The Soldier's Wife (9 page)

‘Look, sweetheart, I am truly sorry I was late again. Truly. It was just that poor old Gus is in a funk about Kate. She's got all these work commitments and she won't be back now till Saturday. And it's really got him down. Right down.'

Alexa took one step to the right so that Dan's arm slipped from her waist. ‘Dan, there's me too. There's us—'

‘I know that.'

She looked at him. ‘I don't think you do. Or if you do, you don't act on it.'

‘Sweetheart, you know how it is, you know I can't—'

‘Please stop.'

‘I mean, I hated Jack going with you the other day.'

‘But you didn't ask!' Alexa cried. ‘You didn't even
ask
me about it afterwards!'

Dan stared at her. ‘Didn't I?'

‘No! You haven't asked about anything, you haven't really looked at me or listened to me or wondered what it's been like for me or what I've been doing or feeling or thinking,
you haven't got your head back from wherever it's been all these months, and I'm afraid it looks to me as if you haven't even been
trying
!'

Dan looked stricken. He held his arms out. ‘Please—'

She shook her head. ‘I can't. I can't talk to you till you can hear me.'

‘I'm listening.'

‘You're scared,' Alexa said. ‘You're afraid of what you might have done. I'll talk to you when you're over that, I'll talk to you when you're back in the world that the rest of us have to inhabit. But until you can get your priorities sorted, I don't want to open my heart to someone who is, to all intents and purposes, still miles away doing something so alien to ordinary life that it might as well be on the moon. Do you realize, I don't even really know what
that
's like? I don't know, in any detail, what you did, or, more importantly, what you felt about what you did. You come back here, full to the brim with something, and even if I can guess at some of it, it's only a guess. Dan, we're
married
. Marriage means, among a lot of things,
sharing
. How can I know you if you tell me almost nothing, and ask me even less?'

Dan looked on the verge of tears. ‘Sorry,' he whispered. ‘So sorry.'

‘I know you are. Or at least, I know you want to be.'

‘Can't we—'

She shook her head again.

‘I thought—'

‘What did you think?'

‘I thought,' Dan said, unwisely, uncertainly, ‘that you understood.'

Alexa picked up the cutlery again. She was shaking. She said with a visible effort to keep her voice steady, ‘There's a difference between trying very hard to understand something that doesn't come naturally to you for the sake of someone
you love, and having that understanding pushed so far that it begins to look very much like exploitation.'

There was a silence. Then Dan said, ‘Is that how you feel?'

She turned to face him. ‘Right now, yes.'

He rubbed a hand over his face and through his hair. ‘I don't … really know how to respond to that.'

‘I know,' Alexa said. ‘I can see. That's my point. And when you can see the whole picture from my point of view as well as from your own, so that you
do
have an idea of how to respond to all the things that are crowding into my mind right now, then we'll talk.'

She resumed laying the table. Dan stood and watched her, his expression one of complete dismay. Then he reached out and picked up the Muscadet bottle.

‘Drink?' he said uncertainly.

G
eorge Riley bought himself a National Express coach ticket to Salisbury. Using his senior travel card it was gratifyingly cheap, so much so that he suggested to Eric that he might like to come too.

They were sitting in the third-floor café in Elys on Wimbledon High Street, with a pot of tea and a toasted teacake each, which Eric was eating at a pace slow enough to irritate the mildest of men.

‘Eat up, Dad, do. It'll be like leather. Why don't you come with me?'

Eric, chewing with exasperating thoroughness, shook his head. ‘Can't. Can't sleep in any bloody bed but my own.'

‘Don't you want to see them?'

‘Course I do,' Eric said, swallowing with deliberation. ‘Don't be bloody ridiculous. But I can't sleep away from home. Which you know bloody well. Anyway' – he paused and took another measured bite – ‘they'll be up here as soon as Dan's leave starts. I'll see ‘em then. Take the little girls to South Bank Gardens, though why they needed to bloody modernize it—'

‘Don't start, Dad.'

‘That stupid caravan thing, selling
gelati
. What's wrong with bloody ice cream, I'd like to know?'

‘So you won't come to Larkford?'

‘And that Mums Meet Up nonsense, grans and granddads welcome. I bloody ask you.'

‘Dad,' George said, leaning forward, ‘have you taken it in that I'm going to see them, even if you won't come?'

Eric stopped chewing. He looked at his son. ‘What you doing that for?'

‘I told you,' George said. He picked up the teapot on the table between them and poured tea into both their cups. ‘I told you. It's all gone a bit quiet and I—'

‘Leave them be.'

‘I know what you think, Dad.'

‘Leave them bloody be!'

George added milk. Before he met Alexa he used to put the milk in tea first, but she had pointed out that if you did that, you couldn't judge how dark you wanted your tea.

‘I'm going, Dad,' he said, ‘whether you like it or not. I've got an uneasy feeling and I want to be proved wrong.'

Eric's look changed to a glare. ‘You're a bloody nosey-parker, George Riley.'

‘Well, come with me and prove me wrong yourself.'

Eric muttered something.

‘What?'

‘Nothing.'

‘Suit yourself,' George said. ‘I spoke to Alexa and she is going to pick me up in Salisbury. She said I could have Izzy's room. I'll only be away the one night.'

Eric looked down at his plate as if the half-eaten teacake had appeared there without his consent. ‘Bloody thing's cold,' he said.

George took a small rucksack on the coach, with a change of shirt and socks, his shaving things, a tube of handcream for Alexa and two small packets of candy-covered chocolate buttons for the twins. Dan had always been difficult to buy presents for, and George planned to take him out for a beer instead, if that proved possible. He would have liked to take something for Isabel, having a distinct sympathy for both her situation and her personality, but she wasn't at home, was she? She was shut up in that school and learning to grit her teeth, as Army kids had always had to do. At least boarding school for kids like Isabel was probably reasonably kind, these days. When he looked back at those great blocks where the other ranks lived in the garrisons, in Germany, when he was stationed out there, the soldiers' wives were not only up for anything once their men had been deployed, but were, in George's view, hardly exemplary mothers. Tough kids, those were, those kids in the blocks, tough and self-sufficient. Maybe it was good training. Maybe it taught you to stand on your own two feet and never to expect too much. That way, you didn't get disappointed. George felt he knew a lot about disappointment and, if nothing else, it had taught him to value the good things. Like how well Dan had done, and what a great wife and family he had. George really esteemed them – another of Alexa's words. Which was why he was now on a coach travelling down the M3 towards the A303, because he had a small, uneasy sense that things at number seven, the Quadrant were not as uncomplicated as his father wished to think or Dan wished to imply.

He took a paperback out of his rucksack.
Eight Lives Down
by Major Chris Hunter. It was set in Iraq, not Afghanistan, and was about bomb disposal, not artillery. But George had picked it up because he liked war memoirs as a genre, and the man who'd written this was a major, like Dan. There was a glossary at the back of all the military acronyms. It was
comforting just to read some of them, like 9 milly for a 9 mm pistol. He could feel the pistol in his hand, just thinking about it. What a sad old soldier he was, smiling to himself at the mere memory of having a gun in his hand.

He glanced up. Across the aisle, a vividly made-up middle-aged woman in an electric-blue jacket with brass buttons was plainly waiting to catch his eye. She smiled at him. ‘Mind if I slip in beside you?'

George indicated his book. ‘Sit where you like,' he said, ‘but I'll be reading.'

The twins had chosen several of their soft toys to put in Isabel's bed for George. This process involved unmaking the bed that Alexa had made up for him in order to be able to tuck a white nylon fur owl, a green plush giraffe and assorted bears and rabbits in against the pillows and under the duvet. This became such an absorbing game that Alexa felt safe to go out on to the landing, to the corner at the top of the stairs where the mobile signal was strongest, and make the telephone call that had been preying on her mind for several days.

She had been pleased when George rang to ask in his straightforward and diffident way if he might come down to Larkford for a night. He had simply said that he'd like to reassure himself that the lad was really in one piece and Alexa, grateful for anything that helped bring Dan's leave closer by even half an hour, said warmly that they'd love to see him. It was true, in any case, always. Her relationship with her father-in-law was one of the least complicated of her entire life – he seemed to ask for so little and to be pleased and satisfied with so little, making him as peaceful and undemanding a presence in the house as Beetle.

Dan, when told, had simply said, ‘Oh. Fine,' and Alexa, practising her newly self-imposed rule of leaving molehills
as molehills instead of instantly, dramatically elevating them to mountains, had merely smiled and continued to slice the mushrooms she was about to add to a chicken casserole. She had held her breath while she smiled, which she knew was hardly evidence of a complete surrender to true nonchalance, but at least she hadn't used her breath for another tirade. She found, having dialled the number now, that she was holding her breath again.

‘Thornhill School?' a female voice said on a rising note.

Alexa let her breath go, too suddenly. ‘May – may I speak to Mr Johnson?'

‘Who shall I say is calling?'

‘Mrs Riley. He's expecting me.'

‘One moment.'

There was a silence. Then, faintly, almost as if it was there by mistake, Vivaldi's Four Seasons could be heard. Alexa strained to catch it properly. It was so faint, it was hard to tell even which season it was. Clearly nobody at the school had listened to it for ages as, played that indistinctly, it could only serve to increase the anxiety or ire of any parent ringing the school. Was it Spring? No, no, it was Summer, surely—

‘Mrs Riley?'

‘Oh, Mr Johnson—'

‘I was hoping you'd ring. To tell the truth, I was going to ring you if I hadn't heard from you by the end of the day. How are you?'

‘I'm fine—'

‘And you've had time to think the matter over?'

‘I should have written—'

‘No, no,' Mr Johnson said, ‘an email would have done. But I'm glad you rang, I'd rather speak to you, I'd rather explain myself.'

Alexa pressed her phone to her ear and stared along the narrow landing. ‘Explain?'

‘I always believe,' Mr Johnson said warmly, ‘in explaining things in person. Especially tricky things. I'm sure you know how impressed we were at your interview.'

‘Yes.'

‘You ticked so many boxes, Mrs Riley. The thing is—'

‘Yes?'

‘I could see,' Mr Johnson said, his tone almost cosy, ‘that the commitment was going to be hard for you. I could just see it. Mind you, I've every sympathy. I've a niece married to a sailor, and it's hard enough for her to carve out a life for herself. The Army's even more demanding, I know that.'

‘So,' Alexa said, interrupting too hastily, ‘you've had second thoughts?'

She could almost see Mr Johnson's concern seeping down the phone line, like syrup.

‘I have to tell you, Mrs Riley, that—'

‘You've found someone else.'

‘Not with your qualifications—'

‘But someone else.'

‘Yes, Mrs Riley. I'm so sorry. It was just that we really needed full-time commitment. I'd so hoped we could work on the hours you could give us, but on consideration, it wasn't a workable hope.' He paused. She pictured his kind, mobile face crumpled up with reluctance to say what he was saying. ‘I really am so sorry.'

Alexa looked at the ceiling, stared at it hard for a second or two. ‘Mr Johnson, thank you. Actually—'

‘Yes?'

‘Actually, I was ringing to tell you that I was afraid I wasn't going to be able to accept the job, anyway. My twins are so young, and the nature of my husband's work. All the moving …'

‘Of course.'

‘And possible promotion. You never quite know …'

‘Indeed.'

‘It didn't,' Alexa said, choking down mortification and gathering bravado, ‘it didn't seem fair to the school to offer a commitment I simply might not be able to fulfil, however much I wanted to.'

‘I'm relieved, Mrs Riley. I really did not want to be the bearer of bad news.'

‘I'm relieved too,' Alexa said untruthfully.

‘Of course, I may well be very grateful for some part-time help, covering maternity leave and so forth?'

‘Oh, thank you.'

‘No, thank
you
, Mrs Riley. I am really sorry. And regretful. Really.'

‘Thank you, Mr Johnson.'

‘I'll be in touch, if I may? You would fit in so well with our community here. All the best, Mrs Riley.'

‘Thank you.'

‘Goodbye for now.'

‘Goodbye.'

She clicked her phone off and leaned against the wall. Then she slid down it until she was crouched on the floor with her arms round her knees and her head bent.

Tassy came out of Isabel's room holding a large felt rabbit with embroidered goofy teeth. She came and stood by her mother. ‘Are you crying?' she demanded.

Alexa looked up, sniffing. ‘No.'

‘Why are you on the floor?'

‘Just felt like it.'

‘I should get up,' Tassy said. She put out the arm not holding the rabbit and hooked it in Alexa's. ‘Upsy daisy,' she said firmly.

Alexa rose unsteadily to her feet.

‘Blow your nose.'

‘Yes, I will.'

‘Hard,' Tassy said.

Alexa looked down at her. She had Dan's colouring and her maternal grandmother's face, in miniature.

‘When I've done that,' Alexa said, brushing her hand across her eyes, ‘we'll go and collect Grampa, shall we?'

‘In the car?'

‘Of course.'

‘With Rabbit?'

‘Sure.'

Tassy thought a moment. ‘OK,' she said.

Dan carried two pints of bitter across the loudly patterned carpet of the pub's saloon bar. George had found them seats at a small table under a crude painting of two shire horses pulling a plough up a field as neatly ribbed as brown corduroy. He set the glasses down on the table.

‘There's a treat,' George said, looking at them. ‘Your granddad and I only ever have halves.'

Dan settled on a padded stool opposite his father. He said, ‘I'm not having halves of anything right now.'

‘Don't blame you.'

Dan raised his glass towards his father and took a deep swallow. ‘How's Wimbledon?'

‘Much the same.'

‘And Granddad?'

‘He doesn't change,' George said affectionately. ‘He was in a temper yesterday because the Y had fallen off the front of the library building, and of course he has to go in and tell them about it, doesn't he, and they said they knew and he was about the fiftieth person who'd told them. Then he came out and had a right sound-off. You know him. It's all change and nothing for the better and all you can do is live the way you know to be right, live by the rules, nothing's like it used to be, what about Plough Lane Stadium—'

‘I remember Plough Lane,' Dan said, smiling. ‘When we had that flat off Durnsford Road, remember? Plough Lane and Wimbledon FC. I was sixteen.'

‘You were, lad.'

‘And now there's no stadium and just a memorial.'

‘Your granddad hates that memorial,' George said. ‘You should hear him. Snorting about “artwork”. He's better off with swords and crosses. Like the sword in the war memorial in the Gap Road Cemetery.'

Dan looked at his father. ‘Does he still go there?'

‘Every week. Shirt and tie, polished shoes.'

‘I understand that,' Dan said.

‘Do you? He never even knew his brother.'

‘It's not about that, though, is it?'

George let a beat fall and then he said, ‘Not about what?'

Dan sighed. ‘It's not about respect for the dead. I mean it is, of course it is, but it's about fellow feeling, isn't it? Anyone with a sense of decency can respect someone who's died while serving their country, but only another soldier can really understand what that entails.'

George said, staring at his beer, ‘In the South Atlantic I just remember not wanting to let my gun crew down.'