Civvy Street (32 page)

Mike drove out of the district council offices’ car park and headed towards Warminster. On either side of the main road the fields, now devoid of crops, were glistening with standing water and the roadside ditches were almost overflowing. Everywhere Mike looked the countryside looked sodden and waterlogged. And not surprising, he thought. He reviewed the weather since that torrential thunderstorm and it seemed to him that it had rained almost every day since. There had been a couple of nice summer days immediately after the cloudburst but shortly after that it was as if the taps had been turned on and left running. So much, he thought, for the gloom-and-doom predictions of depleted aquifers and the need for water management. Still, as long as the weather didn’t get worse, the drainage system and the rivers across the county seemed to be coping and it couldn’t keep raining like it had for the
whole
winter, could it?

Before long Mike pulled up at the guardroom at the barracks, parked in the visitor’s lay-by and went to book in.

‘Oh, hello, sir,’ said a soldier he recognised. Mike felt a little puff of pleasure at this show of deference. He hadn’t had that in a very long time.

‘Hello, Corporal. No need for the “sir” bit now. I’m a civvy these days.’

‘Sorry, sir, but old habits and all that. Mrs Collins phoned down. Here’s your pass and if you’d just like to sign for it here and remember to hand it back in on your way out.’

‘Sure thing,’ said Mike.

He took the proffered pass and the pen, scribbled his name in the visitors’ book and then returned to his car. The barrier raised, he drove up to the mess. It seemed far longer than just a few months since he’d last done this, in uniform, being saluted, entitled to be there. He sighed – so much had changed and almost all of it for the worse. He drove to the back of the building and parked his car next to the Grundon bins. Gone were the days of being able to use the mess members’ spaces at the front, now he was reduced to parking by the rubbish skips. What a comedown.

Susie was waiting for him and let him in the back door. If she noticed his rather dishevelled and unkempt appearance she said nothing about it, to Mike’s relief. At least he was pretty sure his jacket no longer smelt of Scotch, which was something to be grateful for. His wife led him to the staffroom beside the main kitchen which was silent.

‘We’ve got the place to ourselves for a bit. The staff don’t come back on duty till five thirty to clear up the tea things and get ready for the evening meal.’

‘Best you tell me what you know then.’

‘There’s nothing to tell really, beyond what I told you this morning. I found a packet of fags in Ella’s bedroom and it was half empty. What we need to talk about is how we handle things.’

‘Ground them?’

Susie nodded. ‘We could but seeing as how they are utterly bolshie I think they’ll just ignore it. Realistically, I don’t think I’ll be able to prevent them from going out of the house when we get back in the evening if they are determined.’

Mike looked at her, she had a point. ‘I suppose we could deadlock the front door,’ he offered.

‘They’d climb out a window.’

‘We could stop their allowance.’

‘That might certainly have an impact. I’ll keep on thinking – we’ll come up with something, but before we can do any of that we are going to have to confront them with the evidence.’

‘That’s not going to be an easy conversation,’ said Mike.

‘Easy or not, it’s got to be done. Do you think they’d have started smoking if they’d stayed at Browndown?’

‘Who’s to know? If we start down the “what if” route I think we might end up going potty.’

‘I often wonder...’ mused Susie.

Mike put his hand on her arm. ‘Me too.’ They looked at each other, both knowing what the other was going to say. ‘But what’s done is done. We are where we are.’

‘Very profound, Mr Collins,’ said Susie wryly. ‘And while we’ve got a moment to ourselves – about last night.’

Mike felt his heart rate increase; he knew what was coming next and guilt swept through him.

‘You were drinking, weren’t you?’

Busted. He nodded. ‘Yup, fell off the wagon. I’m sorry and I won’t do it again.’

‘Oh, Mike.’ Susie’s disappointment was tangible. ‘That’s twice. If only your stupid car hadn’t broken down.’

Mike couldn’t meet her eyes. Lie upon lie... Not just the car but the fact that it was
a lot
more than twice, although it was only twice he’d been shit-faced. Besides, a pint or so at lunchtime hardly made him a lush – not like he’d been back in the old days, and if she had to work with the twats he was lumbered with, she’d be driven to drink too. At least she didn’t think he’d had his binge all planned, that he sorted things so he could fall off the wagon. In fact, he hadn’t
fallen
so much as actively jumped but as long as Susie was in ignorance life would be easier all round.

‘It won’t happen again,’ he promised. Although, internally, he was thinking that he wouldn’t get
caught
again. He just had to be more careful if he was going to have the occasional drink.

‘OK,’ said Susie, ‘let’s forget about it. Back to the girls. How about confiscating their iPads and phones?’

‘It would certainly hurt them. We can’t do it without giving them a chance of redeeming themselves. We have to have a carrot available as well as a stick.’

Susie nodded. ‘So, if you go straight home while I get the girls, you can raid their rooms for their iPads. As soon as I get back with them, we can tell them we know about the smoking and ask them to hand over their phones as punishment. They mightn’t mind too much if they think they still have their tablets, which they won’t – assuming you can find them.’

‘Sneaky,’ said Mike.

‘Off you go then. You’ll probably find their iPads on their desks or by their beds. That’s where they usually are.’

Mike splashed out back to his car, wondering when his wife had learned to be quite so Machiavellian. He had to hand it to her, she was in a class of her own.

*

Ella and Katie had spent most of their breaks huddled together in sheltered corners of the school playground, wondering what had happened to their precious stash of cigarettes.

‘You can’t have looked properly,’ Katie kept insisting.

‘But I did, I know I did. I
know
I had them when we came in from meeting Ali, they were in my sweatshirt pocket.’

‘Then they must have fallen out.’

‘But where?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Katie. ‘You had them. They must be on your bedroom floor.’

Ella sighed and looked exasperated. ‘But I told you, I looked. I picked everything up and they weren’t there.’

‘When we get home we’ll have a proper look.’

Ella had shrugged. She’d
had
a proper look but if Katie wanted to waste her time doing it again, it was up to her. ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘what are we going to tell Ali?’

‘Maybe he’ll lend us a ciggie. We can pay him back tomorrow.’

‘Maybe.’ But Ella wasn’t convinced. He smoked far more of their fags than they ever got off him. But in his favour, life on the school bus, now he allowed them to sit with his crew, was much easier. It was worth hanging around in the cold and wet by the junction box or huddled in the bus shelter for that alone.

When their mother came to pick them up from Caro’s everything seemed pretty normal. It was only when they got home and saw their dad, waiting for them to come in, that they began to twig that not all was right.

‘I want a word with you two,’ he said without preamble.

The twins exchanged a nervous glance and felt their anxiety levels and heart rates soar. They both had a horrible idea they knew where this was going. They followed him into the sitting room. Their mother trailed in last and stood by the front door. To stop us escaping? wondered Ella, nervously.

‘Sit down,’ he ordered.

They both dropped, side by side, onto the sofa. Ella wanted to hold Katie’s hand for support but knew it would show weakness.

‘What’s the meaning of this?’ Their father brandished the missing packet of smokes.

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ blustered Ella.

Her father’s eyes narrowed. ‘Don’t lie,’ he said. ‘Your mother found them on your bedroom floor this morning.’

Instinctively, Ella glanced at Katie.

‘Yes,’ said their father. ‘You may well look to your sister for support. I imagine she’s in on this too.’

Ella stared at him defiantly. ‘They’re not ours.’

Their dad just stared at them and sighed. ‘Really. So whose are they? And why would you have them in your possession?’ He patently didn’t believe a word she’d said.

‘They’re Ali’s... or his mum’s. I... I must have picked them up by accident.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes.’

Well, as you insist on lying to me as well as smoking I am forced to take action. Not only are you grounded but I want your mobile phones.’

‘No!’ The girls spoke in unison.

‘Yes. Hand them over.’

‘You can’t make us,’ said Katie.

Their father looked at them and held his hand out. ‘I think I can. I am your father,’ he suddenly thundered, ‘and I will
not
be disobeyed.’

The girls both jumped at his change in tone of voice. Wordlessly they reached into their school bags and handed them over.

‘Thank you. And don’t think you’ll be going out to meet your friends this evening or any evening for the foreseeable future. You’re grounded till further notice, so I suggest you go to your rooms and think about your behaviour.’

Ella felt a wave of rage against her father. What right had he to treat them like this? He was hateful and mean and... and... suddenly she felt tears welling up. She jumped up off the sofa, barged past her mum and raced up the stairs. Katie followed a second later. A door slammed upstairs.

Susie stared at her husband. ‘Thank you. They may not like it but it had to be done.’

Mike sank into the armchair next to him. ‘I feel a heel.’

‘Parenting isn’t easy. It’s tough love.’

Mike breathed deeply. ‘I sometimes think tough love is tougher on us than it is them.’

They heard a bedroom door open upstairs.

‘You’ve taken our iPads!’ screamed Ella.

‘Yes,’ shouted back Susie.

‘I hate you. I hate you both.’

‘And I do too. I wish you were dead,’ added Katie.

The door slammed again; this time the windows rattled in the sitting room.

‘That’s it,’ muttered Susie. She flew up the stairs. She flung open Ella’s door and saw the twins huddled together on Ella’s bed. They were crying but her heart didn’t soften. Serve them right, she thought.

‘You can shout at your father and me as much as you like,’ she said in a dangerously low and quiet voice. ‘You can call us names. But if you start damaging property with your stupid, spiteful behaviour, by slamming doors and the like, the loss of your iPads and phones will seem like nothing compared to the sanctions I will impose. Do you understand?’ She glared at them till they both dropped their defiant stares. ‘Do you understand?’ she repeated.

‘Yes,’ mumbled Ella sulkily.

‘Katie?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Good. And if you think you can stay up here and sulk, you’ve got another think coming. I expect you at the supper table at the normal time.’

Ella looked at her with a cold hard stare.

‘Your choice,’ said Susie. ‘If you don’t come down you can go hungry.’

‘That’s child abuse,’ said Katie.

Susie leaned forwards. ‘No, it’s discipline. The food will be there for you, downstairs on the table. Your choice.’

They thought about it.

‘When can we have our iPads back?’ asked Ella in a more conciliatory tone.

‘When I say so,’ said Susie. She backed out of the room and shut the door.

Round one, she thought, had been won on points by her and Mike. Not that she felt she had the energy for any further rounds in the foreseeable future.

As she went downstairs she wanted a drink more than anything. Like that was going to help. One of the family had to stay strong but she wished that, just for once, it wasn’t her.

When Maddy met Luke again she remembered how much she liked him at their first brief meeting at the officers’ mess summer ball, well over a year previously. He had classic good looks with dark hair, a wide smile and brown eyes. Kind eyes, too, she thought. No wonder Sam had fallen for him. In fact, if she didn’t love Seb so much, she might have taken a shine to him herself. And over the course of the evening, Luke had made them all laugh and had been charming and entertaining; he’d even helped with clearing the table – the perfect houseguest.

The next morning he and Sam appeared at the breakfast table looking as if they hadn’t slept a wink. Maddy smiled inwardly and pretended not to notice the dark shadows under Sam’s eyes, her tousled hair and her tendency to yawn every few minutes. And why not? thought Maddy. When was the last time she’d seen her fiancé?

Breakfast was in the dining room because there wasn’t room for the four Fanshaws and their houseguests around the kitchen table so Maddy had been busy ferrying what was needed from the kitchen while Sam and Luke made calf’s eyes at each other, when they weren’t being interrupted by Nathan asking them what they knew about
Peppa Pig
. Give them their due, thought Maddy as she plonked a jug of orange juice down, Luke and Sam were very patient, which made her warm to them even more. They were all settling down to coffee and toast and Maddy was just about to pour the orange juice when the phone rang.

Maddy frowned. Who on earth...? And at this time on a Saturday morning. She put down the jug, pulled her dressing-gown cord tight about her and went to answer it.

‘Will? What can I do for you?’

‘Can I speak to Seb?’

‘Of course.’

Maddy went to fetch her husband and then carried on serving breakfast.

She’d barely finished pouring coffee for everyone when Seb returned. ‘Wouldn’t you know it,’ he said, shaking his head.

‘Know what?’

‘Will’s got it on good authority that that wretched exercise is going to kick off today with an emergency crash-out.’