A Regimental Affair (7 page)

‘Thanks. That’s really kind of you, Colonel.’

Ginny followed Bob through the house into the kitchen. ‘I’m in here at the moment. I don’t use the sitting room when I’m on my own.’

‘No Alice?’

‘She’s out at some committee meeting or something. Lord knows what.’

The kitchen was warm and bright. In the comer the TV was tuned to a quiz show. Ginny thought how unlike her last visit to the house this was – no needlepoint and improving programmes tonight. When the cat’s away …

‘What can I get you?’

‘Got any beer?’

‘Course. Megan, run into the garage would you? There’s a case of Stella there. And bring one back for me too.’

Megan obliged.

‘Glass?’ offered Bob.

Ginny raised her eyebrows. ‘I thought you knew me better than that.’

Bob laughed. ‘There was just a chance you might have gone down with a dose of sophistication.’

‘Yeah, right.’

Megan returned, gave her father the beers and helped herself to a glass of cola.

‘So, tell me all about it.’

By the time Megan had finished her blow-by-blow, ride-by-ride account of the day, Ginny and Bob were on to their second beer.

‘It sounds terrifying,’ said Bob.

‘It’s not really,’ said Ginny. ‘The vertical drop ride is a bit of a thrill.’

‘Christ, it sounds like hell to me. I’m far too old for that sort of thing now.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ said Ginny.

‘That’s very kind of you,’ said Bob smiling at her warmly. ‘Still, as long as you both had a good time.’

‘We did. Now,’ said Ginny putting her empty can on to the table, yawning and stretching like a cat so her shirt came out of the waistband of her trousers and displayed her flat midriff. Nonchalantly she tucked herself in again and said, ‘I think I had better get back to the mess and leave you in peace. I’m pooped.’

‘Thanks ever so much for taking me, Ginny,’ said Megan with real gratitude in her voice. ‘It was fantastic.’

‘I enjoyed your company too.’ Ginny put her arm round Megan’s shoulders and gave her a squeeze. Megan looked up at her and smiled. ‘Bye, Megan.’ She ruffled the teenager’s now-normal hair.

Bob stood up to accompany Ginny to the front door. ‘And I must give you my thanks too. You’ve obviously been a real hit with Megan.’

‘She’s a nice kid.’

‘It’s not her mother’s opinion of her at the moment.’

‘But that’s it, I’m not her mother. I gave her a fun day out. I don’t have to do any of the heavy-handed parental bit.’

‘Thanks anyway, Ginny. I really appreciate it.’ Then he leant forward and gave her a light kiss on the cheek. ‘Night,’ he said.

‘Night,’ said Ginny, stunned. She got back into her little car and drove it round to the mess. She sat in it for a few minutes in the car park. She wondered briefly about the kiss. The colonel wouldn’t go around kissing his other officers like that, now would he? But then his other officers hadn’t looked after his daughter all day, nor were they women. She rubbed the spot his lips had touched and told herself that she didn’t fancy him one jot. Except the trouble was, she knew she was lying.

Chapter Five

‘If I hear one more word about that blasted woman,’ said Alice, ‘I think I may very well scream.’

Sarah was a little taken aback. When, in the local shop, she’d asked Alice how things were, she’d expected an answer to do with how she was settling in to her new quarter and whether or not she had got everything straight and how the business of redecoration was progressing.

‘Which woman?’ asked Sarah, a little uncomfortably.

‘Ginny Turner,’ snapped Alice. ‘Ever since she took Megan to Alton Towers I have heard nothing, but nothing, except how wonderful Ginny is.’

Sarah rather liked Ginny. They’d met briefly a few times in the mess bar and from what she’d seen, Ginny had seemed very good company. ‘I expect Megan was rather flattered that Ginny took her at all.’

‘It’s not Megan who is banging on about her,’ said Alice. ‘It’s Bob! All it’s been for days now is “Ginny this” and “Ginny that” and “Ginny the other”.’

‘Oh.’ Sarah was at a loss to know exactly what to say. Alice was obviously insanely jealous that Ginny should have scored such a hit with her family. But what Alice said reminded Sarah of events in her own family a few years previously. Her sister had had a disastrous first marriage and, despite the fact that she insisted she was happy with her husband, Sarah could remember how often the name of a work colleague had cropped up in her sister’s conversation. It had been “Graham this”, and “Graham that” and “Graham the other”, and in the end it had transpired that there had been a lot of ‘the other’ with Graham. Sarah couldn’t help wondering if Bob had been smitten with Ginny’s more than obvious charms.
And frankly
, she thought,
if you were married to Alice, who wouldn’t be
?

As quickly as was decent, Sarah finished her conversation with Alice and returned home. Alisdair was where she had left him, sorting out his kit after yet another training exercise.

‘You’ll never guess what?’ she crowed as she sat on the bed beside his pile of combat kit.

‘What won’t I guess?’ asked Alisdair mildly, busy checking items off against a list as he repacked his webbing.

‘Bob Davies is sweet on Ginny Turner.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘Bet?’

‘Where on earth have you got this daft idea from?’

‘Alice herself.’ Sarah recounted their brief conversation.

‘Doesn’t prove a thing.’

‘You only think that because you’re not a woman. Women’s intuition, you’ll see.’

‘Well, don’t say anything to anyone else. Personally, I think you’re barking up the wrong tree and spreading a rumour like that won’t do anyone any favours. Besides which,’ he added, a decidedly chilly tone creeping into his voice, ‘I don’t understand why you are so completely anti-Alice. OK, she’s a bit of a dinosaur. OK, she likes to see herself as Lady Bountiful but she’s harmless enough, surely?’

Sarah knew she had gone too far – Alisdair was cross. And perhaps she
was
being a little unfair taking so much delight in Alice’s annoyance over Bob’s attitude to Ginny, but there was pleasure to be had in seeing her discomfiture. She was always so bloody perfect, so certain of her own superiority, so sure that she was so much better than anyone else, that she alone knew the right way of doing things – so it was nice, just once, to see Alice wrong-footed. Still, it would be best not to voice this to Alisdair.

‘Well, maybe,’ she said, hoping she sounded contrite.

‘The last thing Ginny needs is for a rumour to start up that things are more than platonic between her and Bob just before we all go off on an emergency tour. You know the ideas some of the wives get about their husbands being stuck in some godforsaken place with a handful of females. It’s no good telling them that most of the girls with us have their own husbands, fiancés or boyfriends. There are some wives who believe that their men can’t be trusted to keep their trousers zipped for a second once they are away from home. Any talk about Ginny – or any of the girls in the regiment – is only going to make things worse.’

Sarah rolled her eyes. ‘OK, OK. I get the picture.’

‘Good, lecture over.’

A week later, things in the regiment were still hectic. Weekends and weekdays had blurred because the men were given a day off when their punishing training schedule permitted, which didn’t necessarily mean a Saturday or Sunday. It looked as if they were not even going to get a break over the Easter weekend and all the families had been warned to put any plans for the holiday on hold. Debbie didn’t mind too much. With only a toddler to cope with and no school holidays to take into consideration it didn’t really matter to her, but she knew it was difficult for the families with older children. She knew Sarah’s two, Will and Jenny, were less than thrilled by the dull Easter they were faced with. Debbie was in the kitchen feeding Danielle her lunch and listening to some music. She hummed along to the new number one as she helped her daughter push chunks of fish finger on to a spoon. She heard the front door click.

‘Richard,’ she called. ‘In the kitchen.’ She heard the sound of stuff being dumped in the hall.

‘Hi, sweetheart. Hi, gorgeous,’ he greeted them as he walked into the kitchen. He wandered over to the radio and turned the volume down a little.

‘Meanie,’ said Debbie. ‘We can hardly hear it now, can we, Danny?’ Danielle didn’t comment. She was too busy trying to grab the last bit of fish with her pudgy starfish hand.

‘Got a letter for you.’

‘Oh God, not another summons from Alice. I haven’t recovered from the coffee morning yet.’

Richard grinned. ‘No I don’t think so. This is from the livers-in.’

‘Oh, that’s different. Gimme!’

Richard returned to the hall and found the envelope. Debbie wiped her fingers on a tea towel and ripped it open. ‘

‘Brill! It’s a party.’

‘That sounds fun. When?’

‘The Saturday after Easter. We’ll have to get a babysitter. If all else fails, I expect Ginny would let us put Danny to sleep in her room. We can take it in turns to pop up and see how she is.’

‘Yeah. Actually that would be the best idea. Then it means there’s one more babysitter for the others.’

Danielle had finished her main course and was banging her spoon on the tray of her high chair to signal she was ready for some pudding. Debbie took a yoghurt out of the fridge and removed the top, licked it, pronounced it ‘scrummy’, and gave it to her daughter.

‘So, have you finished for the day?’

‘Yeah. Considering it was supposed to be a day’s leave I suppose I’m lucky that I only had to work half of it.’

‘Poor babe.’

‘It wasn’t just me that was at work on a day off. Most of Regimental HQ was in – the colonel, Ginny, the chief clerk.’

‘Alisdair?’

‘No. But he’s been working so much overtime this last fortnight he’s barely been home at all.’

‘Poor Sarah.’

‘She’s OK.’

‘She may put a brave face on it but she hates the idea of yet more separation and the fact that Alisdair has been working round the clock. Will and Jenny haven’t really seen their father this holiday.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Wife talk.’

‘Ah.’

‘You should say “ah” indeed. Us wives could give the Signals a run for their money when it comes to communications. Our jungle drums and grapevine can beat any of your radios hollow when it comes to transmitting intelligence.’

‘I don’t doubt it, especially knowing how much you gossip. How was the toddler group today?’

‘Danny had a great time, didn’t you, poppet?’ Danny raised her eyes at the sound of her name but she was far too engrossed with her strawberry yoghurt to make more of an effort by way of acknowledgement. ‘It was good. I suppose about twenty turned up. No one was sick, no one threw a tantrum. Even the kids were quite well behaved.’

Richard smiled. ‘Sounds like fun.’

‘Well, it’s good for Danny to get out and play with other kids. Louise and Josie’s kids are nice friends for Danny, but Josie’s Pip will be off to nursery in the autumn and Lou thinks Mike is due a posting soon, so they’ll be off too.’ Debbie sighed. ‘Let’s hope some other people with kids move in soon or Danny’ll be the only toddler on the patch.’

‘But I thought that’s why you take her to the toddler group in the village. So she can make friends with kids who will be here for the duration.’

‘Yeah. But we’ll move one day, won’t we? I suppose all I’m doing is prolonging the agony.’

‘That sounds very defeatist.’

‘It’s not meant to be. It’s just we had a new member join today and she told me that she’d bought the cottage on the green – you know, the one by the bus stop that we both said would be our dream house if we ever stop moving round – and I suppose I’m just a bit envious, that’s all.’

‘We’ll get our dream house one day.’

‘Yeah.’ But Debbie wasn’t convinced. Still, this was no time to be down in the dumps. Richard didn’t need her being a misery guts along with everything else. ‘Anyway, this new mum is lovely. She’s called Taz – s’pose it’s short for something – and she and I had a long chat. She’s moved here from London and her little girl is nearly the same age as Danielle. They played together quite nicely.’ She smiled at her daughter as she said this and Danielle, who had finished her yoghurt, held her arms out to be lifted down from her high chair. Debbie got a damp cloth and quickly wiped her hands and face before lifting her out. ‘There you go, darling,’ she said as she lowered Danny to the floor. Danielle stood for a few seconds before dropping on to her hands and knees and crawling into the sitting room.

‘I do wish she’d walk,’ sighed Debbie.

‘It’s not as if she can’t. She’s just idle. She can go quicker on all fours, so why should she bother with the effort of walking.’

‘All the same, at the toddler group, all the other children over about a year can walk. Taz’s little girl walked at ten months, apparently.’

‘And who’s Taz?’ asked Richard, who hadn’t been listening properly.

‘This new woman I told you about. The one who bought our dream house.’

‘Oh.’

‘And the really good thing about becoming friends with her is that I expect I’ll be able to visit her and see if the house is as nice on the inside as it looks on the outside.’

‘Mum?’

‘Yes, Megan.’ Alice silently wished her daughter called her ‘Mummy’ rather than ‘Mum’, but she knew full well that if she said anything it would make Megan even more contrary. She put down her magazine to give her daughter her complete attention.

‘Mum, there’s a party in the mess the weekend before I go back to school.’

‘I know, dear. Your father and I have been invited.’

‘Oh.’ Megan looked astounded. Alice ignored her implication that the livers-in wouldn’t want her and Bob at their party.

‘So, what about the party?’

‘Nothing.’

‘There must be something or you wouldn’t have mentioned.

Silence.

‘For heaven’s sake, Megan.’ Alice was beginning to get annoyed. She had been particularly enjoying an article on life with the Grimaldi family in Monte Carlo and she wanted to return to it. ‘Why on earth would you be interested in a grown-up party anyway?’