Soldiers' Wives

by Fiona Field

  ‘So we can’t see how shit-scared the pilot is,’ quipped the squaddie who had cast himself as the in-flight entertainment.

  Never mind the pilot, thought Chrissie to herself. She reckoned she wasn’t going to be too cool about landing in a war-zone herself.

  Bing-bong went the tannoy again, just to make sure everyone was awake. Then: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I am sorry to disturb your sleep, but this is to tell you that in a few minutes we will be approaching Camp Bastion. Please don your body armour and helmets. When you have done that and are safely strapped back in your seats, we will black out the aircraft and begin our descent. For those of you who have flown this route before, you know what to expect. For those of you who haven’t, please be assured that neither I, Squadron Leader Foulkes, nor my co-pilot, Flight Lieutenant Gurney, have a death wish. The manoeuvres we will be taking are well within the airframe tolerances and designed to minimise any possibility of a surface-to-air enemy attack. If you think you might be prone to motion sickness – and even if you don’t – it might be wise to have a sickbag on standby. I hope you enjoy the ride.’

  Chrissie’s eyes met Lee’s and she was almost grateful to see a flicker of worry in his. ‘What manoeuvres, what tolerances?’ she asked him. ‘What the fuck did he mean?’

  ‘Haven’t a clue, but we’ll be finding out shortly. But I think he was trying to tell us the wings aren’t going to fall off.’

  Chrissie gazed at him, open mouthed. ‘Wings? Fall off?’ she squeaked. ‘Thanks, Lee.’

  They got their body armour on and fastened the straps of their combat helmets. A couple of minutes later, they were plunged into darkness. Chrissie held her hand in front of her face. Nothing. She touched her nose with her fingers. Not a sausage. When they said blackout, they meant it. Her heart rate began to increase. She had a feeling this was going to be scary and was glad she was clutching a sickbag in her other hand.

  Then the plane tipped forward. This hadn’t happened when they went into RAF Akrotiri. That had been a gentle glide and her ears had popped intermittently. This was something else entirely; this wasn’t a descent, this was a nosedive. Shit, she thought as they plunged, planes weren’t meant to fall out of the sky like this. OK, little nippy fighters might do this sort of thing – she’d watched Top Gun, she’d seen them strut their stuff – but a huge, fuck-off transport job, a block of flats with wings attached? No way!

  The noise of the engines seemed to block out all other sound but, even so, she clenched her teeth to stop herself from screaming as the plummet continued. Then the plane banked violently to the right, followed by a roll to the left. So far in her life Chrissie had experienced just two take-offs and one landing, but even she knew this was way beyond normal. And she didn’t care what the pilot had said about tolerances, the wings were about to fall off, or maybe they already had. Maybe this was how it had felt on the 747 that had crashed on Lockerbie. S-h-i-i-i-t.

  A sour whiff of vomit made Chrissie’s stomach churn even more. She clutched her bag and the plane jolted and jounced and continued to dive. At this rate they’d hit the deck any second now. Surely. They’d been plunging earthwards for what seemed like hours. The pilot had lied; he was a kamikaze terrorist and they were all doomed. The jinks and jerks seemed to get worse, if anything, as did the smell of sick, and someone was screaming. The engines didn’t block out all sound as she’d thought they might, and Chrissie was thankful she’d managed to keep herself under control. But just as she thought that, her resolve crumbled, fear got the better of her and she began to cry. She didn’t want to die, but still the nightmare continued, and now it had got to a pitch where she didn’t care if it ended in oblivion. Live, die, what the hell: she just wanted peace and an end to this mind-numbing terror.

  Then, with an extraordinary change, the aircraft suddenly levelled out, the ducking and weaving stopped and about thirty seconds later, she felt the thump of the undercarriage hitting the ground. They’d landed, she thought. They hadn’t piled in nose first. They’d survived. Her sobs changed to a near-hysterical giggle of relief and, just as the lights came back on again, the build-up of adrenalin in her system got the better of her and she hurled.

  ‘Nice one,’ said Lee.

  But Chrissie didn’t care, she felt too weak, too wrung-out and too shaky to give a flying fuck. She fell silent, as the tannoy boomed again.

  ‘Welcome to Afghanistan.’

  ‘And you are – welcome to it,’ said the duty comedian in response.

  Chrissie raised a wan smile and folded down the top of her bag. She wiped her mouth.

  ‘At least you didn’t do it all over me this time,’ said Lee, giving her arm a squeeze. ‘And you weren’t alone, trust me on that. There were big strong men squealing like five-year-olds.’

  Chrissie was sure this was a lie, but it made her feel less of a wuss.

  ‘Please remain in your seats, with your seatbelts fastened, until the aircraft has come to a complete stop. You have arrived in Camp Bastion, where it is three o’clock local time.’

  She’d made it to Afghanistan. Relief, coupled with gratitude that Lee had been so kind and understanding, all became too much for Chrissie and she burst into tears again.

  As Lee’s flight was touching down in Afghanistan, Jenna was standing in the middle of her almost-complete bathroom and surveying it with undiluted pleasure. The plumber she’d given the work to had done a grand job. She ran her fingers over the black, sparkling counter surrounding the backwash unit, which was now positioned where the bath used to be. There was a space behind it for her to stand. On the wall above it were some contemporary stainless steel shelves, which sparkled in the light of the inset spots on the ceiling. The glass and stainless steel shower stall in one corner gleamed, and the toilet was discreetly placed in the other, so as not to be visible to her clients while they were being shampooed. She could disguise the fact that this was actually a bathroom, not a pukka salon, up to a point, but even Jenna had understood that it would not be possible, given the design of the house, to put the loo anywhere else.

  The bill had been horrendous, but she reckoned that by the time Lee was due back from his tour, she ought to have earned almost enough to repay the money she’d taken from his deposit account. Well, more fool him, for leaving his password and key information kicking around. Besides, when she’d managed to pay the cost of this conversion off and save up a bit more, she was going to invest in a proper salon, with a tanning studio and a nail bar, maybe on the High Street in the town. She didn’t want just army wives; she wanted everyone one to come to Jenna’s. She’d show Zoë how to run a business; she’d coin it in. Marky Markham move over – Jenna Perkins is coming through. And when she’d made it she and Lee would be able to move out of this poxy box the army called a house and into something much nicer.

  Moving away from the counter, she ran her fingers down the piles of black fluffy towels stacked on the shiny shelves. They hadn’t been cheap either, she mused, but she wasn’t going to make do with the thin, cheap crap that Zoë inflicted on her clients. Honestly, some of them were so rough it was like trying to dry the ladies’ hair with sandpaper.

  On the opposite wall, on another set of gleaming shelves, were the salon products she’d ‘liberated’ from Zoë’s over the past several months. She’d been careful to collect the colours and products she used on her existing clients – clients she was relying on to remain loyal to her. She knew she’d have to invest in more stock, but this ought to improve her profit margin for a month or two. Or – a thought struck her – allow her to undercut Zoë significantly. It might be better to do that; after all, no one could resist a bargain, could they?

  She went downstairs to her sitting room, now transformed by a huge cream rug which almost completely covered the hideous orange carpet. Once Lee’s pay had filled up the bank account again, she’d invest in some new furniture, too, so her ladies had somewhere nice to wait for their appointments. But even she knew she couldn’t afford such an extrav
agance just yet. Cream leather, she thought, would be perfect in due course. And a flat screen TV. Lee would love it when he saw it. He’d be so proud of her, getting a business up and running and making the house nice. Fancy making a fuss over some silly rules and regulations; he’d change his tune, when he saw the money she was making. Now all she had to do was print some leaflets and tell everyone in the garrison that she was up and running.

  She got her laptop out. As she cut and pasted pictures into the template she’d already designed, she wondered if she ought to tell Zoë she was leaving, or leaflet all the quarters first. Or maybe she ought to give Zoë a week’s notice and get the leaflets out while she was working her notice period. That way she could slide from her job to her new venture. Yes, that was the way to do it.

  18

  ‘You fucking little underhanded cow,’ shrieked Zoë.

  Jenna stood her ground. ‘Don’t you talk to me like that,’ she hissed right back.

  ‘I can talk to you however I bloody like. This is my salon.’

  The two faced each other like warring cats, claws ready to strike, eyes blazing; if they’d had tails, they’d have been all fluffed up like bottle-brushes. Around them, by the basins, in front of the mirrors, the other customers and stylists watched the row, agog.

  ‘Call this a salon?’ sneered Jenna. ‘I’ve seen better appointed public toilets.’

  ‘I’ve no doubt you have – it’s where sewer rats like you hang out.’

  ‘Bitch,’ screeched Jenna.

  Across the salon, Immi, waiting to have her roots done, was trying not to laugh. She couldn’t wait to get on Facebook and relay the details to Chrissie. Poor Chrissie had sounded quite down when they’d managed to Skype the previous evening.

  When she told Chrissie that she’d heard that Lee was out in Afghanistan too, Chrissie had just said, ‘Really.’

  ‘You search him out, Chrissie.’

  There had been a deep sigh. ‘Immi, Bastion is a place the size of Reading.’

  ‘But it’d be nice to see a friendly face.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  Immi had ended the call worrying about her friend. Anyone else would have jumped at the chance of meeting up with an old friend in a new posting. Maybe it was long hours and a grim job that had made Chrissie sound so down. Anyway, a blow-by-blow account of what was happening in the hairdresser’s was bound to give Chrissie a good laugh. She switched her attention back to the fight.

  Jenna, incensed by another insult from Zoë, picked up a hairbrush and hurled it at her adversary. Zoë had the good sense to duck, as the Mason and Pearson whistled past her head. It missed Zoë, but connected with the mirror directly behind her. The glass shattered into a spider’s web of crazed fragments.

  ‘Get out,’ screamed Zoë, whipping round to take in the damage. ‘Get out!’

  ‘Like I’d want to stay in this dump, anyhow.’

  Jenna marched to the staffroom, gathered her coat and bag and stormed out, slamming the glass door behind her with such force that Immi wondered for a second if that mightn’t shatter, too.

  The silence following Jenna’s departure lasted a full thirty seconds before the stylists turned their hairdryers back on and a low hubbub of chatter resumed.

  And it all might have been quite entertaining, thought Immi, except that her roots had been booked in with Jenna. No hairdo for her today, then.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ said Zoë, sweeping across to Immi as if she’d just dealt with a spilt drink, not a very public falling-out. ‘I think we might have to rebook you, if that’s OK.’

  ‘It’ll have to be,’ said Immi, grateful that at least Jenna hadn’t actually started on her hair. With all the other stylists busy, goodness knew what would have happened if one half of her roots had been dyed and the other half hadn’t. She followed Zoë over to the desk by the door. She wondered when, with a member of staff gone, Zoë would be able to fit her in again. Her roots were really on the limit. If Zoë couldn’t fit her in soon, she’d have to have a go at doing them herself. On the other hand, maybe she could still get Jenna to do her hair this morning. Presumably she’d gone home and wouldn’t have anything else to do. Maybe she’d be glad of the business: her first customer.

  Immi made an excuse. ‘I’ll ring. I need my diary.’ That way, if Jenna couldn’t fit her in this morning or over the next couple of days, she hadn’t burned her boats with Zoë.

  Still chuckling about the scene she’d just witnessed, Immi set off for the soldier’s patch and Jenna’s quarter.

  ‘Hiya,’ said Jenna, when she opened the door. ‘Come to gloat?’ She might have been full of bravado at Zoë’s, but she looked pretty deflated now.

  ‘No! I have not. I want you to do my hair.’

  Jenna brightened a little. ‘Straight up, no kidding?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You’d better come in, then.’ She opened the door wide and let Immi in.

  ‘Cor.’ Immi whistled. ‘This is really nice. Such an improvement.’

  Jenna perked up even more. ‘Like it? I’m going to get a couple of cream leather sofas to match the rug.’

  ‘Lee must love this.’

  ‘He’s not seen it.’

  ‘Nice surprise for when he gets back.’

  ‘That’s not the only surprise. Come and have a look at this.’ Excitedly Jenna led Immi up to the bathroom.

  ‘Shit a brick,’ said Immi, when she saw the alterations.

  ‘Good, isn’t it?’ said Jenna, mistaking Immi’s reaction for total approval.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Immi, unable to conceal the doubt in her voice.

  ‘You don’t like it?’

  ‘Of course I do, but this is a quarter, Jenna. I mean, apart from the fact that it must have cost a bomb, there’s rules.’

  Jenna sighed. ‘Rules, rules, rules. It’s always fucking rules.’

  ‘But this is the army.’

  ‘I’m not in the sodding army. Why doesn’t anyone realise that?’

  Immi bit her tongue. No, Jenna wasn’t, but Lee was; although, as she wanted to get her hair done, perhaps this wasn’t the time to point that out.

  ‘Anyway,’ she said, brightly, ‘whoever did this did a lovely job. Love the black and silver. Classy.’

  Jenna was instantly mollified. ‘Nice, ain’t it? And so much better than Zoë’s. That’s a dump, if ever there was one.’

  Immi sat in the chair in front of the basin while Jenna swathed her in a plastic protector. ‘Roots?’

  ‘Please.’

  Jenna got busy mixing the dye.

  ‘So how did Zoë find out about this set-up?’ asked Immi.

  ‘I think I told her.’

  ‘You did what?’

  ‘I know. Can’t believe I was so stupid. Mind you, she’d have found out sooner or later, but I was hoping to stay working at hers for a little longer – until I’d got going properly.’

  ‘So why the hell did you tell her?’

  ‘I didn’t, not exactly. I leafleted the patches and the local area, so I must have dropped one through Zoë’s front door. I mean, I never thought… Anyway,’ shrugged Jenna, ‘I got the last laugh. See this lot?’ She pointed to the shelf of hairdressing products. ‘I nicked all of them from Zoë’s, over the last few months. Stupid cow never noticed.’

  But Immi wasn’t sure that Jenna had got the last laugh. Zoë wasn’t that stupid, and she reckoned that she would find a way of getting her own back. This wasn’t just going to end with that cat-fight in the salon. Immi would put good money on this being a fight to the death.

  The rain hammered down onto the already sodden ground, splashing into the muddy puddles and onto the grey sand, bouncing off the tent roofs, dripping off the vehicles while the damp, chill air insinuated itself into every corner of the tented city that was Camp Bastion. In the background was the permanent roar of planes and helicopters taking off, landing and taxiing, bringing in supplies and replacement troops and taking out the lucky guys who had finishe
d their tour of duty and the not-so-lucky ones leaving on stretchers, or worse.

  Chrissie raced from her sleeping quarters across the wet ground, jumping the deeper puddles, splashing through the shallow ones, to the field hospital. Every now and again, she looked up to check she was still heading in the right direction and not about to cannon into another person, also dashing, head down, for shelter. She caught a glimpse of a vast C17 as it took to the skies and almost instantly disappeared into the cloud that lowered over the camp. She’d only been in Bastion for a week and already she was wondering if volunteering had been such a bright idea.

  It wasn’t just the long hours, the injuries that she had to deal with – real injuries now, not fake ones made of plastic, wax and stage make-up – the lousy weather or the less than ideal living conditions: it was the homesickness. And even Chrissie knew that this was a bit rich, as she was one of the few inhabitants at Camp Bastion who really, truly, had no home. Whatever else Bastion was, it wasn’t home – or anything that approximated it. No matter that it had been blinged up with KFC and Pizza Hut, nor that there were huge tents with computer games and big screen TVs getting satellite programmes streamed in from BFBS, it was still a surreal place. And she missed Immi, she missed seeing grass, she missed seeing people out of uniform, she missed being able to catch a bus to go shopping… she missed ordinary life.

  And now she was missing Lee. She’d promised herself they wouldn’t become friends but since their arrival together the previous week, he’d been a rock and not being friends with him had just been out of the question. For a start he’d surreptitiously passed her a hanky to dry her eyes and blow her nose before too many of the other squaddies cottoned on to how frightened she’d been on the plane. Being sick could easily be put down to the rough ride, but crying…? She’d get the piss ripped out of her for that. Then he’d helped her with her kit, when it had finally been unloaded off the flight, and escorted her to her temporary quarters.