The Soldier's Wife Read Online Free PDF Page B

proud of him!’
    â€˜He’s sweet to her,’ Elaine said. ‘And to Isabel. Perhaps he’ll be a good influence. Perhaps he’ll persuade Lex that letting a child grow up without many rules only makes for unhappiness all round.’
    â€˜You mean the gumboots.’
    Elaine cast a quick look at her cream sofa. ‘So –
odd
. And Lex in jeans.’
    â€˜She’s always in jeans.’
    Elaine looked across the room. On a reproduction eighteenth-century French console table against the far wall was a photograph of Richard Maybrick, the same photograph that his daughter Isabel would have, eight years later, in her bedroom at Larkford Camp.
    â€˜She’s been through so much,’ Elaine said. ‘I just don’t want there to be any more. No more worries and separations and choices. I wish Dan wasn’t a soldier. I wish he was a lawyer or a doctor, someone who came home at night, someone with a career and not – not a
calling
.’
    She turned her head away. Morgan put his arm back round her shoulders and offered her a clean white handkerchief.
    â€˜I know,’ he said.
    â€˜I think you should ring Mrs L,’ Eric Riley said to his son.
    They had moved on from tea to beer. George was drinking his from the can; Eric, from a glass. They were each on their second beer. They never drank more than two, and if George went to the pub on his way home for a top-up, he never mentioned it to his father.
    â€˜Why me?’
    â€˜They’ll be wondering, that’s why,’ Eric said. ‘It’s bloody manners.’
    â€˜But Alexa’ll ring them—’
    â€˜Not with Dan back, she won’t. She won’t ring anyone. Get on that phone and tell Mrs L the plane’s landed and we can all breathe easy.’
    â€˜I’ll do it from home.’
    Eric pointed across the room to where his telephone sat on the small cloth-covered table where George’s mother had first put it, eighteen years before.
    â€˜You’ll bloody well do it now.’
    George put his beer can down and stood up. ‘I’ve got nothing to tell her—’
    â€˜You have. Dan’s back in England. That’s all she needs to know. Get on with it.’
    George moved reluctantly towards the telephone. He hated telephones, always had. He preferred to walk miles to deliver a message, rather than say it down a phone line.
    â€˜Can’t remember the number.’
    â€˜It’s on the wall. On my list. Third one down.’
    â€˜Dad—’
    â€˜You’re useless,’ Eric said, heaving himself out of his chair. ‘Bloody useless. Just as well you didn’t apply to Signals or Logistics, they’d have laughed in your bloody face.’ He came slowly across the room, shuffling slightly in his leather slippers, the backs trodden down as they had been in all the identical pairs of slippers George could remember him wearing, all his life. He held his hand out. ‘Give it here, you moron.’
    George handed him the telephone. He was grinning. ‘Thanks, Dad.’
    â€˜Sing out the number.’
    George watched his father’s big fingers jabbing at the numbers on the handset. If your hands looked at home ramming a shell up the breech of a gun, they never looked quite right when required to do anything domestic. It still amazed George to see his father making a sandwich. It was as surprising as finding an elephant able to do it.
    â€˜That you, Mrs L?’ Eric shouted into the receiver. ‘Good. Good … Yes, not too bad, thank you, nothing death won’t take care of … Yes. Yes. That’s why I’m ringing. His plane’s landed, and he should be on his way home, or home by now … No. He didn’t want that. He wanted them at home, waiting for him … No idea, Mrs L. Who’s to say what’s in a man’s mind after six months in the bloody desert? … No. No, I shouldn’t. Leave them to