Something Quite Beautiful (8 page)

5

Matthew Shackleton flicked the switch on the coffee machine and buffed his spectacles with the soft cloth from inside his glass case. Perching them on the end of his nose, he began to sort through the mail.

The colourful edge of the postcard peeked out from beneath the stack of manila envelopes. It was a bustling market scene in Kerala. He pulled the image closer to his face to decipher the tiny script at the bottom right hand corner, India, fancy that. It was from someone called Zac, Zac Porter.

‘Good morning, Matthew.’

‘Good morning, Edwina. It’s going to be a hot one today.’ He fanned himself and pumped the cotton of his shirt to circulate the air.

‘Yes. Better make sure the watering is heavy, I’d go large on the sprinklers. ’

‘I’m on it, don’t worry, are you worried about the fruit trees?’

‘And the bougainvillea. We can try out our new tubing system, if we’ve done it right, it should irrigate them just so, but you can’t be too careful when it’s this hot. I think early evening might be a good time, we don’t want to scorch those leaves.’

‘Ooh no, heaven forbid. Let’s start at dusk, we need to tidy a couple of the beds and I think a few slug pellets wouldn’t go amiss.’

‘Good idea. I need to give the roses a bit of attention too; there were a couple of aphid eggs on my Champagne Summer variety.’

‘The little rotters.’

‘My thoughts entirely.’ She smiled at him.

‘I was wondering,’ he coughed, ‘I was wondering...’

‘Yes, Matthew?’ she urged. There were three new inmates to be inducted, a busy day like any other and she wasn’t big on patience.

‘I was thinking that maybe you might like to join me for some supper when we’ve finished. My little salad garden is doing very well; I’ve got baby spuds, radishes and whatnot. There’s nothing quite like home grown with a decent steak and a large glass of red, sitting in the garden on a warm evening. Plus I’m a bit stuck with the crossword and you know what they say, two heads and all that...’ He looked at the stack of mail on his desk, avoiding her stare. He felt the creep of an awkward blush work its way up from his neck.

Edwina was stunned into silence. She pictured Alan. It wasn’t a memory, but was a new image. He was mouthing words to her, smiling
. I want you to be happy; I want someone to welcome you home. You have to carry on, no matter how hard or how hurt or how much you long to disappear. You have to carry on, because life is precious...

She took a deep breath. ‘No.’ She shook her head.

Matthew looked mortified. ‘Oh! Of course not! I’m so sorry, I just thought...’

She interrupted him, ‘I mean no to the crossword—can’t stand them. I think it’s a slippery slope, one minute you are doing the crossword and the next you’re reaching for a tapestry kit and after that it’s surgical stockings, vitamin tonics and
The People’s Friend
. I mean, yes, yes to dinner, absolutely, that would be lovely. But definitely no crosswords. Shall I bring Backgammon?’

‘Backgammon?’

‘Yes. I’m a fiend; some would say the queen of Backgammon, virtually unbeatable.’

‘Well, we shall see about that.’ He smiled.

‘Yes we will,’ she countered as she walked towards her office.

‘By the way, before you rush off, you have a postcard.’

Edwina turned and reached out her hand, striding towards his desk, grasping the offering with eager fingers. She studied first the picture and then the text, scrawled by a biro on the other side. Turning it over twice more, she scrutinised the picture and then the words again.

‘Well well, Kerala. How wonderful.’ She beamed at Matthew who smiled back; he loved to see her this happy.

‘Is it from a friend of yours?’

‘Yes.’ She nodded and strode towards her corkboard, in search of a pin.

If you haven’t already read the other stories in Amanda Prowse’s gripping
No Greater Love
sequence, read on or click the links for previews of

Poppy Day

What Have I Done?

and

Clover’s Child

Poppy Day — Preview

Read on for the first chapter of

How far would you go to bring home the one you love?

A gripping story of loss and courage from army wife Amanda Prowse.

1

The major yanked first at one cuff and then the other, ensuring three-eighths of an inch was visible beneath his tunic sleeves. With his thumb and forefinger he circled his lips, finishing with a small cough, designed to clear the throat. He nodded in the direction of the door, indicating to the accompanying sergeant that he could proceed. He was ready.

‘Coming!’ Poppy cast the sing-song word over her shoulder in the direction of the hallway, once again making a mental note to fix the front door bell as the internal mechanism grated against the loose, metal cover. The intensely irritating sound had become part of the rhythm of the flat. She co-habited with an orchestra of architectural ailments, the stars of which were the creaking hinge of the bedroom door, the dripping bathroom tap and the whirring extractor fan that now extracted very little.

Poppy smiled and looped her hair behind her ears. It was probably Jenna, who would often nip over during her lunch break. Theirs was a comfortable camaraderie, arrived at after many years of friendship; no need to wash up cups, hide laundry or even get dressed, they interacted without inhibition or pretence. Poppy prepped the bread and counted the fish fingers under the grill, working out how to make two sandwiches instead of one, an easy calculation. She felt a swell of happiness.

The front door bell droned again, ‘All right! All right!’ Poppy licked stray blobs of tomato ketchup from the pads of her thumbs and laughed at the impatient digit that jabbed once more at the plastic circle on the outside wall.

Tossing the checked tea towel onto the work surface, she stepped into the hallway and looked through the safety glass at the top of the door, opaque through design and a lack of domesticity. Poppy slowed down until almost stationary, squinting at the scene in front of her, as though by altering her viewpoint, she could change the sight that greeted her. Her heart fluttered in an irregular beat. Placing a flattened palm against her breastbone, she tried to bring calm to her flustered pulse. The surge of happiness disappeared, forming a ball of ice that sank down into the base of her stomach, filling her bowels with a cold dread. Poppy wasn’t looking at the silhouette of her friend; not a ponytail in sight. Instead, there were two shapes, two men, two soldiers.

She couldn’t decide whether to turn and switch off the grill or continue to the front door and let them in. The indecision rendered her useless. She concentrated on staying present, feeling at any point she might succumb to the maelstrom within her mind. The whirling confusion threatened to make her faint. She shook her head, trying to order her thoughts. It worked.

She wondered how long they would be, how long it would all take. There were fish fingers to eat and she was due back at the salon in half an hour with a shampoo and set arriving in forty minutes. Poppy thought it strange how an ordinary day could be made so very extraordinary. She knew the small details of every action, usually forgotten after one sleep, would stay with her forever; each minute aspect indelibly etching itself on her memory. The way her toes flexed and stiffened inside her soft, red socks, the pop and sizzle of her lunch under the grill and the way the TV was suddenly far too loud.

She considered the hazy outlines of her as yet unseen visitors and her thoughts turned to the fact that her home wasn’t tidy. She wished she wasn’t cooking fish. It would only become curious in hindsight that she had been worried about minutiae when the reason for their visit was so much more important than a cooking aroma and a concern that some cushions might have been improperly plumped.

Columbo
was on TV. She hadn’t been watching; it was instead a comforting background noise. She had done that a lot since Martin went away, switching on either the TV or radio as soon as she stepped through the door; anything other than endure the silence of a life lived alone. She hated that.

Poppy looked again to confirm that there were two of them; thus reinforcing what she thought she already knew. It is a well-known code; a letter for good news, telephone call for minor incident, a visit from one soldier for quite bad, two for the very worst.

She noted the shapes that stood the other side of her door. One was a regular soldier, identifiable by his hat; the other was a bloke of rank, an officer. She didn’t recognise either of their outlines, strangers. She knew what they were going to say before they spoke, before one single word had been uttered; their stance was awkward and unnatural.

Her mind flew to the cardboard box hidden under the bed. In it was underwear, lacy, tarty pieces that Martin had chosen. She would throw them away; there would be no need for them any more, no more anniversaries, birthdays or special Sunday mornings when the world was reduced to a square of mattress, a corner of duvet and the skin of the man she loved.

Poppy wasn’t sure how long she took to reach for the handle, but had the strangest feeling that with each step taken, the door moved slightly further away.

She slid the chain with a steady hand; it hadn’t been given a reason to shake, not yet. Opening the door wide, it banged against the inside wall. The tarnished handle found its regular groove in the plasterwork. Ordinarily, she would only have opened it a fraction, enough to peek out and see who was there, but this was no ordinary situation and with two soldiers on the doorstep, what harm could she come to? Poppy stared at them. They were pale, twitchy. She looked past them, over the concrete, third-floor walkway and up at the sky, knowing that these were the last few seconds that her life would be intact. She wanted to enjoy the feeling, confident that once they had spoken, everything would be broken. She gazed at the perfect blue, daubed with the merest wisp of cloud. It was beautiful, really beautiful.

The two men appraised her as she stared over their heads into the middle distance. It was the first few seconds in which they would form their opinion. One of them noted her wrinkled, freckled nose, her clear, open expression. The other considered the grey slabs amid which she stood and registered the fraying cuff of her long-sleeved T-shirt.

Their training told them to expect a number of varied responses; from fainting or rage to extreme distress, each had a prescribed treatment and procedure. This was their worst scenario, the disengaged, silent recipient with delayed reactions, much harder for them to predict.

Poppy thought about the night before her husband left for Afghanistan, wishing that she could go back to then and do it differently. She had watched his mechanical actions, saw him smooth the plastic-wrapped, mud-coloured, Boy Scout paraphernalia that was destined for its sandy desert home. A place she couldn’t picture, in a life that she was barred from. She didn’t notice how his fingertips lingered on the embroidered roses of their duvet cover, the last touch to a thing of feminine beauty that for him meant home, meant Poppy.

Martin was packing his rucksack which was propped open on their bed when he started to whistle. Poppy didn’t recognise the tune. She stared at his smiling, whistling face as he folded his clothes and wash kit into the voluminous, khaki cavern. He paused to push his non-existent fringe out of his eyes. Like the man that’s lost a finger, but still rubs the gap to relieve the cold, so Martin raked hair that was now shorn.

Poppy couldn’t decipher his smile, but it was enough to release the torrent that had been gathering behind her tongue. Any casual observer might have surmised that he was going on holiday with the boys, not off to a war zone.

‘Are you happy, Mart? In fact, ignore me, that’s a silly question, of course you are because this is what you wanted isn’t it? Leaving me, your mates and everything else behind for half a year while you play with guns.’

Poppy didn’t know what she expected him to say, but she’d hoped he would say something. She wanted him to pull her close, tell her that this was the last thing he wanted to do and that he didn’t want to leave her, or at the very least that he wished he could take her with him. Something, anything that would make things feel better. Instead, he said nothing, did nothing.

‘Did you hear me, Mart? I was asking if you were finally happy now your plan is coming together, the big fantastic future that you’ve been dreaming of.’

‘Poppy please…’

‘Don’t you dare “Poppy please”, don’t ask me for anything or expect me to understand because I don’t! This is what you signed up for; this is what it means, Mart, you pissing off to some godforsaken bit of desert, leaving me stuck here. This is what I’ve been trying to tell you since you walked through the door in your bloody suit with your secret little mission complete!’