He’d always been a handful; the number of times she’d been summoned into school: Luke giving cheek, Luke not showing up. He was bright and bored. He couldn’t wait to leave. She’d been the same at that age. She had tried talking to him about A levels or doing a BTEC. Something to give him a chance of a decent job, not end up like her in the poverty trap, no qualifications, everything a struggle.
‘No way,’ he’d said. And she knew there was no shifting him. Stubborn as a mule, never knew when to back down or back off. Could be a good quality at times, that persistence, but at others he’d back himself into a corner and brick it up.
Days later he came in from town, put a pizza in the oven and announced that he wanted to join the army.
Over my dead body, Louise swore to herself. She hadn’t spent sixteen years raising him to have him go off and get blown to bits by a roadside bomb in a godforsaken desert. ‘Thought you didn’t like people bossing you about,’ she’d said. ‘That’s all you get in the army: rules and regulations.’
‘So?’
‘C’mon, Luke, you’re not exactly hot on authority, are you?’
‘What you saying?’ He was truculent, ready for an argument. ‘Someone’s got to fight for their country.’
She stifled a sigh, didn’t want to alienate him, wondered where the sudden interest in soldiering had come from. ‘What’s the attraction?’
‘Best training in the world, isn’t it?’
Then what? Kill people, be killed. Eight years ago, Louise had dragged him on the anti-Iraq war march, him and Ruby both. He’d loved it, shouted himself hoarse, enjoying the novelty of mass protest, the whiff of disobedience, transgression, marching down the middle of the road between the police lines, waving the flag he’d made. Ruby had cried, fearful that planes would come and bomb them any minute. Not understanding that this was a war where only the children of the ‘enemy’ would lose life and limb. An unequal and illegal war fought for duplicitous reasons.
‘Grandad was in the army,’ he said. Meaning Louise’s grandad, his great-grandad.
‘That was different, he was called up. He’d not have wanted you fighting in Afghanistan. He was a communist, I’ve told you that. He’d have known exactly what it was down to: oil and economics.’
While Louise’s mother had been roaming the world entertaining passengers in her glittery gowns and long black gloves, Louise and her dad Phil had lived with her grandparents. Grandad was a docker, a union man and a lifelong Party member. The only paper that came into the house was the Morning Star. Louise’s dad was a liberal, if pressed. Wishy-washy, according to Grandad. The house rang with political arguments and debates. Louise got dragged along to fund-raisers for Cuba and Angola, or commandeered by her grandad to give out leaflets for pickets during the miners’ strike, but once grown, she’d never joined a party or got involved. Her political activity ran to voting every election, paying union dues, even though the agency wasn’t unionized, attending the occasional demonstration and peeling racist stickers off lamp posts.
Maybe the army thing was a reaction against her and her views. Luke rebelling, thinking of something to put her back up. She decided not to give him any more ammunition. ‘Okay,’ she said steadily, ‘how about this – you still want to join up in a year’s time and you can go.’
He frowned at her, wary. ‘Why wait?’
‘You’re only sixteen, you’ll need my consent if you’re under eighteen, but I’d like you to give something else a go first.’
‘Such as?’ He leaned back on the chair, rocking it on its back legs, arms folded.
‘A trade – you choose.’
‘Not college,’ he insisted.
‘An apprenticeship. You’d be earning. There’s usually day release.’
‘What?’
‘You do a day a week at college, the rest on the job.’
‘You just don’t want me to join the army,’ he objected.
‘No, I don’t.’ She kept her voice level. ‘But I can’t stop you, once you’re old enough. People die, Luke, they get injured, lose limbs; or they get stressed out, can’t settle again. Why would I want that for you?’
