All's Loud on the Western Front | Chapter One

For Lauren and Beth

Tom was just pouring Nicki another mug of tea when they heard the scream. Nicki had spent many years in the army, and yet she'd never become immune to screaming, never been able to keep up the emotional detachment like everyone else could. It set her heart on edge.

Strictly speaking, Michael had told them not to drink too much whilst they were here – responsibility and all that. Nicki knew for a fact that Grantly was, at this moment, slumped at a bar stool downstairs with a whisky clasped in his bony fingers, but Tom had turned a blind eye so far, and as he was in charge Nicki followed suit.

It was the first time she'd been on a school trip with Waterloo Road. Tom had laughed when she'd agreed to go, "It'll be your first and last time."

"Well, Mr Clarkson, it must be alright if you're still going," she'd said, and he'd hit her over the head with a pizza leaflet he'd happened to be holding. (Which said a lot about Tom, all in all, that he was holding a pizza leaflet. No, she was joking, he was– well, Tom was many things.)

They were sitting in Tom's bedroom sharing tea and biscuits now. The kids were getting ready for tea now, no doubt fighting over the shower or whose turn it was to charge their phone. Nicki was so tired, which she supposed came with the territory, lying awake worrying about the kids all night, and yet filled with something she hadn't felt in a while, a kind of adrenalin that came from truly enjoying herself, and seeing others truly enjoy themselves.

"What was–" Tom was already on his feet. He was wearing quite a tight white shirt, and she could see his chest shifting, buh-bum buh-bum. "I'll check the boys if you'll do the girls' floor?"

She met Scout on the stairs. "Miss, Miss, she's– you need to–"

"What's happened, Jodie?"

"She's–"

Her own heart was thudding like Tom's now. She'd never seen Scout speechless before. "Jodie, just calm down – you go downstairs and find Mr Clarkson, okay? What room am I going to?"

"Two hundred and twelve."

It was funny how she always thought of Scout as Scout, and yet called her Jodie. It was also funny how protective she felt of the girl, and how fond she'd become of her bolshiness and her determination to do well despite the odds. Perhaps by calling her 'Jodie' she was trying to ignore the emotional connection she felt towards her. With Nicki, it was always about hiding away her emotions.

The door of 212 was open. There were girls huddled around in the room, their faces filled with shock, as the faces of victims of bombings often were, unable to comprehend what was happening. She forced herself to put to one side the memories that flooded over her, the screaming of children with missing limbs, not long for this world.

"L–" Nicki meant to say 'Lorraine', but the word got caught somewhere in her throat, as Scout's words had.

"Miss," Imogen said, her voice hoarse, "She was saying something about everything going wrong, how she means nothing to anyone, and something about playing Monopoly, and then she just–"

"Okay," Nicki said. Her head was thudding along with her chest, her heartbeat in her skull. She was thinking shitshitshit, and she was saying okay, because she had to. "Can everyone just go outside, please? Go back to your rooms. Everything's going to be okay."

Some of the girls took a couple of steps backwards, but most stayed, and she didn't blame them. It was hard to think when something like this happened, it was hard to hold yourself together, never mind hold everyone else together.

"Lorraine," she said, very softly, "Lorraine, I'm here now, Nicki."

Lorraine was sitting on the window ledge, her legs hanging over the edge, facing out into the warm French sky. They had such beautiful windows in this hotel, Nicki thought, the kind you always wished you had in Britain but realised you never would have because it was too damn cold to have windows that opened like doors. In Britain, people complained if the bus windows were open a little, "There's a draught." Why did it matter?

"Do you want to talk to me, Lorraine?" She took a couple of steps forwards, but didn't touch her colleague. "Imogen says you're upset about everything going wrong. What's gone wrong?"

She shook her head. She was obviously crying.

"I know things must seem really bad, but this really isn't going to help anyone, Lorraine. All the children are frightened."

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay, you've not done anything wrong." How the bloody hell did people manage when this was their career? To talk people down from the tops of buildings every day, to convince them there was a better way to deal with their problems? It made Nicki feel sick. "Do you think you could just come down from there, so we can talk about it? We can get Tom to make you a coffee, and then we can sort out whatever's happened."

And where the bloody hell had Tom got to? One of the girls was sniffling behind Nicki, as though proving the point that the children were frightened. Not really very helpful. Oh God, what was she supposed to do? She'd seen her friends on the brink of suicide before; her boss when she'd first joined the army, when he'd been unable to save a little girl who'd been shot in front of him. But Lorraine? She was so bubbly, so alive, it seemed like a horrible juxtaposition that she was considering death now.

"I can't."

"You can," Nicki said. There was probably a rule that you didn't argue with someone who was considering suicide. She should probably talk about something irrelevant and fluffy, like windows. No, not windows. "We had a good day today, didn't we? The kids loved the Eiffel tower, and tomorrow we're having croissants in that little café around the corner. It's so beautiful here, you can't want to leave this."

"You don't understand."

No, you're right there. Part of her detested Lorraine at the moment, for being so bloody selfish, for doing this to the children. Part of her felt sick with the suggestion that a person could be so desperate that they literally couldn't cope any more. She wanted to hug her and slap her at the same time.

"Is it your boyfriend?"

Lorraine made a funny sound that may have been a laugh or a sob.

"Money problems?"

"No. I have plenty of that." She laughed again. "Plenty of money, and nothing to do with it. The root of all evil."

She was shuffling even further towards the edge of the ledge, towards emptiness. Nicki tried to calculate how high up they were. Lorraine would almost certainly die if she fell from here, or if not death then serious injury, crushed bones and blood everywhere, excruciating pain. Nicki wanted someone else to take control, she wanted to run away and be sick. Fat chance.

"I can't do this, Nicki."

Life, or death? Nicki climbed up beside her, put a hand on her arm. "It's not true that nobody cares about you, Lorraine, it's an absolute lie. I will do everything I can to help you, I promise; please, just come down."

Lorraine flinched like Nicki had burnt her. "I'm scared."

There were two shouts at once, one of 'Miss' from Scout and one of 'Nicki' from Tom, and they mingled together into a sort of "Mickisss" in Nicki's head. She wondered how it could possibly be raining when the sun was so warm, and then she realised it was tears on her face, not rain.

"Lorraine," Tom pleaded, running across the room through the crowds of children and looking up at the windowsill. Nicki hadn't realised how far up it was when she'd climbed up. She hadn't realised how close she was to the edge. "You need to come down, okay, this isn't going to help with anything at all, you aren't thinking about this."

"It's okay, Lorraine," Nicki said. How was her voice so soft when everything inside of her was screaming? "Take your time."

"There's too much time, too much time to realise how much you've fucked up your life."

"Lorraine, please–" she murmured. She could hear Tom behind her, shepherding the children out of the room, leaving Nicki to talk to Lorraine. Put the children first, always. Nicki just wanted to jump down and cover up Scout's eyes, she shouldn't have to see this.

"I'm sorry."

Lorraine pushed Nicki away from her. One of them fell backwards and one of them fell forwards, and suddenly the window ledge was empty, endless in its expanse of white, and to a chorus of children screaming they both fell down into darkness.

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