The Songbird and the Soldier (5 page)

The girls nodded. “But this one is nice?” Chloe asked, “and hot?”

Kate nodded. “Oh yeah.”

“So? What else?”

Sam told them most of what she knew about Andy from the two letters she had received and the girls did their best to allay the guilt she was harbouring about the way she was feeling about him.

“My mum said that in other wars, girls wrote to soldiers on the front line as a sort of morale thing” Sam said.

Kate grinned. “You don’t want to ask your fella to get me a hunky soldier to write to, do you, Sam?”

“And me,” said Chloe. “Ooh, you could be the forces matchmaker.”

“Tell you what Chlo’, let’s go back to my place and take some fab pictures of us and then Sam can send them out to her fella and get us a couple of gorgeous guys to write to.” She turned to Sam. “We don’t have to actually physically write to them, do we?”

“No. I think you can do it online. I looked into it when Dean first went out there.”

“What do you think, Chlo? Are you up for it?”

“Absolutely! Right, I think that’s enough exercise for me for one week.”

The girls clambered their way down to the boot kiosk and released their aching feet. With their faces rosy from exercise and their eyes bright with excitement, the girls laughed and joked as they walked back to the car and, picking up a burger on the way, they hurried home to get the ball rolling.

Sam sat on Kate’s bed while the other two got ready. She wondered how their plan was going to work. “You know he may not know any single guys for you to write to,” she warned them.

“Course he will,” Kate said. “Who wouldn’t want a bit of this?” She pulled a sexy pose. Sam rolled her eyes. “Just tell him to get me one with big muscles, all right? And preferably, this time, someone who’s not madly in love with
you
.”

“He is not!” Sam protested.

“Yeah? Well, we’ll see. Muscles, remember.”

“I’m not guaranteeing anything,” Sam said, amused at the silly way her two friends were acting that night. “Smile.” Sam took some shots. “You’re both barking mad. You’re loons.”

A couple of days later the welcome blue post dropped onto the mat again after Sam had arrived home from a stressful day at school. Parents’ evening was coming up and there was a lot of paperwork to see to before she was ready. She had spent half the afternoon trying to get the classroom in order, but what with Jimmy’s gluing calamity and Rochelle, the new girl in class, in a state over wetting herself on her first day in school it was a bit of an uphill struggle. It was almost five o’clock before she got home. As soon as she took off her bike helmet she saw it there. It was lying on the dresser, just inside the kitchen door. Sam smiled. She hurried inside and grabbed the letter, calling out a greeting to her mum as she swept in and out again and off up to her room. She ignored the whimpering of Humphrey at the bottom of the stairs, wanting to be carried up, and raced up the stairs to open the letter. It was long.

Sam picked up the photos that had dropped out of the letter. She looked at them. The first one was of Andy with the lads standing in T-shirts and combats, posing in front of a mud wall and the other was of Andy by himself. Sam gazed at the photo. Yes, that’s what he looked like. He was gorgeous. Why hadn’t she noticed before? He was lean, his arms were well muscled, his hair was dark, almost black and his eyes were…she couldn’t tell what colour, and he had a kind smile. She gently stroked the picture and bit her bottom lip. He reminded her a little of someone, but she couldn’t think who.

Sam placed the photo at the back of her desk, facing her and looked at the other. She flipped it over. ‘The lads,’ it said. Underneath, in small writing, Andy had written the names of all the soldiers in the picture. ‘Spike, Miller, Harding, Lofty, Zippo, Baker, Evans and Me. And the one in the background unaware he was being photographed is Lt Durbin’. Sam looked closely and noticed the tiny figure at the back that looked like he was picking his nose. She laughed and placed the second picture alongside the first.

She wrote straight back.

Sam looked at the ending: Love Sam. Should she have put that? Was that too much? He might just see it as friendly. She drummed her fingers on the desk. Her stomach tightened and she folded up the letter and walked it down to the post box already anxious about the reply.

Andy was out on patrol. They had been given the task of maintaining a presence at the local bazaar. He walked along the street, alert and vigilant. The enemy, he knew, could be anywhere and anyone. The sun shone down without mercy. Despite this, he felt like this was a good day. The local people seemed relaxed and happy. Children smiled and waved as traders went about their business. Days were not always like this. Some days Andy had been out patrolling the same ground and muted faces had stared back, afraid. Children looked on in silence and people hid away. These were the days when anything could happen. In Afghanistan, people who looked scared always had good reason.

A small group of boys kicking something that looked like a dried up old fruit started to walk along beside him. Andy smiled at them. The patrol stopped and Andy shook their hands, still very much aware of what was going on around him. He got the order to move off again and signalled to his team. One of the boys kicked the makeshift ball out into his path by mistake, and Andy deftly back-heeled it to them as he passed, winking as he did. It was the little things like this that made his day.

Back safe in the compound when the patrol was over and everyone was at ease, Andy was handed his mail. His face struggled hard not to give away his delight, as he removed himself to a shady corner and carefully opened his letter.

He read, too quickly. He should not be so rushed. He read again, word by beautiful word. She had written some more about herself and Andy needed to know. He needed to know everything about her. He remembered little from before. They hadn’t spent much time talking about the past, only the present, their holiday and what they were going to do in the future. He looked at the photos. You stupid girl, he thought fondly to himself. I didn’t want pictures of your mates, I wanted them of you.

He rummaged around in his things for the means to reply.

He paused, unsure of how to go on. Should he let on a little of how he felt, or would that just scare her off? Maybe if he was light-hearted about it?

Was that too much? Andy almost screwed it up and started again. But he stopped. Faint heart never won fair maid, he thought, and sealed it up and wrote her address carefully on the front.

He wrote the name, age and address of both the girls on the back of their photos and shoved them in his pocket then folded up Sam’s letter, placing it neatly away with the others he had hiding in his things. Deed done.

Sam read Andy’s next letter and blushed. She had never intended to be provocative. It had been an honest mistake. Well, not a mistake, but she had never even thought how her words might make him feel. ‘Beautiful woman’ he had said. Her? He was picturing her. Sam’s stomach clenched. What was this she was feeling? She looked at the photo smiling at her from the back of her desk. But there was Dean. So how should she reply?

Three days later a small terraced house came up for sale on the edge of town. It was an old place, but it had been well kept and updated over the years. It had one good-sized bedroom, a little room and a bathroom upstairs and a living room, cloakroom and kitchen downstairs. Sam took her mum and dad along to see it, hoping for their approval and she wasn’t disappointed. Sam had been left a large amount of money by her grandmother a few years before and had been saving as much as she could ever since to afford a place of her own. So when the next letter arrived, she had plenty of news to tell.

Sam had reached a watershed. To go on now would be to admit there was more to this relationship than just friendship. Friendly banter had gone and flirtation was now definitely on the table. Was this really what she wanted?

For the first time, Sam decided not to write back straight away. She understood this would mean the reply would also be delayed because of this, but it was important to be sure of what to say. She pushed the letter to the back of her desk and looked hard at the handsome soldier who smiled back at her from there. She rang Kate and arranged to go out the following night and then went downstairs to see her mum.

After a while, her mum said, “You’re not your usual self tonight, love. Is anything wrong?”

Sam shook her head.

“Only you’re usually full of the joys of spring after you’ve had a letter.”

Sam thought about this. “Just a tiring day, I guess.”

“But the house is still going ahead all right, isn’t it? No problems there?”

“Oh yes, fine.”

“Right then. Lasagne and chips okay?”

The following evening, Sam met Kate at a pub in town and confided her dilemma. Kate had few reservations about what Sam should do. “Okay, so let me get this straight. You’re worried that you might be two-timing a guy who may or may not be bothered about writing to you and was basically a bit crap when he was around anyway, with a dark brooding horny Adonis who thinks you’re the best thing since sliced bread? And you are hesitating because…?”

“You’re probably right, I know. But what if Dean really is in the back of beyond? What sort of a woman would that make me?”

Kate took a big swig of her drink. “You’re thinking way too much about this. Just go with it. What’s the worst that could happen? It’s not exactly life or death. I say screw Dean and go with Andy.”

“Put so eloquently, now I see perfectly what I need to do.” Sam sagged. “Oh, why are men so complicated?”

“They’re not. They’re very simple. It’s basic science, Sam. Effort equals results. Andy is the one making all the effort. He should be the one getting the result.”

“You
were
awake in Science class. I’m impressed.”

Kate thumped her playfully.

“Still,” said Sam, “it would be nice to know, one way or the other.”

When Sam did eventually write back she felt it was important to maintain a holding position of friendliness. Not dismissive enough so as to put him off, but nor should she give him any reason to hope. She crafted her letter very carefully, giving herself more time to think, but still keeping the lines of communication open between them.

She checked through the letter again to make sure nothing could be construed as suggestive. No, it was fine, not too cool and she had stuck to safe topics. She called Humphrey over and tickled him under the chin. His stubby little tail wagged happily. “Walk, Humph?” she asked. She carried him down the stairs and walked out up the road, stopping briefly at the post box along the way.

On Sunday night, Kate rang. Apparently she had walked in on her mother having a chat with Mrs Fletcher, her next-door neighbour and she had asked if there was any news from Dean. His mother had said he was fine and seemed to be in good spirits.

“But how could she know?” Sam asked.

“I know. So I asked her, just for interest, how often she gets to hear from him and you’ll never guess what? He only writes every week. And I’m afraid she also mentioned meeting his girlfriend in town the other day.”

Sam was silent. How could he? He hadn’t even had the decency to break up with her. She was hurt. No, she was angry.

“Look, Sam, I’m sorry, but I always said he was no good. At least now you know you can forget about him and get nice and friendly with Andy. Guilt free.”

Sam heaved a big sigh. “What is it with men and me, Kate?”

“Oh, you’re just one in a long line of girls that have been taken in by that one, I’m sure of it. Cheer up, you’re free.”

Sam swapped ears and paused. “Hang on a minute. But that also means that Andy lied to me about Dean.”

This time it was Kate’s turn to come unstuck. “I guess.”

“Oh bloody men! Bugger them all, that’s what I say.” Humphrey whimpered in his bed. “Not you, Humph. You’re lovely,” she called across her room and patted her lap and Humphrey happily obliged.

“Give me five minutes. I’m coming over,” said Kate.

Kate arrived soon after and gave Sam a big hug. “Come on, let’s put some music on and stick pins in a Plasticine man.”