Soldier's Daughters (26 page)

Mike switched off his bed-side lamp. ‘Oh, well.’ He yawned. ‘Night, sweetie.’ He rolled over.

Susie stayed propped up against her pillow, mulling over the reasons Michelle might want to talk to Maddy. Mike might have dismissed it as being of no interest but she couldn’t. Not that it was any of her business, but it was… well, odd.

Michelle checked her phone again before she switched off her light and went to sleep. Still no reply from Maddy. Huh. Maybe the silly woman didn’t believe her. She’d have to tell her again – only maybe this time she’d add a bit more detail and make it a bit plainer. Obviously, despite the Oxford degree Sam had told her that Maddy had, it seemed that she wasn’t so bright when it came to relationships. She’d do it tomorrow, she thought. It’d be a nice surprise for Maddy when she woke up.

Maddy stared at her phone and noticed that the screen was juddering. Hardly surprising, given how shaky she felt. Although, despite the shakiness in her hands, her mind seemed remarkably clear as she turned over the implications of the message and tried to deduce who the sender might be.

Seb doesnt love you anymore he told me so. If you love him let him go.

This was no teenaged spat over an unknown boy involving two anonymous rivals and a misdialled number; this was personal. This text was from someone who had designs on Seb. Or maybe it was more than that, maybe this texter was already having an affair with her husband. For a second she wondered who on earth it could be. Someone from their last posting? That new officer, Sam? But then she realised that, almost certainly, it had to be a rower. All those weekends away with those wonderful long-limbed girls who shared an interest with him. Girls who might not even know that Seb had a wife. And why would they? Maddy hadn’t been involved in the rowing scene for months now. When was the last time she’d trained or gone to a regatta to cheer other rowers on? Maddy suddenly felt a wave of emotion engulf her; she was scared and worried about the implications that those few words had.

Then the initial surge of confused feelings ebbed and a chill seeped through Maddy and entered her heart, like a sliver of ice. She put her phone down and fingered the beautiful engraved gold locket that Seb had given her for Christmas – the surprise he’d had to pick up, last minute, before they’d left their quarter to travel to her parents’. When she’d opened the box on Christmas morning, she’d felt certain that he totally adored her – after all, he’d gone to so much trouble and it was such a thoughtful present, with their initials and the date of their wedding inscribed on the back. But now… now she was assailed by hideous doubts.

Had all those training weekends really been just that? She looked back over the past few months and began to add things up. Jenna had been amazed by the amount of training he’d had to commit to and Susie had thought his recent change in attitude coupled with giving up rowing was due to a guilty conscience. Well, having an affair would be enough to give anyone a guilty conscience.

Another thought struck her and with it came the reason for the vile message, accompanied with a whoosh of relief. Of course! Someone had been dropped from the squad, hadn’t made the grade or had been read their fortune by Seb because they weren’t putting enough effort into their training, and whoever it was resented this and now they wanted to get revenge. That had to be the answer. She almost sobbed as she clutched at this thought.

As she looked at the text the doubts reasserted themselves. She examined the last months of her marriage and knew there were plenty of reasons why Seb might be tempted elsewhere. She’d been a crap wife recently. Their sex life was all but non-existent, she’d been tired and listless and half the time she looked like shit. If he had strayed it was hardly a wonder.

Sightlessly she looked at her son, playing with some stacking cups in his travel cot beside her bed. The coldness that had gripped her now turned to a nauseating feeling of panic at what this might mean for her, Nate and her unborn child. Supposing Seb really had fallen out of love with her? Supposing he really did want this other woman instead of her? And, thought Maddy, if her rival was lively and pretty and slim and sexy, why wouldn’t he? She was hardly any of those things herself, was she, these days? If Seb left her she’d be homeless. She might have derided army housing but at least a quarter provided a roof. How would she cope as a single mum with two tiny children? Shit, she’d have to move back home.

She took some deep breaths, trying to calm herself and make her brain think rationally. But whichever way she looked at the situation, however much she tried to make herself go through the evidence logically, however much she told herself the text was almost certainly a nasty, spiteful lie from someone who wanted to get at Seb, her heart kept overruling her head with the ‘but what if it isn’t?’ argument.

She wondered what she should do. Text back? Confront Seb? Ignore it? She blinked back a tear and put her phone down on the counterpane. Thank God this text had come through while she was in the privacy of her bedroom and before her parents were up. She knew that if she was going to avoid explaining everything to her mother she’d have to find a way to put on some sort of front, but at least she had a while to get her act together.

And getting her act together was essential. Her mother had always been difficult about her only daughter’s choice of husband and if she got a sniff of what was going on, Maddy knew there would be a barrage of ‘I told you sos’ and ‘I said you should never marry a soldier’, plus ‘I said you were too young and you were rushing into things…’ Maddy loved her mother, she did, but it had been obvious from the moment Seb had appeared on the scene that he didn’t match up to her mother’s expectations. From the instant Maddy had won her place at Oxford it had been transparent that her mother had expected her to Marry Well: a member of the landed gentry at the very least. An ordinary, middle-class bloke simply wasn’t going to cut the mustard and even a commissioned officer was below par. Which was ridiculous, given that home was a perfectly normal four-bed detached house on the outskirts of Hereford. If she had been born with the proverbial silver spoon it might have been understandable but her mother’s delusions of grandeur, when it came to her daughter, were as illogical as they were unshakable. Frankly, thought Maddy, her mother would have probably only been satisfied if she’d followed in Kate Middleton’s footsteps and married into the House of Windsor. Right now, the last thing she wanted to do was give her mother any more ammunition to fire in her husband’s direction, causing more trouble, before she herself had found out what the real truth was.

Suddenly Maddy wanted to be in her own home. She knew she couldn’t keep up any sort of front indefinitely and once her mum had found out what was going on, it would all be finger-pointing and Seb getting blamed, and she wouldn’t be allowed to even consider the possibility that Seb might be the innocent party. Quite apart from all of that, Maddy wanted someone she could talk to, a shoulder she could cry on and someone who could give her solid advice about her options if the worst did come to the worst. How long could she stay in her quarter if everything went shit-shaped? Would someone have to provide her with alternative accommodation? What would the army do to help her? And Susie would know, Susie would help and, more importantly, Susie would sit and listen and wouldn’t jump to conclusions or be judgemental about Seb.

Except… how the hell was she going to tell her mother she wanted to leave early? Maddy sighed. At least this new problem gave her something else to think about other than what Seb might or might not have done.

Michelle found the number for 1 Herts battalion HQ in the army directory and rang it. There was bound to be a clerk on duty even if everyone else was on block leave. The phone was answered after a couple of rings.

‘Hi, it’s Lieutenant Flowers here from HQUKLF,’ she lied smoothly. ‘I’m checking when the advance party for Askari Thunder is due to emplane from Brize.’

Unsurprisingly, the clerk didn’t bat an eyelid and replied, ‘They’re due to fly tomorrow.’

‘Thank you,’ said Michelle, and put the phone down. Surely Seb would return to the quarter before he went off on exercise. And as Maddy wasn’t responding to her texts and Seb was blanking her calls on his mobile it was time to try something a bit different. She had the home number, it was time to try that as a means of communication now. She took a deep breath before she dialled nine for an outside line while she brought up the Fanshaws’ number on her mobile and then rang Seb’s quarter. Please, please, she thought, let him be there.

Seb stared at his fellow passengers, waiting in the departure lounge of RAF Brize Norton. On the other side of the floor-to-ceiling windows a drab grey RAF passenger plane sat on the pan, as the luggage and kit for the advance party was loaded and a fuel bowser pumped avgas into the tanks. Most of the people sprawled on the seats around him were from other regiments and battalions or from the Brigade HQ and unknown to him. In fact, there were hardly any familiar faces; the exceptions were Andy Bailey, the adjutant, the blonde clerk from battalion HQ, and Sam Lewis from the LAD. There were, of course, other soldiers from the battalion present, but not ones that Seb really knew, just faces he vaguely recognised.

He glanced in Sam’s direction. Bloody typical, he thought. The one person he really didn’t want to see and here she was. He still felt an enormous surge of guilt every time he caught sight of her because she knew what he’d done. He’d hoped that being in the advance party meant he’d get away from her and not re-encounter her till the dust had died down. Seb sighed. Just his sodding luck that it wasn’t to be.

He was about to look away when she must have sensed he was looking at her because she glanced up from her Kindle and stared directly at him. Seb felt his face colour. Sam gave him a knowing look. Bitch, he thought, and returned to looking out of the window.

‘You looking forward to going, sir?’ said the blonde clerk. Seb glanced at the name embroidered onto the tag on her combat jacket. Cooper, of course. She’d been mates with Jenna Perkins, the woman who’d had an affair while her husband was in Afghan. Not that he could take the moral high ground about that incident now.

‘It’s going to get us out of the office,’ he said. And get me away from Michelle. ‘What about you?’ Frankly, he thought Cooper would be a complete fish out of water. With her hair and make-up she looked more like she ought to be a trolley-dolly on an airliner, not a soldier about to board an RAF flight.

‘Not really, sir. Not a big fan of wildlife.’

‘The animals’ll probably be more frightened of you than you are of them.’

‘I wouldn’t bank on it,’ she muttered.

The tannoy bonged and an announcement told the assembled soldiers to proceed to the gate to board the flight. Instantly there was a buzz of conversation as everyone stood up, gathered their possessions and began to shuffle towards the door that led to the concrete pan and the aircraft steps.

Seb was aware that Sam was standing right behind him. He studiously tried to ignore her but she had other ideas.

‘I spent Christmas with Michelle,’ she said, quietly.

‘Really?’ He feigned indifference.

‘She’s very unhappy.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ Seb turned around. ‘Look,’ he hissed. ‘I made a mistake. A big one, but it won’t happen again, so can we drop this?’

Sam nodded. ‘Too right it won’t happen again. If you knew the trouble you’ve caused…’ She shook her head almost as if she didn’t believe the mess herself. ‘I spent the first week of my leave hearing nothing but how miserable and upset she is.’

‘I’ve said I’m sorry,’ said Seb. ‘What do you want me to do – grovel?’

He got a look which told him that it was exactly what Sam expected him to do. Then she said, ‘We’d better hope that with you right out of the way, she’ll have the opportunity to calm down and move on.’

Seb nodded. He hoped so too.

Michelle tried for a fourth time to ring the Fanshaws’ house phone and yet again there was no reply. She heard the answering machine start to kick in but she dropped the receiver before the message finished. Yes, she’d got the hint that neither Seb nor Maddy could get to the phone right now. And no, she didn’t want to leave a message. What she wanted was to talk to Seb. If she could talk to him for five minutes she was convinced she could make him understand how much she loved him, make him realise he needed to leave Maddy.

She’d give it one more shot, she decided. She’d ring again in an hour and hope that maybe she’d catch him before he flew off to the back of beyond. And if she didn’t get hold of him maybe she’d try ringing Maddy instead; after all, didn’t she deserve to be put in the picture? It seemed to Michelle that Maddy hadn’t taken her texts seriously; if she had, surely she’d have responded. So now there was nothing for it but to talk to her and tell her exactly what had been going on. It was only fair.

Maddy got out of her car and stretched. The journey had been pretty easy but having a huge bump between her and the steering-wheel hadn’t made it comfortable. At least Nathan had slept for most of it, although in some ways that wasn’t such a good thing because once he woke up he’d be full of beans, while she was dying to put her feet up and maybe take a nap. She hadn’t slept a wink the previous night as she’d tossed and turned with worry about her marriage and Seb and her future prospects if the awful text proved to be true.

She saw Susie in her kitchen window and waved. Susie waved back and then made a ‘T’ sign with her hands. Good shout, thought Maddy as she answered with a thumbs-up. Much as she wanted to get into the privacy of her own home and shut the door on the world, the prospect of a cuppa before she tackled the unloading of Nathan’s mountain of kit was irresistible. And maybe Nate would be able to let off a bit of steam while there were two adults and Susie’s twins to chase after him, which might mean more chance of peace and quiet for her when she did get into her own house. Nate began to stir as she undid the straps of his car seat and gently lifted him out. There was a muted wail of protest as he sleepily snuggled his face against Maddy’s neck, while with a free hand she grabbed her handbag and locked the car.