After the Honeymoon (52 page)

The responsibility of looking after someone else apart from himself, together with Barney’s rather surprising but very flattering admiration (he followed Winston around constantly), made him feel a whole lot better about life.

‘I can’t wait to meet him properly!’ Jack said last time they spoke on Skype, waving his arms excitedly. In the background, Winston could see the boy’s bedroom in Greece with the view to the sea through the window. He could even make out a boat. Greco’s, perhaps? With Rosie on it?

‘Can you see me, Barney?’ Jack continued, his face right up to the screen. ‘Look, I’m here!’

‘It won’t be long,’ Winston had promised. Indeed, it was already March. Soon he’d be able to spend time with his son during the school holidays.

His son! The phrase was getting more familiar now but it still hadn’t lost its sparkle.

‘Come on, boy, back we go,’ he told Barney. ‘Time to get to work.’

Barney padded along obediently by his side, out of the park and up to the main road, where he sat without being told. That was the amazing thing about having a retired dog. He’d been fully trained years ago; all Winston had to do, as the handler had explained, was to use the same commands like ‘sit’ and ‘stay’.

‘He could do with a bit of a rest,’ the handler had added. ‘This dog has seen some sights, I can tell you.’

Winston could believe it. When he’d been in the field, they’d relied on dogs like Barney to save lives. It was incredible how they could lead the way to a hidden bomb lying beneath the rubble, capable of exploding at any minute.

Was Barney finding it as difficult as he had? wondered Winston, as he got out his door keys. ‘You’ll adjust to normal life in the end,’ he told him, rubbing the dog down. ‘Just as I have.’

It was true, even though he’d had some pretty big false starts. Like Melissa. And then Rosie.

‘If you don’t mind me saying,’ declared Nick’s mum when he’d found himself discussing his personal life yet again over one of their increasingly regular Sunday lunches, ‘Melissa might have been using you as a stopgap while she got her own feelings in order.’

Just what he’d thought. But, as he’d pointed out to Pam, he wasn’t entirely blameless. He’d been a bit hard on Alice and Freddie, especially at first, until he’d had a taster of what it was like to be a father himself.

‘As for Rosie,’ continued Nick’s mother. ‘The past is like a pair of comfortable old slacks. You sometimes have to accept that they’ve had their day.’ She’d patted his hand. ‘Don’t think I’m being flippant. It’s time to move on, Winston, for both of us. I’ve taken a part-time job at a charity shop. It will get me out of the house more. Now tell me, what did you decide about America?’

It was a week later. Barney was sitting by the bedroom door, waiting for Winston to change into his gym kit. The invitation to run his old class at the smart London club had come as a welcome surprise back in January. ‘You’ve been missed,’ said the manager.

But what about the backlash against him for his so-called ‘irresponsible’ behaviour in Afghanistan, as the papers had called it?

‘People’s memories can be quite short,’ the manager had pointed out. ‘Besides, it looked as though there were two sides to that story.’

He had had Nick’s mother to thank for that. Shortly after that long talk at Christmas, she had approached one of the women’s magazines and asked if they’d be interested in a story she had to tell them. It came out under the headline ‘Why I’ve Changed My Mind About Winston King’.

It had been a moving piece, describing how she’d got to know him better now. It ended with the words ‘
If Nick is looking down, as I believe she is, I am certain that she would want us all to see Winston as the brave man that he really is.
’

The amazing thing was that the papers had all picked up on it.

‘The Quiet Hero!’ trumpeted the
Globe
, as though it hadn’t laid into him the previous summer.

‘Why We Should All Love Winston!’ screamed
Charisma
magazine.

‘Winston’s Courage!’ enthused another glossy.

It had made him feel embarrassed but vindicated at the same time.

Barney gave a short bark, bringing Winston back to the present. ‘You’re right. We’ve got to get going.’

One of the stipulations Winston had made before accepting the club job was that Barney could come too. In fact, Barney had been one of the reasons Winston had turned down the American television offer. ‘But I want him to be there when I come to the UK for university,’ Jack had protested when he’d run the job idea past his son. ‘Besides, I don’t want you to go so far away.’

That had decided it.

In fact, Barney proved to be a great ice breaker at the club, especially with the class of special needs children who came once a week for gentle exercise. This had been Winston’s idea: he’d never have thought of it if he hadn’t spotted a child in a wheelchair at the Corrywood after-school club when he’d gone to pick up Alice and Freddie last year.

The new course, arranged with one of the local schools, proved to be a great success. In fact, Winston reminded himself as he jogged through the London streets with Barney on the lead, there was a special needs class today.

That was the best thing about his new life: there was always something happening – like the reunion for his old Marine batch which was coming up.

As Nick’s mother said, you had to look forward. Not back. And there was no doubt that his plans for developing the villa as an arts centre were really exciting. It would also give him the excuse to spend summers in Greece with his new family.

Gym was challenging today, especially the last class. The children were, as their accompanying teachers called it, ‘de-mob happy’ with the Easter holidays coming up. It had been difficult to keep their attention. Winston was used to helping them move at their own paces in their own inimitable style. But today they just wanted to play with Barney.

‘Can I take him home?’ pleaded one little girl with Downs Syndrome as they made their way out to reception to be collected.

Winston knelt down next to her, showing her how to stroke the dog’s coat the right way. ‘I’m afraid not,’ he said gently. ‘But you can see him every time you come here.’

‘That’s really kind.’ He looked up to see a tall, very glamorous redhead reaching out for the little girl’s hand.

‘Don’t I know you from somewhere?’

‘Sure. I was the deputy producer for
Work Out With Winston
.’ She pressed a card into his hand. So she was the senior exec producer now! ‘We’re having a bit of a rethink for the morning programme. Give me a call.’

‘Your Majesty! Good to see you!’

Winston had forgotten the backslapping, not to mention the nicknames that were part of the slapstick in the Royal Marines. The ‘Majesty’ bit had come on day one of training, when some wag had taken the mick out of his public school accent and surname. At first he’d been embarrassed by the label, but soon decided it was better than some of the other nicknames that were handed out in a spirit of bonhomie.

‘You too, Weasel,’ Winston retorted, pumping the hand of a thin, wiry bloke who’d been extremely adept at wriggling his way through tunnels.

It was a no-partners reunion, for which he was grateful. It gave them all the chance to have some frank conversations with people who really knew what it had been like out in war zones.

Anyway, there was no one he could have brought if the invitation had included a plus-one.

‘So you’re a married man now, I hear,’ said Weasel, thrusting a drink into his hands. ‘Join the crowd! Did you hear that the wife and I are expecting our fourth?’ He beamed as though he was pregnant himself.

‘Congratulations.’ Winston swallowed hard. ‘Actually, Melissa and I aren’t together any more.’ Knocking back the whisky in one, he thought of the decree absolute which had fallen through his letter box that very morning.

Weasel’s face promptly turned to one of sympathy. ‘Sorry, mate.’

‘Don’t be. We weren’t right for each other: not at this stage of our lives, anyway. I didn’t get her kids.’ He looked around. ‘And she didn’t get all this stuff – the mess it left me in.’

Weasel looked into his glass. ‘Nick was a great girl.’

‘Yes. She was.’

For a moment, they stood there in silence.

‘So you’re going to be back on telly then?’ Weasel’s voice was admiring. ‘Read about it in some magazine. The wife’s quite excited. Says she’s missed you.’

Winston had had hundreds of emails saying the same thing. It looked promising, said his producer excitedly. He could hardly believe it had all happened so quickly after that chance meeting with the senior exec producer at the gym.

‘And I’m also investing in an arts project in Greece,’ he added. ‘Yoga, cookery, painting – the works.’

Weasel nodded, impressed. ‘Looks like you won’t have any spare time for what I was going to suggest then.’

Instantly, Winston’s ears pricked up with curiosity. ‘Tell me.’

‘I’ve been asked to set up a new project to help ex-servicemen get over traumas.’ As he spoke, a bell rang, indicating they should take their seats at the huge dining table, laid with glasses and shiny silver cutlery; so different from the tin mugs they used to swig tea out of in the field. ‘I’m looking for a part-time co-ordinator,’ added his friend as they took their places. ‘Funnily enough, we were thinking about including some exercise and art therapy.’

‘Tell me more,’ said Winston, shaking out his stiff white napkin. ‘Sounds interesting …’

Winston left the dinner early, partly to get back to Barney – he didn’t like leaving him for too long – and partly to mull over Weasel’s proposal.

He knew Nick would approve. Only someone who had been on the edge, as his old mate had put it bluntly, could help someone in a similar situation. There might even be enough funding to send clients to ‘this place of yours in Greece’ for a week as recuperation.

Then, as he passed the news-stand by the tube station, Winston’s eye was drawn to a headline: ‘French Couple Jailed for Ten Years After Drug Smuggling Scam’.

Grabbing a copy, Winston scanned it as he walked down the escalator. It was them! And it looked like Greco hadn’t been the only naive foreigner to be taken in.

The couple, who lived in London, regularly travelled abroad to dupe innocent locals into sending over significant quantities of cocaine to the UK. They frequently indulged in excessive displays of ‘alfresco sex’ in order to create embarrassment and divert attention from their drug business.

Had Rosie seen the news? he wondered. Probably. But it would be a good excuse to call tomorrow morning, just to hear her voice.

As Winston put the key in the lock, he could hear Barney barking excitedly from the kitchen. There was another noise too. Skype. He must have left his iPad on.

It was Jack. But it was midnight in Greece. What was up?

‘Hi.’ His son’s face swam into view. ‘Everything OK?’

‘Sort of.’

He could tell from the hurt look on the boy’s face that it wasn’t. ‘No, it’s not. Tell me.’

‘It’s just that … well, Mum’s getting married. To Greco.’

Winston felt his heart lurch. ‘And how do you feel about that?’

‘A bit weird, to be honest. It would have been all right before …’

Winston knew what he meant. Before Jack had known Winston was his dad.

‘And now you feel torn,’ he said, completing his son’s sentence for him.

Jack nodded. ‘I don’t want you to think I’m being disloyal.’

‘Of course I don’t.’ Winston forced himself to sound as though he meant it. ‘It’s fine for you to like Greco – love him, even, as a stepfather.’

‘But I love you too, Dad. I know we haven’t known each other that long, but it feels like for ever.’

Winston gulped. ‘I know it does. And I love you too.’ It was so hard with the screen between them. He leaned forward as if he might be able to jump across the miles. ‘Look, we want Mum to be happy, don’t we?’

The boy nodded.

‘And Greco’s a good sort. So you’ll have two dads.’

He had to push those generous words out.

‘You’re really all right about it?’ Jack’s face was beginning to clear with relief.

Winston crossed his fingers: an old childhood habit from school, when telling a porkie. ‘Sure I am.’ There was a pawing at the screen. ‘Now why don’t you say goodnight to Barney and then we’ll have a proper chat in the morning.’

If you plant rosemary in your garden when you return from honeymoon, you will be happy for the rest of your lives.

Anonymous

EMMA

When Gawain and Willow had been born, they had been placed almost immediately in her arms, rooting for her breasts. Tom had hovered proudly, telling her how much he loved her and what a clever girl she was.

But this one scarcely looked like a baby at all. It was no more than a tiny scrap, lying in a plastic incubator, its life dependent on spaghetti tubes. It had been a whole month now and still she wasn’t even allowed to pick him up. All she could do was stare at him.

And will him to live.

‘It’s too early!’ Emma had cried out at Gawain’s birthday party. ‘Help me, someone!’

But Bernie’s distraught face, not to mention Tom’s shocked expression, had confirmed the severity of the occasion.

‘Will someone get an ambulance?’ Mum had demanded.

‘I’m on it already.’ That was Dad speaking. Dimly, in the panic, Emma registered that he had turned up, at her invitation, only a few minutes earlier.

The pains were coming regularly now in waves.

‘Is Mummy poorly?’

Gawain’s voice forced her to smile brightly from her position on the floor. ‘Don’t worry, darling,’ she tried to say, reaching out to touch him. ‘Everything’s all right. It’s just the baby coming.’

His little face shone. ‘Cool. Tell it to hurry up, cos then it can help me blow out my candles.’

Emma looked around for Tom. She couldn’t see him, even though he’d been there a few seconds ago. He’d probably left in disgust.

‘I’ve put some things in a bag for you,’ said his voice behind her, reassuringly. Instantly, she felt better. ‘A nightdress and some other stuff. Don’t worry about the kids. Bernie and your mum will look after them. They’ll carry on with the party, otherwise Gawain will be disappointed.’