When the telephone had rung mid-morning, Elaine had supposed that it would be her friend Verity, calling to confirm matinée tickets for the National Theatre. Verity had said she would ring before midday, and she was the kind of person who telephoned when she said she would, as well as being the kind of person who made arrangements, down to the smallest detail, months in advance of any activity, and became personally offended at the mere suggestion of any subsequent change. Plans made with Verity could be relied upon with utter confidence to work, but also carried an undertone of menace.
‘You wouldn’t,’ Verity was inclined to say if her proposals were met with any hint of a desire for modification, ‘want to let me down, would you?’
But the call had not been from Verity, but from Alexa. An Alexa apparently standing in her kitchen surrounded by cookery books and lists, in a state of uncharacteristic turmoil.
‘But, darling,’ Elaine said, not having done more than assemble a meal for a bridge four in a decade, ‘what’s to faze you about supper for six?’
Alexa had said, too vehemently for the situation, that Elaine didn’t understand.
‘What don’t I understand? The etiquette of having a colonel and a brigadier for dinner?’
No, Alexa said, yes, well both, really, and on top of everything – she had stopped mid-sentence, as if she had suddenly flung her hand up over her mouth.
‘Everything, darling?’
In a more measured voice, Alexa said she’d just rung for some menu suggestions. Things that looked as if you’d spent ages on them when you hadn’t really, because you hadn’t got ages to spend, and anyway were feeling so distracted and preoccupied with things—
‘What things?’
‘Oh,’ Alexa said, sounding on the verge of tears, ‘just the domestic round. You know …’
‘I don’t,’ Elaine said, truthfully. ‘Not like you do. I never have. Where’s Dan?’
Alexa said neutrally that he was up at the offices.
‘Again?’
‘There’s some bother with drugs. They did some random testing on some of the soldiers and two of Dan’s lot tested positive. They swear they took nothing, they insist they just got the fumes from other people at a party. It’s really – hard for Dan.’
‘Is it?’
‘He’s told them he’ll stand by them if they tell him what happened. But they won’t.’
‘Oh dear,’ Elaine said. She was about to say, sympathetically, ‘It’s always something, darling, isn’t it?’ and checked herself. Instead she said, ‘What news of Isabel?’
‘Oh, Mum.’
‘What, darling?’
Alexa said, through sudden tears, ‘She’s just – just enduring it. Sends pitiful little messages about being fine. I feel so awful.’
‘It isn’t your fault.’
‘It is! It is! If I hadn’t married into this life, Isabel wouldn’t be suffering as she is!’
‘She might be suffering because you weren’t as happy as you are with Dan.’
There was a prolonged silence, not broken even by sniffs from Alexa’s end of the line.
Elaine said, ‘Darling? Are you there?’
‘Do you think,’ Alexa said, more resolutely, ‘that avocado something is too much of a cliché?’
Elaine grasped the phone tightly. ‘Would you like me to come down?’
‘What?’
‘Shall I come down to Larkford and help you? I easily could.’
Alexa said carefully, ‘I – don’t think so.’
‘Why not?’
‘We’ll come to London when Dan’s on leave.’
‘But this supper party.’
‘I’ll manage.’
‘Alexa,’ Elaine said, putting on her reading glasses for emphasis, ‘you rang me because you weren’t managing.’
‘I am now.’
‘Despite Isabel? And Dan?’
Alexa muttered something.
‘What?’
‘I said,’ Alexa said, ‘I shouldn’t have rung.’
Elaine replied reproachfully, ‘I’d like to have helped, you know.’
‘I don’t mean to be ungrateful.’
‘No.’
‘I just rang,’ Alexa said firmly, as if she had never wavered, ‘for a few recipes, you know?’
When she had put the phone down, Elaine went into her bedroom and sat at the dressing-table Morgan had given her when they were first married, because, he said, it was an exact replica of the one his mother had always used. That knowledge had, Elaine recalled, been violently irritating to her forty years ago, but now, as with most irritating things, her reaction to it had mellowed. It was as if, she sometimes thought, she no longer had the energy to resent things and disapprove of things and battle against contempt. Even the soft sepia photograph of his carefully feminine mother that Morgan still kept on his chest of drawers was no longer an annoyance. If she found Verity’s behaviour over theatre dates a real hindrance, she surely wouldn’t go on putting up with it, would she? Wasn’t it, really, just a measure of the calmer waters of being older, of liking routines and familiarity, and even – dare one acknowledge it – the serene self-indulgence of monotony?
She sat down at her dressing-table, on its matching stool, and surveyed her reflection in the triple mirror between two lamps made of silvered cupids that Morgan had found on a holiday in Venice. Alexa had not inherited her face, but Alexa’s little Tassy had, as had Flora, in a more blurred version. Elaine did not feel she knew the twins very well, any more than she knew Dan, or the child Isabel had grown into since she was sent away to school. When she thought about them, or even more emphatically about Alexa, all the calm and surrendering thoughts about her civilized and well-managed daily round in the Marylebone Road were exploded by immediate agitation. She laid both hands flat across her stomach, pressing hard against her neat, discreet merino cardigan. Alexa had sounded all over the place on the phone, distressed and uneven and as defensive as ever. Elaine stared at herself in the mirror. Her face seemed to be melting, dissolving, blurring between the cool, gleaming orbs of her pearl earrings.
Oh my goodness, Elaine thought, letting go of her stomach and snatching a tissue from their lace-covered box, oh my goodness, I’m going to cry.
Julian Bailey turned to smile his handsome, direct, soldierly smile at Alexa. ‘Delicious,’ he said. ‘And I never eat pudding as a rule. Ask Claire!’
He looked startlingly different, Alexa thought, out of uniform. They all did, of course, to a certain degree, but Julian Bailey, as spare and slight as a jockey, was an altogether changed physical proposition in corduroy trousers (rust-coloured) and a cashmere V-neck (navy blue) than he was in battledress and side hat with his hardly enormous feet, now shod in immaculate suede loafers, magnified and masculinized by Army boots.
He was clever, everyone said, extremely clever. He wore rimless glasses, behind which his blue eyes shone with great intensity, and he had a reputation for reading and an encyclopaedic knowledge of opera. His wife, Claire, to whom he deferred with elaborate public gallantry, was built on the same scale and balanced his intellectual powers with formidable practicality and capability. Alexa suspected that despite making all the conventional noises of delighted approval, Claire would have guessed that the sauce on the chicken contained a can of condensed soup because Alexa had only discovered at the last moment that she had forgotten to buy cream. Claire was wearing tailored trousers, not jeans, and a white shirt under a velvet waistcoat embroidered in gold thread, which Julian had brought home from Afghanistan. She had gold stud earrings, no other jewellery but her wedding band, clear skin and freshly washed hair. The effect on Alexa and, plainly, on Mary Mackenzie, the Colonel’s wife and something of a professional pretty woman, was to make them feel they had put on the wrong clothes and too much make-up.
Alexa smiled back. ‘Good. So glad you liked it. A terrific apple year, of course.’
‘Of course,’ Julian Bailey said, still smiling. ‘When we left Helmand,
it was apricot time. You’d be amazed how beautiful the countryside out there can be. Mountains with these lovely valleys between, filled with little white farms and apricot orchards. Under a blue sky, quite fabulous. I expect Dan has told you.’
Alexa glanced down the table. Dan was leaning towards Mary Mackenzie to refill her glass. She was saying ‘No, no,’ but not really stopping him, and he was smiling and pouring, and Claire Bailey was holding out her own glass in mock indignation at Dan’s not noticing that it was empty.
‘Oh, yes.’
‘I was so sorry,’ Julian said, ‘that you couldn’t make the family day.’
‘Yes, me too.’
‘They’re so crucial these days. Aren’t they, Mack?’
The Colonel on Alexa’s left put his pudding spoon down with regret. He said, ‘No nonsense about not eating pudding in my department, Mrs R. That was fantastic. But then I’m the one who eats the biscuits out of my rat pack before anything else.’
‘The family day, Mack. So important to be able to be inclusive. To demonstrate to the families how vital they are to our morale—’
‘Awful piece in the paper today. Did you see? Guardian, I think—’
‘I only ever read the arts pages in the Saturday Guardian, Mack, as you well know.’
‘It was headed “No Medals For Those Left At Home”, or something.’
Alexa took a gulp of wine. She said as mildly as she could, ‘Well, there aren’t.’
Julian Bailey turned his shining blue gaze on her. He said pleasantly, ‘Did that have anything to do with your not attending the family day?’
Alexa looked back at him. ‘No. It was Isabel.’
‘Isabel?’
‘My oldest.’
‘Oh, of course. Stupid of me.’
‘My children,’ Alexa said, raising her voice very slightly, ‘come first.’
‘Naturally.’
‘Well, not naturally, actually, as far as the Army’s concerned.’
Julian glanced down at the table. ‘I suppose Claire has always shielded me from most of that. She’s always said that her role is to ease the children through life with as little disruption and as much happiness as possible. Luckily they like school.’
‘Unluckily,’ Alexa said, ‘Isabel doesn’t.’
‘I am truly sorry to hear that.’
‘Yes.’
‘Perhaps,’ Mack said, his eyes on his senior officer, ‘you should speak to Welfare?’
‘Good idea. I’m glad you mentioned it. Let me set it up.’
‘Lovely man!’ Claire called from Mack’s other side. ‘Walt the Welfare. You should have shouted earlier.’
‘I hoped—’ said Alexa.
‘You should have come straight to me,’ Julian said, ‘or Mack. Why didn’t you?’
Alexa glanced at Dan. ‘You were all so busy.’
‘Never too busy for our own families. Where would we be without you?’
‘I thought I could sort it.’
‘Well, let us help you do that. How are yours, Mack?’
‘My one, Julian.’
‘I know that. How is he?’
‘Ask Mary.’
‘You’re no help. And no advertisement.’ He picked up his pudding plate, as if to signal both that he would like to help and that he would also like to move the conversation on.
Alexa stood up. Dan was telling Mary Mackenzie a story, and she was laughing and shaking her head, and her long dark curls were becoming entangled with her earrings. Dan paused and looked up at his wife. ‘Darling?’
‘I was just going to ask,’ Alexa said, ‘if anyone wanted tea or coffee? And if so, which kind?’
‘That was a stunning success,’ Dan said. ‘Stunning. You were amazing. Wonderful dinner. They all loved it.’
‘Good.’
‘I mean, look at the time! Twenty-five past midnight! It was a triumph. It really was.’
Alexa, pulling her hair up into a ponytail, turned to the sink. ‘I’m glad.’
Dan was marshalling wine bottles – a considerable number – on the table before putting them in the recycling box by the back door. He paused, a bottle in each hand. ‘What’s the matter?’
Alexa turned the hot tap on full blast. ‘Nothing.’
Dan put down the bottles and came across the kitchen. He reached past her and turned the tap off. ‘It’s not nothing. What’s the matter?’
Alexa held on to the edge of the sink, her shoulders hunched. ‘You know what’s the matter, Dan. You know.’
‘I don’t.’
‘Don’t you?’
‘No,’ he said, ‘I really don’t. You put on an amazing meal for the two senior people in my life and their wives, and everyone has a wonderful evening and eats and drinks like there’s no tomorrow, and stays till after midnight, and you can’t be as pleased as I am?’
Alexa turned to him. ‘Of course I’m pleased it went well. Of course I am. They’re nice people.’
‘But?’
‘But it doesn’t help anything.’
Dan spread his hands and gave a shout of derisive laughter. ‘Darling, it does! It helps me a hell of a lot. You know how well the battery did the last six months, you know what the future means to me—’
Alexa shouted, interrupting, ‘I didn’t mean that!’
There was sudden silence. Then Dan said, ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean you. You and me.’
‘Sweetheart, we’re getting there—’
‘No, we’re not!’
‘Lex, give me time—’
‘I have! I have! I’ve given you eight years, of which the last six months and two weeks have been particularly hard to bear!’
‘I know you’re upset about Izzy.’
‘Yes!’ Alexa screamed. ‘Yes! And why aren’t you?’
‘I am, I am. I hate her to be unhappy.’
‘But not enough to stop doing whatever you do all day up at the offices and pay the problem any real attention. Not enough to give up one of those endless hours you spend with Gus to come to the school with me.’
Dan stepped back. He said tiredly, ‘I wish I’d come. I really wish I had now. But I couldn’t. You know I couldn’t. It was the family day and it was re—a bit awkward you weren’t there, as it was. But I would rather have come with you. I wish I’d been able to, I really do.’
‘What’s the point of that?’
‘I just want you to know I was wrong. I should have come. We should have made Mrs Whatsit see us another day. Or I should have. I hated Jack going—’
‘Just stupid male sexual jealousy,’ Alexa spat. ‘Nothing to do with Isabel.’
Dan glared at her. ‘You are so wrong!’
‘I am so not! It’s been you, you, you ever since you got back. You haven’t asked about Flora’s eye, you haven’t asked about Beetle’s lumps, you haven’t asked anything about me, what I’ve been feeling, what I want to do with my life, have you? Nothing. Nothing. It’s all the battery. Or Gus. It’s just Army, Army, Army. Because that’s all that really matters to you, isn’t it? You are good at your job, in fact, very good at your job, and that has obliterated everything else, hasn’t it? All the people who make it possible for you, all the people who facilitate this career of yours so that you can go on climbing up and up the ladder until you are where Julian is now, with three stars on your shoulder, and you can tell yourself that you have earned every single one of them. Well, I’m telling you, Daniel, you might earn them as a soldier, but you certainly won’t have earned them as a man.’
She stopped. She was shaking. Dan had retreated behind the kitchen table and was standing there, behind the palisade of empty wine bottles. He said, quietly, ‘That’s not fair.’
Alexa shrugged. She took a tea towel off the back of the nearest chair and blew her nose on it.
Dan said, ‘You and the children mean everything to me. Everything.’
Alexa wiped her eyes.
He said, ‘I love Isabel dearly.’
> ‘I know.’
‘I do what I do, as you bloody well know, because I believe in it. I believe I’m making the world a better place, in however minuscule a way, for you and the children to live in. I thought you understood that.’
Alexa sniffed, folded her arms and regarded the ceiling. ‘Understanding it is one thing, Dan. Living with it is quite another.’
‘I can’t go on if you don’t get what I do.’
Alexa’s head tipped down again. ‘Don’t dump the responsibility on me!’
‘But—’
‘I’ve got more than enough to do without carrying your beliefs as well as my own!’
‘I didn’t mean—’
‘You’ve got your job, Dan! You’ve got what you do and your men and Gus and Mack and everyone! You’ve got a support system! What have I got?’
Dan came round the table and put his hands on her shoulders. ‘You’ve got friends and the children and all our parents. And me.’
‘You.’
‘Yes. Me. I love you.’
Alexa looked at him. ‘But no job.’
‘Well, not at this moment. But you did have. You had a good job and you were great at it. And you’ll have another.’
‘When?’
‘Some day. Soon. Some day, soon, I’m sure you will—’
‘Dan.’
‘Yes?’
‘I had one,’ Alexa said.
‘What?’
‘I had a job. I was offered a job while you were away, I applied for a teaching job, a head-of-languages job, and I was offered it. But I couldn’t take it, could I? It was a fantasy even to apply for it. But I couldn’t take it because of the twins, and because you’re coming to the end of your time with the battery and will probably get promotion, and then we’ll move. So I couldn’t. And in the end, they couldn’t have me, could they? Because I couldn’t be reliable.’
Dan stared at her. He said in a whisper, ‘I had no idea—’
‘No.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
Alexa stepped back, so that Dan’s hands slipped from her shoulders. She put her chin up. ‘Why didn’t you ask?’
CHAPTER NINE
‘You’re in here, in front of me,’ Dan said, ‘because I want to give you one last chance before you see the CO.’
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