think so. I’m not sure.”
“Tell me what happens in your dreams.”
For long moments he was silent, looking vacantly at the wallpaper beside his head. And when he spoke she could barely hear him.
“It’s in a barn … there’s a wooden table … an army issue table with papers and maps on it. And two men tied to chairs. There were two officers in battle dress. One of them told the two men if they didn’t talk they would be shot … the one with ginger hair spits at the officer who tells me to shoot him. And when I shoot him there’s stuff comes out of his chest, like spaghetti and blood and …” His eyes closed, and his head fell back on the pillow and the woman realized that he was actually asleep.
It was almost an hour before his eyes opened. She wished that she could hold back and wait, but her tension and worry were too much.
“Where was this place?”
“What place?”
“Where you killed this man in your dream. Was it a place you know?”
“I don’t know. I think so.”
“But you were in Bradford for a year and then you were at the depot place where you were in the stores. It must be one of those places.”
“No. I can remember signposts on a motorway. They were in German.”
“Did your unit go to Germany? Maybe one of those NATO exercises?”
“No. I never left this country.”
“Have you seen a film like this or seen it on TV?”
“I don’t think so. I just don’t know.”
“Maybe we should write to the War Office. Maybe they could help.”
He shook his head violently. “I don’t want to know, mom. I want to forget it.”
“That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said, my boy. Maybe you should see the doctor. He always asks after you. He could give you a tonic. That’s what you need.”
George Walker found a job, working on the forecourt of a local garage, and in six months he had the nightmare only twice.
It was when he came home one evening and the two letters were waiting for him that he was finally driven to consult the family
