Civvy Street (13 page)

‘Not to anyone
at all
,’ said James, firmly. ‘It’d be too easy to let something slip.’

Sam shrugged. ‘If you say so.’

The others nodded in agreement and there were murmurs of ‘none of our business, anyway’ and ‘you’re probably right’.

James wasn’t sure if the genie had been put back in the bottle but he’d done his best.

*

Maddy saw Camilla check her watch and gaze around the table in the dining room of the ex-brigadier’s quarter and now soon-to-be-converted communities centre and at the wives she’d coerced or co-opted to be on her committee. The room was chilly, despite the fact that it was the beginning of July, and there was a faint smell of damp. It would be different when the building was in proper use again and the sooner that happened the better it would be for everyone in the battalion. If this meeting was going to move things along then Maddy was all in favour of it – even if she knew it was going to mean a shedload of unpaid work.

Camilla pushed an A4 pad of paper and a pen in Maddy’s direction and said, ‘And I’m sure you don’t mind taking the minutes, Maddy, do you?’

Maddy was tempted to counter that she blooming well did, but instead she picked up the pen and quickly listed the names of the attendees she knew. There were a couple who she had to get to introduce themselves and then she was done.

‘Right,’ said Camilla. ‘Shall we get on?’

There was a definite inference, thought Maddy, that she had deliberately held up proceedings by trying to do a proper job with the minutes. She resisted the temptation to hand the job back to Camilla but, instead, she sighed and gritted her teeth.

‘As you know,’ said Camilla, ‘we’ve received funding from various sources and the garrison commander has approved the conversion of this house in principle, but before anything can go any further we need to be in agreement of what we all want from this amenity. I’ve had a number of suggestions and now I want to see if the wives, whom you represent, agree.’

The wives around the table, who had been drawn from a cross-section of the battalion, nodded. In addition to the wives, the regimental admin officer was present as he also had the role of paymaster for the battalion and if businesses were run in this centre he would need to oversee the accounting and auditing.

‘So,’ said Camilla, ‘here are the proposals.’ She ran through the ideas for a coffee shop and a crèche, both of which would be open every morning from nine o’clock till twelve thirty, plus the hairdressing salon upstairs, open for the same hours, and the general space where groups like the choir and the book club could meet which would be available to interested parties right up to ten in the evening. Then she showed them rough plans as to how the house would be divided up to accommodate them. There were nods of assent. ‘All we have to do now is to find some lovely willing volunteers to run these facilities,’ trilled Camilla, looking expectantly and significantly at those assembled around her.

Instantly the wives looked in any direction but Camilla’s.

‘Come on now,’ she cajoled.

‘I think I might have someone lined up for the crèche,’ said Maddy.

Camilla nodded in approval before saying, ‘How about the hairdresser? Any talented wives here?’

Still not catching her eye, heads were shaken.

‘I think,’ said Maddy, ‘we ought to put an ad in the garrison newsletter. We may not have anyone who would like to do it from 1 Herts but I bet someone in the garrison could.’

‘I’ll leave that with you, Maddy, then.’

The saccharine sweetness in Camilla’s voice made Maddy’s toes curl.

‘I’ll get on the case.’

‘And you’ll talk to your childminder friend, too? She needs to see the regimental admin officer to get the paperwork sorted.’

Maddy nodded. ‘It’s Caro Edwards. She’s the wife of B Company’s new 2IC but she’s not here yet.’

‘Well, talk to her anyway. You don’t mind, do you?’

This might be Camilla’s committee and Camilla would get all the praise from the brass for setting up the community centre, but it seemed to Maddy it was she who was doing the donkey work. Ho hum.

*

Caro picked up the phone before Josh could get to it. The four-year-old thought it the best fun to shout ‘smelly poo pants’ followed by shrieks of high-pitched giggles to whoever the poor unsuspecting caller was. Of course, if it was some spammer Caro couldn’t care less, but on a number of occasions it had been someone who mattered and who hadn’t been amused.

‘Caro, it’s me, Maddy.’

‘Maddy! How lovely to hear from you.’

‘How’s the move going?’

‘Don’t ask,’ said Caro with a heartfelt sigh. ‘But I’m getting the cleaners in. No way can I bring this place up to snuff with the kids underfoot. While it’s going to be great for Oliver to change school in the summer holidays it doesn’t make life easy for me.’

‘No, I can imagine,’ said Maddy. ‘Anyway, I have a proposition for you – a job here.’

‘I haven’t been dicked for something already with the battalion? I haven’t even left this place yet!’

‘You guessed it, but it’s a good dicked.’

‘There is
never
a
good
dicked.’

‘You’ll get paid.’

‘Oh. Well, that’s different. What is it?’

Caro listened while Maddy told her about the new community centre and the proposal for a crèche and that Camilla Rayner thought that Caro was the perfect person to run it.

‘So, this is going to be on a proper commercial basis?’

‘Yes. The profits will go back to the battalion welfare fund – if there are any – but you’ll get paid a wage. I don’t know all the nitpicky details, the regimental admin officer is dealing with that side of things. I can let you have his number if you’d like to go over that aspect with him. And there’s lots of form-filling to do, as you can imagine. Oh, and I’ll email you the plans for the rooms being converted for the crèche. You may want to check they contain everything you’ll need – you’re getting a little bathroom and loo and a tiny kitchenette so you can heat up food and milk and stuff but I’m no expert as to what else you’ll need.’

‘Thanks, I’d like that – and that phone number. I have to say this is a first; to have a job ready and waiting for me. Are you thinking of going back to work?’

Maddy’s sigh gusted over the connection. ‘Honestly, what with the kids and one thing and another it just doesn’t seem possible. Luckily, we don’t need the money so much now since Seb’s prom—’

But Caro didn’t hear why Maddy didn’t need the money because Josh chose that moment to fall backwards off the arm of the sofa and was screaming blue murder.

Caro said goodbye to Maddy hastily as she rushed to see how badly Josh had hurt himself. After a cuddle and a biscuit Josh decided he was feeling sufficiently better for Caro to resume what she’d been doing before; working out the kit they’d need to have with them in the car for the trip to their new home and what could be packed by the removal men. Why, she wondered, didn’t moving, even after half a dozen times, ever become any easier?

*

Susie was also thinking about packing but, unlike Caro who was looking forward to her move, Susie was dreading her own one. It wasn’t just the hassle of the move, it was the change in lifestyle, the massive drop in income, the effect it was going to have on the twins, to say nothing of what it was doing to Mike’s state of mind. Since his ‘lapse’ he had been completely down; beating himself up about getting so drunk, being a loser, being a burden... Susie tried to be cheerful, tried to be supportive, but the reality was she couldn’t keep shouldering everything all the time. Him moping and moaning about how life wasn’t fair was getting her down too, and she didn’t have the time or the energy to waste on bitching about it or, alternatively, trying to look on the bright side to stop herself from wanting to take a leap off Beachy Head. Someone had to spit on their hands and crack on because Mike didn’t seem to be able to.

As she was digging out her airing cupboard and piling the spare room bed high with linen she heard the rattle of the letter box. In need of displacement activity, she pottered downstairs to see what the postman had delivered; an envelope addressed to Mike and some bumph from a double glazing company. Ha! Like the army was about to invest in that. She sighed as she put Mike’s letter on the hall table – no doubt yet another rejection. She thought about just chucking it in the bin. The poor man didn’t need yet another kick in the crotch.

She returned upstairs and carried on sorting and doing until she heard the front door slam. She glanced at her watch – lunchtime.

‘Hi,’ she said as she ran downstairs.

Mike was standing at the bottom, the open letter in his hand. Uh-oh.

‘I don’t bloody believe it. I don’t!’

Susie was about to mutter something sympathetic when she saw the expression on his face.

‘What is it?’

‘I’ve got a job. I’ve only gone and got a bloody job!’

‘What? What?!’ Susie felt ridiculously excited by this news.

‘I’m emergency planning officer for Winterspring District Council.’

‘Which means you’ll be doing what?’

‘Flood defences, that sort of thing. Setting up temporary mortuaries in the event of an airliner crashing in the area.’

‘Oh, Mike. I am so pleased.’

‘What? About the chance of an air disaster?’

‘No, numpty. I’m so pleased about the job.’ She gazed at him with real fondness.

‘You’re pleased?’ Mike grabbed Susie round the waist and planted a fat kiss on her cheek. ‘Maybe things are finally looking up.’

‘What’s the salary?’

Mike sighed. ‘Well... not brilliant to start with; only twenty-eight thousand, but it’ll increase over time.’

‘Bit of a drop for you.’

Mike nodded. ‘But with your pay... And it comes with a company car. I have to do a fair bit of travelling.’

‘Hey, that’s a perk and it really doesn’t matter if you’re earning less than you are right now. It’s just wonderful you’ve got a job. A proper job.’ Susie paused. ‘Of course, with both of us working we’ll have to budget for childcare. I don’t think the twins are old enough to be left alone when they come home from school. But, hey, you’ve got a job and that’s just brilliant and we can cross the childcare bridge later. When do you start?’

‘In a few weeks. I’ll still be on resettlement leave so I’ll still be getting paid for this job. We’ll be on double money for a bit.’

‘Good,’ said Susie, emphatically. ‘Glad to know you can squeeze the last drops out of the army. Though, considering what they have done to us and the kids, they owe us. Big time.’

Mike laughed – laughed for the first time in an age. ‘You sound like Don Corleone,’ he said.

‘If I could get my own back on the army and I thought it would do any good, I’d
behave
like Don Corleone!’

After Mike had returned to work Susie popped across the road to share the good news with Maddy who was, predictably, almost as chuffed as her neighbour.

‘Oh, Susie, I am so pleased for you. That must be such a relief.’

‘It wasn’t just the money – because we’d be really struggling on just what I’m going to be earning,’ Susie admitted. ‘It was the whole macho, not-being-the-man-of-the-house, wearing-the-trousers, being-the-breadwinner thing that was getting Mike down. It didn’t help that I only went for one job and I got it, while I dread to think how many he applied for.’

‘But you can’t beat yourself up about you getting lucky first time out.’

Susie looked Maddy steadily in the eye. ‘We both know my
luck
had a helping hand.’

‘Truly, Susie, if Seb hadn’t reckoned that you can make a proper fist of the job, he wouldn’t have given it to you. You must have impressed him to have been right up there in the running.’

‘Maybe.’ Susie looked doubtful. ‘Anyway, at least now we can start to move forward.’

‘And talking of moving...?’

‘All being well, we exchange contracts next week. The people moving out are going into rented accommodation and we don’t have a place to sell so there’s no chain and this is all very straightforward. The advantage is that we can probably get in and get everything straight before the girls come back from school.’

‘Have they seen the house?’

Susie shook her head. ‘It’s going to be an interesting moment when they do. I mean a quarter is hardly palatial but... well, you’ve seen the place. And the estate.’ Her happy mood evaporated. There was no getting over the fact that the place was a dump and their neighbours... Mike had called the estate ASBO Central. ‘And then it’s going to be even more interesting when I take them to see their new school which I’m going to do as soon as they come home for their summer hols. The comp doesn’t break up till the week after Browndown so I’ve arranged for them to visit it and meet their head of year.’

‘Where are you going to send them?’

‘Winterspring Comp.’

‘What’s it like?’

‘Modern, big. Nine tutor groups in each year.’

‘
Nine?!
’

Susie nodded. ‘I know... don’t.’ It was so far from ideal but they had no choice – not if they couldn’t afford to pay for education. ‘Over a thousand kids go there. Once you get away from the private sector you enter a whole other world. But there’s a bus from the village every morning so that means Mike and I don’t have to juggle a school run along with getting to work on time. And going on the school bus should help them to make new friends. And they’re bright girls so they ought to be in the top set for everything and there’s lots of kids that go from the comp to uni so the move shouldn’t wreck their educational chances.’ Susie wondered if she was trying to convince herself as much as Maddy that she and Mike had made the right choice. And maybe she was exaggerating about the ‘lots of kids that go from the comp to uni’ bit. A few did, for sure, but from what Susie had ascertained it was a pretty small minority. Still, her girls would surely be amongst that minority – given the educational start they’d had. Susie was fully aware, though, that regardless of that start the comp wasn’t going to provide the same social chances. Half the thing about going into private education was to do with the Old Boy or Old Girl network. There’d be precious little chance of a network of any description at Winterspring Comprehensive.