Free The Soldier's Wife by Joanna Trollope Page B

Tassy, ‘What an ungrateful and horrible thing to do.’
    Outside the window, Dan waited. The scene within made his heart turn over, even Tassy’s face, now scarlet with fury, her mouth a square of howling. He would give Alexa a minute more to cope alone and then he would go in, unannounced, and be the great and marvellous distraction. He watched her pick up Tassy and carry her, sticky and screaming,from the room, while Flora, having clocked the whole upset calmly from behind the one open lens of her spectacles, was proceeding with her cutting with ostentatious tranquillity. Slowly, with the air of one uncertain of his reception, Beetle rose from the floor and resumed his steady, avid watching.
    Alexa came back into the room and retrieved the thrown piece of cookie dough. Flora didn’t look up. She laid two perfectly executed rounds beside one another. ‘
I’m
not screaming,’ she said.
    â€˜Nor you are.’
    â€˜I’m just doing
good
cutting.’
    Dan could not bear to be a watcher any more. He stepped sideways and tapped on the window. Flora took no notice, but Alexa and Beetle were galvanized into action. Beetle rushed barking to the front door and Alexa came to open the window.
    She leaned out to kiss him. She said, in a voice that seemed to absolve him from all events earlier in the day, ‘Would you like to come in and deal with your own home-grown Taliban?’
    He held her shoulders. She smelled of baking and shampoo. ‘Sorry I was so long.’
    â€˜It was six months last time,’ she said, ‘so what’s half a day?’
    He felt limp with something close to adoration. He said, ‘Sorry all the same.’
    â€˜I must go and open the door for Beetle. He’s going mad.’
    She straightened up and ran across the kitchen towards the hallway.
    â€˜Hello,’ Dan said to Flora, through the open window.
    She turned to regard him briefly. ‘When these are cooked,’ she said, ‘you can have one.
If
I say so.’
    â€˜Sorry I haven’t rung earlier,’ Dan said, into his telephone.
    He was lying on the sofa in the sitting room, across the room from the television, which was turned on, with the volume down to mute. Alexa had done something to the room while he was away, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was that made it look so much warmer and more coherent. His Union Jack cushion was still there, and the brass shell case on the hearth, which now housed a collection of mad wooden tropical birds on sticks rather than a poker and tongs, but there seemed to be more colour somehow, and it looked softer. Were those different curtains? And was the striped rug new or just from another place?
    â€˜I didn’t expect you to ring,’ George said mildly, from Wimbledon. ‘I knew you were safe. Your granddad would’ve shot me if I’d bothered you.’
    â€˜I would too!’ Eric shouted from the background.
    â€˜Are you at Granddad’s now?’
    â€˜Yes, lad,’ George said. ‘It’s Tuesday. I’m here Tuesdays and Fridays. Wednesday he goes to bingo.’
    â€˜Not a soul under seventy there!’ Eric shouted.
    â€˜I’m fine, you know,’ Dan said. ‘I’m lying on the sof—the settee, with my boots off.’
    â€˜And a beer, I hope.’
    â€˜Actually,’ Dan said, ‘having a dry night. I tend to cane it a bit when I get back.’
    â€˜I remember,’ George said. ‘I remember getting wellied for nights and nights.’
    â€˜It was that bloody woman!’ Eric bellowed.
    Dan raised his voice slightly. ‘You’re speaking of my mother, Granddad.’
    George laughed. ‘He never misses the chance, does he? You sleeping?’
    â€˜On and off.’
    â€˜Sometimes,’ George said, ‘I didn’t want to close my eyes. That’s when all the pictures came back.’
    â€˜It’s certainly an