BlindFire Read Free Page B

damp heat.
      "Danny ."  Cried a female voice from somewhere on the other side of the flat.
      "Is that you Claudia?"  He shouted as he turned the shower off, still dancing to an imaginary tune.
      "Yeah...  And if you’ve made a mess in there you’d better clean it up."
      "Oh, you mean the mud." He cried, mocking his wife’s apparent anger.  "Wait till it dries and then get the Hoover on it." He laughed.
      "Yeah right..!"
      "It’s what you normally do! Isn’t it?"  He muttered to his own grinning reflection in the mirror. Not bothering to dry himself, he slipped in to a blue dressing gown which seemed far too small and only came down to his knees.  After  tying the  knot  he  painfully  made  his  way  to  the kitchen ,   the  steam  following like an obedient dog. His whole body ached as he sat down at the small kitchen table. Age was at last creeping up on this old Staff Sergeant, twenty two years in the Parachute Regiment had taken its toll on his body. His knees and back had taken a real pounding from all those jumps and forced marches.
      “Not long now..!” He said to himself as he massaged his thigh.
      “What?” His wife cried from the bedroom.
      “Just thinking out loud.” He replied. “Three more months and my twenty two years are up… Twenty two years doing this crap and what will I have to show for it? Chronic rheumatoid arthritis and a mild case of PTSD..!”
    "Oh..! " Claudia said anticipating his first question.  " The kids are at Clair’s! They should be home soon ."  She opened the refrigerator and grimaced.  " There’s nothing in for dinner, I need to go down to the shops."
      Danny looked at his watch.  "Aren’t they closed? It’s Sunday!"
      "Oh no..."  She said.  "Can you wait for the kids?  I’ll just pop in to camp and go to the NAAFI shop."
      "Maybe."  He replied thinking of the football on TV.
      She  sat  on  his  knee  and  slid  her  long  arms  around  his  neck.
      "Oh god.  Don’t do that, I’m already stiff enough as it is!"
      "Stiff hey."  She purred.  "Maybe we should do something about that..."
       “I’m on about my legs.” He tried to untangle himself from his wife’s long arms. "…I don’t think so."
      When he had first met Claudia he was a young Paratrooper and she was a foreign exchange student studying art in London . H e had thought somewhat sadly, that the nymphomania would ware off, now nine years later and she was still insatiable.  It  was sheer   lust  at  first  sight  and  they  married only  three  months  after that first  meeting , mostly down to her being pregnant and Danny off to Bosnia for a six month tour .  The wedd ing was a small affair in a London registry office followed by her tearfully waving him off to the former Yugoslavia at Brize Norton.
      He   was   too   tired   from   the   run   for   anything  more  than  a  kiss  so  he  just  sat  there  watching  football  on  TV. It  was  the  stuff  of  dreams - Manchester  United were a goal behind to Sheffield with   only  two  minutes  of  stoppage  time  to  go.
      “Come on Sheffield !” He cried, only to be drowned out by the cheers of Manchester fans as they scored an equalizer. “Bollox..!” He cried louder and turned the television off in disgust.
       There  was  only  two  years  dif ference  in  age  between  Tommy   and Sahra,  the  latter  being  the  oldest  at  eight.  They could almost have been  twins  except  Sahra ’s   hair  flowed  down  her  back  like  black  silk.
      They  were  both  small for their ages   but  this  didn't stop  them  getting  exactly  what  they  wanted.  Infact it helped them in many ways.
      As  Claudia  walked  out  the  door  he   thought  it  was  about  time  to  get  dressed,  but  a  coffee  would  come  first.  As  he  filled  the  kettle