Free Something Quite Beautiful by Amanda Prowse Page B

so much more important than a cooking aroma and a concern that some cushions might have been improperly plumped.
    Columbo was on TV. She hadn’t been watching; it was instead a comforting background noise. She had done that a lot since Martin went away, switching on either the TV or radio as soon as she stepped through the door; anything other than endure the silence of a life lived alone. She hated that.
    Poppy looked again to confirm that there were two of them; thus reinforcing what she thought she already knew. It is a well-known code; a letter for good news, telephone call for minor incident, a visit from one soldier for quite bad, two for the very worst.
    She noted the shapes that stood the other side of her door. One was a regular soldier, identifiable by his hat; the other was a bloke of rank, an officer. She didn’t recognise either of their outlines, strangers. She knew what they were going to say before they spoke, before one single word had been uttered; their stance was awkward and unnatural.
    Her mind flew to the cardboard box hidden under the bed. In it was underwear, lacy, tarty pieces that Martin had chosen. She would throw them away; there would be no need for them any more, no more anniversaries, birthdays or special Sunday mornings when the world was reduced to a square of mattress, a corner of duvet and the skin of the man she loved.
    Poppy wasn’t sure how long she took to reach for the handle, but had the strangest feeling that with each step taken, the door moved slightly further away.
    She slid the chain with a steady hand; it hadn’t been given a reason to shake, not yet. Opening the door wide, it banged against the inside wall. The tarnished handle found its regular groove in the plasterwork. Ordinarily, she would only have opened it a fraction, enough to peek out and see who was there, but this was no ordinary situation and with two soldiers on the doorstep, what harm could she come to? Poppy stared at them. They were pale, twitchy. She looked past them, over the concrete, third-floor walkway and up at the sky, knowing that these were the last few seconds that her life would be intact. She wanted to enjoy the feeling, confident that once they had spoken, everything would be broken. She gazed at the perfect blue, daubed with the merest wisp of cloud. It was beautiful, really beautiful.
    The two men appraised her as she stared over their heads into the middle distance. It was the first few seconds in which they would form their opinion. One of them noted her wrinkled, freckled nose, her clear, open expression. The other considered the grey slabs amid which she stood and registered the fraying cuff of her long-sleeved T-shirt.
    Their training told them to expect a number of varied responses; from fainting or rage to extreme distress, each had a prescribed treatment and procedure. This was their worst scenario, the disengaged, silent recipient with delayed reactions, much harder for them to predict.
    Poppy thought about the night before her husband left for Afghanistan, wishing that she could go back to then and do it differently. She had watched his mechanical actions, saw him smooth the plastic-wrapped, mud-coloured, Boy Scout paraphernalia that was destined for its sandy desert home. A place she couldn’t picture, in a life that she was barred from. She didn’t notice how his fingertips lingered on the embroidered roses of their duvet cover, the last touch to a thing of feminine beauty that for him meant home, meant Poppy.
    Martin was packing his rucksack which was propped open on their bed when he started to whistle. Poppy didn’t recognise the tune. She stared at his smiling, whistling face as he folded his clothes and wash kit into the voluminous, khaki cavern. He paused to push his non-existent fringe out of his eyes. Like the man that’s lost a finger, but still rubs the gap to relieve the cold, so Martin raked hair that was now shorn.
    Poppy couldn’t decipher his smile, but it was