Ed noticed his mum’s face over Pasha’s shoulder. The mug in her hand paused midway to her mouth as Pasha kept talking.
“But even if I was Muslim, that doesn’t make me a terrorist, does it?”
Mandy sat beside his mum, and the grip she had on her sleeping son—who’d never know his dad Steve—visibly grew tighter.
Ed tookMandy to the art studio that had been his dad’s overlooking the garden. It hadn’t been used in years, and damp stained the crumbling plaster on the walls, but its huge arched windows had the best view. Mist currently hazed the far distance. For a fleeting moment, Ed wished that same mist would fill the space between them. That way he wouldn’t have to see the raw expressions that crossed her too thin face. He looked out the window, gaze following his mum who walked alongside Pasha as they showed the garden to the baby.
“I was going to come and see you.” Ed spoke to the glass, only turning when Mandy let out a small sound. “I was. Definitely. I promise.”
“When, Ed?” She nudged him with a shoulder, standing much closer than he’d thought she’d want to. “Steve’s mum said she saw you outside her place yesterday morning. You scared the crap out of her turning up so early without warning. She thought she’d seen a ghost. Then when she pulled herself together, you’d vanished into thin air.” Her voice was strained, and she pointed out the window. “And when were you going to come to see Joe next? He’s more than a year old already, Ed. That’s over twelve months you’ve been in the same country as him and you’ve seen him how many times exactly? Three? Four if we count a quickglimpse through a window? Did you plan on seeing him before he starts school? Is four years long enough for you to get your head out of your arse?”
“Mandy—”
“No.” Now her voice was shaking, but she didn’t put more distance between them. Instead she stepped closer. “Don’t you dare make an excuse, you daft bugger.”
Her fingers wrapped around his wrist, tight and warm andalive. The engagement ring that had cost more than a month of Steve’s wages was loose on her finger. It shifted against his skin—a reminder that she’d lost weight she hadn’t had to spare in the first place. Ed had been there when Steve chose it for her, and he’d been the one who stood behind his best friend when he slid on the wedding band that now rested against it. He’d brought Steve’s own band of gold home, and it now hung from a fine chain around her neck, spinning when she leaned forward.
“No,” she repeated. “You don’t get toMandyme when you’re the one who’s been keeping his distance.”
“I’m—”
“Sorry. Yes, you already said. I heard you say it to him earlier as well.” She inclined her head, nodding to where Pasha held a Michaelmas daisy so that it tickled her baby’s bare toes. “He seems nice.”
“He is.”
“Nicer than you deserve.” There was that nudge again. “Terrorist, for fuck’s sake. Do you even watch the show, Ed? He’s a sweetheart, not some freedom fighter. He’s always looking out for someone—like keeping Anya company when she was so homesick in week two. Or when he spent hours helping that guy to learn his lyrics, who then went out in week three. Talk about patient, and none of that was shown on the main show, so there was nothing in it for him. I’ve watched the live stream enough times to know he’s like that twenty-four seven.” She tried toglare when Ed glanced over. “What? So I watch it a whole lot. How else was I meant to make sure you were doing okay?”
This time, Ed met her gaze and held it—so tough when her eyes were welling. “Yeah. I know how Pash is.” He really did. “I don’t even know what I was thinking at the start. I suppose….” He hesitated before wading though words that were as thick as treacle. “I couldn’t help remembering that me and Steve… we liked the kid that… the one who….” His exhale was harsh, and Mandy laced her fingers with his. “We both liked him. He couldn’t have been more than sixteen. He lived in one of the villages we patrolled, and he was always smiling, always begging us to play footie. The day we gave him a football of his own to keep, he looked at me like I was his hero. That was the same ball he kicked behind a building, and Steve went with him to get it back.” They both knew the end to that story.
It took a while before either of them could speak.
“You think he did it on purpose? You think he willingly lured Steve into a trap?”
“I’m never going to know for sure. I think about it every day. That whole area was meant to be safe—” He stopped. Nowhere had been safe. Nowhere, and nobody. “It had been checked over so many times already.” The last words were the hardest. “I shouldn’t have let him go. We should have gone together.”
“Listen, you staying away from us like you have been….” Mandy’s voice cracked and wavered before steeling. “Isn’t it bad enough we lost Steve?” She continued at Ed’s silence, determined and persuasive. “Don’t you dare make Joe grow up without you as well.”
Ed shook his head and opened his mouth, but nothing got past the constriction of his throat, blocked so completely by the last promise he’d made his best friend to look out for his family. He finally got out some words. “I wanted to make it right. Dosomething big. Something that would make a difference for you two, long-term.”
“That’s why you enteredBritPop!in the first place?”
Ed nodded. “Steve wrote a song for Joe while we were over there. I thought if I won, and if enough people bought it….”
“What? You thought it would be like he was providing for us? Like Steve was still here?”
Ed nodded.
“Well, he isn’t, and you are.” He’d forgotten how blunt Mandy could be. “And long-term means sweet fuck all to a kid who never sees his uncle.” Her grip on him loosened a little. “You know, I spent a while blaming the whole world when I knew Steve wasn’t coming home in one piece, but babies leave no time for looking backwards. I’m moving on because he needs me to. You have to as well, Ed. No point rewriting history, is there? Not when there are people right here to live for.”
Rewriting history was exactly what he’d tried to do from the moment Steve had run after that football. He’d rewrite the staccato burst of gunfire and the explosion too if he could, and the bright red blood that had seeped at first before pumping from Steve’s neck when he’d rolled him over. There weren’t words for Steve’s desperate, choking requests or for the kiss that left Ed’s cheek streaked with blood—blood he still caught sight of in mirrors when he least expected. Fighting off the two men left in his own fire team rather than follow his section leader’s command to pull out might look better with revision, but it was too late by the time he’d dragged Steve’s body back to safety. And then, when he finally got home, he’d cast himself as the only one who could put things right by singing the words Steve had written for his son.
Movement beyond the window was a welcome distraction. They both watched Ed’s mum pass the baby to Pasha, who seemed just as drawn to his wide smiles as Ed was. His tiny fistsplayed, exploring Pasha’s face before settling over his mouth. His shrieks of laughter when Pasha blew loud raspberries against his palm carried through the open window on a breeze that was sea-salt scented.
A yearlong constriction inside Ed shifted and eased. He drew in his first easy lungful of home.
Mandy said, “He’s good with kids.”
“Yeah. He’s great with the younger fans.”