The Exit Club: Book 3: The Professionals

by Shaun Clarke

  ‘I don’t think she’s going to get better,’ he admitted. ‘She’ll just get worse and worse. I don’t want to think about what might happen then – particularly if she still refuses to come out here. I mean, even thinking about a nursing home… I can’t bear the thought of it.’

  ‘We’ll face it when we come to it, Marty. Don’t let it get you down now.’

  She was standing with her rump pressed to the sink, her back to the window, her gaze focused lovingly on young Ian.

  ‘It’s great talking to you like this,’ Marty told her. ‘You’re always so calm. How do you manage it?’

  ‘It’s my background. Don’t ever forget that, Marty. When my mother was taken away by the Japanese, to be used as asoldiers’ whore, my sisters and I had to fend for ourselves, until we were rescued by relatives and then my father. Then, when Mother returned, we had to suffer her madness and, finally, we had to survive her suicide. It was a pretty tough childhood.’

  ‘That’s true,’ he acknowledged. ‘But that should have made all of you pessimistic or even paranoid. Instead, you all turned out psychologically sound. Indeed, more so than most.’

  Ann Lim smiled. ‘We were helped all the way by our father,’ she reminded him. ‘He loved us and always made sure we knew it and that helped a lot. So I think the combination of harsh experience and fatherly love was what did the trick. It gave us all inner toughness, optimism and, I guess, faith in life. It made us accept the bad.’

  ‘Which I’m not doing,’ Marty said.

  ‘You’re doing okay. You could be worse. You could be drinking too much, fouling up with the regiment, or even playing around with other women. You’re doing none of those things. At least, I thinknot!’ she added, meaning the other women. ‘You’re not, are you, Marty?’

  He grinned. ‘No, I’m not.’

  She gazed steadily at him over the rim of her coffee cup. ‘Do you ever think about it?’

  He hesitated before answering. ‘I think about it,’ he confessed. ‘Every man thinks about it now and then. We’re all pretty dumb that way.’

  ‘So why don’t you do anything about it?’

  ‘I don’t want it that much. I just fancy them because they’re there, they’re available, and I haven’t had them. Like most men, I’m basically Neanderthal and want all I can get. But it remains wishful thinking. In the end, I don’t want another involvement. I don’t want the guilt.’

  ‘Any other reasons?’

  ‘Yes. My wife’s more attractive than most of the women I fancy, so in the end, I suppose, I don’t want to run the risk of losing her. That loss would be too great.’

  Her smile was radiant. ‘A combination of honest answer and sly compliment. Very good, Marty. Nice one.’ She placed her empty coffee cup beside the sink and walked around the serving counter until she was standing rightin front of him. ‘So I guess I’d better be on my way. Are you going to work today?’

  Marty liked the way she called the SAS ‘work’, as if it was just another job, which in a sense it was. ‘Yep. I actually have the day off, but since I’ve nothing better to do, I thought I’d drop into the Sports and Social for some bullshit with some of the lads. See what they’re up to.’

  Knowing that by ‘Sports and Social’ he meant the SAS barracks, Ann Lim smiled and kissed him on the lips. ‘Always doing more than you should,’ she said. ‘But if it keeps you from chasing after other women that’s okay by me. Hey, you!’ she called out to Ian. ‘Let’s get going! Time we left for nursery school!’

  Seeing her make a grab for him, Ian giggled and tried to race away, around the kitchen table, but after pretending to chase him, deliberately losing him a couple of times, Ann Lim grabbed him firmly by the hand and addressed Marty over her shoulder.

  ‘Say goodbye to your bright boy,’ she said.

  He kissed Ian on the top of his head, then planted one on Ann Lim’s golden cheek. ‘Enjoy,’ he said.

  ‘We will. See you later.’

  Holding Ian by the hand, she left the house, letting the front door slam shut behind her. Deciding to check the news before leaving for the Sports and Social, Marty went into the living room where the radio was still on, blaring out the Beatles’ ‘Ticket to Ride’. Though he still preferred singers like Frank Sinatra and Peggy Lee, now, like most of the population, he was addicted to the four mop-heads, so he waited until the song ended, tapping his foot to the rhythm and mouthing the words, before turning on the TV. The main news items were about Edward Heath, elected this very day as the Tory Party leader, and President Lyndon B. Johnson, about to commit another 50,000 American troops to the war in Vietnam. Pleased that a former grammar school boy had made it to the top in England, though not thrilled by what the Yanks were getting up to in Vietnam, he turned the volume down, left the picture on and looked through the front window as Ann Lim strapped Ian into the rear of her Mini Minor, then slid in behind the steering wheel, closed the door and drove off.

  Watching the car disappearing around the end of the street, in the shadow of the trees in the summer’s morning light, he realized that in spite of his present doubts about himself, he and Ann Lim shared a better life than most. Many men, he knew, would have envied him the life he was leading with his still-slim, beautiful Chinese-Malay wife and healthy young son.

  Sighing, turning way from the window, he turned the TV off and went up the stairs to the bedroom where, while bathing and putting on his clothes, he silently counted his blessings.

  He was just about to leave the house for the Sports and Social when the telephone rang.

  A single phone call can devastate a life and that’s what happened to him. As an adult, he had tried to cry many times in the past and never quite succeeded; now he cried like a lost child. Though he refused to believe what had happened, he still couldn’t stop crying, which meant it was true. There could be no worse nightmare.

  ‘No!’ he screamed like the damned.

  Chapter Eight

  The party was already in full swing when Marty arrived. He was not really in the mood for it, as he had not been for months. He was only attending because he knew that Paddy would be hurt if he didn’t turn up. This was, after all, a special occasion: a celebration of Paddy’s resignation from the army and imminent return to Civvy Street. He was, as expected, leaving in flamboyant style, throwing the party in his grand family home in Peterchurch, Hereford, where the celebrations could go on all night.

  Greeted at the front door by Paddy’s two teenage sons, both flushed with forbidden drink and teasing their fifteen-year-old sister, Marty crossed the hallway to the door where the noise was coming from. Taking a deep breath, he inched into the spacious, packed room and saw Paddy, his wife Angela, a lot of their friends and some familiar faces from the regiment: officers, NCOs and other ranks, many in uniform.

  Still in a state of shock, feeling unreal, he avoided the familiar faces and went straight to the bar where he asked for a double Scotch. Hoping to watch all that was happening without actually taking part, he took a chair beside the bar, sipped cautiously at his Scotch, and fought the urge to get up and leave. This was a manifestation of the panic that had seized him so much in the past few months. When he thought of the accident, he almost lost control again, but the drink kept him on an even keel.

  As he sat there, various SAS friends came up to the bar for fresh drinks and usually stopped to have a few words. Knowing what he had been through recently, they didn’t stop for long, invariably hurrying away to leave him to his grief.

  Marty sat on, not knowing what else to do. He saw Paddy talking cheerfully to a small group that included Angela and another woman. Glancing sideways, Paddy saw him and waved him over, but Marty just raised his glass, indicating that he was happy with his drink. Grinning, Paddy went back to his conversation, but every so often he would turn and wave again, always receiving the same response. Eventually noticing Marty’s reluctance to join the group, the other woman stared curiously at him. Tall, bone-thin, with shoulderlength blo
nde hair, she was wearing a snow-white Mary Quant miniskirt and high heels that emphasized her long legs. When she saw Marty raise his glass another time, she smiled and turned back to Paddy.

  Marty sat on, drinking alone and talking only to SAS friends approaching the bar to replenish their drinks. Eventually, however, Paddy broke away from his group and came towards him. As he did so, Marty stood up to have his glass refilled. He badly needed another drink.

  ‘Marty!’ Paddy held out his hand. ‘I’m so glad to see you here. I wasn’t sure you’d come. What with the…’ He shrugged as he shook Marty’s hand. ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ But he did know. He felt like hell. He had felt this way for the past four months, ever since the phone call that had devastated his life, informing him that Ann Lim and Ian had been killed in a car crash en route to Hereford. It was as simple and as brutal as that. The details were now irrelevant. All Marty knew – all he needed to know – was that a truck had emerged from a side-road, too quickly for Ann Lim to avoid it, and she had crashed into it and died instantly, as did Ian. It was over in seconds.

  ‘I know what you mean,’ Paddy said. ‘There’s no way to gauge precisely how you’re feeling at a time like this. I still can’t quite believe it really happened. It just doesn’t seem possible.’

  ‘No, Paddy, it doesn’t.’ Paddy had gone to the funeral. Everyone had gone. Marty’s ailing mother. Ann Lim’s terminally ill father. Her two sisters, Mary from France, Kathy all the way from Malaysia with their father. Marty’s friends and Ann Lim’s friends. Even Lesley, who had brought Johnny and Kay– Johnny now nineteen, a handsome young man looking distraught, Kay eighteen and sweet, but with eyes streaming tears. No, it didn’t seem real. Not now and not then. A single phone call had devastated his life and now he felt broken up inside.

  Recalling it, he shivered and had another sip of Scotch, trying to deaden the pain that had not gone away in four months. The pain had swooped down to envelop him when the news came and he still couldn’t shake it off. Thank God he was going overseas again.

  ‘How are you dealing with it?’ Paddy asked him. ‘Are you managing, Marty?’

  ‘I’m being posted to Aden,’ Marty told him, ‘and I can’t wait to go. I can’t deal with it here.’

  ‘Yes, I understand that.’

  ‘I’m selling the house and moving back into the Sports and Social. I think that’s best, don’t you?’

  ‘It’s sound thinking, Marty. You’ll be better off with your men. Bury yourself in work, in what you do best, and let time do the healing. For your kind, it’s the only way.’

  Paddy asked the barman for two more Scotches. While he was waiting to be served, Marty emptied his glass, thinking of the house he was leaving and of what had died there. He sometimes felt that he had died there. It had been a sudden death. One minute he was watching his wife climb into her Mini and the next, or what seemed like the next, his wife and child were no more. He had been in shock for days, crying helplessly, drinking constantly, not turning on the lights when darkness came, wanting only oblivion. Then the horrors of the morgue. Identifying the smashed remains. Looking down, holding his breath, choking back a flood of nausea, trying to identify the barely recognizable features and filling up with revulsion. That and rage– a pure hatred for God and mankind – before stumbling out to the light of day and surrendering to disbelief. More tears and more drinking. More long, dark nights of the soul. Then a different kind of nightmare: the funeral service at the crematorium, before the flames took his wife and child away, once and for all. He’d known then, if he had not known before, just what hell on earth was.

  ‘Here,’ Paddy said, handing him another Scotch. ‘Drink up, old son.’ They both drank. Marty felt a little better. It was good, after all, to be out of the house and back in the presence of people having a good time. Life went on regardless. ‘Are you back at the base now,’ Paddy asked him, ‘or still at home?’

  Marty sighed, catching his breath. ‘I’m still nominally in the house, but I’m practically living on the base. I’ve accepted an offer for the house and the sale should be finalized next week. I deliberately timed it for a week before I leave. I’m being flown out to Aden.’

  ‘Yes, Marty, you said.’

  ‘I can’t wait to get going. I need something to do. Something more than just training new recruits. I’ll be okay out there.’

  ‘I agree. The timing’s perfect. You’ll have your hands full over there and that’s just what you need. Constant distraction.’

  ‘That’s what I’m hoping. It’s what I was praying for. I felt better as soon as I heard the news. I feel better right now.’ He raised his glass of Scotch and managed his first smile in months, though it felt slightly unnatural. ‘And this is helping as well.’

  Paddy grinned in response. ‘Good. I’m glad to hear it. That’s why I invited you. So what’s going on in Aden with regard to the regiment?’

  ‘They said it was something special,’ Marty replied. ‘That we’d be going into the Radfan mountains first, then back to Aden. Why there, I don’t know.’

  ‘Counter-insurgency work. It’s a whole different ball game. There’s no hearts-and-minds campaign over there; it’s all shoot-and-scoot. A bloody mess, frankly. You’re going to fight a war that’s already been lost– propping up the last remnants of the British Empire– but at least you’ll be fighting.’

  Marty knew what he meant. Located at the southern entrance to the Red Sea, between Arabia and eastern Africa, Aden was a commercial centre for neighbouring states and a vital refuelling stop for ships. It was also of great political importance because of the Suez Canal and the rich oilfields of Arabia and the Persian Gulf. In 1963 it was incorporated into the Federation of South Arabia, the FSA, but steadily mounting antagonism towards the British presence there, which began with the abortive Suez operation of 1956, had led to an undeclared war between the two colonial powers in the area: a British-backed Aden Federation against a Soviet-backed Egypt. Most of that war was taking place in the barren, mountainous territory of Radfan, lying between the Gulf of Aden and Saudia Arabia. Right now, operating out of secret bases in the Aden Federation, the SAS were fighting two campaigns simultaneously: on the one hand they were engaged in putting down a tribal uprising in Radfan, adjoining the Russian-backed republic of Yemen; on the other, they were faced with their first battle against highly organized terrorism in Aden

  engagement was what Paddy

  itself. The latter meant by counterinsurgency work. That would take place in the streets and souks of Aden. Marty hoped to be part of it.

  ‘Radfan,’ Paddy said, ‘is pure desert of the kind you haven’t worked in since 1941. Desert as hot as North Africa, but reportedly more difficult because it’s mountainous and criss-crossed with deep wadis. For the time being, then, you can forget what you learned in Malaya and Borneo. This is something quite different.’

  ‘So what didhe learn in Malaya and Borneo?’ a distinctly sensual female voice asked. ‘A woman likes to know such things.’

  Turning his head, Marty saw the moisturized full lips and steady green gaze of the blonde woman who had been talking to Paddy and Angela at the other side of the room. This close, it was clear that she was no longer young, probably in her late thirties. Bone-thin, as he had already noted, and almost flat-chested, but certainly attractive and seemingly self-contained.

  ‘Ah, Diane!’ Paddy grinned at her. ‘You’ve come to meet my favourite SAS man.’ He turned back to Marty. ‘Watch what you say about the regiment. This lady is a freelance journalist of right-wing persuasion, specializing in matters political. I’ve just been telling her about you – how we met in North Africa and so on

  – and it was clear that she was dying to meet you. Marty Butler’ – he waved his hand at the smiling woman – ‘meet Diane Lavery.’

  ‘Hi,’ Marty said, holding out his free hand.

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ she replied, shaking his hand. ‘Paddy has been telling
me all about you, so I did want to meetyou. I gather you go back a long way together.’

  ‘A long way,’ Marty emphasized, uncomfortable because he found her attractive and that made him feel guilty.

  ‘So what did you do in Malaya and Borneo?’ she asked.

  Marty shrugged. ‘Soldiering.’

  ‘He can’t talk about it,’ Paddy said flippantly. ‘Tongue-tied by official secrecy, but also a naturally modest man. That’s what makes him so special.’

  ‘Areyou a modest man?’ Diane asked him.

  ‘I wouldn’t know.’

  ‘That war in Borneo’s pretty awful,’ Paddy said, ‘and Marty’s been in the thick of it for the last two or three years. He’s seen all there is to see.’

  ‘Wasit that bad?’ Diane Lavery asked, studying him with unusual intensity, though slightly mocking and teasing.

  Marty felt embarrassed. ‘It’s a real war,’ he said, recalling the aerial walkway, the Indo gunfire, the deaths of Bulldog and Pat O’Connor, then his race with the other survivors back to the border. Though he had been back to Borneo many time since, that was the day he always remembered and, he guessed, always would. The memory of it still pained him.

  ‘Are you going back there?’ Diane asked.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘To Borneo.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So where are you going next?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Marty lied.

  ‘Just hanging around Bradbury Lines, waiting for a posting?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Marty said.