A Regimental Affair (32 page)

Twenty minutes later they all left Granny Flo’s. Ginny carried the holdall hefted on to her shoulder. Granny Flo pushed Lisa in her buggy and Flossie and Barnaby raced on up the road out of the town with Jack running behind, his stubby legs whirling as he yelled at them to slow down, a request that his elder siblings pointedly ignored as the gap between them grew. Behind them, from the west, the weather threatened further rain. Granny Flo and Ginny both noted the impending squall and hurried after the other children. As they followed the road as it swung slightly inland, or as far inland as it could go on an island that measures barely two miles by three, a man with a large holdall came into view from the opposite direction. He was wearing a belted raincoat and a baseball cap. Beneath his coat, visible between the open lapels, Ginny could see he was wearing a collar and tie. She was reminded of the men she’d seen hanging around the gates of the barracks when she had fled at the weekend. She thought about the recent helicopter and wondered if this man might have been a passenger – it was not inconceivable that he could have been, and the road they were on went past the airport. Feeling as though she was overreacting to what was, after all, a vague hunch, Ginny pulled her scarf up until it was over her nose and swapped the holdall over to her other shoulder so that it came between her and the approaching stranger. Granny Flo threw her a faintly curious look but didn’t say anything. The stranger passed, giving them a long look as he ambled down the road.

‘So what was all that about?’ asked Granny Flo when the man was out of earshot.

‘What?’ said Ginny, trying to appear casual.

‘You didn’t want that bloke to see you. Who was he?’

Granny Flo never ceased to amaze Ginny. She might be in her mid-seventies but nothing got past her. Her sharp blue eyes saw everything and her mind was still able to put two and two together faster than an accountant with a calculator.

‘I don’t know.’

Granny Flo halted and stared at Ginny with raised eyebrows, disbelief obvious.

‘OK, I haven’t a clue who he is but I just wondered if he might be a reporter. Someone recognised me today and I’m worried they may have tipped off the papers.’

‘Who recognised you? A local?’ Granny Flo was livid with the idea that an islander might betray one of her relations.

‘I don’t know who the hell it was. It was just someone I ran into at the hospital.’

‘What, a nurse?’

‘No, a bloke in a hurry.’

Ahead of them. Jack, still trying to catch his brother and sister, was tiring. He stumbled and then fell. Even against the wind from the west, Granny Flo and Ginny could hear the roar. Ginny dropped the holdall, and ran up the road until she reached the small figure lying sprawled on the tarmac. She bent down and scooped up the little boy. Holding her nephew tightly in her arms she managed to haul up the leg of his jeans and take a look at his knee. It was red from the bang on the road but the skin was intact. There would be a bruise later but there was no real damage done.

‘Ooh. Poor Jack. Aunty Ginny’ll kiss it better.’

Ginny bent her head to his knee and Jack roared all the louder. Flossie and Barnaby returned down the road to investigate. Flossie looked at his knee.

‘Don’t be a baby. Jack. There isn’t even a proper bruise,’ she said witheringly.

‘It looks very sore,’ said Ginny firmly.
Really
, she thought,
what a little madam Flossie’s growing into
. And so like her mother in many ways. Ginny could well remember the crushing put-downs Netta had delighted in scoring against her big sister.

She pitied Rose. If this was how she treated Jack, only four years her junior, Flossie was going to boss her littlest sister horribly. Just like Netta had bossed her. Ginny reckoned that there was a dominant bossy gene on that side of the family. She half wished she had it too. Despite ten years in the army, she was, sadly, sometimes lacking in assertiveness. Obviously this was not a trait that Flossie was going to be lumbered with. She gave Jack a sympathetic squeeze and he, aware that for once someone was sticking up for him, stopped bawling and smiled smugly at his aunt. Flossie, having been proved right that Jack’s knee wasn’t as sore as he had made out, gave Ginny a look that couldn’t have said ‘I told you so’ more clearly if she’d had it tattooed across her young forehead, before continuing on her way up the road towards the farm.

Petroc was still out when the family thundered into the kitchen. Instantly Flossie made a beeline for her room to make sure everything was as she had left it. Barnaby embarked on raiding the cupboards and the fridge for crisps and milk, and Jack stomped off calling the names of the cats. Ginny felt that if the cats had any sense they would keep their heads well down. Lisa, seeing most of her nearest and dearest had abandoned her, put her arms up as a signal that she wanted out of her buggy. Granny Flo bustled about; she sorted out Lisa, put the kettle on to boil, peered in the fridge to check out the selection of vegetables, put on an apron and got out a chopping board and knife almost before Ginny had her coat off.

‘Make yourself useful, me flower, and scrape these,’ said Granny Flo, handing Ginny a couple of potatoes, a carrot and a swede. Ginny looked about the kitchen vaguely for the potato peeler. ‘It’s in the drawer by the sink,’ said Granny Flo, reading her mind.

Ginny got busy. She had just finished cleaning the veg when the phone went. She dabbed her hands on the front of her jeans and went over to the dresser where the phone lived.

‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Pengelly Farm.’

‘Can I speak to Ginny Turner please,’ said a man’s voice. A voice Ginny had never heard before.

Ginny caught her breath. Shit, she thought. ‘I think you have the wrong number,’ she said, praying her voice sounded steady because she certainly didn’t feel it. Granny Flo stopped chopping and looked across the kitchen at her.

‘But you said Pengelly Farm,’ accused the voice.‘I’m sorry, there’s no one of that name here. Goodbye,’ she said and slammed the receiver down.

‘Who was that?’ asked Granny Flo calmly.

‘I don’t know. Someone who knew I’m here but I didn’t recognise the voice.’

Granny Flo raised her eyebrows. ‘Ah,’ she said. ‘You think it might be the press.’

‘Dunno. But if it was, how did they find me?’

‘You said yourself you’d been recognised.’

‘But that wouldn’t have given them an address.’

‘It’s a small island, ducks. And it isn’t as though there aren’t a lot of grockles around at the moment. Someone is bound to know who Netta’s sister is and that she has come to stay.’

‘What am I going to do?’

‘Sit tight and ignore them. That’s my advice.’

Ginny was just considering Granny Flo’s words of wisdom when the back door opened and in came Petroc. He greeted his mother, looked approvingly at the signs of the soup being prepared and then went to the door that led into the rest of the house and yelled, ‘Kids. Dad’s home.’

There was the sound of a small herd of large creatures approaching. It never ceased to amaze Ginny just how much noise four small children could make. Flossie erupted into the kitchen first with whoops of joy as if she had been away from her father for years, not just a couple of days. Jack managed to make it through the door just ahead of Barnaby who was still eating crisps, and Lisa toddled in last of all. One after the other they flung themselves at their father and despite the bedlam there was something about their arrival that reminded Ginny of the children forming up for Maria’s inspection in
The Sound of Music
. A thought struck her that made her smile, despite her worries about the imminent arrival of the press on the doorstep. She wondered if Netta was going for seven so she could form her own musical troupe.

‘Daddy, Ginny says Mummy may be coming out of hospital today. Can I go with you when you get her?’ demanded Flossie, once the excitement had died down.

‘And me,’ clamoured the others.

‘We’ll see,’ said Petroc vaguely. ‘There may not be room in the car for everyone.’

‘I asked first,’ said Flossie firmly, shooting a filthy look at her siblings.

The brewing row was interrupted by the phone ringing. Petroc grabbed it. He listened for a second then he held it out.

‘It’s for you,’ he said to Ginny.

Gingerly, Ginny took it. ‘Hello,’ she said.

‘Is that Ginny Turner?’ asked the voice Ginny recognised from the earlier call.

‘Sod off,’ she yelled into the receiver and then slammed it back on its rests.

She turned back to the others, shaking slightly. ‘I’m sorry, Petroc. I shouldn’t have sworn in front of the kids.’

‘Who was it?’ he asked, bemused.

‘The press, I think. I don’t know how they’ve tracked me down but they have. If anyone else calls for me please don’t tell them I’m here. The people that I need to speak to have my mobile number so they shouldn’t call on your phone.’

‘OK.’ Petroc shrugged. ‘But in a place this size, if someone wants to find you, they will.’

‘It’ll only be a five-minute wonder. In a couple of days there’ll be some other story for them. I reckon I can keep my head down until then.’

‘Well, I won’t let them on the farm, that’s for certain.’

The kids, realising that their father was busy, began to drift off to do other things. As Jack toddled out of the kitchen, he was crowing ‘sod off, sod off, to the tune of ‘Baa, Baa, Black Sheep’.

Chapter Twenty-One

Alice was staring glumly at the paper. Sarah, sitting across the kitchen table from her, was at a loss for words. They had gone over and over the story, nit-picking every word, examining every detail, looking at every nuance, every double entendre, each smutty innuendo, until Sarah was fed up with the whole thing. Not that she could say so. Alice needed her support and if this dissection was what Alice wanted to do, then so be it.

‘It’s so much worse than I thought it would be. It’s all so …’ Alice stopped, searching for the right word. ‘… so seedy. And to think we’re in the middle of it.’ She looked up at Sarah. Sarah thought Alice looked as though she had aged a dozen years since the party at New Year. Her normally immaculate grooming had been neglected; her hair was lank and in need of a wash and looked flat and thin, and her skin, devoid of make-up, was pale and lined. There was even a mark down the front of her sweater. ‘You know, you read of other people going through this sort of thing and it’s just words on a page. Yes, I felt quite sorry for Hillary Clinton when that dreadful Monica Lewinsky was front-page news, but I had no idea about the awfulness of finding out that one’s husband has been unfaithful and that the whole world knows and, what’s more, knows all the grubby details. The reality is so ghastly. Sickening.’

Sarah nodded sympathetically. She couldn’t imagine the turmoil and hurt that was besieging Alice.

‘Have you heard from Bob?’ she asked gently.

Alice nodded. ‘He’s phoned a couple of times. Last night to say he’d arrived safely at his brother’s house and then this morning after he had seen the paper.’

‘What did he think about it?’

Alice snorted. ‘He was quite ashamed. As well he might be.’ There was a catch in her voice and Sarah pushed the box of tissues towards her. Alice shook her head and straightened her shoulders, refusing to give in to more tears.

‘And Megan?’

‘She won’t talk. She’s shut herself in her room. She says she’s been betrayed by the only two people in the world she loved.’

‘You haven’t done anything.’ Sarah was angry with Megan for blaming her mother, who was as much of a victim as she was.

‘She meant Ginny,’ said Alice icily.

Oh God
, thought Sarah. To have Megan make hurtful comments on top of everything else was appalling. Poor, poor, Alice.

‘I knew their friendship was wrong. I knew I should have stopped it. I’ve always thought she was a bad influence, but no. Bob insisted that Megan would like to go to Alton Towers and he wouldn’t listen to me. I knew no good would come out of that trip, and it hasn’t.’ For a second, Alice looked almost triumphant at having been proved right but then she seemed to collapse again. ‘What I don’t understand is why she did it.’

‘What?’ Sarah didn’t follow Alice’s train of thought.

‘Why she felt she had to have Bob and Megan? They are my family, nothing to do with her, so why did she try to take both of them away from me? What was she trying to prove?’

‘Do you think it was as deliberate as that?’

‘I don’t know.’ She sounded almost defeated.

The phone rang. Sarah looked at Alice, who nodded. Sarah went across and picked it up.

‘Yes,’ she said guardedly.

‘Alice?’ asked a woman’s voice.

‘No. Who’s speaking?’

‘It’s Debbie.’

Sarah relaxed. ‘Hi, Debbie. It’s Sarah here. Can I help you?’

‘I wanted to speak to Alice. I feel I owe her an apology.’

‘Hang on.’ Sarah put her hand over the mouthpiece and relayed the message to Alice.

‘Does she want to come round?’ said Alice lifelessly.

‘Do you want her to?’

‘I can’t stay a recluse for ever.’

‘OK,’ Sarah told Debbie.

‘I’ll be round in a tick.’

Sarah replaced the receiver.

‘Did she say why she needs to apologise?’

Sarah shook her head. ‘No. I’ll put the kettle on, shall I?’

Alice sighed. ‘Tea. The British cure-all. The great panacea. Only it doesn’t work.’

‘No, I don’t expect it does. Not for things like this.’

‘No. It doesn’t put a ruined marriage back together.’

‘Is it as bad as that? Is it ruined?’

Alice looked up bleakly. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know if I can forgive him. If I can ever trust him again. Was this the first time? What else will I find if I dig around? After all,’ she gave a hollow laugh, ‘he hardly volunteered this information, did he? He only came clean when he had no choice. I’ve got all these questions and doubts and I can’t answer them. And worse, if I ask Bob, how can I be sure that I’m getting a truthful answer?’

The doorbell rang. ‘That’ll be Debbie,’ said Sarah, stating the obvious. She went to answer it.