Home Front

by Thomas Waugh

  For a moment, Marshal remembered his own time in the ring, milling. The contest involved two soldiers pummelling each other, wearing headguards and 18oz boxing gloves, for a minute (or more). “You must aim to dominate your opponent with straight punches to the head,” the rules stated. Hands would fly and flail. Attack was the only form of defence. “No ducking, parrying or other boxing defence moves are allowed.” It was gladiatorial, adrenaline-fuelled. Brutal. Barbaric. Transcendent. The exercise taught recruits “to deliver maximum violence onto their opponent,” – to replicate military combat in microcosm. Marshal, as an officer, didn’t need to volunteer to take part in as many bouts as he did. It was a trial by fire. Or Marshal considered it a form of penance. If life could be beaten out of you, why not your sins also? There were times when his face was mottled in bruises. He was a walking Rorschach test. He deserved to suffer. But others deserved to suffer too. Marshal would often arrange matters so that he was paired with the bullies in the squad. God knows whether he was atoning for his sins or not. But he fought like an avenging angel. Busted lips were a better penance than prayer, surely? Marshal flirted with the idea of letting his squat, powerful opponent strike him. Give him a free shot. The Para wanted to know if he could still take a punch. He wanted to pay a debt for his sins. But then he considered that only a good man should meter out any such punishment.

  The former Eton prefect thought they might be fighting by Marquess of Queensbury rules. But Marshal harboured no such thought. He first grabbed a wine cooler and threw it at Hunte’s square head. He followed up the attack by burying his foot in his opponent’s groin. The Para then clasped the Made in Chelsea hopeful by the head – as if he were a priest about to kiss or bless a congregant – and kneed him in the face. His nose burst like a water balloon.

  The fight had lasted a minute or so, although most of the participants would feel the effects of the contest for days.

  Marshal half-smiled at the waitress, attempting to reassure her. He appreciated how she could easily feel more scared of him now, than any of the well-spoken cretins who had harassed her. He felt a little awkward, although that didn’t mean he felt ashamed of his actions. Marshal asked the aghast stranger, who had been standing apart, smoking, to escort the girl back inside.

  Marshal followed them in and went to the lavatory. He splashed his face with cold water and took a couple of deep breaths. He calmly exhaled, as if extirpating any unpleasantness. Soon after, his heartbeat returned to normal levels. Would there be dire consequences to his actions? He couldn’t care less what his host thought of him, especially after he had witnessed Simon Yale snorting a line of coke whilst feeling up one of his younger guests. Marshal had also acted in self-defence. Unbeknownst to him, Aaron Smyth had no intention of reporting the assault to the authorities. Not only was his pride, as well as body, bruised – but an investigation might lead to a sexual harassment charge. His company could use a legal suit as a justification to terminate his contract, as the trader had failed to hit his targets this year.

  17.

  Marshal returned to the party. He no longer craved a drink or cigarette when he spotted Grace across the crowded room. They shared a conspiratorial glance. No one else mattered in the room. Grace had recently done the rounds, being introduced to potential suitors or “interesting people” by her friend. Among others, she had met Christian Cable, “a dot com millionaire”. Cable had founded a dating app, The Golden Shot, which was a cross between Tinder and Elite Singles. He was forever being profiled in business magazines and was renowned for dating famous models, actresses and reality TV stars. The entrepreneur was fond of trumpeting how he was “self-made”. The self-centred Cable, whose idol was Richard Branson, was about to be unmade, however, according to an article Grace had read the week before. Due to suspicious accounting irregularities his investors, including Cable’s parents, were about to pull their funding.

  “New York’s loss is London’s gain,” Christian exclaimed, as his predatory eyes undressed the model. “I am having a party at my new Battersea apartment next month. You must come along. I can introduce you to the best society in the capital, as a welcome home present.”

  Grace thanked Cable for the invite, whilst remaining resolutely non-committal. She smiled, but not at the tech millionaire. Rather she recalled a quote, from Byron, which Marshal had mentioned earlier.

  “Society is now one polish’d horde/ Form’d of two mighty tribes, the Bores and the Bored,” he casually remarked. “Unfortunately, the former turned me into the latter.”

  Olivia also wanted to introduce the highly prized model to the actor, Hector Stowe. If Grace chose to attend a premiere with the closet homosexual, he would owe the publicist a favour in return. Olivia billed Stowe to Grace as being “the next Eddie Redmayne.” Grace duly felt that she now knew enough about the actor to not want to know any more. Especially since she had just found Marshal again.

  “Would you like to leave now and have a quiet drink back at the hotel?” Grace asked, after the couple made a beeline for one another.

  “No, I would love to leave now and have a quiet drink back at the hotel.”

  The car gunned its way through the countryside. Although swathed in darkness Marshal could still discern the feminine contours of the fields and outlines of the hedgerows and trees, which looked like clumps of broccoli. His mind painted in the greens and autumnal russets and browns, to give the scene some vibrancy and colour.

  He drank in her perfume and timeless beauty. Grace sat next to him. She hadn’t felt the need to invent an excuse to sit in the passenger seat. Her complexion glowed in the moonlight. Marshal envied her dress, for the way it wrapped itself around her figure and caressed her skin.

  Marshal remembered an occasion in the past, when another female client had sat in the passenger seat. The recent divorcee had placed her hand on his thigh, and other parts of his body, while he was driving. It was not the subtlest indicator of interest he had ever received. There was a gear change in their relationship, to say the least. Marshal wanted a similar change in his relations with Grace. But his promise to Porter acted like chocks next to his wheels. Was he being too honourable? But a promise is a promise. It needed to be as strong as a mathematical truth. Stronger. The officer tried not to give his word too much, as he kept it. An oath, for the Catholic, was something sacred. In a world largely devoid of anything sacred, an oath should be sacrosanct. A sense of honour may be proof of the divine, or a manifestation of it. His mother and grandfather always said that he should be a man of his word. Without honour, Man may be no better than a beast, atheist or George Osborne.

  Grace gazed out the window. The breeze cooled her flushed skin. The world was a blur. Only Marshal remained sharply in focus. She thought about what might happen back at the hotel. What she wanted to happen. And what would happen?

  The hotel bar looked over a croquet lawn. Their drink together was enjoyable, but initially sedate and anti-climactic. Grace initially probed, but Marshal parried. Grace showed plenty of indicators of interest, but Marshal didn’t. Perhaps he thought it was not worth investing in their friendship, sharing himself, if their contact with each other was about to end. They still laughed together, however. And there was still hope that she would see him again.

  “You will still come to the launch party?”

  “Yes. I promise.”

  Towards the end of the evening, they got talking to an elderly couple, Bob and Lily Arnold, who were celebrating their ruby wedding anniversary. Marshal bought them a bottle of champagne.

  “What’s your secret?” Grace asked, in relation to staying happily married.

  “Not to have any secrets,” Bob replied. “And if one person cooks, the other washes up.”

  “And to be serious about not taking things too seriously,” Lily added, smiling with fondness and wisdom.

  Bob and Lily mistook the young people for being a couple. Marshal and Grace didn’t correct them.

  “I see the way she looks at
you,” Lily remarked to Marshal. “There’s a spark there. Or something more than a spark.”

  Grace beamed, bashfully, and lowered her head, hoping that her hair would cover her blushes.

  Shortly afterwards, Marshal and Bob went outside to smoke. The latter lit up a pipe. Marshal liked the smell of the aromatic tobacco. He thought about buying his own pipe when he returned to London. It could be something new in his life.

  “You’ve got a nice lass there,” the former postman from Harrogate said, sagely. “My advice is that you stay faithful. It means you love her. And in loving her, you will love yourself more and be content. Trust me.”

  At the same time, inside, Lily spoke to Grace:

  “He’s a good man. He dotes on you, it’s as plain as day. He’s a keeper.”

  “I know.”

  The bar closed. Grace kindly invited the elderly couple to the launch event at the bookshop, offering to put them up at a hotel as an anniversary present. The couple were worth ten of the guests she had encountered at the party that night.

  Marshal and Grace finally walked upstairs, after talking intimately for another hour. She was tempted to invite him for a nightcap in her room. But she sensed he might decline – and there would be no way back for their friendship as a result. She considered that he might be seeing someone, back in London, and he was being faithful to her – which would only make her more attracted to him.

  “I hope you didn’t mind being the future Mrs Marshal this evening,” he said, playfully.

  “There are worse fates,” Grace replied, with something more than playfulness in her tone.

  Marshal worked through part of the mini-bar in his room. It was too late, he was too tired, to open his laptop and review his files, develop his intelligence picture and plan. He lay awake in bed. The mattress was too soft. The curtains hadn’t been pulled across. The amber streetlamp cut an ingot of light across the room. Marshal realised he was half in darkness, half in the light.

  He knew his focus needed to be on Baruti. He knew he should have been making plans for his return. But he couldn’t stop picturing Grace. She hung in his mind like a stained-glass window in a church. He wrestled with whether she could make him stronger or weaker. Would she let him in if he knocked on her door? He wanted to unzip her dress, feel her skin against his. But he felt like a character from Greek myth, cursed by the Gods. He couldn’t break his promise, as much as he wanted to. Who would know, however, if he transgressed? Porter would eventually know and think less of him. But, more importantly, he would know. God would know.

  Marshal reasoned however that if he had given his word not to enter the next room – and then discovered that Baruti was sleeping there – he would break his promise, quicker than a politician, and put two in the Albanian’s chest and one in his head.

  Grace lay awake too, thinking about Marshal. A slight whistle, akin to a kettle boiling, filled the air as the breeze slipped through a gap in the window. Grace believed Marshal to be strong, that he could keep her safe. But she also believed he had a tender side. The world was a lonely, indifferent place on this side of her hotel room wall. But it could be a better, warmer world on the other side of the wall. With him. Grace hadn’t given herself, her body or her heart, since that night in the hotel with Royce. But she was willing to give both now. Electricity crackled between her ears. Desire, and something else, throbbed within her chest, like a woman locked in an attic trying to get out. She believed Marshal was as lonely and melancholy as she was. They could be better, happier, together rather than apart. Even if they could just be friends. She wanted to hear his dry, wistful voice. She wanted to hear his laugh. He had made her laugh more in two days than others had in two months.

  Grace liked the way her feet felt on the cold, tiled floor as she came out of her room and padded along the corridor. The butterflies in her stomach were now doing loop-the-loops. She was wearing sky blue silk pyjamas, with Fleur of England lingerie on underneath. Grace told herself that it wasn’t just the champagne emboldening her.

  She came to his door. Her heart beat alternately with dread and excitement, like two hammers banging away at a breaker’s yard. What would she say to him? She hoped that the sight of her would say enough. She tried to catch her breath. Her hand began to tremble, as she lifted it in preparation to knock. What would he say? What if he explained that he was already seeing someone? He might think less of her – and never speak to her again. The model had frequently been accused of stealing boyfriends, or husbands. But the boyfriends and husbands claimed they were single or separated. Yet still, she was blamed for being a homewrecker. Most of the scathing comments came from fellow models or gossip columnists. Women seldom trust, or like, other women. Grace wondered if Marshal had read any prejudiced or misleading stories about her on the internet.

  I don’t want to lose him as a friend.

  Grace pulled her hand back from the door, like a hand drawing away from a flame, and retreated to her room. She took a couple of sleeping pills (which had been prescribed after her night with Winston Royce). She didn’t want to think about Marshal any more. Or anything else. Grace just wanted to be dead to the world.

  18.

  The mood was subdued during the drive back to Windsor. There was something peculiar, or strained, in the air. Not love, but not indifference either. Grace sat in the front, but she no longer tapped her foot to the music. She typed away on her tablet, jabbing her finger like a pontificating union leader. She was in no mood to take any calls and switched her phone to revert to voicemail. After catching up on some work, Grace rested her head against the window and caught up on some sleep.

  Marshal seldom glanced at the model. His focus was on the road – and Baruti. He began to compile a list of preferred locations, should he have to confront the Albanian. Torture and kill him. There were plenty of blind spots and quiet corners in the capital still, if you knew where to look. There was a potential decision to make, whether to ambush Baruti on his own turf, or lure his quarry away into a trap. All the items, which formed part of his plan, had now been delivered to his neighbour. He resolved to book in time at the Marylebone Rifle and Pistol Club. He needed to get his eye in again. The soldier was hoping that any recoil from a gun would jolt him back to life. Marshal would reconnoitre the homes of Baruti and Rugova, as well as their club, The High Life. He needed more than just photographs and maps. Marshal also ruminated on the best way he could obtain a sniper’s rifle. Ideally, he needed a weapon he was familiar with. An L115A3.

  Marshal knew he might have to make haste slowly. Patience is a virtue. He remembered one of his kills in Helmand, at a village close to one of their forward bases. A firefight had broken out. One of his squaddies had been shot and transported out. The enemy scattered like ants. Marshal helped hunt the Afghanis down, street by street. He believed that two Taliban fighters had retreated down a narrow alley and were taking cover in a doorway. The officer set himself up in an elevated position, so he had line of sight along the alley. He didn’t want to send any of his unit down the alley, lest the enemy broke cover and fired upon them. And so, he waited. And waited. Hour upon hour. The heat wasn’t quite unbearable, because he endured it. Sweat ran down his face like beads of water running down a frosted bottle of beer. He suffered a cramp in his leg – but ignored it. He kept the stock of his rifle nestled in his shoulder, picturing his targets. He kept his sight directed at the space where he believed the enemy would appear. And so, he waited. Stone-like. Stoical. A certain as death. He was given orders to exfiltrate. He declined to respond. The light was fading. Perhaps it was because the two Taliban believed the British had retreated that they broke cover. Marshal scythed them both down. The kills had been worth the wait.

  During a meeting with a psychologist, after the incident, Marshal was asked about his first thoughts, after killing the young men. The officer replied that, having witnessed the smoke pouring out the wounds in their chests, he craved a cigarette.

  “You seem pleased that two m
en died,” the bespectacled, leftist psychologist commented.

  “I was pleased with my marksmanship. But no, I wasn’t pleased that I had killed two of the enemy,” Marshal replied, lying.

  The only good Taliban is a dead Taliban. And the only good Albanian gangster is a dead one, the soldier considered, as he turned off to grab a coffee and scone at a service station. Marshal also thought how he was willing to set up another sniper’s nest to wait and take out Baruti and Rugova.

  September remained summery. A cordial, honeyed sun warmed the air. The trees had yet to shed all their leaves. Oliver, Victoria and Violet came out to greet Grace and Marshal. Victoria sensed something was slightly awry with her niece and she took her inside for a cup of tea.

  “How was the party last night?” Porter asked Marshal, as the latter began to gather his possessions from the guesthouse.

  “It was a knockout.”

  “Will you be able to stay for some lunch?”

  Part of Marshal, perhaps more than half, wanted to say yes. He was hungry. He wanted to spend more time with Grace – and Violet.

  “No, I’d better get back I’m afraid. I’d like to avoid any traffic.”

  “Are you sure? You know you’re welcome to stay for a few days. I could show you my lack of prowess as a fisherman. I’ve also got a fine bottle of brandy with your name on it, as well as Napoleon’s.”

  “I’m grateful to you Oliver. But I’ve got some business to take care of, back in London,” Marshal said, picking up the aluminium case which contained the Glock 21.