The Soldier's Wife (11 page)

‘Oh, yes.'

‘I was so sorry,' Julian said, ‘that you couldn't make the family day.'

‘Yes, me too.'

‘They're so crucial these days. Aren't they, Mack?'

The Colonel on Alexa's left put his pudding spoon down with regret. He said, ‘No nonsense about not eating pudding
in my department, Mrs R. That was fantastic. But then I'm the one who eats the biscuits out of my rat pack before anything else.'

‘The family day, Mack. So important to be able to be inclusive. To demonstrate to the families how vital they are to our morale—'

‘Awful piece in the paper today. Did you see?
Guardian
, I think—'

‘I only ever read the arts pages in the Saturday
Guardian
, Mack, as you well know.'

‘It was headed “No Medals For Those Left At Home”, or something.'

Alexa took a gulp of wine. She said as mildly as she could, ‘Well, there aren't.'

Julian Bailey turned his shining blue gaze on her. He said pleasantly, ‘Did that have anything to do with your not attending the family day?'

Alexa looked back at him. ‘No. It was Isabel.'

‘Isabel?'

‘My oldest.'

‘Oh, of course. Stupid of me.'

‘My children,' Alexa said, raising her voice very slightly, ‘come first.'

‘Naturally.'

‘Well, not naturally, actually, as far as the Army's concerned.'

Julian glanced down at the table. ‘I suppose Claire has always shielded me from most of that. She's always said that her role is to ease the children through life with as little disruption and as much happiness as possible. Luckily they like school.'

‘Unluckily,' Alexa said, ‘Isabel doesn't.'

‘I am truly sorry to hear that.'

‘Yes.'

‘Perhaps,' Mack said, his eyes on his senior officer, ‘you should speak to Welfare?'

‘Good idea. I'm glad you mentioned it. Let me set it up.'

‘Lovely man!' Claire called from Mack's other side. ‘Walt the Welfare. You should have shouted earlier.'

‘I hoped—' said Alexa.

‘You should have come straight to me,' Julian said, ‘or Mack. Why didn't you?'

Alexa glanced at Dan. ‘You were all so busy.'

‘Never too busy for our own families. Where would we be without you?'

‘I thought I could sort it.'

‘Well, let us help you do that. How are yours, Mack?'

‘My one, Julian.'

‘I know that. How is he?'

‘Ask Mary.'

‘You're no help. And no advertisement.' He picked up his pudding plate, as if to signal both that he would like to help and that he would also like to move the conversation on.

Alexa stood up. Dan was telling Mary Mackenzie a story, and she was laughing and shaking her head, and her long dark curls were becoming entangled with her earrings. Dan paused and looked up at his wife. ‘Darling?'

‘I was just going to ask,' Alexa said, ‘if anyone wanted tea or coffee? And if so, which kind?'

‘That was a stunning success,' Dan said. ‘Stunning. You were amazing. Wonderful dinner. They all loved it.'

‘Good.'

‘I mean, look at the time! Twenty-five past midnight! It was a triumph. It really was.'

Alexa, pulling her hair up into a ponytail, turned to the sink. ‘I'm glad.'

Dan was marshalling wine bottles – a considerable number – on
the table before putting them in the recycling box by the back door. He paused, a bottle in each hand. ‘What's the matter?'

Alexa turned the hot tap on full blast. ‘Nothing.'

Dan put down the bottles and came across the kitchen. He reached past her and turned the tap off. ‘It's not nothing. What's the matter?'

Alexa held on to the edge of the sink, her shoulders hunched. ‘You know what's the matter, Dan. You
know
.'

‘I don't.'

‘Don't you?'

‘No,' he said, ‘I really don't. You put on an amazing meal for the two senior people in my life and their wives, and everyone has a wonderful evening and eats and drinks like there's no tomorrow, and stays till after midnight, and you can't be as pleased as I am?'

Alexa turned to him. ‘Of course I'm pleased it went well. Of
course
I am. They're nice people.'

‘But?'

‘But it doesn't help anything.'

Dan spread his hands and gave a shout of derisive laughter. ‘Darling, it does! It helps me a hell of a lot. You know how well the battery did the last six months, you know what the future means to me—'

Alexa shouted, interrupting, ‘I didn't mean that!'

There was sudden silence. Then Dan said, ‘What do you mean?'

‘I mean you. You and me.'

‘Sweetheart, we're getting there—'

‘No, we're not!'

‘Lex, give me time—'

‘I have! I have! I've given you eight years, of which the last six months and two weeks have been particularly hard to bear!'

‘I know you're upset about Izzy.'

‘Yes!' Alexa screamed. ‘Yes! And why aren't
you
?'

‘I am,
I am
. I hate her to be unhappy.'

‘But not enough to stop doing whatever you do all day up at the offices and pay the problem any real attention. Not enough to give up one of those endless hours you spend with Gus to come to the school with me.'

Dan stepped back. He said tiredly, ‘I wish I'd come. I really wish I had now. But I couldn't. You know I couldn't. It was the family day and it was re—a bit awkward you weren't there, as it was. But I would rather have come with you. I wish I'd been able to, I really do.'

‘What's the point of that?'

‘I just want you to know I was wrong. I should have come. We should have made Mrs Whatsit see us another day. Or
I
should have. I hated Jack going—'

‘Just stupid male sexual jealousy,' Alexa spat. ‘Nothing to do with Isabel.'

Dan glared at her. ‘You are so wrong!'

‘I am so not! It's been you, you, you ever since you got back. You haven't asked about Flora's eye, you haven't asked about Beetle's lumps, you haven't asked anything about me, what I've been feeling, what I want to do with my life, have you? Nothing.
Nothing
. It's all the battery. Or Gus. It's just Army, Army, Army. Because that's all that really matters to you, isn't it? You are good at your job, in fact, very good at your job, and that has obliterated everything else, hasn't it? All the people who make it possible for you, all the people who facilitate this career of yours so that you can go on climbing up and up the ladder until you are where Julian is now, with three stars on your shoulder, and you can tell yourself that you have earned every single one of them. Well, I'm telling you, Daniel, you might earn them as a
soldier
, but you certainly won't have earned them as a
man
.'

She stopped. She was shaking. Dan had retreated behind the kitchen table and was standing there, behind the palisade of empty wine bottles. He said, quietly, ‘That's not fair.'

Alexa shrugged. She took a tea towel off the back of the nearest chair and blew her nose on it.

Dan said, ‘You and the children mean everything to me. Everything.'

Alexa wiped her eyes.

He said, ‘I love Isabel dearly.'

‘I know.'

‘I do what I do, as you bloody well know, because I
believe
in it. I believe I'm making the world a better place, in however minuscule a way, for you and the children to live in. I thought you understood that.'

Alexa sniffed, folded her arms and regarded the ceiling. ‘Understanding it is one thing, Dan. Living with it is quite another.'

‘I can't go on if you don't get what I do.'

Alexa's head tipped down again. ‘Don't dump the responsibility on me!'

‘But—'

‘I've got more than enough to do without carrying your beliefs as well as my own!'

‘I didn't mean—'

‘You've got your job, Dan! You've got what you do and your men and Gus and Mack and everyone! You've got a support system! What have I got?'

Dan came round the table and put his hands on her shoulders. ‘You've got friends and the children and all our parents. And me.'

‘You.'

‘Yes. Me. I love you.'

Alexa looked at him. ‘But no job.'

‘Well, not at this moment. But you did have. You had a good job and you were great at it. And you'll have another.'

‘When?'

‘Some day. Soon. Some day, soon, I'm sure you will—'

‘Dan.'

‘Yes?'

‘I had one,' Alexa said.

‘What?'

‘I had a job. I was offered a job while you were away, I applied for a teaching job, a head-of-languages job, and I was offered it. But I couldn't take it, could I? It was a fantasy even to apply for it. But I couldn't take it because of the twins, and because you're coming to the end of your time with the battery and will probably get promotion, and then we'll move. So I couldn't. And in the end, they couldn't have me, could they? Because I couldn't be reliable.'

Dan stared at her. He said in a whisper, ‘I had no idea—'

‘No.'

‘Why didn't you tell me?'

Alexa stepped back, so that Dan's hands slipped from her shoulders. She put her chin up. ‘Why didn't you
ask
?'

‘Y
ou're in here, in front of me,' Dan said, ‘because I want to give you one last chance before you see the CO.'

Gunner Rigby, shorn red hair barely visible beneath his side hat, stood stiffly to attention in front of Dan's desk. Behind him, equally stiffly, stood Paul Swain and the regimental sergeant major. All six eyes were fixed on a point on the wall behind, just above Dan's head.

Dan himself, also in battledress, was seated. He had nothing on the desk in front of him apart from the rug, in Hunting Robertson tartan, that Paul Swain spread on it for interviews, to remind the interviewees of the supreme importance of regimental loyalty.

‘Are you listening to me, Rigby?'

‘Suh.'

‘I don't want you to have to go to the CO. Leave starts after PT tomorrow, as you know, and if you have to go and see the CO he is likely – in fact, bound – to tell you that your leave will be permanent. If you can't be open with me, Rigby, you will be facing discharge from the Army before the end of the day. Is that clear?'

‘Clear, suh.'

Dan leaned forward, his forearms on the desk, his hands linked. ‘Shall we go over it, one more time?'

Rigby said nothing. His gaze at the wall did not waver.

‘You and Gunner Wharton were asked to a party. The invitation was sent by text message, and the word “party” had a capital T. Is that correct?'

‘Suh.'

‘I am unfamiliar with the jargon, Rigby, but I gather partying in this context means drugs will be available, and a capital T indicates the presence of crystal meth. The use of this substance also indicates that there will be no women present at such a party, only men.'

Gunner Rigby gave a small shudder but remained mute. Dan sighed. He said, looking at his linked hands, ‘I am aware, Rigby, that Gunner Wharton has no appetite for a girlfriend. I have no idea, and do not wish to know, if you share his tastes. I am aware you have been a good friend to him and shielded him from abuse and stuck up for him, all of which I commend. But it is taking that loyalty too far to refuse to admit your participation in whatever went on at that party that night.'

Silence.

‘You should not have gone,' Dan said. ‘And you should not have taken any drug of any kind. If you do not admit to your wrongdoing, you will find yourself out on your stupid, stubborn, bloody
ear
.'

Still silence.

‘One last chance, Rigby. You can't, I think, save Gunner Wharton, whatever you do. But you can save yourself.'

Suddenly Gunner Rigby blurted out, ‘I'm a good soldier, sir!'

‘You are. So, I might add, is Gunner Wharton. But it doesn't stop you being complete and utter arseholes, does it?' He raised his eyes and leaned back in his chair. ‘Tell me what
happened, and I can help you. Stick to your bone-headed denial and misplaced loyalty, and I can't.'

‘I'm a good soldier,' Rigby said again, almost in a whisper.

‘Then be one.
Tell
me.'

Rigby sighed. His body seemed to sag briefly, and then he straightened again so hard that his thin, pale neck, rising above the open collar of his battledress, was almost corded with the effort. ‘Suh.'

‘Nothing?'

Rigby stared mutely ahead.

Dan stood up slowly. ‘Very well, then. Off you go, Rigby.'

‘Suh.'

The RSM barked something unintelligible. Rigby jolted himself into a salute and then swung round and followed the RSM out on to the main floor of the offices as briskly as if he had received a reprieve rather than a sentence.

‘Bloody hell,' Dan said disgustedly to Paul Swain.

‘A complete shambles.'

‘Can you imagine, throwing away an entire career for the sake of an evident lie told by someone else? They were at this party, they took this stuff, they—'

‘Please! Don't go there, Dan,' Paul Swain said.

‘The whole episode's just a heap of shit, frankly.'

Paul Swain moved down the room towards his own desk. He said as he went, ‘And he wasn't wrong. He's a good soldier. So's poor sodding Wharton. Part of our best gun crew.'

Dan said sadly, ‘The cause doesn't really have to be right, or winnable, does it? We saw that time and time again in Helmand. Men will choose to die in battle with their mates rather than flee to survival. They only need to feel loved and valued by each other to fight for a cause they don't know about or care about. I'd bet my bottom dollar Rigby isn't gay. But he's lonely. Usual hopeless chaotic family situation.
Wharton befriended him. Wharton's funny and quick and most of the boys love him. He's their camp mascot. Rigby cannot bring himself to fail him.'

Paul Swain stooped to reactivate his computer. He said, ‘You did all you could.'

‘So did his subbie.'

‘Poor guy.'

‘Why poor?'

Paul Swain grimaced. ‘Girl trouble.'

‘What, Freddie? I thought he'd got a gorgeous girl.'

‘He has. She is. But she's one of those independent ones. Wants civvy life and an Army boyfriend.'

Dan was silent. Paul looked down the room at him. ‘Dan?'

‘Yup.'

‘Dan, I repeat, you did all you could for Rigby.
All
.'

‘Wasn't enough.'

‘It was more than most would have done.'

Dan put his hands briefly over his face. When he took them away, he said, ‘It still wasn't enough. Seems—' He stopped.

‘Seems what?'

Dan shrugged. ‘Seems the story of my life right now.'

‘Hello, there!' Jack's text read. ‘Anyone at home? Lights seem to be on but no reply. Call me.'

Alexa flipped her phone shut and dropped it into her pocket. She was halfway round the supermarket, the huge one right in the garrison village, so close, in fact, to her friend Prue's married quarter that Prue said she could see what was on Buy One Get One Free without stirring from her kitchen window.

‘It's a lovely quarter,' Prue said, ‘but it's a truly horrible location. Welfare should try living on the flightpath of every drunken soldier.'

Alexa had hoped to find Prue at home for a therapeutic cup
of coffee before she tackled the weekly supermarket shop, but Prue's house was locked and silent, almost reproachful, it seemed to Alexa in her current mood, to a person without a job and in dire need of another perspective. If she'd thought it through, of course, she'd have remembered that Prue would be out. Mondays through Thursdays, Prue worked as a physiotherapist at the local military hospital, where she provided, it appeared to Alexa, as much a counselling service as a physically therapeutic one for her soldier patients.

‘They'll tell me all sorts of stuff, big stuff, but they won't report it. They think any plea for help will go on their reports. And they are really suffering. Lots of it is relationship stuff. If that's going badly, they can't cope with anything. I've had them break down on me while I'm trying to sort them. A loyal girl is more important to them than she'll ever know.'

A loyal girl, Alexa thought, dumping packets of pasta into the trolley. A loyal girl, faithful and firm in allegiance. Faithful, yes, as far as she was concerned, tick. Firm in allegiance, half a tick. Maybe, actually, no tick at all. Did firm in allegiance mean not screaming at your husband among the dirty dishes that he, not three weeks out of the juggernaut of boredom and terror of active service, was utterly failing you in every aspect of a loving partnership? Did it mean controlling yourself, subduing yourself, repressing yourself, until you felt yourself to be not only at breaking point but a mere distorted shadow of the woman he'd married?

She looked at the serried rows of tea packets. Every kind and colour of tea, packaged to make you feel that nothing stood between you and self-enhancement but the purchase of a neat, bright box. Calm, some of the boxes promised, easy sleep, relaxation, serenity, tranquillity. Just add boiling water. Lie back in your recliner chair with a steaming mug and hey presto, what was unmanageable becomes manageable. In her pocket, her phone bleeped again.

‘Hello,' Jack texted. ‘I know you're there. Call me or I'm coming to get you.'

Alexa dialled. ‘What does valerian taste of?'

‘I have no idea. It's a rhizome.'

‘In my hand,' Alexa said, ‘it's a box of tea bags.'

‘From the Latin,
valere
, to be strong.'

‘It's trying to be strong,' Alexa said, putting the box back, ‘that's all but finishing me off at the moment.'

‘Why haven't you rung me?' Jack demanded.

‘I have.'

‘No. Categorically not. For over a week.'

‘I'm shopping.'

‘You can talk to me with your other hand. How's Izzy?'

‘Bad,' Alexa said.

‘And you and Dan?'

Alexa said nothing.

‘Ah.'

She pushed her trolley up against a shelf of shiny sacks of dog food.

‘Is that why you haven't rung?' Jack asked.

‘I don't think so.'

‘A row? Or, should I say,
the
row?'

‘I don't think,' Alexa said again, ‘that I can talk about it. Even to you.'

‘My God. That bad?'

‘I feel so bad. Furious with him. Furious with myself. Why aren't I coping? I live in this camp with hundreds of women who are coping. Even those poor Fijian wives in the blocks cope better than I do. I don't know how they endure it. They can't even drive, to get off the base, for God's sake. They have a good old catfight every so often and clear the air, and instead I simmer and mutter and then explode and yell at him like a madwoman.'

‘Did you?'

‘Yes.'

‘D'you want to tell me about it?'

‘Only,' Alexa said, leaning against a vast sack of complete diet for the older dog, ‘if you can reconcile me to what I feel and what I've done and turn Dan back into someone who can entertain one single idea other than the Army.'

Jack put on a fluting female voice. ‘There were three of us in this marriage. Him, me and the Army.'

‘I don't feel like being teased today.'

‘Lex,' Jack said, ‘please stop being so melodramatic. I think I'll come down to darkest Wilts and take you out on the lash.'

‘No, thank you.'

‘You worry me.'

Alexa took her shoulder away from the sack of dog food. She said, ‘I tried to see my friend Prue before I began on this. She's a physio. Her brother's an Army surgeon, still out there. He told her in an email that he's cut off more arms and legs in the last three months than he'd expect in a lifetime on civvy street. And the awful thing is that these shattered limbs aren't accidental, like they used to be. They're
intentional
. They mean to maim. They mean to maim our boys.'

‘Our boys?'

‘Yes. Boys from the British Army.'

‘What,' Jack said, ‘are you trying to say to me?'

Alexa sighed. ‘That with all that in Dan's head, how's he ever going to hear me?'

‘Did you tell him about the job?'

‘Yes,' Alexa said.

‘And?'

‘He looked appalled. He didn't really
say
anything. I'd been screaming and I cried. He got me a brandy. I thought maybe we'd cleared the air a bit, anyway, and tried to talk to him this morning, you know, trying to build a bit, but he was
back in the cave, as they say, with these boys of his on their drugs charge. I am stuck, Jack, really stuck. I can't think what to do next, I can't—'

‘Why don't you come to London?' Jack said.

‘The twins—'

‘Just for a day?'

‘Dan's leave starts tomorrow.'

‘Oh,' Jack said heartily, ‘great. Super great. The famous POTL. Post-Operative Tour Leave. Weeks of it. Things'll look up. You'll see. No uniform, different mindset.'

‘Maybe.'

‘Course they will. Wonderful. Call me in a day or two.'

‘And you?' Alexa said. ‘And … and Eka?'

Jack gave a brave imitation of a laugh. ‘Eka? She is in a palazzo in Bologna with a man who owns a shoe factory. An old palazzo and an old factory and an old man. Very old.'

‘How—'

‘Sixty-one.'

‘Not very—'

‘Shut up,' Jack said. ‘Go back to your teabags. Think outside the box. Start again. New day, new Dan. Leave and life start here.'

‘OK.'

‘Darkest hour before dawn. You've done the worst bit. It'll get better now and you and Dan can go together to rescue Izzy. Clouds roll away. Dawn breaks. Sun rises—'

‘
You
shut up now,' Alexa said.

‘You'll see, Mrs Riley,' he said, ‘you'll see. You'll look back on these three weeks and wonder what on earth all the fuss was about.'

Showering after games, Isabel abruptly felt, if not exactly happy, at least much less
un
happy. It had been an unexpected afternoon of quiet triumph, all because Chloe Miller, always
picked as goal shooter for netball, had had to go to the surgery to have an ingrown toenail dealt with, and Miss Hoxton, who usually looked right through Isabel as if Isabel only existed in her own solitary imagination, had suddenly focussed on her and said, in her commanding, cheerful PT way, ‘You take Chloe's place this afternoon, Isabel. Let's see what you're made of.'

At first, Isabel had been horrified. She wasn't one of the naturally sporty ones in her form in the first place, and had only earned a place in the team – sometimes – by marking her opponent so doggedly that she was deemed grudgingly to be useful. But she had never aspired to be goal shooter. She wasn't collected enough, or steady enough, and invariably stood at just the wrong place or at the wrong angle.

‘No objections,' Miss Hoxton said briskly. ‘How will we ever know what you can do unless you try? On that court. At the double, please. And no discussion from any of you, thank you.'