by Shaun Clarke
‘Cheers.’
They touched glasses and drank. When Diane lowered the glass from her lips, she glanced at the table in front of her, at the empty ashtray, and asked, ‘Do you have a ciggie?’
‘Yep.’ He reached into his pocket and withdrew a packet of Benson and Hedges. When she took one of the cigarettes, he took one as well. When both cigarettes were alight, Diane leaned back on the sofa, crossed her long legs, which, with the high hemline, were exposed for most of their length, then blew a thin stream of smoke and said, ‘God, I’m glad you called. I confess, I wanted you to call. I wanted to see you again. I knew I’d want to see you again the minute we met. That’s why I gave you my business card. I’m not always that free with it.’
‘No?’
‘No.’ She stared steadily at him from behind a veil of smoke. ‘Why do you ask? Do you think I give it out to every Tom, Dick and Harry? Do you think – ?’
‘No,’ he interjected. ‘I simply meant, you being a journalist and all… You know? Giving it out all the time for business purposes. I didn’t think it meant anything.’
‘But you still called me.’
‘Yes.’
‘So you must have known I wanted to see you.’
‘I didn’t know. I was hoping.’
She smiled. ‘Well, that’s nice.’
They were both silent for a moment, enjoying the brandy and cigarettes. Then Marty, perhaps emboldened by the drink but still not wanted to ask directly about her husband, said, ‘So what about you? Where did you come from to finally end up here in London as a freelance journalist? Were you born in London, like me?’
She shook her head from side to side. ‘Nope. In Buckingham, near Oxfordshire. My dad was a solicitor, my mum kept house, and I grew up with two younger sisters and an older brother in a happy, healthy environment. We were quite well off. Even had a couple of horses. It was a terribly middle-class upbringing, actually, which might have spoiled us for life. I loved my dad. He was a real crusading solicitor, dividing his time between local business and another practice in London, taking on all sorts of worthy causes and fighting the good fight. It was he who told me that most of society is corrupt from top to bottom, that the law is no better, and that there’s one set of laws for the rich, another for the poor. He detested that and fought it all his life and I loved him for doing it.’
‘Damned right,’ Marty said.
Diane smiled and nodded, her green gaze hazed in the cigarette smoke drifting out of her pinched nostrils. ‘Anyway, that’s why I decided to become a solicitor as well and went to Oxford with that in mind.’ Brushing strands of hair from her eyes and blowing smoke from moisturized, pink lips, she continued: ‘But it was too tough for me. I just couldn’t hack it. Instead, I studied history and then, when I came down, went to London and wangled my way into journalism. Dad helped, of course. He knew a lot of people. He pushed me in the direction of politics. But then, just as I was starting out on my new career, he contracted a brain tumour, practically overnight it seemed, and was rushed into hospital and died.’ She snapped her fingers and shook her headagain. ‘Just like that. One minute he was there, the rock of my life, and the next he was gone. I was twenty-three years old and devastated. I thought my whole life had ended.’
Finishing off her brandy, she held the glass out to Marty and said, with a wicked smile, ‘Can I have another, thanks?’
Nodding, he took the glass and went to the drinks cabinet, where he poured himself another as well. Returning to the sofa, he sat beside her again, their hips practically touching, his gaze drawn to the sheer length of her leg, which was curled up against him. He felt breathless and dizzy, slightly out of control. She held her drink up and they clinked glasses together.
‘Cheers!’ she said.
‘Cheers.’ Each had another sip of brandy, then Marty asked, ‘So what happened next?’
Diane sighed. ‘The usual disasters that befall a young woman who loses the dad she depended upon so much. Of course, I’d been overly protected. I never knew it, but I was. Then, when my dad died so suddenly, I started trying to find him again, to get him back, as it were, through a succession of affairs with older men – usually men about his age. Naturally I was used. I was fair game for most of them. Being older, they were experienced, knowing how dependent I was, and they used it and took what they could get from me before invariably dropping me. Mostly married, of course. I was their little bit on the side. They liked it until it threatened their marriages, then they always wanted out. I drifted on like that for years, from one affair to another, drinking too much, rarely happy, but somehow managing to get my work done and gradually becoming a good journalist. I had my dad to thank for that. I inherited his crusading zeal. He’d told me that society is corrupt from top to bottom and that’s what I was always looking for, particularly in politics. I became the scourge of politicians, left and right, with my profiles and interviews, and that made me successful in public, if not quite in private. So by the time I was thirty, I was pretty well established in Fleet Street. It was as simple as that.’
She moved her legs to lean towards the coffee table and stub her cigarette out in the ashtray. Marty did the same, then settled back beside her as she curled her long legs up again, letting the dress ride up her stockinged thighs to just below the hips. That sight took his breath away.
‘So what about your husband?’ he finally felt compelled to ask, sipping more brandy to cover his uneasiness.
‘He’s my second,’ she said. ‘I married the first when I was twenty-eight– already pretty late – and it turned out to be an absolute disaster. He was the same age as me, the first I’d had that young, and he worked as a broker in the City and was rarely at home. I’d met him in a wine bar. We were both drunk and randy with it. We tumbled into his bed, had great sex together without using contraception, and I got pregnant and we decided to tie the knot. But it wasn’t for either of us. He was a natural bachelor and I was too critical, castigating him for being a greedy bastard who made his money simply by buying and selling assets while contributing nothing of real value to society. We fought a lot about that. Then I lost the child and was told I could have no more. The marriage broke up within weeks of that and the divorce was finalized two years later. We never kept in touch.’
She was drunk, Marty knew, on too much wine and brandy, but still in control for all that. Though her normally pale, almost gaunt cheeks were flushed, her green eyes were certainly not bloodshot and her gaze was still steady, if presently a little introspective. Her legs, still curled beneath her, were silky smooth and seductive in the sheer stockings, exposed most of the way up the thighs, making him feel sensual and unreal. He wanted to lean forward and kiss those legs, but this wasn’t the right time.
‘As for my second husband…’ She sighed again. ‘He really wasn’t bad at all, but he desperately wanted kids and I couldn’t have them, so he went to another woman and had them with her. Donald Wakefield. A fellow journalist in Fleet Street. A very bright man, truly decent, controlled, he taught me a lot of the tricks of the trade, always gave me sound advice, was a considerate, expert lover and easygoing husband… but he wanted kids. Our marriage floundered on that and he was honest enough to say so when he left to move in with the other woman, ten years younger than me and him. Now they live in sin in Richmond in a nice house on the hill. They have two kids, a boy and a girl, and are a golden, if unorthodox, couple, still not legally married. Sometimes I resent them, but mostly not, mainly because Donald’s always kept in touch and is there when I need him. So mostly I’m happy if they are. It’s a good arrangement.’
‘Anyone at present?’ Marty asked.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You.’
He stared at her, startled, not used to such boldness, simultaneously amused and slightly shocked, feeling even more unreal. She leaned towards the coffee table, put her glass down, then took the glass out of his hand and put that down as well. Hands free, she smiled at him, mischievous and challenging, c
ompelling him to turn sideways, place his hands on her shoulders, then cup them around her thin face and pull her into him.
He kissed her on the lips and she instantly responded, sliding her tongue into his mouth as she pressed her body against him. He responded in kind, pushing her back, leaning upon her, kissing her lips, the side of her neck, her throat, the breasts under the white dress. She was crushed beneath him, with no room to move her legs, though she had managed to bend the left leg up beside him and let him run his hand over it. The hem of her dress was stretched tight now, cutting a line across her hips, and he found himself groping between her thighs in a trance of desire. She moaned softly and writhed under him, arching her spine, pushing her belly up, letting him feel the softness and warmth beneath the cloth of the dress. He groped between her thighs, touched her panties, felt that damp warmth; further excited, he pressed his body upon her, crushing her breasts with his chest.
Their lips mangled together. She tugged his jacket off, then ran her hands up under his thick pullover to massage his bare back and spine. He shuddered and hardened, wanting desperately to enter her, and she helped him by arching her body to let him tug her dress up. He drew it over her flat belly, over her small, bare breasts, was thrilled by the fact that she wore no brassiere, then tugged it over her head. Her headscarf came off as well, letting her blonde hair tumble free, and she let the dress fall to the floor as he kissed her neck, throat and ears.
She unbuttoned his shirt. He couldn’t work out how she had managed it. She stripped the shirt off him and kissed his bare shoulders, then gently sank her teeth into his arm. He pushed her back down again, his hand crushing her breast, then with her help he managed to undress her and stretch out upon her. She had unusually long legs, beautifully shaped, cradling his hips, and he felt her fingers unbuckling his belt as he pressed down between them. She gasped and then chuckled, unsnapping his buckle, reaching down to unzip him. She had managed to get his trousers open when they both almost rolled off the sofa.
‘Oh, Christ!’ she groaned as his thrusting repeatedly jolted her frail body, pushing it back, until she was half off the sofa, her bare shoulders in mid-air, her blonde hair hanging down to the floor. He didn’t know how they were managing it. They seemed, for a brief moment, to be suspended in space. Then she moved farther back, her legs still clamped around his hips, and he followed her down as her shoulders touched the floor and she twisted slowly, sinuously, sideways. He went with her, on top of her, still between her sweat-slicked thighs, and he felt her fingers tugging at his unbelted, opened trousers as he stretched out on the carpeted floor, first beside her, then on top of her again, as he frantically kicked his trousers off and prepared to enter her. She guided him in, holding him, raising her groin to receive him, and he touched the soft warmth, the veils of hairs, then pierced the opening and slipped in.
‘Ah, God!’ she exclaimed as he heard his own muffled groaning and began to thrust in and out, penetrating her deeply, moving with an urgency born of too many months of deprivation. ‘Not too fast,’ she admonished him. He slowed down and took more care. She moaned softly and he picked up her rhythm and moved more naturally with her.
They flowed together like grains of windblown sand, each scorched by the other’s heat, and drove each other to that point beyond reason, where mind and body become one. They lost themselves there, obliterated by lust, and then spasmed in uncontrollable waves of feeling that swept them away. They shuddered and groaned together, collapsed one on top of the other, and then lay there, breathing harshly, recovering, until the real world returned.
It was, Marty realized as he rolled off Diane’s body and reached out for her hand, a much brighter world. It was the land of the living.
He was committed again.
Chapter Eleven
‘How have you spent your last year or so?’ Paddy asked when they had settled comfortably into his local pub in Peterchurch, Hereford, talking over two pints of Yorkshire bitter.
‘Between Aden and the Sports and Social,’ Marty said.
‘So how was Aden?’
‘Bloody awful. We divided our time between the war in the Radfan mountains and the Keeni-Meeni actions in Aden itself. Mind you, since few of us had any interest in what we thought was a pointless conflict, we spent most of our time trying to kill our boredom by talking endlessly about the good time our mates, the socalled urbanites, the Keeni-Meeni teams, were having in the fleshpots of Aden. Then, when we were back in Aden, doing the Keeni-Meeni stuff ourselves, we vented our frustrations by complaining about the overcrowded souks, the treachery of the Arabs, and the fuck-ups of the greens guarding the streets. In short, we were just passing time to save face for the bloody politicians. It was a sickening business.’
Paddy sighed. ‘Well, at least it’s over at last.’ He was referring to the fact that Radfan had been handed over to the Federal Regular Army, now the South Arabian Army, on 26 June 1967, at the end of the Six Day War between Israel and Egypt. This had led to the singular humiliation of Arab nationalists and riots in the streets of many Muslim cities. The British presence in Aden – and that of the SAS – had formally ended in the November of that year.
‘Yes, thank Christ for that, though it did mean that for the past couple of years I’ve been condemned to the training wing at Bradbury Lines. It’s enjoyable enough, if not wildly exciting. But I’ve been compensated with a lot of trips overseas to other Special Forces units for some more training and the exchange of ideas. A lot of booze and healthy hard work. That breaks the monotony.’
He sipped his beer and glanced at Paddy, pleased to note that he looked as young as ever, if slightly fuller in the face from rich living in the upmarket bars and bistros of Civvy Street. It had taken Marty a while to get used to the sight of his old friend in suits with shirt and tie, but now it seemed normal; and Paddy was, he had to admit, as rakishly appealing in the attire of a businessman as he had been in his SAS uniform. He still had his charisma.
‘So what happens now?’ Paddy asked.
‘Oman. You should remember it from 1959, when we launched an assault on the Jebel Akhdar in the north.’
‘Of course. The Green Mountain, nicknamed “Sabrina”. We did a hell of a job there.’
The British had treaty obligations to the Sultan of Muscat and Oman, located on the southeast corner of the Arabian peninsula and strategically important because a hostile regime in Oman could interrupt or stop completely the flow of oil to the West. In 1957 the Sultan’s rule was challenged by Sulaiman bin Hamyar, chief of the Bani Riyam tribe, supported by the rebel forces of the imam, Ghalib bin Ali, and his brother Talib. Drawn into this conflict, the British despatched an infantry brigade from Kenya to aid the Sultan, but by 1958 the rebels of Talib bin Ali were controlling the Jebel Akhdar, the highest point in the northern region of the country, surrounded by mountain peaks and accessible only by narrow passes that were ideal for ambush.
In an attempt to win back the mountain, D Squadron SAS was flown from Malaya to Oman in November 1958, managed to reach the summit of the mountain by climbing the northern side, and established sangars only 2,000 metres from rebel positions. Those sangars were held against repeated attacks by the rebels, with heavy enemy losses. Meanwhile, on the southern side of the mountain, a rebel cave containing weapons and ammunition was assaulted by an SAS group led by Captain Peter de la Billiere, but after a bloody battle he was forced to conduct a fighting withdrawal. Finally, in January 1959, a determined push was made against the rebels with A Squadron assaulting Sabrina from the north, then linking up with D Squadron in Tanuf. A few hours later, while a diversionary attack was made from Tanuf by some of the SAS, the majority of A and D squadrons, heavily burdened, made the gruelling climb up the massive jebel, flushing out the rebels as they went and gradually clearing them off the summit, allowing soldiers from the British Life Guards and the Sultan’s Armed Forces to be brought in to secure the whole mountain. The SAS then moved into the surrounding villages to disarm the rebels
. Shortly after, the rebel leaders fled into Saudi Arabia, leaving the way clear for the SAS, over the next few months, to mount a successful hearts-and-minds campaign that gradually turned the local inhabitants into supporters of the Sultan.
‘That assault,’ Paddy said after a thoughtful pause, ‘was a prime example of just what a small number of men can do against a strongly position. We won the summit imagination, not with brute force. And the climb to the top of the mountain was a definitive test of SAS fitness and tenacity. We passed with flying colours. So what’s happening therenow?’
‘The usual shit,’ Marty said. ‘The problem’s in Dhofar, in the southwest of the province. It’s dominated by another mountain, the Jebel Dhofar. Desert to the west, a narrow coastal strip to the east. A few years back a bunch of rebels formed the Dhofar Liberation Front and turned against the Sultan. The Sultan’s Armed Forces put down the rebellion, but the DLF gradually merged with a communist group, the PFLOAG, backed by the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen, the Soviet Union and China. This strengthened the arm of the rebels, known as the adoo, and the Sultan’s regime started falling apart. The old bastard was saved by his son, Qaboos, who mounted a bloodless coup to remove his dad. With the Sultan out of the picture, the way was clear for a counter-insurgency operation, designed to defeat the communist hardliners and win the hearts and minds of the people.’
‘So the SAS stepped into the picture.’
‘Yes,’ Marty said. ‘Within hours of the coup, an SAS team arrived secretly in Dhofar. It was listed officially as a British Army Training Team, and gradually, as more SAS squadrons arrived, more BATT teams were formed. Right now, under the command of entrenched enemy with boldness and LieutenantColonel John Watts, we’re waging a five- pronged counter-insurgency war. Meanwhile, back at Hereford, the Head Sheds of the Kremlin are talking about the possibility of forming firqats– companies of Dhofari troops and turncoat rebels – to fight for the new Sultan. We’ll train them and provide radio communications in the field. If the Sultan agrees to the plan, that’s what I’ll be doing in Dhofar, alongside the ongoing hearts-andminds campaign.’