by Zoe Sharp
“Here and where would that be?” Marc pressed now.
“Army, mainly,” I said and watched his eyebrow lift.
Behind him Angelo made a succinct and uncomplimentary remark about the Women's Royal Army Corps. I turned my head to meet his eyes without flinching, but then, I'd heard them all before, and worse. Much worse. Angelo stared back at me as he put a match to the end of a cigarette, challenging.
Marc backed him down with a single look, then turned back to me. “How long were you in?”
I knew to the day, but I shrugged. “Long enough,” I said.
“Why did you leave?”
“I was asked to go,” I said, forestalling any further questions on that tack by adding, “It's personal, and I'm not prepared to talk about it.”
He heard the finality that flattened my voice, and those pale eyes searched my face for clues. I didn't give him any.
“So after you were asked to go,” he went on, putting emphasis on the last three words, “what have you done since?”
“I've done a bit of keep fit and aerobics training, a bit of personal training at the local gym, but mostly I teach self-defence to women.”
Len reappeared at this point. He obviously had more domestic graces than I'd given him credit for, because he neatly placed two plain white cups in front of us. Individual portions of cream and sugar were balanced with the spoon on the saucer of each. I was impressed.
Len ignored my murmur of thanks, but Marc's nod of approval seemed to keep him happy. He retreated to a bar stool next to Angelo, holding station a discreet distance away.
“Textbook theories are all very well,” Marc said, stirring the cream into his coffee, “but unfortunately the sort of opponent you'd have to deal with in a nightclub has probably never come any closer to martial arts than watching a Bruce Lee film. They have an unpleasant habit of not playing by the rules, don't they Len?” he called.
Len came to his feet again and moved back across the dance floor with a nasty swagger, flexing his fingers by his sides. He was grinning in a way that made sweat break out on my palms. “Martial arts, eh?” he said. “Load of bollocks. Go on, then, how about you try having a go at me?”
Ah shit, I thought. Just what I need. I glanced back at Marc, but his face was shuttered, withdrawn. It was clear this was a test, and I was on my own to prove I could pass it.
I slid a fairly big smile onto my face and forced myself to stay sitting down. I didn't want to put forward any form of provocation. If I stood up now, took up any sort of stance, or appeared to be taking him seriously, things were going to get way out of hand.
I knew little about the sort of ability Len had. I had to guess from his behaviour the other night that he'd started – and finished – more than his share of brawls. If he'd been working club doors for any length of time he was going to know at least as many dirty tricks as I did, and probably more. He was also maybe twice my weight, and a good six inches taller.
I was further handicapped by being dressed in bike leathers and boots, which would cut down my speed. Plus the fact I had no real desire to hurt him. That is not a good way to go into a potential scrap.
It's one of the things I stress hardest when I'm teaching my classes. By the time events reach the stage where you have to stand and fight, you have to be fully prepared to put everything you've got into it and not hold anything back. You might only get one chance.
Most important of all now, was the fact that I didn't want him to damage me.
Most people would have taken his expansive stomach as their first objective, but he looked like he was packing too much muscle. That left me with the smaller, harder to hit targets – ears, eyes, nose, throat and groin. These required less strength, but more accuracy and speed.
I've found from experience that even the most slow-witted of men have pretty good reactions when you go for their wedding tackle. Often out of all proportion to the value of the equipment.
While I didn't think for a moment that Len would go so far as to beat me to a bloody pulp right there on the dance floor, if I didn't come up with something pretty quickly, it was probably going to hurt. Lateral thinking was called for.
I rubbed my hands together and glanced around me. “So, do we fight here or shall we go outside?” I said briskly, looking expectant. “Only, I'd hate to bleed on the furniture, seeing as the cleaners have obviously been round already today.”
I glanced at his face and saw the faintest flicker of surprise. “Eh?” he said.
“Well,” I went on, looking doubtfully around me at the floor space available. “I suppose we could have a go here, but if we're going to do the thing properly, there's not much room. I'd hate to crack my skull on the table leg when I fall over. Not on top of you already having broken my nose,” I added cheerfully. “God, they'll be mopping bits of me out of here for weeks. I hope your cleaners aren't squeamish, Marc?”
Len was looking less sure of himself. I pressed the advantage, such as it was, for all I was worth. “Are you left or right handed? I only ask because I've been having a bit of trouble with a tooth on this side,” I said, gesturing to my mouth. “If you're going to clout me hard enough to knock a few teeth out, do you think you could make it on the right, about up here? It might just sort it out.”
Len's hands had stopped clenching at his sides. He was starting to grin, which was not a pretty sight in itself. Thank Christ for that.
I got to my feet, dragged my chair a little way from the table, and stood on it. I purposely didn't stand up straight, so that it only lifted me slightly higher than my opponent. “That's better,” I said. “Now I can reach.” I put my hands up in the classic mock-fisticuffs position. “OK, guy, whenever you're ready!”
That did it. He threw his head back and laughed out loud. Then he turned and strutted to his bar stool. “See,” he said to Angelo, “I told you it was a load of bollocks.”
I climbed down from my chair slowly and moved it back, feeling drained. You don't realise how much adrenaline you've been pumping round your body until suddenly you don't need it any more. My legs were wobbling so much I had to sit down. When I looked up Marc was watching me carefully. “Nice act,” he said quietly, with a cynical smile. “So, is this martial arts thing a waste of time, then?”
I shrugged. “I don't know,” I said tiredly. “I don't teach martial arts. I teach self-defence.”
“And what's the difference?”
“Self-defence,” I said slowly, looking him straight in the eye, “is all about getting out of dangerous situations without getting hurt.”
The smile faded gradually and he looked rueful. He nodded, understanding. “Like that?” he asked, inclining his head in Len's direction.
“Yeah,” I said, finding a smile of my own. “Just like that. I've just defended myself. The fact I didn't have to resort to violence to do it is just my good fortune.”
Marc looked thoughtful as he drained his coffee cup. He came to his feet. “I'm not sure whether your peculiar brand of diplomacy won't be lost on most of my customers, but I think I'd like to see you try it out,” he said, as he buttoned his beautifully tailored jacket. “You can start on Saturday.”
***
It only dawned on me afterwards that until Marc Quinn’s question I hadn’t thought much about my army career recently. The realisation came as a surprise. There had been a time when it seemed I’d never be able to forget a single day of it.
Things hadn’t started off bad. In fact, being in the regular green army had probably been the best time of my life. I sometimes wondered what might have happened if I’d stayed there.
But I had aptitude and ability that caught the eye of those further up the food chain. Worse still, I was ambitious. They decided to use that – and me – as a guinea pig. Afterwards, part of my guilt was not just at my own weakness, but the implied failure of all women looking to train in specialist branches of the military.
I felt I’d let them all down.
I could pic
ture the start of that fateful training course like it was yesterday. Selection had been brutally tough, but I’d made it through. It was no secret that certain elements did not want females in anything other than support roles and they’d done their best to “discourage” us from succeeding.
Still, three of us made the grade, and I knew without undue bravado that I had the edge over the others.
And that’s when I met Sean Meyer for the first time.
He was there to greet us when we clambered, stiff-legged and weary, out of the back of the four-tonners, boots landing hard on frosted tarmac outside the barracks that would be our new home.
He stood and watched us, quiet, still. I’d already clocked the stripes on his sleeve and made him for an NCO – someone to be wary of. He wasn’t as big as I’d expected, either in height or bulk, but there was something unnervingly solid about him. Hit him with an iron bar, and the bar was likely to be what bent.
“Listen up,” he said when we were all out. He didn’t have to shout and he didn’t have to say it twice. “My name is Sergeant Meyer and it’s my dubious honour to be in charge of you little lot during your initial training.” He paused, let his gaze travel over us without expression. “Don’t worry – you’ll remember the name, because before this course is up, you’re all going to hate my guts.”
There were a few nervous laughs, but he’d spoken entirely matter-of-fact, without relish or menace. A straightforward statement, and all the more chilling because of it.
“If you don’t hate me, that means I’m not pushing you hard enough – and you’re not pushing yourselves hard enough either. Nobody slacks on my time,” he went on. “So, if you’re not prepared to put in total effort, total commitment, you might as well leave now – save us all a lot of pain.”
He paused again, as if expecting a few dropouts right there. His eyes never stopped ranging over us. I’m sure it was my imagination, but they seemed to linger longest on the three girls. I lifted my chin and met his gaze, unable to contain a hint of defiance.
He stared me out for a moment longer, nothing in his face, then nodded towards the gate we’d just entered by. It had already closed behind us, was guarded by sentries with guns and dogs. “You’ll notice the fences round this camp are designed to keep undesirables on the outside,” he said. “Any time you want to leave, go – you’ll find it’s a hell of a lot easier to get out than it was to get in.”
Again there were a few nervous smiles, even the odd chuckle. Meyer heard them and his expression darkened. “One last thing,” he said. “You can forget everything you’ve achieved so far, because now you’re going to have to prove how good you are all over again.” A pause, the timing deadly. “The bad news is you’re going to have to prove it to me.”
And with that he gave a curt dismissive nod, turned and walked away.
I remember watching him go, the effortless way he moved, and I recognised the danger he presented – on all kinds of levels.
“Whew, he’s a bit of all right, isn’t he?” said one of the other girls – I think her name was Woolley. She sniffed. “Mind you, he don’t half know it.”
But that wasn’t how I saw him. In fact, I’d never encountered anyone so self-aware. He had the air of a man who could close his eyes at any time and describe everything around him down to the last detail. There was a calm confidence, a coiled lethality. You just knew, without quite knowing how, that he could kill you without a flicker, but there was no swagger to him, only that deep stillness I’d first noticed, like a glacier. Implacable, immovable, and colder than the sea.
And I swore I’d break through that cool, by being better than the rest – someone he’d remember. Shame things didn’t quite turn out the way I’d planned.
***
After I left the New Adelphi Club I just had time to call in at the supermarket before I was due at Shelseley Lodge. I was getting low on the essentials like toothpaste and washing up liquid and I couldn't put it off any longer. I went via the nearest petrol station. The Suzuki's a thirsty little sod unless you take it really easy, and I was running on fumes.
I suppose I'd enjoy shopping more if I had a car, or a big touring bike with hefty panniers. As it is I have to watch the size and shape of what I buy as much as the content. If it's a choice between dried packet peas or the tinned variety, I go for the packet just because it's easier to carry.
I usually go round with two baskets, because I know that's roughly what will fit in my tank bag and rucksack. When they're full, I have to stop, although there are occasions when I've ridden home with a box of cornflakes stuffed down the front of my jacket. Or had to eat some surplus item standing in the car park, purely because there was no way of carrying it. Such are the routine problems of everyday biking life.
I started riding a motorbike while I was in the army, mainly I suppose just to annoy my parents. Not that joining up hadn't done so enough already. Still, when you've been nothing but a big disappointment to them from the word go, you may as well go the whole hog.
My parents are typical upper middle class. Nice big detached Georgian house in the country, Volvo estate and Jaguar saloon on the gravel driveway. My mother even has the obligatory brace of Labradors and owns a pair of those green Wellington boots with the buckles on the side.
My father is a doctor – a surgeon. I failed to live up to his expectations from a very early age. I should have been the first-born of twins, a girl and a boy, but by some freak of fortune I came into the world alive and my twin reached it dead.
I think things began to go downhill as soon as the midwife turned to him and said, “Well congratulations, sir, at least you have a daughter.” He went off to cancel my brother's place at Gordonstoun and his interest in me was never really revived.
The cool and logical mind that makes him so good at his profession is carried over to his personal life. He and my mother must have had sex at least once – I'm an only child – but conjuring up the image of it defies my imaginative powers.
He never even flickered when I told him I was joining up. He asked in a detached manner where I was expected to do my training, and to please let my mother know in advance when I was coming home on leave, so she could get my room ready. Then he went back to his newspaper as if the subject was of no further interest to him.
My mother was horrified, but more, I suspect, for the social implications than anything else. A son in the army is one thing, although unless it's one of the more up-market regiments it doesn't hold quite the same kudos that it used to. A daughter in the WRAC is quite another thing. She even took me off to one side and asked me if I was gay.
I think it was about my third or fourth leave that I turned up on the first motorbike I bought after passing my test, a second-hand Yamaha 350cc Powervalve.
It provoked the strongest reaction from my father yet. He took me off into his study, sat me down, and handed me pages of case notes. They were all of people he'd dealt with who'd received injuries in motorcycle accidents. It was gory stuff, made all the more gory for being written in such a detached, clinical manner.
Case after case, they made me shiver. Eventually I looked up and demanded to know if my father thought this would put me off motorcycling. “I know the risks and I'm careful,” I said defiantly.
“I'm sure you are, Charlotte,” he replied. “I have no intention of trying to influence your decisions one way or the other. The only thing I ask is that you ride with the correct protective clothing.” Just when I thought he was showing signs of affection, he added, “It makes reconstructive work so much easier.”
In the end, though, it wasn't my fondness for motorbikes that curtailed my army career. I wonder if my parents would have found it easier to forgive me if it had been.
Or for me to forgive them.
***
By the time I came out of the supermarket, the light had gone and it was threatening to rain. The wind was a lazy one – it went straight through you because it couldn't be bothered to make a detour.<
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I rode quickly through the dwindling daylight to the Lodge and slotted the bike into a space at the edge of the gravel, near the overgrown tangle of rhododendron bushes. Lights were blazing from every window as I walked through the front door.
I called out as usual as I hit the hallway, but no one answered. I poked my head round the door into Tris and Ailsa's sitting room, but that was empty too.
Moving more cautiously now, I walked through the ground floor of the house, under ornate plaster mouldings muffled by years of magnolia emulsion. Where were they all?
The only logical place to look for the entire household was the ballroom, and that's where I headed now. It sounds grander than it is. At some point early in her opulent marriage, old Mrs Shelseley had commissioned an extension on the back of the Lodge specifically for parties. The structure the architects had devised was around forty feet square, elegantly proportioned, with a line of French windows down one side leading out into the gardens. A row of dusty chandeliers hung from the high ceiling.
