The SAS And The Glam That Goes With It: Chapter 4

He was distracted as she entered, reading something on his mobile phone. He spun it deftly in his fingers, slid it back inside his jacket and picked up his glass of beer. Price looked even better than she remembered: elegant in a sharp, dark suit with the shirt open at the collar. His hair had been cut: where before it had skimmed his eyebrows, it was now sleek and short, with just enough length to show the rough curl.

"John!" Her view was suddenly blocked. A woman had appeared, striding across the bar. "So good to see you!"

Sam froze. She was still partly hidden by the entrance amongst the coats and he hadn't seen her yet.

The woman was tall and lithe with dark hair that was styled into an intricate, twisted chignon. She appeared to be draped in burgundy velvet that sheared away at her shoulders to expose the bare skin of her back, skimming the edge of her hips in what Sam considered an obscene fashion. She glided purposefully towards him, and he rose to greet her, clasping her hand and leaning forward to kiss her cheek. Confused, Sam attempted to dive back into the doorway only to be hit square on the bottom by the opening door.

"Sorry, love!" said a voice behind her as she tripped and stumbled into the room, catching her heel on the edge of the carpet rail and grabbing the coats for support. "Whoa!" he said, catching her arm and grabbing the coat stand before it toppled, the coats swinging alarmingly round, forcing the occupants of the nearby tables to duck and weave away from the flying sleeves. She closed her eyes, mortified. Oh God! Please don't him have been watching! She pushed herself upright and took a deep breath, trying to appear unruffled. She grunted and twisted her shoe free.

"I'm fine. Thank you." she said, shaking herself free of his grasp. "No harm done." She could feel the embarrassed flush rising in her face.

"Excuse me." She jumped at the sound of a familiar voice, feeling a hand graze the small of her back to get her attention. Price had appeared at her elbow. Turning to face him she could see that the moustache had been trimmed too, into a neat arc above his lip that bowed as he smiled, shyly at her. Her stomach somersaulted and suddenly the entranceway seemed very small. He looked up at the man who'd pushed her. "You appear to have my date."

"What?" said the man, bewildered, and then his face blossomed into a grin. "Oh!" he laughed, a dry, booming sound that filled the air around him. "And you appear to have my wife. You old dog! Excuse me." He slid past Sam and went to the woman in the velvet dress, taking her in his arms and kissing her, salaciously, on the lips. The woman giggled as they parted, but their foreheads remained pressed together, a gesture so intimate that Sam felt she should avert her eyes.

"Gaz. Vivianne." He addressed the man and woman with curt nods. "Sam" he nodded at her.

"Sorry for stepping on you." said Gaz. He let go of his wife and shook Sam's hand hard enough to make her wince.

"Gorge dress! And it's Viv, really!" said Vivianne. Her words were steeped in a distinct, upper class drawl that seemed incongruous compared to the harsh, cockney tones of her husband. "Sorry he stepped on you. He's not so bad really." she laughed.

"Special occasion?" said Price.

"Anniversary." Gaz replied as he slid his arm around Vivianne and pulled her into a close embrace. She giggled.

"I know!" she rolled her eyes. "Look, we shouldn't intrude. Anyway, darling, the table's ready. So lovely to meet you!" The last remark was directed at Sam, at whom she waved as they sauntered into the restaurant.

"Friends?" said Sam

"Work." said Price, gruffly. "Gaz. Not Vivianne."

Sam laughed. "Not quite the army type?"

"No. Definitely not" said Price, frowning. She was struck by the palpable bitterness in his tone, then his face softened. "I think our table's ready."

Sam racked her brains for something witty to say. She'd ordered a white wine spritzer, which was a compromise after deciding that a treble gin and tonic might make her feel a lot less nervous but would probably turn her into a simpering idiot. She was beginning to regret that decision as she fumbled for a conversation starter.

"You're not from here?" she asked, nervously fingering the cutlery.

"Neither are you."

"No. Actually I just moved here, I'm doing maternity cover."

"Funny. You don't think of midwives having babies of their own." he mused.

She laughed and it came out as a high-pitched, squeaking giggle. She winced at the sound. "I suppose not. I've done it all my life. I've never really thought about it."

"We did it for a week, learning about how to deliver babies. Never had to use it."

"Really?" said Sam. "I would have thought you'd be all... bullet wounds and blown off legs." She cursed herself. I can't believe you just said "blown-off legs!" She grimaced at her lack of social grace.

"Yeah, we did that too, but you never know." Price rolled his almost empty glass around on its bottom edge, staring at its contents like a clairvoyant looking for the future.

"Gosh."

She thought about this for a moment, and a thought struck her.

"What is it you do?" she asked.

"I'm in the SAS." he replied. He looked at her expectantly, a thin smile on his lips.

Her expression displayed more cynical disbelief than she realised.

"You're going to say "prove it"aren't you?" said Price.

"Well..." She fumbled for the right words. "It's just that-"

"Look." He pulled out a white plastic card and passed it across the table. "They don't say which bit you work in, but do you think Army captains go round pretending to be in regiments they're not part of? Getting caught would be embarrassing, and this is a small town."

Suddenly the forgotten conversation on her first day came flooding back to her. You wouldn't think to look at them, sauntering round the town. Frankly, I think they're all bloody mentalists! Give me the creeps.

Sam moved the card, highlighting the holographic stamp in the candlelight. In the photograph he was younger, with a full beard and a scruffier version of the haircut she'd seen him wearing a few days ago. John Richard Price. She looked at the date of birth and did a quick bit of mental arithmetic: he was younger than he looked.

She blinked, and dropped back into reality. "Sorry. There's something I meant to say, or not meant to say, isn't there?"

"What?"

"Well, when I say I'm a midwife, people usually regale me with some terrible story about the birth of their child, usually implying there was some incompetence involved on the part of the poor girl involved. I thought you probably had an equivalent. I mean, those are the guys, or rather you're the guys that-"

"Yes."

"And do all that-"

"Yes"

"You don't even know what I was going to say! I was going to say "Do all that lovely... crochet"."

"Our crochet is fabulous." said Price.

They both laughed.

Another glass of wine eased Sam's social anxiety further, but there was an itch at the back of her mind that she couldn't scratch. Sam was old enough to remember the nineties and somewhere between her recollections of training bras and Pop Tarts, ubiquitous special forces autobiographies had erupted, black covered, into the shops. What had happened again? She asked herself. She had a vague memory of her mother talking about wallpaper and was it the Libyan embassy? She couldn't remember. It was an entire subculture that had risen, burned bright and died without her really noticing, and that intrigued her.

She picked through the remains of her main course, trying to come to some sort of middle ground between choking on a fish bone versus picking the bones out, but still somehow having some actual fish left to eat that wasn't effectively puréed by her efforts.

"What's wrong?" he asked, dabbing gently at the edge of his mouth with the napkin.

"Oh, nothing. It's lovely! I was just, thinking to myself."

He had been reserved, letting her talk about herself, her upbringing and her mad desire to get some fresh air that had led her several hundred miles to the Welsh borders, all the while seeming genuinely interested. She was flattered; although she still knew practically nothing about him. She had to admit there was a certain frisson about Price, and his involvement in a national obsession only added fuel to the fire. Was there some scandal? She wished she'd paid more attention.

Sam looked at him anew. He'd taken off the jacket, and had rolled the sleeves of his shirt up around his elbows. The louche, casual look seemed rebellious in the expensive, carefully styled surroundings of the restaurant. He was wiry; she knew he'd be strong. She could see it in the sinew of his exposed forearms and there was a bulk in his shoulders under the fabric of the shirt that betrayed hidden strength. She flashed, briefly, onto an image of him half-undressed, imagining the broad space of his chest, and the covering of course hair, just now peaking up between the depths of his open collar. She thought of running her hand across it and completely forgot what was happening in the real world: she put her elbow in the sauce boat.

Inwardly panicking, she frantically began to wipe at her arm with her napkin, hoping he hadn't noticed. Get a grip!

"You know, I've told you my whole life story, practically, and I still don't know anything about you." she said, blushing nervously.

"Well..." He trailed off.

"Where were you born?" she asked, picking a bone out of her mouth in what she hoped was a genteel fashion and lining it up with the others decorating the edge of the plate.

"Stratford." he replied.

"What made you want to join the Army?"

He shrugged. "What made you want to be a midwife?"

"Oh no!" she waggled her finger at him. "This is about you, mystery man."

"Mystery man?" He raised his eyebrows.

"I thought calling you "Man I Found In The Street" was less... attractive?"

"Attractive?"

"You're stalling."

"I'm am not!"

Sam snorted derisively into her wineglass. "So tell me!" she said, giggling.

He smiled at her and opened his mouth to say something, but she never found out what it was, because the beeping started.