Soldier's Daughters (24 page)

‘I suppose,’ said Michelle morosely. ‘I suppose he’s going to have one that’s all lovey-dovey and presents under the tree, and what have I got to look forward to?’

‘The same,’ said Sam, briskly. ‘Gran does a wonderful Christmas and you know it. It’ll be lovely, you’ll see.’

‘But it won’t, will it? The one thing I really, really want, I can’t have.’ She gazed at Sam over the rim of her glass, her eyes glistening suspiciously.

‘Oh, hon.’ Sam reached across the table and took Michelle’s hand.

‘And don’t tell me that I’ll get over it.’

But one day you will, said Sam, in her head. ‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ she said out loud.

‘I wake up every morning and he’s the first thing I think about. It’s like déjà vu all over again.’

‘I’m sure it is,’ said Sam, knowing exactly how Michelle felt. She felt the same way every time she saw Michelle’s caller ID on her mobile and guessed accurately how the ensuing call would go.

‘And if he knew how much I love him, how much I’m hurting, I’m sure things would be different.’

Sam had to head Michelle off from thinking it would be a good idea to tell Seb this. The phrase
restraining order
kept popping into her head. ‘Are you sure, honey? He’s got an awful lot to lose.’

Michelle’s eyes blazed. ‘Of course I’m sure.’

Oops.

‘I have to see him and tell him.’

Jesus, no! ‘Are you sure this is a good idea?’ And, God, how often had she said that to Michelle in the past?

‘I thought you were my friend.’

‘I am. And that is exactly why I am asking you to reconsider.’

Michelle took a glug of her wine and stared at Sam defiantly.

‘Look,’ said Sam, ‘remember when we were at St Martin’s and I suggested that swapping salt for sugar on the staffroom tea trolley wasn’t going to go down well?’

Michelle nodded.

‘And the whole year got detention as a result…?’

Michelle nodded again. ‘But it was funny, though.’

‘It was funny till everyone got punished. I don’t think some of the girls thought it was so funny then when we missed a trip to the beach. And remember when you loosened the girth on Ella Somerfeld’s pony and she broke her collar bone?’

‘She should have checked it.’

Sam stared at Michelle. ‘She did. You loosened it afterwards.’

Michelle shrugged. ‘She had it coming, she was such a smug pain in the arse, always showing off how good a rider she was.’

Michelle did have a point… ‘Yes, she was but she didn’t deserve a broken collar bone for being smug or a pain or showing off.’

‘Anyway, no one knew it was me… well, apart from you.’

Sam sighed. This wasn’t going well. ‘And when we were at Sandhurst I told you not to sew those magnets into Captain Baker’s combat jacket so her compass gave the wrong reading and her map-reading lesson went to shit.’

‘Now, that was funny,’ said Michelle.

‘It was… right up to the point when the platoon was punished with stand-to-bed at five o’clock in the morning for a whole month.’

‘It was worth it.’

Sam disagreed but loyalty meant she didn’t say so. ‘Look,’ she said, gently,‘sometimes you do things which end up causing trouble, trouble which you didn’t really mean to happen.’

‘I suppose,’ said Michelle. ‘But I can’t roll over and give up.’

‘Can’t you?’

Michelle shook her head and eyed Sam sadly. ‘No, not with Seb. I know he should belong to me. Honestly, I’ll be doing Maddy a favour.’

Sam had a sinking feeling that this was going to wind up even worse than she’d imagined.

They got back to Sam’s grandparents’ picture-postcard thatched cottage in the heart of a picture-postcard village at around tea-time. Gran welcomed Michelle as if she were a returning prodigal daughter and swept her across the tiny hall and up the ancient, uneven polished wooden stairs to the guest room, pointing out, en route, the bathroom and Sam’s room.

‘But you remember this from your last visit,’ she said.

‘It was years ago,’ said Michelle. ‘It’s a bit hazy, if I’m honest.’

Gran opened the door to a whitewashed bedroom, with exposed beams and a tiny window in the eaves which peeped out through the thatch, over the garden.

‘Now I remember,’ said Michelle as she plonked her case onto a chair by the bed. ‘This is lovely. Thank you.’

‘There’s scones and clotted cream downstairs. Come down as soon as you’re ready. And I can’t believe,’ continued Gran, ‘how long it is since you were last here.’

‘Well, after Sam and I changed schools we kind of lost touch.’ Michelle saw Sam emerging from her room across the landing. ‘We did, didn’t we?’

‘What?’ said Sam, leaning against the doorjamb.

‘Lost touch.’

‘Mmm,’ said Sam noncommittally. She knew she should have kept in contact with Michelle but she hadn’t. And deep down she knew it was because of the scrapes Michelle had got her into at their prep school, and as soon as she’d been freed from Michelle’s friendship, Sam had turned over a clean sheet and didn’t want this new page of her life covered in horrible blots. Maybe she’d been unfair but she’d sailed through her public school without a single black mark or detention – unlike the previous years she’d spent in Michelle’s company. QED, she thought.

‘Well, that’s all right. Now leave your unpacking and come and tell Arthur and I all about what you’re up to these days. I’ll get the kettle on.’

A while later the two girls clattered down the stairs to the cosy sitting room, with its chintz soft furnishings, a fat Christmas tree in one corner, laden with baubles, Grandpa reading his paper in another, the woodburner in the huge fireplace belting out the heat and a trolley in the middle of the room groaning with tea – scones, jam, cream and a lemon drizzle cake.

‘And I expect you girls to tuck in.’ Gran looked at Michelle. ‘You especially. You look as if you haven’t had a square meal in a month of Sundays.’ She tutted, then bustled out into the kitchen from whence came the sound of a kettle being filled.

From his corner Sam’s grandpa gazed at them over his copy of the
Western Morning News
.

‘Good afternoon, Michelle,’ he said. ‘You’ve grown.’

‘Hello,’ said Michelle. ‘You’re looking well.’ She went over to his corner and gave him a peck on his cheek.

‘Huh,’ he said, and returned to his paper. Sam winked at Michelle. Grandpa had never been garrulous.

Gran bustled in with the teapot. ‘There,’ she said as she put it on the trolley and then sat in her customary chair, ‘isn’t this nice?’

And, yes, it is, thought Sam. And while we’re all here, together in this room, I’m spared talk of Seb. She wondered how long she could spin out tea for.

‘Honestly,’ Sam said quietly into her phone to James later that night when everyone had gone to bed, ‘if I hear any more about Michelle’s ex I may well hit her over the head with a blunt instrument.’ She’d pulled the duvet over her head in the hope it would prevent anyone from eavesdropping, although, given the solid nature of the little cottage, she reckoned it was unlikely.

‘And that would stop her?’ said James.

‘No, you’re probably right.’

‘So have you met this bloke?’

‘No,’ lied Sam.

‘Were they engaged? Did she get jilted at the altar? She seems to be really taking this guy’s departure to heart. I mean… why?’

‘No they weren’t engaged or anything like that. And I don’t know why she’s got such a thing about him.’ Suddenly a memory of something Michelle had said to her about Seb popped into her brain. ‘Although…’ She giggled.

‘Yes,’ said James.

‘Apparently he’s incredibly… well, according to Michelle he’s… you know… um… quite… um…’

‘Hung like a donkey?’

Sam had to stuff her fist in her mouth to stop laughter exploding. ‘Yes,’ she finally squeaked through unreleased giggles. She took a deep breath and managed to get some sort of self-control. ‘I was trying to be polite, and decorous and lady-like,’ she said.

‘You? That’d be a first.’

‘Yeah, well… moving on. Anyway, I shall leave here on the thirtieth, and I should be at your parents’ around tea-time. But I shall need the postcode for the sat nav.’

‘That sounds perfect. I’ll see you then.’

She put her phone on her bedside table and switched her light off and thanked goodness for friends like James. Nice predictable friends with no agendas or hang-ups. She sighed as she thought about the car crash that was Michelle’s current love life. She wished Michelle would be more rational about Seb. Surely she had to get over him soon, she thought as she drifted off to sleep.

Michelle kicked around her room in the mess, bored out of her mind, fed up and disconsolate. Technically she oughtn’t to be there as the mess was officially closed, but she’d nowhere else to go. She’d been so sure that Seb would choose her over Maddy she had made no arrangements for the holidays apart from spending a few days over Christmas with Sam. Spending New Year with her father and step-mother wasn’t an option so now she had no choice but to camp in the deserted mess. With no staff around and the kitchens locked, she was reduced to making do with the toaster and the microwave in the stewards’ pantry, so, when she bothered to eat, she was living off baked beans and toast. Not that she cared because her mind was preoccupied in equal parts with jealousy of Maddy and longing for Seb. Why didn’t he leave the bitch? What had Maddy got that she hadn’t? What was he doing? Did he miss her? How had they spent Christmas?

Her own Christmas had been, as Sam had predicted, perfectly nice. How could she not have enjoyed Sam’s gran’s cooking and the walks she and Sam had taken over Dartmoor? And it had been wonderful to unload her feelings onto someone who understood. Although, in retrospect, she’d felt a bit hurt a couple of times when Sam had tried to change the subject to her excitement about Kenya: really, why would anyone want to talk about some country they knew nothing about and a stupid exercise that hadn’t even taken place yet?

But despite all the nice things about Christmas, ultimately it had been rubbish because the one thing she’d really, really wanted – a text from Seb – hadn’t materialised. Even though she’d sent several messages to him, there had been no reply. She recalled the conversation when she’d told Sam, as they were going to bed at the end of Christmas Day.

‘Of course there wasn’t. And there won’t be,’ Sam had said. ‘Listen, Michelle, it’s over. You have to accept that. And you have to stop texting Seb. You’re deluded if you think he’s going to text you back. He’s a married man with a wife and a kid – kids plural, soon – and he’s not going to jeopardise all that with a fling.’

‘It wasn’t a fling.’

‘Look, Michelle, before you fell for Seb you’d have never contemplated having an affair with a married man. You might have your faults, but you’re not a marriage wrecker. And if you’d known from the start that Seb was married you wouldn’t have got involved, full stop. Seb led you on, Seb is at fault, and you’ve got to accept that he’s a fully fledged, card-carrying git.’

‘Then Maddy should know. I should tell her.’

‘No, leave it all alone and move on. And Maddy doesn’t need you to tell her what her husband is like. Seriously, she doesn’t.’

Michelle might have
pretended
to agree with Sam, but what did her friend know? What did Sam know about her and Seb and their feelings for each other? Nothing, that’s what. No, she wasn’t going to listen to Sam, no way.

If only she had a phone number for Maddy. But she knew where she lived, so that was something. And hadn’t Sam told her that the advance party, which included Seb, was due off to Kenya right at the start of the New Year, leaving Maddy on her own.

Michelle thought she might spend the evening watching the New Year’s Eve fireworks on the telly and then, the next day, head down to Warminster and create some of her own there.

‘So this is the family estate,’ said James as he greeted Sam after she pulled her car into the drive in front of a stockbroker-belt, half-timbered semi on the outskirts of Guildford. ‘Please note the landscaped gardens, the work of Capability Rosser, the stunning portico and original Elizabethan beams – that’s Elizabeth Windsor, not Tudor.’

Sam grinned. ‘Blenheim Palace had better watch out,’ she said. ‘I’m surprised the National Trust hasn’t made a bid for it.’

‘OK, I exaggerate.’ James gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. ‘But it’s home.’

Sam thought it looked like a happy house.

‘Come on,’ said James. ‘We’ll leave the bags. I’ll drag them in for you later. Come and meet Ma and Dad.’

Sam got out of the car and followed James across the wide gravel drive. The door stood wide and framed in it was a man who Sam could only suppose was James’s dad.

‘You must be Sam,’ he boomed. ‘Welcome.’

‘Sam, this is my father.’

‘Lovely to meet you, Sam, and call me Duncan. Come in, come in. You don’t want to be hanging about in this weather.’

No, she didn’t. It was already spitting with light rain and the sky threatened worse to come.

As she stepped over the threshold a hand descended on her shoulder and gave it a friendly squeeze. ‘I’m so glad you agreed to come over. James says you’ve got a lively sense of humour and the old fogies who live here could do with livening up. I look forward to being kept in stitches while you’re here.’

Sam was a bit worried about poor Mrs Rosser being classed as an old fogie but she was more concerned about her apparent billing as the comedy turn, so she just smiled a little, nervously.

‘I said nothing of the sort, Dad, and you know it,’ said James. ‘You’ll frighten Sam off before she’s even got her coat off.’

‘Just living in hope, my boy, living in hope. I like a good laugh now and again.’ He winked at Sam.

Sam grinned back. James’s dad was obviously bonkers, but nice bonkers. She thought the next few days were probably going to be quite fun.

‘It was lovely of you to invite me,’ she said to Duncan.

‘Nothing to do with me,’ he said. ‘All James’s idea.’

‘Even so,’ she said firmly. As she spoke she took in the hallway; there seemed to be bookcases everywhere and it smelt of furniture polish with a hint of toast. In fact, it smelt like a home ought to, thought Sam. None of that fake air-freshener pong that so many houses seemed to smell of, and it was full of clutter and dust-traps and pictures and knick-knacks. Yes, it was full of all the things her father’s various quarters had been completely devoid of. Yes, a happy home, a lived-in home.