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‘They were tough but fair,’ she acknowledged.
‘Right. They told me what they were prepared to do for me, and also what they expected from me in return. Not least that every hour of my day was going to be accounted for so that I had no time to pick back up with my so-called mates.’
‘Was that hard?’ she asked curiously.
Even now, the relief in his expression was evident.
‘No. It was the excuse I needed to change my life. I knew those guys were no good for me but they were all I had. I never believed Rosie and Wilf would be there for me when it really came down to it, but I was prepared to use them to get out of the cruddy life I had.’
‘But they were there for you, right?’
‘Yes. They were. It took time, but I finally began to see that the more I gave, the more they gave. Rosie tutored me to get my grades back up—no one had ever given a damn about my grades before. Then, when I succeeded there, Wilf found me a job in his garage as a mechanic to earn a bit of money. My money, which I could spend however I wanted to.’
‘Unlike the foster father who beat you when you were late from a paper round because he’d been waiting for his drinking money,’ Fliss recalled.
The memory of him telling her that still punched a hole in her stomach.
‘Right. And I responded to the discipline. I respected them for being honourable and fair. Within the year they’d turned me around and got me into the Army Cadet Force. I never looked back.’
He was making it sound easier than it clearly had been. She could only imagine the effort Ash must have made too, to turn his life around.
‘I managed to get sponsorship for my engineering degree, an Army Undergraduate Bursary, but I still couldn’t afford to go. And then Rosie and Wilf came forward with the money.’
Fliss gasped. ‘They can’t have afforded to do that for all their foster kids.’
‘They couldn’t. I hadn’t even lived with them for a couple of years, but we’d stayed in contact. They’d made sure of it. Everything I’ve achieved—my career, being a colonel—is all down to the opportunity they gave me. I could never have dreamed of this life if not for Rosie and Wilf.’
His humility was striking. She wanted to point out that they never would have offered him that support if he hadn’t been worthy of it. If he hadn’t been Ash. But he wouldn’t thank her for it; he was still battling demons for some perceived failing and this was a rare glimpse at the vulnerable side of Colonel Asher Stirling. A side no one else ever got to see. As sad as she was for Ash, she couldn’t help feel special that he trusted her in this way.
Fliss bit her tongue.
‘Rosie and Wilf were my guests when I had my passing out parade at Sandhurst. They were the family I brought to any officer balls, or garden parties. They were the people I called first every time I got a promotion. I visited them once or twice a year. More, if I wasn’t on a tour of duty.’
‘You stayed close,’ Fliss said softly. ‘There’s nothing wrong in that.’
In fact it made her wonder, when he had such a support network like them, why he’d become so closed off. So afraid to let other people in.
‘And then Rosie started showing the first signs of Alzheimer’s. Small things at first, forgetting people’s names, telling the same story a few times over the course of a weekend, and it was gradual. But, because I was away so much, every time I went back there was something new.’
Silently, Fliss listened to him.
‘She started forgetting medication, eating through a whole box of twenty ice-creams in an hour because she couldn’t remember having had one, running out into the street screaming with fear because Wilf had left her alone for five minutes to go and buy a pint of milk. By the time a few years had gone by it had got to the point where she couldn’t recognise anyone. Sometimes not even Wilf.’
‘That must have been hard.’
The silence hung between them. She held her breath, the urge to touch him, comfort him almost overwhelming, but she didn’t dare to. They were getting to the root of the issue but if she said anything, if she pushed him, he could shut her out entirely. She sat immobile, hardly even breathing, willing him to trust her enough to continue.
‘Frankly, I didn’t handle it well,’ Ash stated simply.
For a man who liked to stay in control as much as Ash did, she could only imagine how painful that was for him to admit.
‘I returned from a tour four years ago and she didn’t know who I was at all. When I tried to tell her, she became hysterical, screaming that I was lying and that the real Ash was only a kid. She warned me not to go anywhere near Ash because he was doing well and she didn’t want me pulling him back down the wrong path.’
‘She thought she was looking out for the fourteen-year-old Ash again,’ Fliss realised.
‘Right. And she had no idea that I was Ash.’ His expression was flat but there was no missing the pain behind those shale-hued eyes. ‘I was away so much with the Army and my sporadic presence was only stressing her out, so Wilf and I agreed that it would be better if I didn’t see her.’
It must have been like losing his mother all over again, Fliss realised abruptly. Feeling rejected all over again, feeling as if it was him against everyone all over again.
