A Regimental Affair (4 page)

She had really hoped that at some time during her stint as CO’s wife she would have to host a member of the royal family. Now, hopes of that were fading fast. If the men were going out to Kosovo, the last thing her husband would be thinking about would be future social events, and Alice knew that a visit from one of the royals often took between a year and eighteen months to organise. By the time Bob got back and could be persuaded think about such things, it would be too late. Even if he did pull his finger out, the chances were that they would be on their way to yet another posting, and her successor would get the benefit. Really, life was so unfair. Ever since she had heard that Bob was to take over the regiment she had imagined herself at the helm of numerous impeccable social functions. Well, there would be none of that for at least six months. Damn. Alice’s annoyance at the curtailment of her social plans pushed the news of Ginny’s impending arrival to the back of her mind.

Sarah turned the cream envelope over in her hand. She recognised the distinctive calligraphy and had a pretty fair idea of what it contained.

‘Good God almighty, she didn’t waste much time then, did she!’ Sarah remarked as she stuck it, unopened, on the cooker hood.

‘I’m not with you,’ said Alisdair, who was reading the sports page of the paper.

‘Alice.’

‘How do you mean?’

Sarah sighed. ‘She’s only been here a matter of hours and she’s already getting the invites out to show us mere mortals how proper entertaining should be done.’

‘Oh.’ Alisdair turned the page. He obviously hadn’t taken in a word.

Sarah shook her head. Really – men! She poked the potatoes to see if they were done. ‘Anyway, why were you so late tonight?’

‘Ah.’

Sarah drained the spuds over the sink and began to mash them. ‘“Ah” sounds ominous.’

Alisdair folded up the paper. ‘This mustn’t go any further – at least not till it’s official.’

Sarah stopped mashing and focused her attention on her husband. ‘Till what’s official?’

‘We’re going to Kosovo. Six-month emergency tour.’

Sarah considered the news for a few seconds. She didn’t trust herself to speak until she’d taken a couple of deep breaths. ‘Soon?’

‘The beginning of June.’

‘That’s soon enough.’

‘So, suddenly, it got very hectic today.’

‘And will stay that way till you go.’ Sarah had been an army wife long enough to know all the implications. There was a mountain of stuff to do, especially as they didn’t have that long in which to get ready. Getting every scrap of equipment repaired, regimental documentation to be brought completely up to date, vaccinations to be organised, training to be undertaken, briefings on the local situation to attend … the list would make sure that every minute of every working day (and a good bit of their leisure time) would be taken up until they actually departed. And with a shiny new CO at the helm and still finding his feet, most of this would devolve to his second in command – Alisdair.

‘So I’m afraid …’

Sarah had already worked out the personal implications for the family. ‘The Easter holidays are going to be a non-event.’

‘Yes.’

Sarah returned to mashing the potatoes. ‘Can’t be helped,’ she said, trying to hide her disappointment. Damn and blast the bloody army. She took her frustrations out on the spuds.

Chapter Three

Ginny dumped her suitcase in the lobby of the officers’ mess and looked around. She recognised some of the pictures and the silver from the last time she’d visited the regiment, when they had been based on Salisbury Plain and she had been dating one of the subalterns. It was a bit like visiting one of the pad’s houses after they had moved. It didn’t matter what their new quarter was like; to all intents and purposes it was exactly the same as the previous one, it was just the colour of the carpets and the shape of the rooms that changed. You’d see the same house plants, the same pictures, the same rugs – everything arranged, as much as circumstances allowed, in the same way. Ginny supposed it was some sort of defence mechanism devised by the wives so it didn’t seem as though their families had been uprooted quite as often as they had.

She looked around for signs of life and could hear and see none. She wandered along a corridor leading past the dining room and heading, she hoped, towards the kitchens. There was bound to be someone there at this time – lunch was going to be served in under an hour. Behind her she heard a door slam. Ginny turned around and recognised the emerging figure immediately.

‘Richard!’

‘Ginny?’

She walked towards him and kissed him heartily on both cheeks. ‘Great to see you. I’d heard on the grapevine that you were here. And what’s this I hear about you being a father now?’

Richard grinned broadly. ‘Hard to believe, isn’t it? You’ll have to come and meet her.’

‘What’s the baby’s name?’

‘Danielle. But she’s hardly a baby any more, she’s eighteen months old.’

‘And is she beautiful like her mother?’

‘Yeah. Happily, my genes seem to be the recessive ones.’

Ginny laughed. ‘Christ, that was a lucky escape for the kid.’

Richard smiled. ‘It’ll be good having you here. Should liven the place up a bit.’

‘Does it need livening up?’

‘Not at the moment. We’re all far too busy.’

‘Busy? On a peacetime posting in the UK?’

‘But the CO wrote and told you?’ To be more accurate, Richard had actually written the letter containing the news but the CO had signed it.

‘Told me what?’ asked Ginny suspiciously.

‘That the regiment’s off to Kosovo in a couple of months.’

Ginny narrowed her eyes as she considered Richard’s bald statement. Then she laughed. ‘Good one. You nearly got me going then. Yeah, right.’

‘But surely you got the letter?’

Ginny thought back. Yes, she had had a letter from Bob and she’d read the first bit about how much he was looking forward to her serving in his regiment and how demanding the job would be and how he thought she was more than up to the task and blah, blah, blah. And then? And then she remembered throwing the letter on the bed and deciding to read the rest of it later. Had she? No, obviously not, or she would have picked up the news about their deployment to Kosovo.

‘Um, well,’ she hedged.

Richard smiled encouragingly.

‘Well, I did get it, but …’

‘You didn’t read it.’

‘No. Well, you know what that sort of letter is like. I mean, it’s usually all bullshit, isn’t it?’

‘Usually, but not always.’

‘Yes, well.’ Ginny had been caught out and felt a little foolish.

‘I mean, didn’t you think it odd that your posting was so sudden?’

Ginny had to admit to herself that she had wondered about that, but her curiosity had been submerged in the chaos of her round of farewell parties, all of which had had to be crammed into a somewhat short time-frame. Ginny shrugged and wrinkled her nose.

‘So, do you want a hand with your kit?’ asked Richard, sensing Ginny’s embarrassment and tactfully changing the subject.

‘Please. It’s all dumped in the hall at the moment. I was looking for someone to tell me where to find a room.’

‘I’ll take you to the mess manager’s office. He’ll get you organised.’

Twenty minutes later Ginny was hanging clothes in her wardrobe, wondering if she liked the way the furniture was arranged in her new bedroom and getting used to the news that she was off to Kosovo in the near future.

Well
, she thought, abandoning her unpacking and sitting on her bed,
now I know why the posting was suddenly brought forward, why there all the urgency
. Just as well she didn’t have any compelling personal reasons for wanting to stay in the country. Footloose and fancy-free, that was her. Not that she really wanted to be that way, but suitable men – or to be precise, suitable,
unattached
men – seemed to be getting scarcer and scarcer. She sighed quietly at the thought.

Part of her fancied the idea of a stable, long-term relationship. The trouble was that it had been OK being ‘madcap, love-’em-and-leave-’em, good-time Ginny’ when she was twenty or so, but she was getting a little old for that role now. And all the guys that had kept her company, who had accompanied her on expeditions and skiing holidays, had, one by one, drifted into marriage and domesticity and left her to carry on her life of single irresponsibility. The men that swam back into the availability pool, their marriages falling apart as they often did in the military, always seemed to carry so much emotional baggage as a result of the ex-wife’s infidelity, their own infidelity or whatever, that they could hardly be considered a prize catch.
Yesterday’s leftovers was a better description
, thought Ginny.

Furthermore, she didn’t think that six months in some godforsaken NATO outpost was going to improve her chances of finding Mr Right. The only people she was likely to come across were the chaps in the regiment, and the chances were that the single ones would be miles too young for her, and her contemporaries were bound to be married and therefore off-limits. Thirty-one wasn’t old, for God’s sake! But all the men of her age had wives and kids, or hang-ups and alimony payments.
Perhaps
, she thought dully,
I’ve left it too late
. Heigh-ho. Middle age as a spinster didn’t seem very appealing, but that was what beckoned. She looked in the mirror. There were the beginnings of some lines around her mouth. Little ones that she’d got from pursing her lips when she concentrated. If she didn’t watch out she’d soon be a
wrinkled
, middle-aged spinster, just like all the unmarried female officers she had laughed at when she had been a cadet.

Feeling down, she wandered over to the window and looked out.
Not too bad a view
, she thought – better than the last place she’d lived in where her room had looked out across dustbins behind the mess kitchen to a busy main road and a row of dreary, run-down shops. This time her room was at the front of the building so she looked across a large lawn. A screen of mature chestnut trees was on the left and beyond them she could glimpse the parade square. A road led off the square, across the top of the lawn in front of her and then curved around into the small estate of officers’ houses with their neat front gardens, hanging baskets and people carriers or estate cars in the drives. All those officers had managed to find the time and the right person to marry, she thought. Perhaps she ought to make the effort this time when she came back from Kosovo. She’d make someone a good wife – and she’d be a good mother, she was certain of that. She sighed again. Wasn’t it funny how lonely you could sometimes be, even when you lived in a bustling place like an officers’ mess.

Bob wasn’t a heavy smoker and he still had five cigarettes left in the packet on his desk – more than enough for the afternoon – so he knew he was kidding himself when he popped into the mess on his way home for lunch that the sole reason for the detour was to buy some fags. Richard had let slip that, while in the mess, carrying out his duties as Wines Member, he had run into Ginny. As Bob neared the front door of the mess, he finally admitted to himself that he was hoping to see Ginny and he was just curious to see if she had changed at all in the last ten years. That was all.

And he needed cigarettes, didn’t he?

On entering the bar, he saw that it was empty apart from a couple of young subalterns drinking orange juice and poring over a motoring magazine. Walking over to the bar he noticed a feeling of disappointment welling up inside him. Oh well, he’d just get his cigarettes and go home. Anyway, if the poor girl had only just arrived it was a little unlikely that she would already be propping up the bar. One of the young men glanced up and saw Bob as he passed, and they both leapt to their feet. With a casual hand gesture to signal they could sit down, Bob made a mental note to get Richard to spread the word that he didn’t expect junior officers to jump to attention every time he made an appearance in the mess. After all, the mess was their home and he was, in some respects, a visitor. He’d have said something then and there but for the life of him he couldn’t remember their names. He filled in a chit for twenty Silk Cut and handed it to the steward.

‘Sorry, sir,’ said the young lad serving him. ‘I’ve run out. I think we might have some in the cellar. I’ll just go and see.’

‘In which case, I’ll have a tomato juice while I’m waiting.’

‘Yes, sir.’

The steward returned the chit to Bob for him to sign for his drink and busied himself mixing the juice with Worcestershire sauce and adding ice and lemon. With nothing else to occupy him. Bob watched and then accepted the proffered drink. The barman excused himself to fetch the cigarettes.

‘So, sir,’ said a woman’s voice behind him, ‘still not drinking at lunchtime, I’m pleased to see.’

Bob spun round. ‘Ginny!’ She hadn’t changed a jot, he noticed instantly. Still as slim, still as blonde, still as pretty. ‘How lovely to see you again.’ His feeling of disappointment was replaced, in a heartbeat, by real happiness.

‘It can hardly be a surprise,’ she replied. ‘You knew I was arriving today. In fact, I’ve already been told by Richard to report to your office at two o’clock for my initial interview.’

‘Hardly necessary though, seeing how well we know each other.’

‘You could have dispensed with the formality.’

‘I didn’t want you to think I was ignoring you.’

‘As if.’ She raised an eyebrow at him and smiled. Bob had forgotten how devastating her smile was.

The two young officers finished their drinks and drifted off to the dining room in search of food. The barman hadn’t returned with his cigarettes and Bob was suddenly very aware that he and Ginny were alone and he found the thought oddly disturbing.

‘Settled in?’ he asked somewhat abruptly, clearing his throat.

‘Ish,’ said Ginny. ‘Although there’s not too much point in making myself feel completely at home. Seeing as how I’ll just have to pack everything up again soon.’

‘No.’ The barman returned and handed Bob his Silk Cut. ‘Right, well, um … I’d better get off home or Alice will wonder what has become of me.’