17.5 hours detained
‘You’ve witnessed some terrible things in the course of your career, Kate, haven’t you?’
I don’t want to answer her. I’m tired of her questions. Instead, I look down at my bracelet and he’s with me. I feel the warmth of his hand as he strokes my bare skin, his soft lips kissing the back of my neck, and I ache with longing for him. Human touch is a primordial need, I think to myself, as I watch Shaw flicking from page to page. It’s not love that I miss, it’s not even the sex; no, what I miss above all else is the reassuring touch of someone else’s skin. His skin.
Chris’s hands were rough and scarred, the legacy of twenty years exhuming graves. But the feel of his hands wrapping round me as he slipped into bed in the early hours of the morning, not speaking, just holding me close, was all I needed, it gave me the strength to pack my bags and head off to the next war and the next and the next. The memory of his skin, the promise of it, was what kept me going all these years. And now I will have to learn to live without it.
‘Things that would have broken most ordinary people.’
Shaw’s voice brings me hurtling back to the here and now. I feel exposed. But I know I have to stay focused and answer her questions. Even if I don’t like them.
‘But I didn’t break or else I wouldn’t have been much use,’ I reply. ‘It’s the first rule of journalism: stay impartial.’
She writes something down and I wonder if in my effort to stay calm I’m starting to sound too cold and detached. Isn’t lack of emotion a psychopathic trait? I decide to change tack, to soften my edges a little and keep her onside.
‘The one that stays in my head is Layla. A little girl who lost both her legs when a shell hit her home.’
Shaw looks up, startled that I’ve begun to talk unbidden.
‘She was so brave,’ I continue. ‘Still smiling despite the pain. I remember she took my hand and said something I didn’t understand. She said it over and over again, so when the doctor came in I asked him to translate for me. He told me she was asking where I had put her legs and when would she be getting them back.’
Shaw shakes her head and sighs a long, deep sigh, the sigh of a mother who knows her children are safe at home.
‘She was four years old and all alone in one of the most dangerous places on earth. The rest of her family had been killed in the attack. No one knows how she survived. I sat by her bed listening to her cries of pain.’
I take a sip of water and try to steady myself as Layla’s moans fill the room. ‘Painkillers were in short supply and they’d cauterized the stumps of her legs without anaesthetic. At one point I reached into my rucksack and pulled out three boxes of cheap Paracetamol. When the doctor came in I handed them over and he looked at me like I’d just come up with a cure for cancer. I looked at Layla and wondered what kind of future lay ahead for an orphaned child with no legs in a country seething with . . .’
The moans grow louder, obliterating my words. I put my hands to my ears, try to block them out, but they seem to multiply.
‘Kate.’
Shaw’s voice is muffled against the din.
‘Please stop,’ I shout to the voices. ‘Please just stop.’
I feel Shaw’s hand on my shoulder and I look up.
‘What is it, Kate?’ she says gently. ‘Tell me.’
I shake my head. She can’t find out.
‘Are you okay?’ she presses.
‘I just . . .’ I say, my hands trembling. ‘I just need a break. Can we please have a break?’
‘Of course,’ says Shaw. ‘We can take five minutes.’
She returns to her seat, collects her things and leaves the room. A moment later a stocky police officer enters to take her place. He stands by the door, frowning at me.
Meanwhile the moans grow louder and louder and as I sit under the policeman’s gaze I am as helpless as little Layla, wondering where her legs have gone.
10
Wednesday 15 April 2015
No more voices last night. I suppose that is a good thing, but they have become such an integral part of me I’ve become strangely used to them. My sleep wasn’t altogether restful though. I dreamt of Aleppo and it was the clearest of all the dreams I have had so far. So vivid that even now as I sit cradling a cup of coffee and looking out on to the damp expanse of my mother’s suburban garden I still feel shaken. And as I close my eyes I can smell the mustiness of the bedroom and hear the gentle tap, tap, as a small boy drives his toy car up and down the corridor.
Nidal is in the corridor playing. As I step over him, he bombards me with questions.
‘What is England like, Kate? What are the people like?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Some are nice, some are a bit grumpy.’
‘What is grumpy?’
I make a face and purse my lips. ‘It’s like this,’ I tell him. ‘Never with a smile.’