Soldiers' Wives

by Fiona Field

  ‘What for?’ asked Chrissie warily. She might have volunteered to come out here to Bastion but, like all soldiers, she didn’t readily put herself forward for other duties outside her job spec.

  ‘The MERT team.’

  ‘Oh.’ Well, that would be something different. The medical emergency response team were the medics on standby to fly in a Chinook to scoop battlefield casualties off the ground and rush them back to the hospital. The Chinook they flew in was kitted out like a full-on A&E, so the treatment could be started as soon as the soldier was on board. The golden hour gleamed a little brighter and was extended a little longer with this facility.

  ‘You’ll want time to think about it.’

  ‘A little,’ Chrissie conceded. Wanting to save lives was a no-brainer, but Chrissie knew that it wasn’t the safest option. OK, so Bastion had incurred attacks, guys inside the huge camp had been killed, but the MERTs flew into raging battles. They had protection from the Apache attack helicopters that accompanied them, and they flew with armed troops on board, who deployed on landing, to protect them on the ground, but Chinooks were still bloody big targets and had been shot out of the sky before.

  ‘How long?’ asked the colonel. ‘Only we’ll need a replacement on the MERT by the end of the week. If you say no, I’ve got to nobble someone else.’

  Chrissie made up her mind. She wasn’t a heroine, but she didn’t have any dependents. If anything happened to her, there wouldn’t be any knock-on. No kids left motherless, no grieving parents, no husband or fiancé to mourn her. Anyway, she quite fancied a ride in a helicopter. ‘I’ll do it.’

  ‘You sure?’ said the colonel.

  Chrissie nodded. ‘Why not? I’ve had a really quiet life. It could do with some pepping up. A bit of excitement might be nice.’

  ‘Brilliant. And if it’s excitement you’re after, you’ll be sure to get it. Go and see Major Tomlinson, he’ll brief you. You know where to find him?’

  Chrissie certainly did. The MERT teams had their own space at the far end of the field hospital, the end nearest the helipad. There they waited for the calls to come in with the details of the casualty to be rescued. While the pilot raced for the chopper and got it started, the team grabbed the necessary medical supplies. Happily they spent a lot of their time being bored, but the trouble was, it wasn’t enough of their time.

  She finished her immediate duties, got permission from the ward sister to go and talk to the MERT team, and slipped down the tented corridors of the hospital to where the standby team hung out. She went into the rest room and introduced herself to Major Tomlinson.

  ‘Welcome aboard, Summers,’ he said, shaking her hand. ‘A willing volunteer being worth ten pressed men and all that baloney.’

  ‘Yes, possibly,’ said Chrissie.

  ‘Hi, Chrissie.’

  She spun round. ‘Phil!’ She was genuinely pleased to see him. A ready-made friend and a familiar face and, finally, their paths had crossed.

  ‘Don’t sound so surprised. You knew I was here.’

  She laughed. ‘I know, I know, and I did try to find you to start with, promise, but there’s so much going on, I sort of forgot.’

  Phil’s face fell. ‘You forgot me? I am well insulted.’ He stepped back and smiled. ‘It’s good to see you here, Chrissie.’

  Chrissie felt a surge of pleasure at being so welcomed. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘So,’ said Major Tomlinson, ‘let’s get back to your briefing, shall we?’ But it was said in an easy tone. He, too, seemed pleased that the new addition to the team appeared to be such a welcome one. ‘You know how we work?’

  ‘The basics, obviously.’

  The major reached behind him and picked a pad off the table. ‘You’ve seen one of these before – a nine-liner?’

  Chrissie scanned the pro forma. It was a checklist of nine details required when the request for a casualty evacuation was radioed in. Stuff like how serious the injuries were, how many patients, how they were going to locate the pick-up point and another six other details, including the consideration of whether or not they might have to operate under hostile conditions and the like. ‘Only in training. I’ve not seen a real one filled out.’

  ‘Lucky you,’ said the major grimly. ‘After you’ve been with us a week, you’ll start wishing you’d never seen one at all.’

  Chrissie wasn’t quite sure what to say to this, so she kept silent. She just hoped she’d made the right decision and it wasn’t one she’d regret later.

  ‘Your mate Jenna has been causing trouble again,’ said Seb, as he walked into the kitchen at lunchtime.

  Maddy stopped stirring the soup and sighed. How often did she have to tell him? ‘She’s not my mate. Anyway, what’s she done now?’

  ‘She had another slanging match with Zoë. This time in the Spar.’

  ‘I know, I was there.’

  ‘You were there?’

  ‘I was popping to get some bits and pieces when Zoë stormed out with Jenna yelling some choice phrases after her.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me.’

  ‘I didn’t think it was that important.’

  ‘But she’s the wife of one of my soldiers.’

  ‘I didn’t think you wanted me to get involved.’

  ‘Maddy, there’s a difference between getting involved and telling me stuff.’

  ‘I’ll remember next time.’ She knew she sounded sulky and petulant but she’d been much more worried about Caro’s mad plan to invite Jenna to talk to the Wives’ Club and the trouble that was likely to cause, than she had been with the spat in the Spar. And she couldn’t tell Seb about Caro’s scheme, because he’d tell Will and Will’d probably get cross with Caro and it would all be her fault.

  ‘Anyway, I don’t suppose there’ll be a next time,’ said Seb. ‘I can’t see how Jenna’s business will fly, if Zoë’s got it in for her.’

  ‘Doesn’t that make you feel a bit sorry for Jenna?’

  ‘It isn’t as if she’s invested anything in her venture. She hasn’t got a proper shop like Zoë, has she?’

  ‘Salon,’ corrected Maddy automatically.

  ‘You know what I mean. Whatever she’s doing, it’s a bit tinpot in comparison. Stands to reason.’

  ‘And it’s not a tinpot business.’ Shit. She hadn’t meant that to slip out.

  Seb looked bewildered. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Maddy?’

  She couldn’t meet Seb’s eye.

  ‘Maddy, if you don’t tell me yourself, I’ll find out. What’s Jenna been up to?’

  ‘She’s had alterations done to her quarter,’ mumbled Maddy.

  ‘She’s done what?’ Seb’s bewilderment turned to anger in a heartbeat. ‘You knew this and you didn’t tell me?’

  ‘You didn’t want to know,’ retorted Maddy, now equally angry, although mostly with herself for letting the cat out of the bag. Nate, on the floor in his bouncy chair, looked startled at the outbursts and screwed his eyes up ready to cry. Maddy hunkered down beside him and gave him a kiss. He gurgled instead. ‘I asked you if you wanted me to find out what she was up to and you told me “not to meet trouble halfway”. Your exact words, Seb.’ She stared up at him belligerently. ‘You made it perfectly clear I wasn’t to get involved or interfere.’

  ‘Yes, but I didn’t know she’d done that!’

  ‘You didn’t want to know,’ she repeated, as she got to her feet again and went back to stirring the soup.

  ‘So what’s she had done, exactly?’

  ‘She’s got a proper hairdressing basin in her bathroom. And she’s had the bath taken out and a shower put in.’

  Seb’s jaw hung slackly. ‘She’s what?’

  ‘You heard,’ said Maddy.

  ‘And she’s got away with it?’

  Maddy shoved away the uncomfortable thought that Jenna would have continued to get away with it, if she hadn’t got such a big mouth. ‘I don’t suppose her customers want to rock the boat
. She’s bloody good as a hairdresser.’

  ‘Just because her customers don’t want to rock the boat doesn’t mean what she’s done isn’t against regulations.’ Seb ran his hand through his hair. ‘Why hasn’t someone bubbled her? And how come no one noticed the work going on?’

  ‘I gather she just told her neighbours her quarter needed the bathroom refurbed and they believed her. Some of them were a bit jealous – said their bathrooms were grotty and needed doing – but we all know how the system works. That generally it’s never your turn for the new carpets or curtains, it’s the turn of the person who moves into your quarter when you’ve gone. You know, jam tomorrow.’

  Seb nodded. ‘And her neighbours just accepted her story?’

  ‘Come off it, why on earth shouldn’t they? Who on earth would be mental enough to have that sort of work done on a quarter? Of course all her neighbours thought it was pukka.’

  ‘I can’t ignore this – not now I know. I’m going to have to tell Housing.’

  ‘Must you, Seb? She’s only trying to run a business. Can’t you turn a blind eye? Please.’ What had she done? Her sense of guilt went off the scale. Even if she’d changed her mind about Jenna and didn’t much like her these days, even if she thought she was out of order, the woman didn’t deserve this.

  He shook his head, as Maddy put two bowls on the table and poured in tomato soup. ‘Not now. How can I deny that I know, now that I do? Sorry, Maddy, but the shit is about to hit the fan. And in the meantime, I think it’d be better if you didn’t have anything to do with Jenna – including getting her to do your hair. I think this is bound to cause trouble and let’s try not to get involved, eh?’

  God, thought Maddy, now she couldn’t even choose where to get her hair done. Bloody army. But over and above her annoyance was that thick layer of guilt. Never mind what Zoë might have threatened to do to scupper Jenna’s business, she had done it for real.

  Jenna was sitting in her swanky lounge, her feet up on the cream leather recliner, taking it easy. Business had been building up slowly and this morning had been her best day of trading yet. She’d had appointments all morning, she’d taken the best part of two hundred quid and, if things kept up like this, in six months or so she’d be able to pay off the cost of the bathroom and the other improvements she’d made to the quarter. Of course, when she’d run out of the products she’d filched from Zoë’s, her overheads were going to go up, but she reckoned she’d still be able to undercut the bitch. She wasn’t paying proper business rates on the property, nor was she intending to pay income tax. Cash in hand, who was to know what she earned? No VAT either, come to that.

  She was flicking through one of the glossy mags she kept there for ‘her ladies’, when there was a violent banging on her door. She jumped. She didn’t have any appointments for another hour. Who on earth was this? Whoever it was was certainly impatient, she thought grumpily, as she got off the recliner and made her way to the door.

  ‘Yes?’ she said to the major standing on her doorstep. She thought she recognised him from somewhere.

  ‘Mrs Perkins?’

  She nodded.

  ‘I’m Major Milward, the housing commandant.’

  Ah yes, the guy who’d done the march-in.

  ‘May I come in?’

  ‘I suppose.’ Uh-oh, she thought, with a frisson of anxiety. She could guess what this might be – all those sodding regulations she’d been warned about.

  ‘Good. I don’t think our conversation is one to be held in the open.’

  And that just confirmed her fears.

  She opened the door wide and let the officer in. She could see him taking in her improvements to her sitting room. And that was all legal, wasn’t it? she thought belligerently. There was nothing in the army’s sodding rules that said you couldn’t have your own furniture, if you wanted it. And who wouldn’t? The stuff they issued you with was gross.

  ‘Mrs Perkins,’ began the major. He sounded very formal.

  Time for the charm offensive, thought Jenna. She had nothing to lose and if she could get him on her side, it might make the difference. ‘No need to be so formal, is there? Call me Jenna.’ She bestowed him with her very best smile.

  There was a beat. ‘Mrs Perkins,’ resumed Milward, ‘this isn’t a social call. I believe you are running a business from your quarter.’

  ‘Not really,’ she lied smoothly. ‘I do a bit of hairdressing for friends. There’s nothing wrong with that, is there?’ She looked him bang in the eye.

  ‘If I believed that was all it amounted to there’d be nothing wrong with that. But it doesn’t, does it?’

  ‘Who says?’

  ‘That’s irrelevant.’

  ‘It bloody isn’t. It’s that Zoë, isn’t it?’

  Major Milward shook his head. ‘Not Zoë.’

  So who had bubbled her? She would give her back teeth to find out.

  ‘So are you?’ probed Milward. ‘Running a business?’

  ‘No.’

  Milward got up and headed for the stairs.

  ‘Hey, where are you going?’

  ‘I need to use your bathroom.’

  Jenna ran to stop him but he was already halfway up the stairs. ‘Bugger,’ she muttered under her breath. She returned to the sitting room to wait for him. It wasn’t long before she heard his footsteps descending again.

  ‘Just what on earth did you think you were doing?’ he said, as he entered the room.

  ‘Why, what’s the matter?’ She turned her big blue eyes on him, the picture of innocence as she well knew.

  The major looked a little nonplussed. ‘Surely Private Perkins told you about the terms of your tenancy agreement?’

  ‘We’d only just moved in, when they sent him to Afghan.’ Charm hadn’t worked, so she decided to try another tack. She blinked rapidly, to get rid of imaginary tears.

  ‘But you can’t do what you’ve just done!’

  ‘What?’ Keep up the innocent act, she told herself, as she wiped away another non-existent tear.

  ‘The bathroom.’

  ‘What’s wrong with it?’

  ‘What’s wrong with it?’ Milward was quite red now. Jenna wasn’t sure if it was anger, or the embarrassment of dealing with a crying woman. ‘Everything.’

  ‘But it cost a fortune,’ she whispered. She wasn’t lying about that.

  ‘And I’ve no doubt it’ll cost a similar amount to put it back to exactly how it was. And that’s what you’ll have to do. There will be no choice, do you understand?’

  She managed to squeeze out a real proper tear. ‘But… but…’ She let it roll down her cheek. ‘What a waste of money. Lee’ll kill me.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Perkins.’

  Jenna fled into the kitchen. She leaned against the tatty counter and sobbed theatrically.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Perkins, I really am,’ said the major from the doorway. Not that he sounded it. There was an embarrassed silence, while Jenna kept up the crocodile tears. She wondered for a second if she mightn’t be overdoing it.

  ‘Would a cup of tea help?’ Milward offered.

  Perhaps she wasn’t – she racked up the sobs. She could hear him clattering around, filling the kettle, looking for mugs. She wasn’t going to help him out, why should she? Bastard. Finally, things calmed down, the kettle boiled and she could hear water being poured into mugs. She let her sobs subside a fraction.

  ‘Come on, Mrs Perkins,’ Milward said cheerily. ‘Things will look better with a cup of tea.’

  Jenna doubted it, but as she had no intention of converting her bathroom back – they couldn’t make her, could they? – she might just humour him, to get him off her case. After all, she was a civvy – what could the army do to her? She could pretend to stop hairdressing, she could tell him she’d given up her business and, unless he kept an eye on her twenty-four-seven, how would he know?

  Except of course her bloody neighbours might grass on her. That Sharon woman had never liked her and
would probably kill for the chance to drop her right in it. No, thought Jenna, she had to be more devious. What she needed was Milward on her side.

  Milward put the two mugs of tea down on her table and took a seat on one of the sofas. Jenna sat next to him. Not too close, she didn’t want to be too obvious. She might only be a private’s wife and a civvy to boot, but she was also a woman, and a woman who generally got her own way. She eyed Milward up: short, tubby and balding. Jenna bet her bottom dollar that he hadn’t had a woman take an interest in him in a couple of decades. Well, his luck was about to change.

  ‘Thank you for being so kind,’ she said, giving him a damp, doe-eyed stare from under her lashes.

  ‘Well, I haven’t been, not really,’ he blustered.

  ‘Making tea and everything. I didn’t mean to cry. It’s just… it’s just…’ She sniffed. ‘What with Lee being away and everything and I’ve been so worried about him.’ She smiled weakly. ‘I thought if I had something to do, to take my mind off everything, it’d make life a little easier.’ She sighed. ‘Looks like I won’t have anything to help me now.’ She allowed two fat tears to roll down her face.

  ‘I know how tough it is,’ said the major.

  ‘No, you don’t,’ said Jenna. ‘You have no idea. You’ve never been the one left behind, have you?’

  ‘Well… no.’

  ‘Exactly. I’m a nervous wreck. Look.’ Jenna held her hand out, making sure that it trembled convincingly. She used the opportunity to move a few inches closer to Major Milward. ‘I don’t sleep properly, I’m losing weight.’

  ‘Can’t the doctor…’

  ‘Hopeless.’ She shrugged for emphasis. ‘It’s the loneliness at night. That’s the worst thing.’ She gave the major a significant look followed by a coy smile. ‘And if I don’t have a job, I won’t even feel tired. I’ll never get to sleep, all by myself.’ She inched closer again so she was almost touching him. ‘You could make an exception for me, couldn’t you?’ she breathed, staring at him. ‘I’d be so grateful.’ She put her hand on his leg.

  Major Milward leapt to his feet, hitting the coffee table with his knees and making the tea slop over the sides of the mugs.