Boot Camp Bride

by Lizzie Lamb

  Snow flurries had turned the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea into a fairy kingdom, glittering with frost and the twinkling lights of the upmarket shops. She was also becoming increasingly concerned over Ffinch’s eventual reaction when he discovered she wasn’t safe and secure in the mews, typing up her copy.

  What copy, she wondered resentfully? Some girly piece about what Anastasia wore at the boot camp, the make-up she preferred and her wedding plans? Ffinch meanwhile would be commissioned to write about how he’d busted a Russian/Colombian drugs ring on the Norfolk marshes. Single-handed.

  She might get an acknowledgement at the foot of the column - if she was lucky.

  She was so eaten up by the unfairness of her situation that she was surprised when the taxi pulled up outside her bedsit. Tipping the driver, she dragged her belongings up the flight of stone steps and into the hall, where she met another resident laden down with shopping.

  ‘Charlee-ee, long time no see,’ the other woman greeted her and they exchanged a few pleasantries. ‘Belated Happy New Year.’

  ‘You, too. I’ve been staying with friends,’ Charlee explained away her absence.

  ‘Have you heard? The Bastard Landlord is putting up the rent and has turned down our request to have the night storage heaters replaced with a proper central heating system.’

  ‘Bastard,’ Charlee agreed automatically, opening her letter box and removing a sheaf of envelopes and junk mail. She felt detached from the real world of final demands, unheated flats and no money left at the end of the month. Three days posing as a boot camp bride and one blissful night in Ffinch’s arms had changed all that.

  ‘I’d heard you moved in with a hot new man. Engaged, even. Is it true?’ The woman opened the inner door with her key and they trudged up the filthy stairs together. ‘Must be, if the bling is anything to go by,’ she observed, staring goggle-eyed at Charlee’s wedding finger.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Charlee exclaimed. ‘Granny’s ring!’

  ‘What is it?’ They’d reached the landing and were about to peel off and go their separate ways.

  ‘I - I’ve just realised, I’ve got something that doesn’t belong to me. Something I should have given back. Oh - never mind. Catch you later.’

  ‘Laters,’ her neighbour agreed, shooting her a curious look.

  Charlee knew how it must look - she disappears, her post mounts up and no one sees hide nor hair of her for weeks. Then she turns up in the middle of a blizzard sporting the Koh-I-Noor’s lesser cousin amid rumours of where she’d been, what she’d been up to. Good thing she paid her rent by direct debit or The Bastard Landlord would have had her belongings out on the street and a new tenant in situ.

  But - the ring - how could she have been so absent-minded? Simple - because it felt part of her and she’d rarely had it off her finger since Ffinch had placed it there on Boxing Day. It didn’t take a genius to work out that, given the course of action she’d taken, all bets were now off. Ffinch would want his great-grandmother’s ring back in the family vault. Pronto. She should have left it behind on the mantelpiece with a note explaining her behaviour, at the very least. This was the second time she’d bolted and, knowing Ffinch as she did, there wouldn’t be a third.

  But she wouldn’t think about that right now, she’d dump her stuff in the bedsit and contact the police as per her original plan. After that, she’d ring Ffinch and try to explain … She pushed the door closed behind her, using her bottom. As expected, the bedsit was freezing cold and smelled of drains and tinned fish.

  ‘Least of my worries,’ Charlee said to the untidy space formerly known as home.

  In her heart, home was Ffinch’s mews off the King’s Road where they’d made love like newlyweds before falling into a sated, exhausted sleep. But, it only felt like home because he lived there. Without Ffinch the million-pound mews reverted to prime Chelsea real estate badly in need of a makeover.

  ‘God help me, what have I done?’ she asked the empty bedsit, then answered the rhetorical question: ‘I’ve just walked out on the man I love because I’m pig-headed, obstinate and can’t be told.’ Even by her impulsive standard, Charlee knew she’d messed up. Big Time.

  She didn’t need it spelled out that Rafael Fonseca-Ffinch wasn’t the kind of man who came chasing after errant girlfriends. The next time she heard of him he’d be halfway to Colombia and there’d be a letter from his family solicitors requesting the return of the family heirloom, at her earliest convenience.

  She let out a frustrated: ‘Bugger,’ and kicked a floor cushion across the room.

  Here she was, back in Grotsville - cold and miserable and already missing the shabby comfort of Ffinch’s mews. But this bedsit, like her decision to leave when Ffinch had asked her to wait for his return, simply underlined her pathological stubbornness. She could easily have commuted from her family home to What’cha!’s offices but had valued her independence too much to live at home. She could have shared Poppy Walker’s pied-à-terre in Kensington and lived the myth that they were characters from Sex and the City, but felt Poppy had done enough for her.

  Feeling thoroughly annoyed with herself, she dragged her holdall over to the futon and started sorting through her dirty laundry. It was all so far removed from the blissful night she’d spent with Ffinch that her throat tightened and her vision blurred.

  Blinking away her tears she removed the remains of a giant bar of Fruit and Nut, a quarter bottle of vodka and the bag of posh toiletries Anastasia had given to her from her holdall. The photograph she and Ffinch had posed for under the rose arbour fell out of her dirty washing and landed face down on the stained carpet so she picked it up and dusted it off.

  ‘Oh, Ffinch, what have I done?’ She kissed the photograph, checked her mobile just in case he’d messaged her (he hadn’t) and then unscrewed the lid on the bottle of vodka.

  ‘To love!’ she toasted, taking a swig of it.

  The fiery liquid burned a path down her throat and made inroads on her empty stomach. She ate a square of chocolate as a chaser and then felt sick. For want of anything better to do, and to take her mind off what a hash she’d made of everything, she tipped Anastasia’s toiletries onto the futon. She sorted through the contents in the hope of finding a tube of something expensive which would banish the blues from her heart and the dark circles from her eyes. One of the tubes had been sealed up with sticky tape. This struck her as odd; somehow, she couldn’t imagine Anastasia cutting the end off an empty tube to get out the last bit of make-up.

  The tube felt strangely heavy and when she removed the sticky tape it became obvious that something had been rammed inside it. Something other than two-hundred-dollar face cream. Intrigued, Charlee wiped her snotty nose across her sleeve, poked inside the tube and winkled out a data stick.

  ‘What the -’

  She remembered her last conversation with Anastasia: ‘You are my way home, Sh-arlee. But it is dangerous and you must take care. Take present. Sweet Sh-arlee … You will not let me down’.

  Rushing over to the kitchen table, she fired up her ancient laptop and inserted the data stick in the USB port. ‘Come on, come on,’ she coaxed. The machine whirred and complained, unhappy at being left unused in sub-zero temperatures for almost a month. Then - bingo! The drive opened and revealed a number of sub-folders labelled in Cyrillic script.

  Anastasia’s desperate: ‘Vi mojete prochest kirillcy?’ and her reassurance that, of course, she could read Cyrillic script, made sudden sense. But what was contained in the sub-folders? Charlee left-clicked: a spreadsheet opened and when she scrolled to the bottom her eyes widened in amazement.

  ‘Holy Shamollee.’ A frisson ran through her as surely as if Lenin’s ghost had just walked over her grave. She copied the contents of the data stick onto her hard drive, backed it up on iCloud and then removed the stick and kissed it.

  Two hours later, Charlee’s intercom buzzed and she picked up the phone with a trembling hand.

  ‘Who is it?’ Like,
she didn’t know!

  ‘Ffinch,’ he said tersely. ‘Who were you expecting - The Household Cavalry?’

  ‘Come up.’ Charlee put the phone back on its cradle.

  Ffinch sounded mad; madder than mad, actually. She knew she’d have some explaining to do before he collected Granny’s ring and walked out on her for the last time. She glanced over at her laptop and took a deep breath. Maybe she could turn this round with a bit of quick thinking.

  A peremptory bang on the door announced Ffinch’s presence. Charlee opened it and ushered him in. ‘Leave some paint on the door, won’t you,’ she said, faking anger. He stepped across the threshold with a thunderous expression but looking every inch the sexy biker in his leathers. Her stomach flipped and it had nothing to do with vodka or Fruit and Nut bars.

  ‘Coming from the door-batterer of The Ship Inn, I’ll take that as a compliment. Which part of “Start writing your copy and wait for my return” didn’t you understand, Montague?’

  ‘Look, I can explain. I don’t like being ordered about, okay?’ She felt flustered, wrong-footed and knew there was no justification for her behaviour other than mule-headedness.

  ‘I get that. But, your bloody-mindedness could have proved dangerous. How can I protect you when I don’t know where you are?’

  ‘I don’t need your protection.’ To her surprise, she discovered there was something immensely appealing about being looked after by the man she loved and … She pulled herself up sharp, knowing she had just set the course of feminism back a hundred years.

  ‘I think you do,’ he said, equally obstinate.

  ‘So, I have a baby in the back of the wagon while you ride off into the sunset scouting for Indians?’ she demanded, playing out her part.

  ‘Baby? What on earth are you talking about?’ His eyes widened as the implication of her words hit home.

  ‘Calm down, I meant it as a metaphor,’ she said crossly and then blushed, too. Unless she was prescient she wouldn’t know if she was pregnant so soon after making love. Especially when they’d pretty much used a packet of condoms to prevent that happening.

  ‘A metaphor?’

  ‘Don’t worry, I know what you’ve really come for.’ She marched over to the sink, squirted some washing up liquid into her palm, rubbed her hands together and then twisted off Granny’s ring. ‘You want this, don’t you?’ She hoped that he didn’t hear the catch in her voice or detect the sheen of tears there.

  ‘I do.’ He took the ring, returned it to its blue velvet box and then put the box in the pocket of his flying jacket. Having had the wind well and truly sucked out of her sails, Charlee crashed down on the kitchen chair.

  ‘You’ve got the ring. Just go,’ she said, resting her elbows on the table.

  ‘There’s something else,’ he said, sending her a dark look from beneath furrowed brows.

  ‘You’ve got a bloody cheek, Ffinch. Who do you think I am - Wonder Woman? I haven’t had time to write up my copy yet,’ Charlee said with some asperity. ‘I’ll email it to Sam tomorrow.’

  ‘Montague.’ Ffinch crossed the sticky carpet in his heavy biker boots, took her by the hands and pulled her to her feet. ‘Don’t be so bloody obtuse -’

  ‘Obtuse!’

  ‘Yes, obtuse. I’ve come for you?’

  ‘But,’ Charlee was confused. If he’d come for her, why had he taken the ring back?

  ‘Last night, I told you that once a Fonseca has chosen his woman, he never lets her go.’ Somehow, he made the statement sound passionate rather than arrogant.

  ‘Yes you did, but -’ He put two fingers on her lips to silence her.

  ‘Remember the night of the Gala Dinner, when I kissed you? Quod erat demonstrandum? Coming here, hot on your trail to ask you to come home is my way of demonstrating, of showing that - ’

  ‘But, Ffinch,’ Charlee interrupted, ‘nothing has changed - you’re returning to Colombia and I’m back to exercising Vanessa’s rat on a rope.’

  ‘Charlee, I was caught on the hop this morning. After last night’s escapades at the boot camp; driving through the night; making love - energetically, and more than once as I recall.’ Charlee blushed at his forthright manner. ‘Not to mention being flattened when you dropped on me from a great height. I was exhausted. Not thinking straight. You were right; I’ve done my bit, now it’s down to the police to do theirs - hopefully, more thoroughly next time. Trushev is down by almost thirty million after last night’s seizure and the money invested in the heroin isn’t his alone. He’ll have some explaining to do to his drugs cartel and, with a bit of luck and a following wind, rough justice will punish him more effectively than British justice could ever hope to.’

  ‘So,’ she said slowly. ‘You aren’t returning to Colombia?’

  ‘I’m staying here, with you. Well - not here with you, you understand. I think the overwhelming smell of damp and sardines would get to me after a while. I want you to move into the mews with me. Come live with me and be my love, as the poets have it.’

  ‘So, why did you ask for the ring back?’ Charlee demanded, wanting boxes ticked, i’s dotted and t’s crossed. She couldn’t afford to get this wrong.

  ‘Because it wasn’t offered to you in the right spirit and you accepted it under false pretences. I want to right that wrong. Charlee, I only need - want - you,’ he said passionately. ‘You’ve turned my life on its head, helped me confront the past and deal with it. You’ve shown me that I can stop feeling guilty for what happened in Darien and live a decent life. I’ve never met anyone quite like you. I love you, Charlee and I want -’ He paused in the middle of his passionate speech and sent her a perplexed look. ‘Are you listening to any of this?’

  ‘Yes! No - wait.’

  ‘Yes. No. Wait?’

  ‘I know I’m not making sense but now I know that you’re not returning to Darien, I have something to give you.’ She turned the laptop round so Ffinch could see the screen. ‘Ffinch - the scoop of a lifetime!’

  ‘It’s in Russian,’ he said, confused by the Cyrillic script and her lack of response to his passionate speech.

  ‘Correct, but luckily I can translate. This,’ she pointed at the spreadsheet, ‘contains everything the Crown needs to put Trushev and his associates behind bars for the rest of their lives. Names, bank account, drugs consignments, payoffs … it’s all on the data stick.’ Ffinch edged closer to the screen as if fearing the evidence would vanish in a puff of smoke. ‘Without the key players, his drugs cartel will collapse; I will be safe and Anastasia will have her way home.’

  ‘But how?’ She handed over the data stick and he held it in the palm of his hand as if it was made out of solid gold.

  ‘Anastasia. She wanted a way out of the relationship and the only way she could achieve that was to put Trushev behind bars. I’m guessing that he threw the laptop containing this information into the creek the night he escaped, destroying all the evidence. Or so he thought.’

  ‘Charlee. Oh my God. You are magnificent and I love you.’ Leaving the laptop on the kitchen table, he came across and kissed her roughly.

  ‘You do?’

  ‘I do. I said so earlier but you weren’t - ’

  ‘Because of this?’ she asked, pointing at the spreadsheet. She needed to be sure, very sure, before she gave her heart unreservedly.

  ‘No, you idiot. Because I love you and because … you’re brave, funny, sexy, exasperating, pig-headed, annoying …’ He rained little kisses on her face as he delivered each adjective.

  ‘Can we just stick to the more flattering stuff?’ she demanded, giving him an arch look and moving out of his reach. There was one final thing she had to say. ‘I may have given you the data stick, but without my knowledge of Cyrillic script - or getting in a linguist - you have no hope of using it. We’re partners, Ffinch; equal partners, every step of the way. Deal?’ She spat on her hand and held it out to seal the contract. Regarding her with complete admiration, Ffinch took her hand and turned it over, then he kissed
the back with an old-school courtesy that sent her legs wobbly again.

  ‘Partners,’ he agreed, looking as if it would take just the slightest bit of encouragement for him to take her on the low-slung futon.

  As much as she wanted that to happen, Charlee held out and stated her terms. ‘Montague and Ffinch.’

  ‘Ffinch and Montague,’ he argued, his eyes alight with love and mischief. ‘And, while we’re on the subject of names, do you think you could bring yourself to call me Rafa? Considering the fervour with which we made love last night, I think it’s time we progressed to using first names. All this Ffinch and Montague business makes me feel like I’m back in boarding school.’

  ‘And you may call me Carlotta. I rather like that. It makes me seem exotic, different.’

  ‘You are exotic; and as for different, I can say with some certainty that there’s no woman in the world quite like you,’ he said with feeling.

  ‘I’ll take that as a compliment, shall I?’

  ‘It was meant as one. Now, back to business. In exchange for the data stick … Granny’s ring.’ He retrieved the ring from the blue velvet box. ‘Fonseca-Ffinch, campaigning journalists, it has a certain je ne sais quoi, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘Just like Brad and Angelina in Mr and Mrs Smith …’ Charlee said, her blue eyes sparkling.

  ‘… Only without the cache of weapons in a secret room under the garage and with fewer rooms being trashed.’ Laughing, he held the ring between thumb and forefinger and quirked an eyebrow at her. ‘Unless your feminist principles prevent you from taking my name? The choice is yours, Carlotta.’