The Soldier's Wife (20 page)

Except equally, of course, she wouldn't. Not now. She knew all the downs as well as the ups, the minuses almost better than the pluses. She knew that the camaraderie and the determination could be as divisive to those outside the charmed circle as they were uniting to those within it. He put his hand up briefly across his eyes. He didn't think he'd ever let anyone see him cry and he wasn't about to start. In any case, tears were in no way an appropriate response for what he'd seen and heard. The response Dan would at that moment have liked to be able to indulge in was to be ordered
straight back to Afghanistan to find whoever laid the booby-trap bomb that had blown Tommy Stanway's legs off, and skewer him to a mud wall with a bayonet.

He turned off the main road and swung the car up the lane that led to Larkford. It was getting dark. Beetle had been shut up in the house for the best part of six hours and would have his legs crossed, poor old fellow. The lane was empty, except for a solitary smallish figure in a hooded fleece some way ahead, carrying a bag over one shoulder and walking with purpose. As Dan came up behind the person, it dawned on him that there was something familiar about their shape and gait, and the bag with its jingling charms. As he drew level, he slowed the car and pressed the button to lower the window on the passenger side. It couldn't be – could it?

Dan leaned across. ‘Isabel?' he said incredulously.

She turned her face a little, sliding it into her blue fleece hood. ‘Hello,' she said.

‘What are you doing here?'

‘Walking,' Isabel said patiently.

Dan opened the door to let her in. ‘Hop in. I'm on my way home.'

Isabel didn't move. ‘No, thank you.'

‘But—'

‘I'm not going home,' Isabel said. She sounded unemotional, as if she was explaining something very ordinary to someone she hardly knew.

‘Not—'

‘No,' Isabel said. She began to walk again, not hurrying, but decidedly. Over her shoulder, she called, ‘I'm going to Franny's! Rupert said I could!'

And then she began to run.

Mel Cooper's office was at the far end of a long institutional corridor, and barely bigger than a cupboard. It was late
afternoon when Alexa arrived, and Mel was spearing cubes of mango out of a plastic box with a small disposable fork, and talking on the telephone. She waved her fork at Alexa and smiled, and indicated a chair just behind her, upholstered in grey vinyl.

‘No chance, babes,' she was saying into the phone. ‘Flat out all week, work presentation dinner Friday, can't miss. You're the one on leave. You come to me.'

Then she listened for a moment or two, put another cube of mango in her mouth and said amiably round it, ‘Work it out, babes. Text me when you've decided.' Then she laughed and said, ‘No. Never. I never miss you,' and clicked her phone off and dropped it into the slew of papers on her desk. Then she spun her chair round, her knees almost knocking into Alexa, and said, ‘You came!'

Alexa nodded. ‘I did.'

‘Where are the kids?'

Alexa hesitated for a second, and then she said, ‘With my parents. I can't be long.'

Mel swung back to her desk. ‘Then come and look at this,' she said, touching her keyboard. ‘Pull up your chair.'

‘What?'

‘Look,' Mel said. ‘Look.' She was staring at her screen. ‘I'm all fired up. We're starting a new survey. Look at that. Well, I knew dopamine was a neurotransmitter –'

‘I didn't.'

‘– but I didn't know it so imitated the effect of cocaine on the brain. Did you? And it's stronger in men. It's released when you solve a problem or win a game, so that might account for men getting obsessive about gambling or computer games.'

‘Or war,' Alexa said.

Mel turned to glance at her. ‘Or war,' she repeated. ‘It's hard to live with someone always seeking a dopamine high,
the big kick of endorphins. That's our study. That's my new project. Finding or even training the right people. We're embarking on a study of service kids having to live with traumatized fathers.'

Alexa said, as lightly as she could, ‘Not before time.'

‘Certainly not.'

‘And maybe,' Alexa said, ‘it'll help the wives too.'

Mel made a small dismissive gesture with the hand not guiding her computer mouse. ‘They have the language,' she said. ‘It's tough for them, but they do have a degree of power. The kids have no power, not much language and have to put up with the consequences of everyone else's choices. So I'm starting with the dopamine.'

‘Why did you ask me to come?'

Mel looked at her screen. ‘Why d'you think?'

‘I don't know. It wasn't a very successful evening, with Kate …'

‘Some things that needed saying got said.'

‘But—'

‘And,' Mel said, ‘Kate said you were a good couple, you and your husband. If Freddie and I are serious …'

‘Are you?'

‘He's as good as they get,' Mel said.

‘But?'

‘I want to work.'

‘And
I
,' Alexa said with emphasis, ‘want to work.'

‘Well, why don't you?'

‘I can't. The uncertainty, the rules, the moving …'

Mel said, her eyes still on the screen, ‘If you can't beat them, join them. That's what I plan to do.'

‘What?'

‘I'm doing this study. I'm going to specialize. I'm going to involve myself in
my
science applied to
his
profession.'

Alexa leaned forward. ‘Did Kate …?'

‘Kate,' Melanie said, ‘is going down to Larkford to see Gus. So you did hit home. She heard you.'

Alexa looked truly startled. ‘Wow.'

In her bag, her phone started its urgent vibrating. She said, scrabbling for it, ‘It's probably my mother.'

‘She won't go back to him,' Mel said, taking no notice, her eyes still on her screen. ‘She's done with all that. But she knows she left a car crash. She knows she's got to sort it out a bit.'

Alexa had her phone in her hand. ‘Missed call,' it said implacably, and then, in slightly larger script, ‘Mrs Cairns.'

J
ack thought he had probably never been to Wimbledon proper. He'd only ever been to watch the tennis at the All England Club, trying to persuade Eka that there was global glamour there, despite all the old buffers in blazers and dated moustaches insisting that good manners should always prevail over spectacular, if occasionally discourteous, playing.

‘Why d'you think you never have a British star?' Eka said after her second restless visit. ‘I tell you. Because those old men live in the olden days! Nobody allowed to show temper! I show you temper. I getting out of this place right
now
.'

And she had, running in her perilous sandals with extraordinary skill through the crowds, leaving him to pant behind her, conscious of his physical ineptitude and girth in the wake of her gazelle-like grace. At least George Riley wasn't going to startle him by sprinting off somewhere unannounced. In fact, he seemed to be the complete opposite, shyly thanking Jack for coming and then confessing that he'd done a stupid thing.

They were sitting in a coffee place, almost at the top of the High Street, Jack painfully aware that it had cost George no effort at all to turn down a chocolate muffin with his cappuccino.

‘What?' Jack said. ‘You think it was stupid to be so generous to Alexa and Dan?'

‘No, no that.'

‘It was certainly,' Jack said, leaning forward for emphasis, ‘unbelievably stupid and crass and bad-tempered for Alexa to react as she did.'

‘I don't blame her.'

‘I bet you don't. You're too nice.'

‘We sprung it on her,' George said. ‘Once Dad's got an idea in his head, you can't shift it. He was set on telling her. He was set on her falling on his neck and thanking him. He didn't give her a chance. I should have stopped him. I should have made him wait until we could suggest it to both of them.'

Jack leaned back again. ‘You don't need to forgive her, you know.'

‘I want to.'

‘Have you seen Dan?'

George sighed. ‘Briefly. I went down there. He hasn't been to see Dad yet.'

‘They're a right case, the pair of them,' Jack said, ‘aren't they? Hopeless.' He took a gulp of coffee. ‘Why do we bother, I wonder?'

George gave him a half smile. ‘You know why. Why else did you ring me?'

Jack shrugged. ‘Well, they're a load of trouble.'

George said shyly, ‘We used to wonder if you were.'

‘Me?' Jack said in amazement. ‘Who did?'

‘Me and the old man. We couldn't work out you and Alexa. We thought maybe Dan needed to keep a bit of an eye on you.'

Jack was laughing. ‘Never in that way, mate. She never saw me as more than a comfort blanket. I'm as much of a threat to Dan as an armchair. What were you thinking of?'

George looked down into his coffee cup. ‘He's my boy. And she's a great girl.'

‘George Riley,' Jack said. ‘Sir. I can't believe you thought anything so stupid. Or ever did anything stupid, either. Unlike the rest of us.'

George sighed. He smiled privately down at his coffee cup. ‘I did, you know. I got myself in such a state the other day, I went out and found a house for them. After you rang.'

‘You
what
?'

‘Oh,' George said, glancing up, ‘I didn't make an offer or anything. I just saw it, made an appointment to look round. What we're offering them'd cover the deposit.'

‘Gosh,' Jack said admiringly. He ran a teaspoon round his cup to scoop up the remaining foam. ‘Did you tell the old man?'

‘No fear.'

‘And?'

‘It'd do,' George said. ‘I'm not much of a one for houses, never have been, but I know what they've got now and they'd be better, really. Quite a bit of garden, for London. I could grow them a few veg.'

‘George!'

George picked up his coffee cup and drained it.

‘You've moved them in, in your mind, haven't you?' Jack said. ‘You've seen a house and moved them in. I bet you've found a school for Izzy, haven't you?'

George said mildly, ‘There's computers in the public library. And they're really helpful in there to pillocks like me who don't know how to get started.'

Jack struck the table. ‘Well, I'm damned.'

‘Even if she couldn't get into the High School,' George said in the tone of one used to having knowledgeable discussions about modern education, ‘there's good state schools around, some with almost 70 per cent exam passes and all.'

Jack eyed him. ‘George?'

‘Yes?'

‘She didn't mean to turn you down, you know. She doesn't want to refuse your offer.'

George sighed. ‘So you said, on the phone.'

‘She feels awful about the other day. Ashamed. I told her to get off her bloody backside and stop whining, I was really rough with her. And she knows she's got to do something. She knows it. And I think she will, I really do. That's why I gave in and said I'd come and see you. For her, really.'

George hesitated. Then he said, ‘I'm—' and stopped.

‘You're what?'

George cleared his throat. He leaned across the table and said in a whisper, ‘I'm scared she'll leave him.'

‘A house wouldn't fix that.'

‘It'd help.'

‘No,' Jack said. ‘It would only look as if it was helping.'

‘D'you think—?'

Jack put out one hand and made a tipping movement. He said, ‘Could go either way right now. We're doing everything we can, aren't we? You're being nice to her, I'm being vile to her, Izzy and Dan are pulling her in opposite directions. Thank God, at least, for those twins. At least they're on three-year-old Planet Normal.'

‘We've got to keep trying.'

Jack shrugged again. ‘I know.'

‘Shall – shall I – we – offer them the money again?'

‘Maybe. No. No, don't. Yes. Yes – together. Offer it again when they're together.'

George pushed his coffee cup away. ‘It's a nice house.'

‘Where is it?'

George jerked his thumb behind him. ‘Just up there in a terrace. Stone's throw from everything.'

Jack smiled at him. ‘Can I see it?'

Even walking the short distance around the Quadrant with Beetle at his heels made Dan feel conspicuous. True, a lot of people were away, and another lot would have enough similar difficulties in their own lives to sympathize, but all the same, he felt exposed in a way that was uncomfortable and mildly humiliating, walking round to Franny's house in civilian clothes when most people – anybody within earshot of the garrison tom toms, which meant most people – would know that he was not only alone just now, but that his stepdaughter had run away from school a second time, and elected not to run home while she was at it.

He had been on the telephone for hours, since he had encountered Isabel at the roadside. Half the night, at least. Talking to Alexa, talking to Mrs Cairns, trying to talk to Isabel. He had found that he desperately wanted not to lose control of the situation, so he had managed to persuade Mrs Cairns that Isabel was better off not being immediately returned to school so close to the end of term, and – much harder – had convinced Alexa not to insist that her father drive her and the twins back to Larkford without delay.

‘I must come,' Alexa had said. ‘I
must
.'

He had gripped the phone. ‘Please don't.'

‘But Izzy—'

‘She's where she wants to be. I've seen her. She's fine, she's well. She doesn't want any kind of drama and you racing back will be a drama.'

‘It breaks my heart she didn't want to come home.'

Dan had paused before he replied, and then his voice came out in quite the wrong tone, too hearty, too confident. ‘Mine too,' he said.

‘Sounds it,' Alexa said sardonically. ‘I'm going to ring Franny.'

‘Please don't,' he said again.

‘I'm afraid you can't tell me what to do about my own daughter. You're not to be trusted anyway, are you? I bet you knew what Izzy was planning and you chose not to tell me, because you knew I'd act on it and you didn't want the consequences of that. Did you? Well, you've been found out, whatever fast one you've tried to pull. You can't stop me. You've pre-empted me at the school, you can't pre-empt me with my own friends, too.'

‘Go ahead then.'

‘I will!' she'd shouted. ‘I will!'

But Franny, to Dan's amazement and initial relief, had said no.

‘I'm not having Alexa here,' Franny said to Dan. ‘I've told her so. She can come when Isabel's had her say.'

‘Quite right,' Dan said approvingly, holding the telephone. ‘Just what I—'

‘Hold on,' Franny said, interrupting. ‘Hold on. Don't think you're off the hook, Dan, not for one minute. I need to see you round here. I have something to say.'

‘OK,' Dan said, reluctantly.

‘In the morning,' Franny said. ‘I'm not working till midday. I'll see you here in the morning. Andy won't be here.'

Her house, Dan thought, standing on the doorstep, looked very unlike his own, despite being almost a carbon copy. The garden was ferociously kept, the windows glittered, but there was nothing warm about it, nothing welcomingly disordered or charming. And when Franny herself opened the door, trim in tailored cords and polished loafers, her expression was equally uninviting. She looked past Dan at Beetle. ‘He'd better stay outside. Mine's in season.'

Dan turned to command Beetle, who lowered himself mournfully to the gravel and laid his chin on his paws.

‘Come in,' Franny said.

‘Fran, we're so grateful. We really are. I'm so sorry for the trouble.'

‘She's no trouble,' Franny said. ‘None at all. She's a dear. She's lovely. I'm flattered, in fact. It's a relief to know Rupe has even noticed a girl, let alone shown such good taste. Isabel is not, to my mind, the problem.'

‘Ah.'

Franny turned on her heel and marched towards the kitchen. It was as tidy and charmless as the exterior of the house. Her dog, a small and lightly built black Labrador bitch, was in a basket by the back door, the lead attached to her collar tied also to the back-door handle. She didn't move when Dan came in. He stood just inside the door, on the shining vinyl floor, and took in the somehow reproving regularity of the room. Franny, who worked part-time as a house finder for a local estate agent, maintained she got all the house fixes she needed from her work and wasn't prepared to expend one ounce of emotional energy on four walls which would never belong to her, and which she would never, thank you very much, have chosen in the first place.

‘Coffee?' Franny said sharply.

Dan attempted a smile. ‘I don't think you want to give me any. Where's Izzy?'

‘Gone with Andy to pick up Rupert's Christmas bike. Umpteen gears. You can have coffee if you want it, but what I'm going to give you, whether you want it or not, is a piece of my mind.'

‘I thought as much.'

‘So, with or without a mug of coffee?'

Dan wished suddenly and urgently for Izzy's return. A stab of jealousy at Andy's taking her to the cycle shop took him by surprise. He swallowed. ‘Without,' he said. ‘Fire away.'

Franny indicated a chair, its seat hygienically and glossily upholstered in plastic. ‘Sit down.'

‘I'm OK.'

Franny leaned against the nearest kitchen counter and folded her arms. She looked as unlike the friendly, smiling, easy-going Franny that Dan was used to as she possibly could. He stood where he was, on the far side of the kitchen table from her, trying hard not to stand to attention.

‘I like Alexa,' Franny said. ‘Make no mistake, my life here has been pretty well
made
by knowing Alexa. And Andy thinks a lot of you. But you just aren't looking, either of you, are you? You aren't listening. When Andy won't listen, I just go ahead and
do
it, whatever it is. But Alexa doesn't behave like that. She asks you. Or she waits for you to be ready to ask. But you never bloody are, are you? You just never, ever are.'

Dan's hand moved slightly, involuntarily. If he'd had his side hat in his hands – he vaguely wished he did have – he'd have been turning it slowly. It would have been comforting to have something to hold on to. He said, in too jocular a tone, ‘My fault again, then.'

‘No,' Franny said. She unfolded her arms and then folded them the opposite way. ‘
No
. It's both of you. Neither of you are listening to Isabel.'

‘But we
are
.'

‘No, you're not. She really meant this, Dan. She's really unhappy. She really hates boarding school. She refuses to blame her mother, she refuses to blame you directly, but she just wants the same family life as Flora and Tassy get, she just wants to be at home with you and Alexa and the twins and the dog. And because you both make all decisions for her, and she can't bear the consequences of those decisions, and she can't get either of you to
hear
her, not really hear her, she takes matters into her own hands to try and
make
you see that she, poor kid, is in
pain
. And nobody should be in pain like that for no good reason. Especially not a
child
.'

‘There – there was a good reason.'

‘Good reason or convenience?'

‘Oh, Fran.'

Franny stood upright and pulled her sweater over her hips. ‘Lecture over,' she said.

‘But boarding school isn't an ogre's den any more. Your boys love it.'

‘My boys are much simpler mechanisms than Isabel. And like their father, they are sustained by action. Daily sport and regular food and sleep, and my boys are sorted. Isabel's different.'

Dan looked past Franny out of the window, where three yellow dusters flapped in a tidy row on a circular washing line. ‘Yes,' he said soberly.