Jack leaned down. He said quietly, ‘People are listening.’
‘No, they’re not.’
‘Three tables round us are neither drinking their coffee nor eating their pecan Danish, they are listening. Open-mouthed.’
‘Let them.’
‘Lex, I’m not unsympathetic—’
‘You just wish you were a soldier. Most men do, I should think. “Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier.”’
‘Who said that?’
‘Dr Johnson.’
‘I don’t believe him.’
‘He’s right. You’re all fascinated by soldiering. All the he-man, boy stuff. Boots and guns and blood and sweat and bonding.’
‘Get up, Lex,’ Jack said. ‘I’m taking you home.’
Alexa rose slowly from her plastic chair. She said sadly, ‘Little Izzy—’
‘She’s OK. She told you so.’
‘I felt …’ Alexa said, ‘I felt as if I was – losing her.’
‘They grow up.’
Alexa looked at him. ‘I don’t like you much today, Jack Dearlove.’
He took her arm. He gave her a rueful smile. ‘Join the club,’ he said.
‘Two weeks ago,’ Gus said, ‘we were in Helmand. Can you believe it?’
Dan grunted. They were both in his office. Gus was sitting in Paul Swain’s chair with his feet on the desk in front of him, and Dan was leaning against the wall opposite, with his eyes closed.
‘All that endless, endless desert—’
‘But you could always see the mountains. Wherever you were, you could see the mountains.’
‘Great colours. Remember Ranger Beattie and his little tin of watercolours?’
‘Bloody good, some of them.’
‘And the irrigation ditches,’ Dan said. ‘Everywhere. And the tree lines. Good cover.’
‘And just as good cover for laying IEDs. How’s that poor lad of yours?’
‘Lost a foot,’ Dan said shortly. He opened his eyes. ‘I spoke to his mother today. She said, “You sort of accept they might die, but you never imagine this happening.” I didn’t like to tell her about Tommy Stanway losing both his fucking legs.’
Gus took his feet off the desk and stood up. He walked slowly to the window and stood looking out. Then he said, without turning round, ‘Makes you … ashamed, really.’
‘Ashamed?’
‘There’s these kids,’ Gus said, ‘or even the older ones, like Sergeant Matthews – shattered pelvis, colostomy bag, wife still with him but only just, saying he isn’t the man she married—’ He stopped.
Dan let a short pause fall, and then he said, ‘Is this somehow about Kate?’
‘Kind of.’
‘What then?’
‘Well,’ Gus said, turning round from the window and folding his arms, ‘she’s got an award ceremony tonight and some meeting or other tomorrow, so she won’t be back till Saturday now.’
‘Oh.’
‘She’s done brilliantly. She’s won this award for her recent fundraising campaign. Signed up more subscribers than anyone has ever achieved in a single year. I’m really proud of her.’
Dan hitched himself on to a corner of the nearest desk. ‘Of course,’ he said politely.
Gus raised his hands and put the heels of them into his eye sockets. He said, ‘Please don’t read between the lines.’
‘It’s where the important stuff is, though.’
‘I just want to see her,’ Gus said. ‘I just want her to be there. She doesn’t have to do any lovey-dovey stuff, she just has to be there.’ He took his hands away and blinked. ‘I’m pathetic.’
‘No, you’re not.’
‘A whinging wanker—’
‘Gus,’ Dan said, ‘she’s your wife. You love her. You missed her.’
‘D’you think she missed me?’
‘Course she did.’
Gus gave a half-hearted smile. ‘That didn’t sound quite convincing. Or convinced.’
‘I meant it to,’ Dan said. ‘I mean it. Kate’s very pragmatic, and pragmatic people don’t do sensitive, as a rule.’
‘Am – am I sensitive?’ Gus said.
‘You are.’
‘Sod it. Are you?’
Dan got off the desk. ‘Chronically. In some ways.’
‘Does Alexa know that?’
‘She does.’
‘How—’ Gus said, and stopped, then started again, ‘How’s it going?’
Dan flicked a glance at him. ‘In what way, precisely?’
‘You know perfectly well in what way, you tosser. With you and Lex.’
Dan went over to his computer and began to fiddle with the mouse. He said, his eyes on the screen, ‘We are, shall we say, feeling our way towards one another again.’
‘I could do with a bit of feeling.’
Dan straightened up. ‘Come down to the mess and have a drink.’
‘It’s only five forty-five.’
‘We’ll have a drink at six and maybe one while we’re waiting.’
Gus came and stood beside Dan, looking at his computer screen. ‘Why don’t you talk to me about Alexa?’
‘Nothing to tell you, Augustus.’
‘But—’
Dan put an arm across Gus’s shoulders. ‘We have some domestic wrinkles that won’t be ironed out until I’ve counted all my boys out with clean faces and dire warnings.’
‘Really?’
‘Really.’
‘Let’s get that drink. My dad used to look at his watch at dead on six every night and say, “Thank God. Dear old gin.” Never drank wine, though. Odd, that.’
They emerged on to the floor of the battery offices. The central desks were empty, the noticeboards cleared of everything except battery minutes and an irritating recent directive from Health and Safety pinned with absolute precision against the green baize.
‘Eerie. End of term.’
‘I still love this place.’
‘Me too.’
‘“The culture of the battery—”’
‘“So important—”’
‘“To young soldiers.”’
‘Yes, suh!’
‘What would you be,’ Gus said, putting his side hat on, ‘if you weren’t a soldier?’
Dan paused in front of the colour photograph of the young MC. ‘Probably a very frustrated policeman. Or a mercenary. You?’
Gus linked his arm in Dan’s. He said cheerfully, ‘A right mess.’
‘Well, then. How lucky that we do what we do.’
‘Lucky indeed,’ Gus said with fervour.
Kneeling beside the bath while she soaped the twins, Alexa felt her phone vibrate in the pocket of her jeans. She sat back on her heels and dried her hands along the bathmat. The text on her phone screen read, ‘Gus bit down so cheering him up. Back 7.30 latest. xx’.
‘Daddy?’ Flora said with unerring instinct, rising out of the bath with clots of foam clinging to her like shreds of cotton wool.
‘He’ll be back to kiss you.’
‘No!’ Tassy shouted.
‘Don’t you want him to kiss you?’
‘I want him to read to me! I want him to read me my story.’
‘Tomorrow—’
‘Now!’
‘Now, now, now!’
The twins exchanged glances and began on a bellowed chant, ‘Now, now, NOW, now, now, NOW!’
Alexa put her hands over her ears. ‘Stop it!’
‘Get him,’ Tassy demanded.
‘I can’t, he has the car—’
‘Ring him!’
Alexa felt rage rising in her throat like incipient tears. Suddenly she couldn’t trust herself to speak naturally to the twins, but only artificially, as if making a formal public speech to an audience of adults.
‘Do you know,’ Alexa said, ‘I am reluctant to do that. I quite see the force of your reasoning, but there’s some sort of pride in me which prevents me from ringing to say you promised and yet again your pro
mise wasn’t worth the breath it was uttered with, if you see what I mean?’
Tassy stared at her for a moment. And then, without warning, she reached up, whipped off her sister’s spectacles and threw them into the water.
‘Tassy!’
‘To clean them—’ Tassy said.
‘I don’t want them clean!’ Flora wailed.
Alexa rolled her sweater sleeve up to her armpit and felt about in the water for the spectacles.
‘You’re tickling!’ Flora shrieked, and then, ‘I can’t see, I can’t see, I can’t—’
‘I’ll look for you,’ Tassy said.
Alexa retrieved Flora’s glasses and began to dry them on a towel. They were alarmingly frail and also bent out of shape by the violence of their lives. She knelt up to hook the side-pieces back round Flora’s ears. ‘There.’
‘I can’t see,’ Flora said, more calmly. ‘They’re all drippy.’
‘They’ll dry.’
‘I want Daddy!’
‘I want Daddy!’
‘Please,’ Alexa said. ‘Please—’
From downstairs, Beetle began to bark. The twins stopped chanting. ‘Daddy coming!’
Tassy stood up too, now, and began to scramble over the edge of the bath. ‘Daddy, Daddy!’
‘I don’t think so—’
‘Wait!’ Flora screamed. ‘Wait! I want to see Daddy!’
‘Sorry,’ Mo said from the doorway.
Alexa turned awkwardly from where she knelt on the bathmat. ‘Mo!’
‘And Franny,’ Franny said, appearing behind her. ‘Hello, Riley girls in your bubble bath.’
‘Hello, hello, hello!’ the twins shouted, slippery and excited. ‘Hello, hello!’ They slithered past Alexa and ran across the room.
‘I can’t pick you up without a towel, you wet nonsense—’
‘Here—’
‘Hello, little Miss Four Eyes. Are you clean or just wet?’
Alexa got to her feet. ‘What are you both doing here?’
‘Aren’t you pleased to see us?’
‘Thrilled. Absolutely thrilled. But—’
Mo was bundling Tassy up in a towel. She carried her across the bathroom and sat on the closed lid of the lavatory with Tassy on her knee. ‘Instinct, babe.’
Alexa looked at her. ‘Instinct?’
Mo didn’t look back. She was rubbing Tassy briskly with the towel. ‘Rub-a-dub, rub-a-dub, small wet person. Not a cheep out of you for ten days, Mrs Riley. And Fran and I thought, heigh ho, many mattress moments going on at number seven, good-oh, and then the time went on and we saw Dan here and there in the car alone, and we looked at each other and we said, not sure we like the non-communication, not altogether reassuring. Let me do those piggy toes, Miss Tassy. So we thought we’d just boldly come and see.’
She set Tassy, pink and naked, on the floor by her feet. She gave her bottom a little pat. ‘Didn’t think you’d mind.’
Franny, holding Flora against her in another towel with one hand, adjusted Flora’s spectacles with the other. ‘We knew you’d be here. We knew it was bath time. So here we are.’ She glanced at Alexa, and winked. ‘OK? Pleased?’
Alexa subsided back on to her knees in the middle of the floor. She pushed her hair off her face. ‘Thankful,’ she said. ‘We brought a bottle,’ Mo said. ‘Army wives, full of forethought and advance planning. You’ll find it in the fridge.’
Alexa opened the fridge door. She said, ‘The twins have never, ever been so biddable about going to bed.’
‘Three adults to two children is about the right ratio.’
‘Makes me long for girls,’ Franny said. ‘Almost as much as I long never, ever to be pregnant again. And I have such huge babies. At five foot four, it isn’t funny.’
Alexa put the bottle of Muscadet on the table, and the corkscrew beside it. ‘Sit you down.’
‘We are.’
‘Sorry, it’s a reflex. I’ll be saying drink up and you may not get up till you’ve finished any minute.’
‘You look tired, Mrs R.’
Alexa turned away to find glasses. ‘Not really.’
‘Tense, then.’
‘Thank you.’
‘It isn’t a criticism,’ Franny said reasonably. ‘It’s merely an observation.’
Mo took the wine glasses out of Alexa’s hands and put them in a neat row on the table. ‘These homecomings can be just fiendish.’
Alexa sat down at the table and leaned her elbows on it. ‘I can’t get anywhere near him.’
‘Not even sex?’
‘Well,’ Alexa said, half-laughing, ‘there’s quite a lot of that, but I wouldn’t say it was exactly conversational.’
Franny took the wine bottle and the corkscrew and poised it to take out the cork.
‘It’s a screw cap,’ Mo said.
‘You are so helpful.’
‘I brought a screw cap in order to be helpful. It’s such a pity you two don’t ride. Riding is such a release when you are seething with frustration.’
‘Except,’ Franny said, ‘that the stables are such a hotbed of bad behaviour.’ She took the cap off the bottle and began pouring. ‘Can’t you just run Dan up against a wall and make him focus? I do it to Andy, but then he isn’t as tall as Dan, and living with just boys makes you a bit physical in all your solutions.’
Alexa sighed. ‘I just want him to tune in to me. I’ve got some big stuff to tell him.’
They both looked at her.
‘Like what?’
‘Like the acuteness of Izzy’s homesickness. Like I’ve been offered a job—’
‘You what?’
‘A job,’ Alexa said. ‘A proper teaching job in a fairly proper private school fifteen miles away.’ She glanced towards the dresser, where the envelope still sat among the spotted mugs. ‘The letter came the day before Dan got back. I rang them and said I couldn’t decide till I’d talked to him and explained the circumstances, and they were very nice and said they could wait two weeks. Two weeks is up in three days’ time.’
Franny pushed wine glasses towards Mo and Alexa. ‘Wow.’
‘Clever girl.’
Alexa said to her wine glass, ‘I’m beginning to think that the clever bit was brazening out the interview and getting the offer. Because I don’t see how I can accept. I mean, there’s not just poor Izzy, there’s the twins, and all these demands on Dan’s time, and then, because of him, on mine. Like this dinner party—’
‘What dinner party?’
Alexa picked up her glass and put it down again. ‘Dan wants me to have the Brigadier and the CO to dinner. Plus wives.’
‘You’ll walk that.’
‘They’re all OK.’
‘It’s not that,’ Alexa said. ‘It’s just that his request comes on top of him not connecting with me or the children, really, for one single minute since he’s been home.’
Mo sat up suddenly and looked towards the window. At the same second Beetle lurched out of slumber and his basket in a single purposeful movement.
‘There’s his car—’
‘Don’t go—’
‘I have no intention of going,’ Franny said. ‘We’re married to the breed, remember?’
‘He knows nothing about the job.’
‘OK.’
‘And very little about Izzy—’
‘Fine. Fine. No inquisition coming up, promise.’
The front door opened and slammed shut, and there were the sounds of Beetle’s rapturous welcome and Dan’s response, and then he appeared in the kitchen doorway.
Mo said, beaming, ‘Welcome home!’
Franny raised her glass. ‘Hear, hear!’
Dan was smiling broadly. He said cheerfully, ‘Got a fourth glass?’
‘I’m sure we can find you one.’
‘You won’t want this – girl drink.’
‘I’ll drink anything, Fran. How’s my mate, Andy?’
‘Aren’t you going to kiss your wife?’ said Mo.
�
��Andy’s good, thank you. Will be better for a sight of you, when you have a moment.’
‘D’you have a kiss for me, wife?’
‘Goodness, Dan, Helmand sure peels the pounds off you,’ said Mo.
Alexa held up her face. Dan smelled of chewing gum and whisky.
‘Sorry I’m late. Did I miss—’
‘You did.’
‘Are they still awake?’
‘I so hope not.’
‘I’ll just go and check.’
‘In a minute,’ Mo said. ‘When we’ve gone. Which we’ll have done shortly. Can we ask how you are?’
‘You can ask,’ Dan said, smiling at her, his hand on Alexa’s shoulder, ‘but I’m afraid it doesn’t mean you’ll get an answer.’
‘So if I said was it worth it?’
‘I’d say I bloody well hope so!’
‘You’re no use,’ Mo said, getting to her feet. ‘We all hope that. It’s just that we’d also like to know that our own effort is worth making.’
‘I do know that,’ Dan said, suddenly sober.
There was a short, powerful silence. Dan’s hand moved briefly from Alexa’s shoulder to her hair and then he said, ‘I really am going to check on those girls.’
‘We’ll say goodbye,’ Mo said.
Franny stood too. She moved to stand in front of Dan and reached up to kiss him. ‘We were allowed to bath your peaches.’
‘Minxes, more like. My best to Andy.’
‘Will do.’
Dan looked at Mo. ‘And a high five to Baz.’
‘We’re not speaking,’ she said. ‘He’s booked on a three-week course without telling me.’
Dan glanced down at Alexa. ‘Try six months.’
‘Oh, we have.’
He crossed the kitchen to the hall doorway. ‘Come again soon,’ he said, and vanished.
‘Have they gone?’ Dan said.
Alexa was laying the table for the two of them, opposite one another as usual, with candles in the glass candlesticks George had brought back from a British Legion trip to Copenhagen.
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