Page 82 of Second Song

He doesn’t say no either. He takes a seat at my kit and drums forever, but that’s okay.

Like Liam, I can wait until he’s ready.

Some clocks never stop ticking, do they?

Luke needs to get back to Glynn Harber by evening. Liam’s demolition deadline won’t wait either. Not when he’s already behind schedule and that deadline is a domino holding up a long line of others. At least this time I get to say goodbye on the front steps of this school instead of running away, and I can nod after my stepdad extends a hand and asks, “I’ll see you again soon?”

“Very soon, Dad.” I grab his hand, but not to shake it. I pull him into a hug that’s so hard to end. More than his wedding ring gleams when we do part. I need to blink away blurred vision to watch his waving silhouette in a rearview mirror, only I don’t travel in a minibus painted with a True Grit logo. I drive my own car with a yawning Liam beside me, following that minibus until we reach an M5 junction. That’s where his hand on my thigh squeezes. “Take the next exit, Row?”

“To Devon?”

“Yeah.” He’s tired, but here’s some true grit of his own. “If I’m gonna make up for lost time, I’ll definitely need a demolition crew who know what they’re doing. Who can work fast and safely.”

Of course, he knows where to find one.

The drive is scenic as the sun dips lower, although I can’t say I pay attention to views featuring deer and Exmoor ponies instead of Cornish granite. I’m too busy listening to Liam work through some fog of his own.

“The lads will all be at Matt’s place today, catching up before the family meetup tomorrow.” His voice drops. “At least, all of them will be there apart from Twin One.” His silence doesn’t last long. “Benji.” He almost sighs a name he’s mentioned before. “His twin Blake wasn’t part of our brick.”

“Brick?”

Liam squeezes my thigh again. “Forces lingo. It means that Blake wasn’t part of our half section like Benji was. He wasn’t ever stationed with us. I don’t know if that was deliberate, you know, because?—”

“They were related?”

“Twins means more than being related, doesn’t it?” Here’s a textbook example of fear. “I ended what started in the womb for them, didn’t I?” Obligation and guilt quickly follow. “Of course, I kept my distance after what I cost Blake. I had to, especially when I knew something was up the day Benji got buried under rubble. Felt it right here, Row.”

I glance across to see his free hand rub his stomach. His next touch rises to his ear.

“Thought I heard something. Didn’t trust my hearing, so I kept digging until Benji came back to get me. I got to walk away. He didn’t.”

He’s quiet then.

I don’t rush him. I can’t after he sat through me drumming for so long. His processing is so much quieter than mine until I drive through a seaside village where I park outside a pair of cottages. He speaks up then. “Matt and I bought these together years back. I keep telling him he can have my share. Finish the rebuild without me.”

One side is renovated, pretty, the other a stalled work in progress partially shrouded by scaffolding and construction netting. He studies it from the passenger seat while letting me know he read a postscript I added to the letter I gave to another soldier.

“You asked Ed how he got his crew to help build that garden after he left the army. Because you knew a soldier who was all alone and still hurting, and who needed help from someone who’d worn the same boots as him. You sent him to find me. Do you know what he told me when he did?”

I can guess. Liam paraphrases again, this time reminding me of what is printed on the final page of that workbook.

“That the stupidest prize is struggling alone when I have other options.” He draws in a long, slow breath. “That having a network makes all the difference.”

It has for me, twice, just along the coast from here in a school and hidden away with a farming family in Ireland. We’ll have to wait to rebuild Liam’s—Matt doesn’t answer Liam’s knock on his door.

“His van’s gone. They’ll be surfing. Probably won’t be back until it’s too dark to see the rocks.” I know him well enough now to hear this as an endearment. “Bunch of muppets.”

The garden we stand in is as cratered as where we shared a first date, only these half-dug trenches don’t feature any poppies. They’re projects Matt came up with. “To keep me coming back.” It turns out there are more good memories here than sad ones. Liam shares several as he lets me inside his half of this building. “Sometimes, if we were all back from different ops at the same time, both twins would help renovate this place with us. Used to wreck my head. Two identical gingers bitching about brickwork in my kitchen? Both finishing each other’s sentences while surfing every evening? I could only tell them apart by which one was more or less sunburned.”

His voice thickens on a staircase where each tread creaks. I catch the hand he offers and climb them with him to stand at a bedroom window offering what he says is the best view of the sea from this building. If I squint, those distant black dots could be surfers—could be soldiers—could be someone missing a twin as much as Liam.

His hold on my hand tightens. “Once, we were all on Afghan tours at the same time. They’d sit together in the mess, chatting shit about the BritPop! contest or Love Island, both equally sunburnt to hell, and I couldn’t have told you which was Blake or Benji.”

He turns away from that beach view but keeps facing what he’s run from.

“If Benji knew I’d kept my distance? He’d?—”

“Kill you?”

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