A Regimental Affair (3 page)

‘This is Miss Pink.’

‘Yes.’ Alice tried not to sound too dispirited. She just managed to stop herself from asking what had Megan done this time. It was unfair to Megan to automatically assume there was a problem, except that there had been exactly that on too many previous occasions.

‘I am calling to ask if you were aware that Megan planned to dye her hair?’

Alice was momentarily lost for words. ‘Dye?’ The shock made the word come out in a squeak.

‘I take it from that you were not.’

‘Well …’ Alice wanted to lie but she had been caught on the hop.

‘Apart from the mess she has made of her own hair, I’m afraid we are going to have to add the cost of replacing several bath mats and towels to your bill, as they have been irreparably damaged.’

‘How?’ Alice was feeling shell-shocked.

‘The black dye your daughter used was permanent.’

‘Black?’

Miss Pink either didn’t hear Alice or chose to ignore her. ‘In view of the nature of your daughter’s latest misdemeanour I have gated her until the end of term. I thought you should know.’

‘Yes.’

‘I look forward to seeing you for the end of term service a week on Friday.’

‘Yes.’

‘Goodbye.’

Alice was left saying goodbye to a dead line. Black? How could she! How could she show her daughter off to the other wives at her coffee morning if she looked like some sort of freak? She’d just have to tell Megan to stay in her room. Alice knew that under normal circumstances only a heavy bribe would induce Megan to put in an appearance but, knowing her daughter as she did, there was no guarantee that the little minx would stay out of sight. In fact Alice knew that, just to be contrary, Megan would make sure she was highly visible.

Making a quick decision, she phoned regimental headquarters. She’d have to have the coffee morning in the mess. Megan wouldn’t make an appearance there. She had her fingers crossed that the invitations were still in Bob’s briefcase so she could retrieve them and rewrite them. After a couple of rings the adjutant answered.

‘Captain Greenwood speaking.’

‘This is Mrs Davies. Is my husband still there?’ She hoped that Bob hadn’t already left for his visit to brigade headquarters that was going to take him away for most of the day.

‘He’s with the RSM, Mrs Davies. He told me he didn’t want to be disturbed.’

‘It’s urgent.’

Richard Greenwood sighed. The previous evening, Debbie had told him about the rumours she’d heard and, together with intelligence gleaned from other officers who had served before with the Davieses, he reckoned she wasn’t a woman to be argued with.

‘I’ll put you through.’ Anyway, if Colonel Bob didn’t want to talk to her he could tell her himself. It was too early in his relationship with the new CO to end up playing piggy in the middle between him and his wife.

A minute later the CO put his head round their interconnecting door. ‘Richard, those invitations I asked you to send out.’

‘Sir.’

‘Have they gone?’

‘They were delivered to the company offices straight away, as you requested.’

‘Damn. The memsahib seems to have changed her mind about the venue, but I’ll tell her it’s too late now.’

Colonel Bob withdrew to his office and, after a brief word with his wife, resumed his discussion with his most senior warrant officer. Richard glanced at the invitation to his own wife, which was sitting in his in-tray, and wondered for a fleeting instant what the problem was, but the phone rang again and Debbie’s social calendar ceased to concern him.

Debbie was putting her daughter, Danielle, to bed when Richard came home.

‘Hi darling. Hello sweetheart,’ he said quietly as he entered the bedroom.

‘Dada,’ cooed Danielle sleepily.

Debbie tucked the quilt over the toddler and wound up the mobile so a tiny flock of fluffy sheep danced round in a circle above her daughter’s blonde curls. Richard leaned over the cot rail and dropped a kiss on her forehead. ‘Night night, gorgeous. Sleep tight.’ He gazed at his daughter and tried to imprint the image on his mind. He’d had word of some important news that was going to affect the entire regiment. He hoped that he would be able to hide the secret from Debbie until the news became official. He loved Debbie to bits but she wasn’t the soul of discretion, and if she got a hint of what was going on it would be round the married patch before you could say, ‘What secret?’

Danielle turned on her side, stuck a fat thumb in her rosebud mouth and shut her eyes. Her parents tiptoed out of the room and shut the door.

‘I’ve got a letter for you,’ said Richard, as they descended the stairs.

‘Me?’ Debbie was curious. Overseas, their post was delivered to the unit and distributed to families via husbands, but on home postings they got their mail through their letter boxes, like everyone else. ‘Who’s it from?’

‘CO’s wife. It’s in my briefcase.’

Richard fetched his bag as Debbie went into the kitchen and began to dish up their supper.

‘It’s spagbol,’ she called through the open door. ‘OK?’ She didn’t wait for her husband’s reply as she dolloped large ladles of spaghetti onto two plates sitting ready on the Formica work surface.

‘Great,’ said Richard, returning to the kitchen as he unzipped his document case. He rummaged briefly inside it. ‘Ah, here it is.’ He passed Debbie a stiff cream envelope.

Debbie wiped her fingers on a tea towel and took it. ‘Nice stationery,’ she commented as she ripped it open. She scanned it quickly and groaned. ‘Oh God. I knew it.’

‘What is it?’

‘It’s a summons from Alice Davies.’

Richard couldn’t see what was wrong with that. ‘That’ll be nice, dear,’ he said blandly.

‘No, it bloody won’t.’

‘Don’t be silly.’

Debbie chucked the invitation onto the worktop and began to put the Bolognese sauce on the plates. ‘I’m not. I told you what Lou said about her. She sounds awful.’

‘I expect Louise was exaggerating. You know what she’s like. No need to spoil a good story with the truth.’ Out of loyalty to his new boss, Richard kept quiet about the stories
he’d
heard.

Debbie laughed. ‘Well, maybe. Come on, grab a tray.’

Richard did as he was told and followed Debbie into the sitting room where they settled down in front of the TV with their supper.

‘By the way, we’ve been told that Ginny Turner is being parachuted in, to the post of regimental admin officer. She’s arriving in a couple of weeks.’

‘That’s great,’ said Debbie indistinctly through a mouthful of spaghetti. She’d been good friends with Ginny when she had been dating one of Richard’s friends. She swallowed. ‘Poor cow didn’t get much notice though, did she?’

‘No.’

‘Why was that?’

Richard knew perfectly well but couldn’t say. The regiment needed to be up to full strength by Easter to be ready for preparations for a future event, but if he said anything about that Debbie would smell a rat. Safer to blame the system in general rather than a future event in particular.

‘You know what the army is like.’

A snort from Debbie indicated that she knew only too well. She slurped up more spaghetti. ‘Still, it’s an ill wind.’ She swallowed noisily. ‘Tell her to get herself round here as soon as she arrives. I’ll have a bottle of wine open. Won’t it be great to have Ginny here? Just think, a year with a live wire like her for company.’

Richard kept to himself the news that he, Ginny and the rest of the regiment would be gone for at least six months of the year that Debbie was so looking forward to.

At Montgomery House things were rather more formal. Alice was also getting ready for supper but, unlike Debbie and Richard who were happy with trays on their knees, she was putting damask place mats on her mahogany table and lining up crystal wine glasses with the tips of the knives. They might be surrounded by half-unpacked possessions but that was no excuse to allow her standards to slip.

She glanced at her watch. Good, Bob would be home soon. Apart from anything else, she wanted to tell him about Megan’s latest misdeed and ask his advice about moving the coffee morning to the officers’ mess. Would sending out a note to everyone to say the venue had changed make her look foolish and disorganised? But would that be better than Megan swanning around looking like some sort of punk rocker? God, this was turning into a nightmare. She’d made her plans carefully to make sure she would have the maximum possible attendance of all the officers’ wives, and now she was going to be embarrassed by her daughter in front of them. Really, Megan was the limit! Bob would have to have a word with her.

Feeling more than a little irritated, she had just finished arranging the table to her satisfaction and was returning to the kitchen to check on the potatoes
dauphinoise
when she heard her husband’s key click in the lock. She decided the potatoes could manage on their own for a few more minutes and crossed the hall to greet him as he walked through the front door.

She offered her cheek for Bob to kiss and said, ‘Bob, you’ll never guess what Megan has done now.’

‘Hmm?’ Bob took off his beret, kissed her and dumped his case on the hall table.

‘Bob?’ Bob wasn’t usually this distracted when he came home.

‘Sorry, dear. Just had some news from the brigade commander today.’

‘Oh?’ Megan’s hair was sidelined.

‘Let me get changed and I’ll tell you.’

Alice watched her husband make his way up the stairs. Whatever the news was, it sounded as if it might be rather serious. She wondered what it could be.

Over the course of their meal she recounted Miss Pink’s telephone call and tried to put her curiosity to the back of her mind. Bob didn’t seem that concerned, and his only reaction was to comment that it would grow out soon enough. Alice changed tack and prattled on about her day – the boxes she had unpacked, the way she was arranging Megan’s room, the disagreement she’d had with their cleaner. She would return to the subject of Megan when Bob had less on his mind and could be relied upon to take a more appropriate stance. In the meantime, she had tired of waiting for Bob to tell her the news which was obviously bothering him.

‘So,’ said Alice as she placed her knife and fork together in the centre of her plate. ‘Are you going to tell me what is on your mind?’

Bob sighed.
Not a good sign
, thought Alice.

‘I had two pieces of news today. One good, one not so good.’

Alice moved her plate a few inches further on to the table and rested her wrists on the edge. The ‘not so good’ bit sounded as though it was going to be rather worse than that.

‘The good news is that Virginia Turner is being posted in as regimental admin officer. She arrives next week.’

‘Oh, that will be nice,’ said Alice noncommittally. She struggled to remember who on earth Virginia Turner was. Bob had obviously come across her before and thought well of her, but the name didn’t mean much to Alice. She gave up and admitted defeat. ‘Have I met her?’

‘Yes. Of course you have. She babysat for us a couple of times when Megan was little.’

‘Oh, goodness.’ Alice remembered now. ‘Ginny.’

‘Yes, Ginny,’ said Bob, with a smile.

Alice tried to look pleased, but she didn’t think that this was good news at all. Frankly she hadn’t much liked Ginny. In her opinion, she’d been a bit fast and she’d suspected that Miss Turner had been more than a little free with her favours. Yes, Bob
had
thought highly of her then, perhaps too highly. He’d certainly talked enough about her; her skiing, her windsurfing, her adventurous training expedition to the Andes. She tried not to let her feelings show. ‘Still Turner,’ Alice observed snakily. ‘So, not married then? I would have thought she might have settled down a bit by now.’

‘Well, I don’t think settling down is Ginny’s style, do you? I can’t see her with a brood of kids and a pile of ironing.’

Alice, slightly nettled because her husband had just – albeit unwittingly – belittled her homemaking skills, was about to make a bitchy comment about Ginny not being able to catch a man, when she thought better of it. Even Alice knew that all the single officers (and, she suspected, some of the married ones) had been panting after Ginny when their paths had last crossed, and she didn’t think that things would have changed so very much in the intervening years. She’d been a stunner then and probably still was.

With an effort, Alice smiled. ‘No, you’re right, dear. Children and ironing wouldn’t be up Ginny’s street at all.’

‘On the downside, we had some not-so-good news.’

Alice waited expectantly. She raised her eyebrows slightly to encourage Bob to get on with it. What did he want, a drum roll?

‘The regiment is being sent on an emergency tour.’

Alice felt as deflated as if she had been given an exquisitely wrapped box only to discover that it contained crumpled newspaper and no present. ‘Oh no!’

‘’Fraid so.’

‘When, where?’

‘Kosovo. Two months’ time.’

‘Two months! But …’

‘I know. I know.’ Bob had been expecting this reaction. It was the main reason he’d put off telling her for as long as he’d been able. Alice had always known that separation was an inevitable part of army life, but it didn’t prevent her from resenting it. And perhaps they had had more than their fair share of it over the sixteen years of their marriage. ‘We weren’t due for a tour for quite a while but things change. There’s more trouble brewing in the Balkans and we’re available. But don’t go telling anyone till I’ve had a chance to tell the rest of the regiment.’

Alice began to clear the plates. Bob could see from the set of her mouth and her silence that she was upset. He didn’t like the way the family was going to be split up for months any more than she did. She stacked their plates and hurried out into the kitchen. She didn’t trust herself to speak.

But Bob was mistaken that Alice was distraught at the thought of so many months apart. That was not what was making her feel very close to tears. This posting that had promised so much was now looking much less appealing. If the regiment was away on an emergency tour, there would be no official visits from the top brass and – and this was her biggest disappointment – no chance of a royal visit.