Curlew Song

Chapter 1

Guy leaned his forehead against the carriage window and gazed through the streaks where the rain had sluiced away the grime. The glass was cold against his skin and he welcomed the sensation, wanting the numbness. He wondered how many times Alex Calvert had taken this journey, staring out at the same fields and hilltops, the curving ribbons of streams at odds with the walls that quartered the land which had nurtured and kept the Calverts for generations.

Had the cold pain of that last tour of Afghanistan been warmed for Alex by a tingle of homecoming? Those who left the regiment after that final tour had done so having had their belly full of adventure. Of death. They had gone their own ways, spinning the threads of new lives, reaching out to wives, families, children. Some succeeding, some failing. Some finding peace. For others, disappointment. For Guy, guilt. For Alex, suicide.

Guy had not kept in touch with Alex after the army, but he had relived the events of that day a thousand times; they haunted his waking and sleeping hours. Alex Calvert featured in those nightmares, because he had been been out leading his men during that awful patrol in Helmand when Guy had been at the other end of the radio at battalion headquarters.

Like himself, Alex had been a frightened man trying to do his job, to protect those for whom he held responsibility. They had all feared death but were driven by duty. It was something he had found hard to explain to civilian friends when he left the army. In a response to the new world in which he found himself, a world where concepts such as honour and duty were scoffed at as outdated ideals, he had bowed to the need to fit in and tried to discard what one friend had derided as ‘noble baggage belonging to a bygone era’. Was he going to Alex’s funeral to bid an honourable farewell to a brother officer, or was he drawn to say goodbye because they had a shared suffering, a common thread that tied them as the result of that dreadful day? Whichever it was, Guy knew it was the right thing to do.

He sat back and wiped his forehead with his sleeve and checked his phone. There were no messages. He knew her well enough to know what she was thinking. She knew he would be expecting something, and the lack of communication made him feel she was toying with him, stirring the familiar sadness from his chest. The train slowed, the change in tempo distracting him from thoughts of Julia. The rain had stopped, the cloud a lighter shade of grey where it sat on the squat tops of hills. He watched a road keep pace with the train, snaking between fields to run parallel to the track, then darting away before drifting back. Then a line of slate rooftops, Victorian railway cottages, a platform, station signage. It was time.

Guy checked his reflection in the carriage window: he still kept his hair short, the need to run his hand through it more out of habit than necessity. His brown eyes slanted downwards slightly, a family trait his mother used to describe as ‘puppyish’, and he did not have to look closely to know they were more bloodshot than he would have liked. Like many men of his age, he followed the trend of growing a neat beard, not just to follow fashion but to hide that loss of definition between chin and the neck. He stood tall to pull down his overnight bag with an easy strength and, in the manner of many ex-servicemen, quickly checked his shoes for marks and clothes for fluff. He smoothed a hand over his shirt to check it was tucked neatly into his trousers, enjoying the consolation that his belly was still flat. He ran twice a week, despite the hangovers, a habit from his army days.

The door slid open, and he stepped down. His breath clouded in the air which smelled fresh and held a tang he did not recognise. He had never been here before, among the Pennine mountains of Northern England; never realised how different this place was to his own home in its tamed, gentler countryside of Surrey. He was the only passenger to alight and immediately saw the figure at the end of the platform. He hefted his bag and strode out as the train rumbled away on its journey North until only his footsteps broke the silence. He stopped two paces from the man and put his bag down. It had been a long time, but it also felt like yesterday.

He extended his hand. “Mr McGarry. Or, should I say, Jim?”

Jim McGarry smiled softly, all crow’s feet and ruddy cheeks. “Mr Peters, sir.”

They laughed and shook hands. Jim McGarry was not a tall man but made up for it in width and presence. He had cropped salt and pepper hair, pale blue eyes and a soldier’s trimmed moustache beneath a broken nose. Guy was aware of the man’s grip and stepped back, shaking his head. “I’m not Mr Peters these days. It’s Guy, as you well know.”

“Old habits, I’m afraid. Which means I’m Jim or anything else you want to call me.”

Alex chuckled. “Well, that’ll be a change. If I remember, you had a few choice names for us back in the day.”

Jim McGarry had been every inch a sergeant major and Guy was relieved when the veteran was assigned to his company prior to them leaving for Afghanistan. Jim had joined the army as a junior soldier at the age of 16 and the regiment’s ethos and traditions ran through his blood. He had served in every conflict that Britain had despatched its soldiers to, from the wet streets of Northern Ireland to the searing deserts of Afghanistan. Guy had seen the senior soldier take on many guises as he mentored and led the men of his company. Sergeant Major McGarry had been their gruff uncle, their tyrannical father, their friendly older brother. From tearing into slovenly soldiers who were not carrying their weight to gently chiding teenage recruits when they needed support, his words carried weight and were not to be taken lightly. Junior officers had palled under the weight of his withering sarcasm and senior officers had been politely but firmly held to account if Sergeant Major McGarry thought their leadership was lacking. They were all his boys.

He no longer wore his uniform, but he still exuded the qualities of a soldier, standing ramrod straight and as he shoved his fists into the pockets of his waxed jacket he gave a soft smile. “Well, that was then. We’re all civilians now, so my good lady keeps telling me.”

“How is Jean?”

Jim shrugged and patted his stomach. “Overfeeding me, nagging me to fix the guttering, do the lawn. Usual stuff.”

Guy picked up his bag. “And so she should. It looks like retirement suits you.”

They fell into step, Jim gesturing towards a gate which led off the platform. “I can’t complain. Play bowls in the summer, do a spot of fishing at weekends, the usual family stuff, grandkids. Try to keep meself busy, fixing things, DIY.”

They stopped by a gleaming black Range Rover. Guy nodded, approvingly. If ever a car suited the man. The regimental badge window sticker struck a chord, its once-familiar shape catching him by surprise. For years it had been the totem by which his life ran. It had been everywhere; on uniforms, hanging on walls, painted on vehicles, etched on crosses. He had not realised its absence from his post-army world until now. It looked so strange and so familiar at the same time. He tilted his chin towards it. “See any of the old crowd?”

“Now and again. There’s a few of us meet up on Remembrance Day in London. I get the occasional email. That’s how I heard about Mr Calvert.” Jim looked down at his polished brown brogues. “Bad business. Such a shame.”

Guy knew that the former Sergeant Major would only ever call Alex by his formal title of Mr Calvert. In Jim McGarry’s world deceased former officers were not referred to by their first names. Guy placed a hand on Jim’s shoulder and said: “Mr Calvert was a good officer.” He let the sentiment sink in and added: “Do you have any detail, anything on how he died?”

Jim took Guy’s bag and opened the passenger door for him. “The lad, Mr Calvert’s son, found him.” The old soldier shook his head. “Poor little bugger, fancy seeing your father like that.” He fiddled with the car keys, a schoolboy struggling with showing emotion.

“Go on.” Guy said it softly.

Jim looked away, then took a breath before returning Guy’s gaze. “He hung... hanged himself in some barn on his farm. It was his son who found him.”

“Christ. Bloody hell. Poor kid.”

They stood in silence, each wrestling with the right and wrong response. A gust of wind brought a smattering of fine rain against Guy’s cheek, its drops beading on the polished windscreen. “How did? Who told you?”

Jim muttered through gritted teeth: “The undertaker. I called about the funeral just in case Mr Calvert’s widow wanted a burial party from the regiment. She didn’t. Undertaker told me it was one of the first things she said she didn’t want.”

Guy had never met Cathy Calvert. She was always the missing wife at formal functions in the officers’ mess. He remembered a quiet night in Helmand in the operations room, thinking and talking of home; Alex showing him a photo of a laughing woman sitting on a tractor, a child on her knee.

“It’s not the send-off we would have liked to give him, Jim, but you must understand. Some wives blame the army for, well, for what happens to their men. We always saw the regiment as our family. Others see it differently.”

The car smelled of polish. They bumped gently across the potholed car park and swung onto a road hemmed by stone walls. The satnav had already been programmed; Jim nodded at it and said: “The funeral service is at a chapel not far from here. There’s a do afterwards at his family farm. We’re the only ones here from the regiment.”

“That’s a shame. Alex was a popular officer.”

Jim replied: “I made phone calls and got a lot of excuses. A lot of the lads still blame Mr Calvert for well, you know, for what happened out there.”

The chapel stood alone on a road that rose along the side of a shallow valley. Jim parked at the end of a line of cars in a layby. As they got out of the Range Rover, a wiry sheepdog barked at them from the rear of a mud-splattered pickup. Those mourners who could not find space inside were crowding in the chapel’s wooden porch. Jim McGarry edged through, the people parting slowly at his polite but firm mutterings. Guy followed in his wake, murmuring thanks to either side. The pews were full, and they found a space to stand along the rear wall. The air had a damp odour of buildings that are not used regularly and in places the paint peeled from the plain plaster walls. There were two rows of varnished pews beyond which stood a coffin on a bier in front of a simple altar with a wooden cross. Guy realised this was the first time he had been in a Methodist chapel.

The simplicity of the place spoke of a modesty far from the Church of England interiors his life had occasionally led him into for weddings and christenings. He could not help but compare its white-washed beamed roof to the vaulted ceilings of the Cotswold church in which he had married Julia. The manicured lawn of her parents’ country house with its wedding marquee, the sides lifted to allow air to circulate and ease the discomfort of the morning suits, dress uniforms and gowns, were a world away. A war away.

The hum of conversation stilled when a white-haired man in a baggy suit rose and stood behind a lectern. As his broad Northern vowels rang across the assembly, a tight-lipped woman in a headscarf passed a hymnal to Jim who held it so that Guy could also see it. Guy gave it a cursory glance then began to study the congregation. He wondered how these people fitted into Alex’s life, each person a piece of a jigsaw in which a segment was now missing? He could see across the rows to the people at the front. The slender figure in the long coat and dark headscarf must be Cathy Calvert. There was a boy with collar-length hair sitting by her. Next to the boy sat an old man whose white hair still held the parallel tracks of the comb. A grandfather, Guy presumed. The old man stared at the coffin during the service, never turning his head.

Guy watched the service with detachment, his numbness a blanket, separating him from the grief that Alex Calvert had harnessed when he walked out into a rainy evening and hanged himself in a barn yards from his family’s front door, beyond which his wife and son sat reading at their kitchen table. Guy had been saddened but not surprised at the news of Alex’s death. He knew what the man had been through. He knew Alex’s pain. He was here to acknowledge that pain and in doing so try to heal himself. He knew he was not here out of friendship; any closeness he and Guy may have had, that bond between men who shared the terror of battle, had been quenched by the coldness, the ruthless military efficiency that had swept in to investigate the aftermath of the events of that day.

The congregation stood to sing, and Guy noted the straight and firm set of Cathy Calvert’s back and shoulders. She held her hymnal high in a black-gloved hand and looked levelly at it, laying her other hand on the shoulder of the boy. He vaguely remembered Alex speaking of his son, but Guy could not remember the boy’s name and cursed himself for this laxity. His attention drifted from the words of the psalm, drawn to the familiar re-run of thoughts, a litany of what might have been.

Would the bond of children have carried him and Julia through these days or would they have added flotsam to the wreckage of their relationship? They had discussed children in the months after their marriage and she had decided there was plenty of time for a family. He felt those early days belonged to a different couple. It was hard to believe he was once that person: joyous, flippant, giving. It was a time of love and adventure: walking, talking of their future, of hoping one day for a boy and a girl; children they would raise in a house in the country. They had agreed to call them Jack and Susan; honest, unpretentious English names.

But the children had to wait. Despite being an officer’s daughter herself Julia had baulked at the idea of bringing her offspring up as “patch brats,” moving from one army house to another as Guy was shunted from posting to posting. She wanted a career in the City and was not going to give it up to, as she put it, “traipse around dreary garrison towns drinking sherry with the other regiment wives.” As far as Julia was concerned, children would have to wait until they could afford a house in the Surrey commuter belt.

He remembered one of his angry retorts when quarrels became more frequent: “What you meant was us having children would have to wait until your biological clock was banging so loudly it outweighed the sound of your annual bonus pouring into your bank account.” That night was the first time she mocked him for his loss of libido and the first time he slept in the spare room. They had planned it to be the nursery, had once discussed its colour schemes.

He was annoyed with himself for having checked his phone too often on the train journey. He knew in his heart she would not reach out. Not now. The time for placatory words, those cautious non-committal texts to probe and rebuild the bridge had passed. He knew they had drifted from that familiar shore and her silence reinforced his realisation that she wanted things to change forever. He felt the dull ache sitting deep in his chest. The army psychologist had taught him to recognise it, a feeling of wanting to cry that never quite brought on tears. He had known for months that Julia was drifting, but the final realisation still brought that ache of sadness. He took a deep breath and tried to visualise, as instructed, the taut knot of anguish loosening as he exhaled.

There was a eulogy given with solemnity by a former Sunday school teacher with black-framed glasses and two more hymns before the congregation stood as the undertaker, a short man with a florid drinker’s face, led out the pallbearers with the coffin. Cathy Calvert followed. Out of decency, Guy stopped himself from staring as she approached but caught a glimpse of pale skin and a tilt to her chin. The boy was looking at the floor, a fringe of hair shading his eyes, guided between the phalanx of adults by his mother’s hand.