Authors: G. L. Watt
September 1990
Although I was still half asleep, I knew it was Saturday and that I didn’t have to get up early. The alarm had activated, but I switched it off, and snuggled back under the bed clothes. In my befuddled state I thought I heard a noise and as consciousness emerged, I realised that I was not alone.
In a split second, even with my eyes closed, I knew that Danny was here. He had come home and was by my side.
“Hello, darling,” he said, stooping beside me. “I didn’t know whether to knock on the door or just come in. I wasn’t sure which would give you the least shock.”
In the half light I sat up and put my arms around his neck and kissed him. “Oh, Danny,” I said. “What a lovely surprise.”
“Mmm, you smell nice.”
“Whatever are you doing here? You didn’t tell me. I didn’t know you were coming. I’d have got up if I had known.”
“I’m being deployed somewhere for a few weeks. Only found out last night, which means that I won’t be able to get back for your birthday, so I asked them if I could have a weekend pass. I’m sorry. God, I’m shattered. I’ve been travelling all night. I thought if I got the first military flight into RAF Northolt, I would be home sooner than on a civil flight to Heathrow. I’ll go and put on the kettle. I’m desperate for a cuppa. In-flight coffee always seems to taste stale to me. Shall I bring one for you too? Then I’ll grab a shower.”
“Let me do it. You have the shower while I get the tea.”
I got out of bed and picked up my robe from where I had discarded it on the floor the night before. Swapping places, he sat down on the bed and undid his shirt. Under it he wore a tight khaki t-shirt that I’d never seen before with military dog-tags glinting on top of it. I tried to slip past him but he pulled me close and kissed my stomach and the metal felt cold against my skin. We hadn’t been together for over two months and the muscles in his upper arms seemed to be much harder than I remembered.
“Just look at you,” I said. “Have you been working out?”
“Well, there’s nothing much else to do except drink, of course. And that’s the quick route to hell. A lot of the guys go down it though. God, I’ll be glad to finally get home again for good.”
I resisted the temptation to kiss him again, looking forward to all the kisses I would get in a few minutes time. Instead, I went into the kitchen to make the tea, leaving him pulling off his boots.
Since our marriage, nearly two years ago, we had managed only sixty three days together, including two Christmases and a holiday last year when we were able to tour Austria. Frustratingly, it was never enough. But, as Danny insisted that I should complete my course, we didn’t have any choice. Being married to a man who was working abroad meant that I either had to build a social life for myself without him or manage without any. I chose the latter. This meant that apart from seeing my family I stayed home and studied. I was determined to pass my exams with flying colours as I couldn’t bear the thought of extending my course any further. I felt that I had suffered enough.
The end finally came a month ago, and now I was signed up with an agency for temporary work, which supplied me with spasmodic gainful employment. This in itself seemed a novelty, as I had been a student for what seemed like forever. I knew I was a lot more fortunate than most of my colleagues because Danny had insisted that we had a joint bank account and on top of that the Army sent me money! Apparently some soldiers couldn’t be trusted to provide properly for their wives and so the Army did it for them. I felt a bit silly taking my allowance book to the post office, but because I had it, I tried not to raid our joint account as well.
Because of the work Danny had been doing, we hadn’t even been able to have a summer holiday, this year, and at times, our married life seemed almost non-existent. I couldn’t wait for his tour in Germany to come to an end, so that we could start afresh. Few good things had come out of the separation, but one of them was that with Dad’s help and Danny’s money, I learned to drive.
I was also able to satisfy my desire for an artistic life by spending my weekends visiting exhibitions and galleries in London, and sometimes drove up to Kenwood Gallery on Hampstead Heath.
I had tried to put the traumatising experience with the IRA collectors out of my mind. I did not notice any IRA activity and realised that Danny’s comments about the police were right, and that they must have moved away. I got up the nerve to venture out further afield, on foot and often wandered around the local shops without constantly looking over my shoulder for impending danger.
As soon as he finishes in the bathroom, I decided, I’ll have a shower, too. Then I can find out what’s got him here. I placed the tea and some biscuits on a tray and carried it through to our bedroom but he was lying on my side of the bed, flat out on his belly, with his eyes closed.
“Danny,” I said softly. “I’ve brought you some tea.”
He didn’t open his eyes but mumbled, “I’ll only be a minute. Don’t put your bra on.”
I put the tray down and went out to have a shower. When I returned minutes later, he was still exactly as I had left him, so I carefully placed the covers over him and tucked him in. I kissed the back of his head and he muttered something and sighed.
Throughout the day I kept checking on him but apart from two robotic trips to the lavatory, that I had to flush after him, he stayed sleeping. Several times I sat quietly by the bed, watching him breathing, resisting the urge to touch him. It was so wonderful to have him home—even asleep—he managed to fill my being.
At around five-thirty, I really felt that he had slept long enough and I made him a large mug of coffee. I woke him gently and he stared at me for a moment, as if not sure where he was.
“Oh, Christ,” he muttered. “What time is it? Have I been sleeping long?”
I nodded. “It’s five-thirty. I didn’t like to wake you; I guess I thought you probably needed the rest.”
He moaned and turned over. “I travelled through the night so that we’d have more time together. Now I’ve wasted it and I’m starving. Do you mind if we eat first? I didn’t have time for much yesterday.”
“You just drink this coffee. That will make you feel a bit better, and then I’ll run a bath for you, if you like.”
“No, I’ll have a shower. It’ll be quicker and wake me up more. Tonight I want to get dressed up for once! I’m sick of slobbing out.”
He yawned, rubbed his eyes, and gazed around, as if still not sure he was here. While he was in the shower, I changed my clothes and when he came out, his face lit up with a smile.
“That’s nice,” he said. “I haven’t seen that dress before. Nice colour; it suits you. When did you get it?”
My dress was almost magenta in colour, had small white flowers scattered across, and had a heart-shaped neckline.
“I bought it last week to wear on my birthday, but if you aren’t going to be here, I might as well wear it tonight.”
His face fell. “Marrying me has ruined your life, hasn’t it? I’m so sorry, darling. It wasn’t such a good idea, was it?”
I was frightened. “What are you saying? Nothing could be further from the truth. You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me. My life isn’t ruined, I’ve got you, I live here, I just gained a qualification that without you I wouldn’t have dreamed of trying for. How can you say you’ve spoiled my life? I love you! Silly boy.”
“I’m sorry. I love you, too. Oh, I shall be so glad when we can get back to a normal life together,” he said wearily. Then he looked up and smiled, more like the old Danny I knew. “Then we can work on producing the first members of the football team.”
“Aah, I was going to talk to you about that. Would you mind if there was a little girl somewhere in there, amongst the boys? I rather like the thought of having a daughter.”
“A miniature version of you? That’s a thought.” He bit his lip, shook his head and smiled at me again. “I’ll have to think about that. Okay, Mrs. Powell, where would you like to eat before I ravish you? I thought it might be nice to go back to that place in Hampstead where we had our first date. Remember it? What do you think?”
I nodded happily.
We arrived at the restaurant and pushed open its door to make the lovely discovery that nothing had changed. I felt reassured that this part of our personal heritage was still intact and sat down obediently where our waiter indicated. They still had the blackboard, and new, paper menus as well.
As the man moved away Danny began speaking quietly to me. “You won’t believe it but I was in England two weeks ago.”
“What? You didn’t tell me.”
“I know. I wasn’t allowed to. It was a real pain. I was with some Yankee unit in Suffolk. And they were a load of real condescending bastards. Drowning in bloody paranoia! The work was a bit sensitive and they didn’t trust us at all. I thought of sneaking out to find a phone box, but without any transport and in the middle of bloody nowhere, it seemed too difficult. I’ve been issued with two mobile phones, one to use and one to have on charge, but I wasn’t allowed to take them with me. Anyway, I’d just got back to Germany and settled back into the routine at the base and I was told I’ve got to go somewhere else. On Monday I have to report to a unit in Northern Ireland just for a few weeks.”
“No,” I said loudly. “I don’t want you to go there. It isn’t safe!”
“Sssh, darling, I’m a soldier. It’s what I do.” He laughed at me. “But don’t worry; you know I’m not in the infantry. I’m not going to be on patrol on the Shankill Road having bottles thrown at my head. I’ll probably have to spend the whole time cooped up in the barracks.”
I reached out and stroked his face. He held my hand there and kissed it.
“You will take care,” I said, suddenly feeling not the least hungry.
“Of course, I will. Now, what would you like to eat? I feel like an enormous steak, cooked really well, with mushrooms and onion rings. And they used to do great home-made apple pie here, too. I could eat a horse.”
“Yes, sir, what would you like?” The waiter appeared from nowhere and made Danny jump. We ordered our dishes and he went off to sort it out.
Danny leaned closer and said, “Now we must decide where we’re going to live. When this tour’s over I’m pretty sure they’ll send me back to Britain. I want to be in a position to influence where I get sent. There are three main options and although I’d prefer Catterick, it would be hard on you. The only towns around are not much more than large villages and I imagine accountancy jobs are a bit thin on the ground. There’s Middlesbrough and Newcastle but they’re miles, really too far. I wouldn’t want you driving all that way each day. I think Blandford is a better option. Although it’s only a market town, it’s quite near Salisbury and Bournemouth. What do you think?”
“Can’t we stay near here? I don’t really know either of them. What’s the third?”
“I don’t think staying here is really on the cards at the moment. Salisbury, itself, is the third choice, but I don’t really want to go there. Nothing wrong with the place, but the HQ is massive, not really my cup of tea. Wherever we go we’ll be able to buy a place in about a year, so again Blandford ticks all the boxes.”
“No, sweetheart, we won’t. Dad says the housing market is really strong and we’ll need a huge deposit for anything. He said he’ll help us but, what I was thinking was that, if we could live on your money for a bit longer and manage to save everything that I earn, for a couple of years or so,
then
we should be able to afford something.”
He paused. “There’s something that I haven’t told you, mainly because I didn’t want to get your hopes up too much. But I’ve been speaking to one of the camp’s legal wallahs and he seems to think it’ll be alright. When my granny died she bypassed Mum and Dad in her will and left everything to Gwenny and me in trust. We inherit on our twenty-fifth birthdays. Well, Gwen got hers a few years back and used it to put a deposit down on a house when she and Tom got married.” He stopped and looked down. “I thought Dad would find some way to stop me getting my share so I never told you about it. But this legal guy reckons trusts are really hard to break, that’s why people use them and that, even with a team of good lawyers Dad won’t be able to touch the money. So on my twenty-fifth birthday I should inherit. I was only fifteen when she died and ’cause Gwen was so much older, I was kind of surprised that I was included at all. Maybe knowing that the money was in the background gave me the courage to face out my father. I always kinda knew I’d be alright you see, whatever he did.”
“How much is it,” I asked.
“No idea, but although house prices have shot through the roof, if Gwen’s inheritance could help fund a loft in London, mine should be able to go toward a small house in Dorset or Wiltshire. What do you think?”
I felt so excited. “Wow, a real place of our own with our own things. That would be fabulous. We could decorate it anyway we wanted, landscape the garden, even get a dog…”
“Hold on. We haven’t got it yet. But it is a great thought, isn’t it? Ooh, look, here comes the steak. Gosh, that’s a wopper.”
Later, feeling full, we meandered slowly out of the restaurant and he said, “Before we drive back, do you mind if we go for a walk? It’s such a perfect night, warm and pleasant. I’d just like to spend a few minutes here with you looking at the stars over the heath.”
We walked slowly, arms entwined, and he looked up at the sky.
“One of the things that I’ve been doing is bouncing signals off satellites,” he said. “Can you imagine that there’s some contraption up there that’s been getting messages from me? And sending them back! If it were bigger, we might even be able to see it.”
On top of the hill we hugged each other. We will never have this moment again, I thought. It is perfect. However nice Blandford is we’ll never be able to replicate this night.
“You know, if I had a wish,” he said, “I would wish that I could magic you small and put you in my pocket. Then when things got tough I could just take you out and hold you in my hand and stroke you. Good God, whatever’s that?”
A searchlight moved across the distance.