Soldier's Daughters (22 page)

‘Cool.’ There was a pause as Jenna began to rinse Maddy’s hair. ‘So what’s he aiming for? The Olympics?’

‘Not now. He’s not in that league any more, but he coaches for the army. He’s trying to find the next generation of rowers – or something.’

‘But every weekend? Can’t other coaches take some of the strain? He can’t be the only guy with a coaching qualification, surely. And don’t the next generation of rowers want a life and a free weekend too?’

Maddy sighed. ‘You’d think, wouldn’t you? They must be very keen.’

‘For that amount of training, they must be obsessed. What the hell are they going to do when your old man is away in Kenya?’

‘Don’t know. Get on with it on their own, I suppose.’

Jenna began to rinse out the suds. ‘Well, if I were Seb and I had a lovely family like yours I’d be telling them to get on with it by themselves right now.’

‘Don’t think that’s going to happen. He loves his rowing.’

‘Blimey,’ said Jenna. ‘If my Dan was away that much I wouldn’t think it was just sport he was up to; I’d think he was having an affair.’

‘Seb’s not like that,’ said Maddy.

Jenna turned on the water so Maddy didn’t hear Jenna’s sceptical snort or her comment, ‘He’s a bloke, isn’t he?’

Not long after Jenna had gone Maddy was sitting down with a cup of tea on the table and Nathan on her lap as they read a story book together when she heard a key in the door. Surely it couldn’t be Seb yet? She glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece: only twelve o’clock. She wasn’t expecting him back till later. What a bonus.

‘Hello,’ she heard his voice call from the hall.

‘Seb,’ she called back. ‘I’m in the sitting room with Nathan.’ Maddy might be content to let her husband come to them but Nathan had other ideas and, squirming like an eel, he slithered off Maddy’s lap so he could half toddle, half crawl to meet his father.

‘Hello fella,’ Maddy heard Seb say over squeals of delight from Nathan. ‘Have you been a good boy?’

Seb appeared in the sitting room, cradling his son on his hip. Maddy thought her husband looked exhausted. ‘How’s your day been?’ he said.

‘Quiet. Nathan’s been good, I’ve had my hair cut, got some ironing done.’

‘Oh, yes, your hair does look nice.’

Maddy doubted Seb would have noticed if she hadn’t said – he wasn’t the world’s best when it came to things like that.

Then he added, ‘But I thought you were going to have to cancel.’

‘Well, I was able to sort something out.’ She decided to change the subject away from her hair. She thought it unlikely that Seb would want to know anything about the arrangements but the bigger the distance she kept between Seb and Jenna the happier she’d be. She would bet a pound to a penny that Seb would take a dim view of her associating with a woman who had caused so much trouble in the battalion only a year previously. ‘You look tired. Rough training session?’

Seb nodded.

‘You do too much, you know,’ said Maddy. ‘I mean every weekend. I know you love it and I know you’re really committed but…’

Seb put his hand up. ‘I agree.’

Maddy’s eyes goggled. ‘You agree?’

‘I haven’t been fair and I think my commitment might have got out of hand. So I’ve told the guys in charge of army rowing that they’ll have to find someone else. Besides, I want to spend Christmas with my family and then I’m off to Kenya and then I’m hoping that I’ll need some paternity leave so they’re going to need to find someone to take over between now and Easter anyway. And if they can find someone for that long then presumably they can find someone permanently.’

‘Really? Oh, Seb, that’s wonderful.’ And Maddy threw herself into Seb’s arms.

Seb rested his chin on the top of her head as a look of utter anguish passed over his features.

On the Monday after the corporals’ club ball Sam was at her desk, writing a whole stack of boring reports, when her phone rang. She fell on it, grateful for the displacement activity.

‘Morning, OC LAD,’ she said into the receiver.

‘Sam, it’s me.’

Michelle. Sam felt her shoulders droop. Not again. OK, she’d wanted a distraction from her mundane task but maybe not this distraction. She was so bored with the Maddy–Seb–Michelle triangle and yet she felt hideously disloyal for even thinking it.

‘Hiya, ’Chelle,’ she said, making a brave attempt to sound pleased. ‘How are you?’

‘Crap. Beyond crap. How do you think?’

Sam paused. What was she supposed to say: Oh, dear? You’ll feel better soon? Move on? She sighed. ‘I’m really sorry to hear that, Michelle. Truly.’

‘Why do I feel as though it’s my fault, Sam? I mean, it’s not, is it? I didn’t do anything wrong, did I?’

‘No, Michelle.’

‘How could he have done this to me? I thought he loved me.’

‘I don’t know, Michelle.’ Sam gazed at the reports, which suddenly looked tempting.

‘I need him to know what he’s done to me. It’s not fair that I’m the one whose life is ruined and he skips off back to his family.’

Sam bit back a comment that Maddy didn’t deserve to have her life ruined either, which was the flip side of the scenario.

‘Well, it isn’t, is it?’ demanded Michelle, when Sam didn’t answer.

‘No.’

‘When am I going to see you again, so we can talk properly? I suppose you’ll be spending Christmas at your grandparents, with your dad.’

Fuck. But she couldn’t lie. Not to her best friend. ‘Well, yes. But not with Dad. He’s going skiing again, like he does, on his own.’

‘That’s a bit harsh,’ said Michelle with indignation.

‘You know what Dad is like,’ said Sam. ‘It’s hardly out of character, is it? Anyway, I’m going to Gran’s on my own and I’ll get outrageously spoilt so I don’t really mind.’

‘Oh.’ There was a pause and in it Sam could almost hear the cogs of Michelle’s brain whirring. ‘So your gran’s other spare room is free.’ Sam could detect the hope in Michelle’s voice despite the miles and miles that separated them.

She suppressed a sigh. ‘Unless she’s suddenly decided to take in a lodger.’

‘You don’t suppose…’

Sam shut her eyes as if in that nanosecond of thought some perfect reason not to invite Michelle would materialise. ‘Yes, I’ll ring Gran. I’m sure she and Grandpa will be cool and would love to see you again.’

‘Oh, that’s so perfect,’ squealed Michelle. ‘I don’t have to see Dad and the WSM and we can have a proper catch up and it’ll be wonderful, you’ll see.’ Sam felt that Michelle wasn’t even considering whether her father mightn’t want his daughter to spend Christmas with him. Oh, well… ‘What do you think your grandparents would like me to bring as a Christmas present? And I can bring some supplies. I’ll get on the internet and order a hamper perhaps. And booze. I’ll bring lashings of that…’ And as Michelle rabbited on about her plans to make Christmas ‘just wonderful’ Sam wondered what she could plan to fill the rest of the block leave so she’d have a legitimate excuse to tell Michelle that she could only stay a few days. She loved Michelle, she did, but a little went a long way. Even if it meant living on her own in the mess for half her leave, she thought that it would be preferable to non-stop Michelle for three whole weeks. The thought of going over and over the doomed relationship with Seb for that long was more than Sam could bear. So she lied and said she’d been invited to James’s for the New Year, fairly certain that, considering how obsessed Michelle had been with her own love life, she wouldn’t have a clue about what was going on in Sam’s – which, thought Sam, was diddly-squat, although she was happy with that. She liked being
just good friends
with the guys in the mess. It was comfortable and happy and unless there was some monumental coup-de-foudre moment between her and one of her fellow mess-mates she couldn’t see the situation altering any time soon.

As Sam put the phone down the ASM appeared at her office door.

‘Have you got a moment, ma’am?’

Sam nodded.

The ASM approached her desk and put the Christmas duty rota, that Sam had just published, on her desk.

Sam looked at it and then at the ASM.

‘So?’ she said.

‘So, Sergeant Armstrong is on call over Christmas.’

Sam nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘He was on call last Christmas.’

‘And he volunteered to do it again this Christmas.’

‘It’s not fair.’

‘But he volunteered. He’s not going away, he doesn’t have kids, he’s happy to do it.’ She was trying not to sound exasperated but the ASM was trying her patience.

‘I think you should find someone else to do it.’

‘You?’

‘No!’

‘Then, may I suggest, Mr Williams, that until you’ve got another volunteer you don’t muck up a perfectly serviceable duty roster.’

Mr Williams looked sullen. ‘I was just trying to protect his interests,’ he said truculently.

‘I think, from what I know of Jenna, if she isn’t happy with this arrangement, Sergeant Armstrong wouldn’t have dared put his name forward.’ Sam stared at the ASM and willed him to contradict her. ‘Anything else?’ she asked pointedly.

The ASM picked up the duty roster and left her office. Sam felt inordinately proud of having stood up to him, even though, having done so, she was left feeling wrung out.

Andy Bailey watched Immi Cooper pick up the pile of files from his out-tray and sashay out of his office. There were very few people who could look sexy in combat kit but Cooper was definitely an exception. He tore his eyes away from her rather gorgeous rear and applied himself to the citation he was writing to try and get the battalion’s RSM in the honours’ list before the man retired from the army. Besides, he told himself, he could hardly bitch about Gilly mooning over that bloody Raven-war-correspondent-bloke on the TV if he was ogling another woman.

He put down his pen. Of course! The perfect person to escort Raven around the exercise area would be Corporal Cooper. She was going to be a complete waste of space out in Kenya, that much was obvious, and yet there was no reason to leave her behind with the rear party, as the families officer and his team had that base perfectly adequately covered.

Andy jumped up and went to tell his boss his idea.

‘Perfect,’ said Colonel Notley. ‘Go and tell her.’

Andy went back to his desk and pressed the intercom button.

‘Come to my office for a moment, would you, Cooper?’ he ordered.

Immi returned a few seconds later. ‘Sir?’

‘Got a job for you when we go to Kenya.’

‘Oh, yes, sir. What would that be?’ She sounded wary.

‘There’s going to be a reporter from the media covering the exercise. The CO and I would like you to escort him around, make sure he doesn’t get in the way or annoy anyone, that sort of thing. You’ll have a vehicle and a driver so all you’ll have to do is keep this guy from sticking his nose in where we don’t want it or getting himself into danger. You can do that, can’t you?’

He saw Cooper swallow as she digested the task she’d been given. Then she nodded. ‘OK, sir. How long is this guy going to be with us for?’

‘The duration, as far as we know. The MOD will be sending us more details in due course.’

‘That’s fine, sir.’

‘So, you’re relatively happy about this?’

Cooper shrugged. ‘Can’t see there’s anything to be unhappy about, sir. I mean, I’ve got no choice about going so I suppose it’ll be better to be out and about with this reporter bloke than stuck in the comms tent, watchkeeping on the graveyard shift.’

‘Indeed. Think of it as your very own personal safari.’ But even as he said it Andy didn’t think Cooper looked the intrepid traveller sort. He reckoned her idea of exotic would be a fortnight at Sharm el-Sheikh.

Sam was beavering away again on her dreary reports, head down, concentrating hard in order to banish some very un-Christian thoughts about her ASM, when she was interrupted by someone knocking on her door.

‘Yes,’ she called grumpily, not looking up.

‘Sorry, you’re busy. I’ll come back later.’

Sam put down her pen and smiled. ‘James, I’m sorry. What can I do for you?’

‘Nothing really.’ He shut the door. ‘I was passing and thought I’d pop in a see if I could cadge a cuppa.’

‘Of course.’ She got up and went to the counter where the kettle lived.

‘You look pissed off,’ said James.

‘Sorry, I am a bit. Not with you, though,’ she added quickly.

‘Let me guess.’

Sam gave him a rueful smile as she filled the kettle. ‘Mr Williams has struck again.’

‘What’s he done now?’

‘Something pathetically trivial, only it’s got on my tits.’

‘I wish you wouldn’t use that phrase,’ said James.

‘Sorry.’ Sam dropped two tea bags into two mugs.

‘So, what did he do?’

Sam told James. ‘And I stood up to him. He’s not happy.’

‘Well done, you.’

‘Don’t you start patronising me.’

‘I wasn’t, I mean it. The more you don’t take any stick from him the less he’ll try it on.’

‘All I’ve got to do now is to get Blake to cheer up and stop looking like he’s some sort of volcano on the brink of exploding and everything here will be fine.’

‘You think Blake is about to go off on one? Have some sort of episode?’ James sounded genuinely worried.

‘God, no, nothing as dramatic as that.’ Sam finished making the tea and passed James his mug. ‘No, he just sort of smoulders, casts a bit of a cloud around him.’ Sam didn’t tell James he always seemed perfectly happy in the company of others, in case it made her look either paranoid or a bit needy. After all, she was Blake’s boss, not his friend, and he didn’t have to look cheerful in her company.

‘Then ignore him. If he wants to be a wet blanket and a miserable git as well, let him. Now then, I have another reason for my visit – other than blagging tea. Given what you’ve told me about your dad and knowing how you tend to stay in the mess because you don’t have bolt-holes to disappear to at weekends, what are you doing about Christmas leave?’

‘Ah.’

‘Ah?’

‘I’m going to my grandparents with Michelle for Christmas itself.’

‘Michelle? The one you told me has boyfriend trouble? Doesn’t sound like fun.’