‘I just might be there,’ I responded, quite truthfully.
‘Splendid!’ he gushed. ‘I must confess I thought you’d stumbled off the path when we spoke on the gasbag.’
‘Where is it being held?’
‘A bit hush-hush, old girl. Walls have ears, careless talk, all that rot. I’ll send a car for you. Seen this?’
He showed me the front page of The Mole. It was, like all the papers, almost exclusively devoted to the upcoming offensive that everyone thought was so likely there didn’t seem even the slightest hope that it wouldn’t happen. The last major battle had been in ‘75 and the memories and lessons of that particular mistake didn’t seem to have sunk in.
‘More coffee I said, sir!’ roared Phelps to the waiter, who had given him tea by mistake. ‘This new plasma rifle is going to clinch it, y’know. I’ve even thought of modifying my talk to include a request for anyone wanting a new life on the peninsula to start filing claims now. I understand from the Foreign Secretary’s office that we will need settlers to move in as soon as the Russians are evicted for good.’
‘Don’t you understand?’ I asked in an exasperated tone. ‘There won’t be an end. Not while we have troops on Russian soil.’
‘What’s that?’ murmured Phelps. ‘Mmm? Eh?’
He fiddled with his hearing aid and cocked his head to one side like a parakeet. I made a non-committal noise and left as soon as I could.
It was early; the sun had risen but it was still cold. It had rained during the night and the air was heavy with water. I put the roof of the car down in an attempt to blow away the memories of the night before, the anger that had erupted when I realised that I couldn’t forgive Landen. It was the dismay that I would always feel the same rather than the dismay over the unpleasant ending to the evening which upset me most. I was thirty-six, and apart from ten months with Filbert I had been alone for the past decade, give or take a drunken tussle or two. Another five years of this and I knew that I would be destined not to share my life with anyone.
The wind tugged at my hair as I drove rapidly along the sweeping roads. There was no traffic to speak of and the car was humming sweetly. Small pockets of fog had formed as the sun rose, and I drove through them as an airship flies through cloud. My foot rolled off the throttle as I entered the small parcels of gloom, then gently pressed down again as I burst free into the morning sun once more.
The village of Wanborough was not more than ten minutes’ drive from the Finis Hotel. I parked up outside the GSD temple—once a C of E church—and turned off the engine, the silence of the country a welcome break. In the distance I could hear some farm machinery but it was barely a rhythmical hum; I had never appreciated the peace of the country until I had moved to the city. I opened the gate and entered the well-kept graveyard. I paused for a moment, then ambled at a slow, respectful pace past the rows of well-tended graves. I hadn’t visited Anton’s memorial since the day I left for London, but I knew that he wouldn’t have minded. Much that we had appreciated about one another had been left unsaid. In humour, in life and in love, we had understood. When I arrived in Sebastapol to join the 3rd Wessex Tank Light Armoured Brigade, Landen and Anton were already good friends. Anton was attached to the brigade as signals captain; Landen was a lieutenant. Anton had introduced us; against strict orders we had fallen in love. I had felt like a schoolgirl, sneaking around the camp for forbidden trysts. In the beginning the Crimea just seemed like a whole barrel of fun. None of the bodies came home. It was a policy decision. But many had private memorials. Anton’s was near the end of the row, underneath the protective bough of an old yew and sandwiched between two other Crimean memorials. It was well kept up, obviously weeded regularly, and fresh flowers had recently been placed there. I stood by the unsophisticated grey limestone tablet and read the inscription. Simple and neat. His name, rank and the date of the charge. There was another stone not unlike this one sixteen hundred miles away marking his grave on the peninsula. Others hadn’t fared so well. Fourteen of my colleagues on the charge that day were still ‘unaccounted for’. It was military jargon for ‘not enough bits to identify’.
Quite suddenly I felt someone slap me on the back of my head. It wasn’t hard but enough to make me jump. I turned to find the GSD priest looking at me with a silly grin on his face.
‘Wotcha, Doofus!’ he bellowed.
‘Hello, Joffy,’ I replied, only slightly bemused. ‘Want me to break your nose again?’
‘I’m cloth now, sis!’ he exclaimed. ‘You can’t go around bashing the clergy!’
I stared at him for a moment.
‘Well, if I can’t bash you,’ I told him, ‘what can I do?’
‘We at the GSD are very big on hugs, sis.’
So we hugged, there in front of Anton’s memorial, me and my loopy brother Joffy, whom I had never hugged in my life.
‘Any news on Brainbox and the Fatarse?’ he asked.
‘If you mean Mycroft and Polly, no.’
‘Loosen up, sis. Mycroft is a Brainbox and Polly, well, she does have a fat arse.’
‘The answer’s still no. Mind you, she and Mum have put on a bit of weight, haven’t they?’
‘A bit? I should say. Tesco’s should open a superstore just for the pair of them.’
‘Does the GSD encourage such blatant personal attacks?’ I asked.
Joffy shrugged. ‘Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t,’ he answered. ‘That’s the beauty of the Global Standard Deity—it’s whatever you want it to be. And besides, you’re family so it doesn’t count.’
I looked around at the well-kept building and graveyard.
‘How’s it all going?’
‘Pretty well, thanks. Good cross-section of religions and even a few neanderthals, which is quite a coup. Mind you, attendances have almost trebled since I converted the vestry into a casino and introduced naked greasy-pole dancing on Tuesdays.’
‘You’re joking!’
‘Yes, of course I am, Doofus.’
‘You little shit!’ I laughed. ‘I am going to break your nose again!’
‘Before you do, do you want a cup of tea?’
I thanked him and we walked towards the vicarage.
‘How’s your arm?’ he asked.
‘It’s okay,’ I replied. Then, since I was eager to try to keep up with his irreverence, I added: ‘I played this joke on the doctor in London. I said to him when he rebuilt the muscles in my arm, “Do you think I’ll be able to play the violin?” and he said: “Of course!” and then I said: “That’s good, I couldn’t before!”‘
Joffy stared at me blank-faced. ‘SpecOps Christmas parties must be a riot, sis. You should get out more. That’s probably the worst joke I’ve ever heard.’
Joffy could be infuriating at times, but he probably had a point—although I wasn’t going to let him know it. So I said instead: ‘Bollocks to you, then.’
That did make him laugh.
‘You were always so serious, sis. Ever since you were a little girl. I remember you sitting in the living room staring at the News at Ten, soaking in every fact and asking Dad and the Brainbox a million questions—Hello, Mrs Higgins!’
We had just met an old lady coming through the lichgate carrying a bunch of flowers.
‘Hello, Irreverend!’ she replied jovially, then looked at me and said in a hoarse whisper: ‘Is this your girlfriend?’
‘No, Gladys—this is my sister, Thursday. She’s SpecOps and consequently doesn’t have a sense of humour, a boyfriend, or a life.’
‘That’s nice, dear,’ said Mrs Higgins, who was clearly quite deaf, despite her large ears.