out on the beach, she found herself almost enjoying the distraction of physical discomfort as the wind slashed at their faces.
‘Tell me about this drinking,’ her mother had started.
‘Oh, it’s nothing,’ Jess said. Admitting the nightmares to her mother would only make her more anxious – better to gloss over it. ‘Just fed up with work. It’s so boring. I can’t wait to get out.’
‘You haven’t got long to go now, have you?’
‘Four weeks, that’s all. I can deal with it. Thanks for being so understanding, Mum.’
But that evening she lost it again. Her father had insisted on doing a barbecue in spite of the fact that it was still only February, and bitterly cold. The wind had dropped, he said, and besides the barbecue was under cover of the patio awning. He would be perfectly dry, and once everything was cooked they could eat inside. Except that it began to bucket with rain, and while Jess tried to persuade him to abandon the idea, Susan had been placatory.
‘He does it all the time, don’t worry,’ she said. ‘He enjoys it, and the food tastes so much better on the barbecue. You’ll never dissuade him, so you might as well give up trying.’
‘But it’s pouring, Mum. He’ll get soaked, and so will the food.’ She felt her chest tightening, the tell-tale heat tingling at the back of her neck, and tried to take deep breaths, but it came out anyway. ‘He could perfectly well come inside to cook, and we could have a lovely meal but he’s just determined to spoil our evening with his pig-headed insistence. It’s so fucking stupid,’ she shouted.
‘Watch your language, young woman,’ Mike called through the patio door.
She exploded then, shouting, ‘I can’t bear to watch. I’m going out.’
She’d stomped off to the only pub in the village, hoping there would be no-one who recognised her or engaged her in conversation. Fortunately the place was deserted, so she sat by the fire and read a dog-eared red-top newspaper, sickened by the photos of semi-naked women on what seemed like every other page, while downing three double whiskies in quick succession. She paid the pub premium for a bottle to replace her father’s Johnnie Walker and hid it inside her coat as she headed home.
Her parents were watching a nature documentary on television.
‘We left you a plateful – it’s on the side,’ her mother said mildly, without a hint of reproach. How could they be so forgiving? It almost made her angry all over again.
‘Not hungry,’ she muttered. ‘Going to bed.’
‘Sleep well, sweetheart,’ they chorused, to her departing back.
In the morning nothing was mentioned until she was alone in the car with her mother on the way to the train station.
‘Forgive me, darling, but do you think you might need some help?’ her mother said, pulling out onto the main road.
‘What do you mean, help?’
‘Adjusting to life back home. I know it’s hard.’
‘Leave it, Mum. I’m fine.’
‘Except you’re barely sleeping, drinking way more than you ever used to and losing your temper at the drop of a hat. We’re worried about you, love.’
They arrived at the station just in time and she kissed her mother on the cheek. ‘See you soon,’ she said, ‘and don’t you go worrying about me. I’m a big girl; I can take care of myself.’
The following Sunday evening was the Pinot incident.
As she drank her way purposefully through the bottle, Nate said barely a word and she was too angry to engage him in conversation. Next thing she knew, she was shocked awake by her phone. She peeled open her eyes and squinted at the numbers: 06.00. He must have set the alarm for her, knowing that she had to catch the train in time to get back for a nine o’clock clinic.
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.
