Crossfire by Dick;Felix Francis Francis Read Free Book Online Page B

liking.
    “I’ll look for somewhere else to go this week,” I said.
    “Oh, darling, it’s not that I want to throw you out, you understand,” she said, “but I think it might be for the best.”
    Best for her, I thought ungenerously. But perhaps it would be the best for us all. A full-scale shouting match couldn’t be very far away.
    “I could pay you rent,” I said, purposely fishing for a reaction.
    “Don’t be a silly boy,” my mother said. “This is your home. You don’t pay rent here.”
    My home, but I can’t stay in it. My mother clearly didn’t appreciate the irony of her words.
    “A contribution towards your food might be welcome,” my stepfather interjected.
    Things must have been tight. Very tight, indeed.
     
     
    I lay on my bed for a while, in the middle of the morning, staring at the molded ceiling and wondering what to do.
    Life in the hospital had been so structured: time to wake up, have a cup of tea, read the paper, eat breakfast, have a morning physiotherapy session in the rehab center, return to the ward for lunch in the dayroom, have an afternoon physiotherapy session, return to the ward, watch the evening news, read a book or watch more television, have an evening hot drink, lights out, sleep. Every day the same, except there was no physio on Saturday afternoons or all day Sunday. A strict routine, regular as clockwork, with no decisions having to be made by me.
    At first I had hated to have such a straitjacket to my existence, but I’d become used to it. I suppose one gets used to anything.
    Abruptly, here in Lambourn, I was on my own, free to make my own choice of activity without a hospital regime to do it for me. And all of a sudden I was lost, unable to make up my mind, mostly because I was at a loss to know what to do.
    It was a new and alien sensation. Even in the boring times between contacts in Afghanistan I’d had things to do: clean my weapon, fix my kit, train my men, make plans, even write a note home. I had always had something to do. In fact, most of the time I had far too much to do, and not enough time.
    Yet try as I might, I couldn’t think of a single thing I had to do now.
    Maybe I could have written a note of thanks to the staff at the rehab clinic, but both they and I would know I didn’t mean it.
    I had hated feeling that I was being treated like a child, and I hadn’t been slow to say so.
    Looking back, even after just one day away from it, I could see that my frustration, and my anger, hadn’t helped anyone, least of all myself. But it had been the only way I’d known to express my fury at the hand that fate had dealt me. There had been times when, if I’d still had my sidearm with me, I am sure I would have used it to blow my brains out, such had been the depth of my depression.
    Even in recent weeks, I had often thought about suicide. But I could have walked out and thrown myself under the wheels of the London bus right outside the hospital if I’d really wanted to, and I hadn’t, so at least I must be on the way up from the nadir.
    My life needed targets and objectives.
    In the hospital my goal had been simply to be discharged.
    Now that I had achieved it, a void had opened up in front of me. A future seemingly devoid of purpose and direction. Only a tentative “we’ll see” to give me any hope. Was it enough?
    I looked at my watch.
    It was twenty to twelve, and I had been lying on my bed doing nothing for nearly three hours, ever since I had walked away from a stormy encounter with my parent out on the driveway.
    She had been inspecting her car and I hadn’t been able to resist telling her that it was high time she changed her old blue Ford for a new, smarter make.
    “Mind your own bloody business,” she had hissed at me, thrusting her face towards mine.
    “I’m sorry,” I’d said, feigning surprise. “I didn’t realize the matter touched such a sore nerve.”
    “It doesn’t,” she’d replied, back in some sort of control. “And