Dave (Not David... that’s my father)

"What?"

Sandi leans over to shout her repeated question in my ear. "How long is Dan away this time?"

How long? Who cares. Almost as soon as he's back he'll be gone again. I think this is a five day trip but he'll have less than two days before the next one. The glamorous life of a longhaul airline pilot... not exactly what I had in mind during those long years of being a young Air wife. I traded months at a time fearing for his life when he was in Cyprus, flying a Typhoon over Libya and then Syria, for weeks and weeks of boredom waiting for him to return from Tokyo or Sydney or Manila for a couple of days before the next trip. I don't remember when I agreed to this life. I'd thought we'd move to Scotland and start a family once he finished with the RAF, but the lure of doubling his officer's salary tempted him into getting the qualifications and 'putting in a few years' to build up a comfortable basis for retirement. Well. Now it's five years later and we are mortgaged to the eyeballs on a tiny house in Fulham, I see him for about one third of the year, and when he's back he's moody and suspicious.

I know he checks my phone for evidence of indiscretions; combs the house in forensic detail looking for the slightest clue, drink or one of his ghastly cigarettes in hand while he affects nonchalance and tries to deflect my attention. As though any infidelity by me would be some unmatched crime. When I managed to make friends with a stewardess from the airline at a rare social event put on by his work, I was able to peek behind the veil of social media secrecy that he and his colleagues usually work to maintain so scrupulously. Let's just say I saw plenty of evidence - circumstantial admittedly - of loose and scandalous behaviour among the pilots and the cabin crew, in those lonely, long nights abroad in mid-range hotels.

So when Sandi's question assaults my left eardrum, still in a reverberating muddle along with the pounding club music, and I discern her meaning, the only emotion my face manages to express is disgust.

"Few days. Tokyo. Departed this morning. Then two days and I think it's Auckland after that so another fivefer." The unspoken calculus is plainly meant: just two days together in twelve. "We had nearly a week together before this trip but the next five weeks it's just constant like this."

Sandi's sympathy blasts into my ear again, kindness overblown into a blunt instrument. "You got it rough hon. I'm sorry."

Yet more unspoken meaning. Sandi's too tactful to take the logical next conversational step. Her husband remained in when Dan retired from the Air , having predicted that the 'real' duty of being a combat pilot would be over soon for the realistic remainder of his flying years, and desperately wanting to avoid being tapped for a home base administrative posting. Alan and several other pilots from their squadron had been rotated back into cushy, UK based training postings where they would still get to fly and be at home with their wives every night. It was the kind of rare opportunity that Dan and his mates had dreamed of, and he'd missed it by a scant handful of months.

All of this is known to me, and the meaning flashes between us like the near instantaneous short-wave encrypted signals that kept our husbands in contact while flying over hostile territory. I both love and hate Sandi for not saying it out loud, because her doing so would bring a necessary reckoning with Daniel's lifestyle, work-life-balance, and vile, controlling behaviour. Without an opportunity to voice my fears, it must remain unsaid, and I remain voiceless.

The party is a rare reunion of the 3 Squadron wives since our spouses all returned from Cyprus for the last time. Kim, the first of us to break into her thirties, arranged a nearly-birthday party and sent the word out. The turnout has been good considering five years have passed and all we have in common is knowing what it's like to be married to a highly trained operator of a state-owned killing machine, who is both jaded by and longing for the experience of dropping squillions of pounds worth of precision munitions onto enemies who deliberately surround themselves with civilians and only very, very rarely have the means to shoot back. That is to say, we all share the rare insight into what it's like to be married to people who have been cultivated into sociopaths by a warmongering state that is clinging to its final vestiges of being a world power, and therefore we are bound more closely than most while also kind of despising a large portion of the group.

Not that I'm bitter, or anything. But yeah. I'm starting to regret showing up to this party full of semi-to-fully frustrated women in my age bracket, even though I had nothing better to do.

I attempt a rueful smile at Sandi and make the universal miming gesture for a drink. She nods, laughing, and turns into the group as I step away.

Unfamiliar music washes over you in an unfamiliar bar, in a barely familiar town and a mostly unfamiliar country. You've been to Britain before, of course, and mostly to London. But the pace with which this city develops new hot spots is such that every time you return the destination of the moment is different. This year it's some miserable sounding place called Shoreditch, which to your mind conjures up the filth and squalor of London in the industrial era, but despite strongly suspecting your hotel concierge was setting you up for embarrassment, it's proven to be a place that is indeed popping with nightlife.

This bar, chosen at random by you as you walked along a narrow back street that is densely filled with such establishments, is named very descriptively as '53'. It's narrow and long, with drinks that equate to six or seven times the average back in the States once you account for the exchange rate, and filled with glamorous young people whose eyes pass over you as they scan the room for their friends, or soon to be friends, or whatever. It's hot and dark, with music that makes little sense to your ears played at a volume that makes your chest vibrate.

It's perfect, in other words. It's good to be back.

The bartender closest to you serves a long whiskey drink of their choice and her eyes go wide when you hand her an additional banknote of almost the same value as the drink. You remember, as you do every time, that the tipping culture here is very different. Ah well, it's not like you will miss it, and it guarantees she'll never keep you waiting for the rest of the night. You turn away from the bar and sip the astonishingly strong cocktail, involuntarily making an inaudible humming noise of appreciation at how good it is.

As soon as your eyes begin to scan the room, you see me. Half a head taller than my nearest rival for height among the group, and with my willowy figure wrapped in a shimmering magenta dress, I stand out to your attention like an orchid amongst a sea of dandelions. My plaited dark hair bobs as I dance, my bust, modest though it is, straining against the tightly tailored fabric with every movement, and my bare shoulders catching the meagre light with a fine gleam of sweat. My sharp, delicate face with overplucked eyebrows but otherwise immaculate symmetry and dark red lips shows a wholehearted attempt to let go into the music, while my eyes betray the futile nature of this effort.

I'm pausing for breath, stepping out of my group's dancing circle, when you finish your drink, and the idea hits you.

"I didn't order this," I shout again at the waitress whose holding the odd-looking drink out at me.

"No, you didn't. That guy over there did," she confirms. This time I understand. I follow her pointing finger and see you, leaning at the corner of the bar.

"Who the hell is that?" I manage to splutter. The waitress simply shrugs. Never seen you before. She doesn't mention that you're a good tipper.

I regard you coolly. You raise you glass, which appears to be identical to the one you just sent my way, and make a gesture of cheers before taking a sip. Across the busy club, with my advantage of height, I have no difficulty seeing this person, a subtle smirk on their face, one eye visible under the low brim of a hat. They are dressed in black and red and looking like a blend of Chicago gangster, stage magician, and Michael Jackson. Although the red beard rather gets in the way of that last comparison. It's a look, to be sure, and while that body's carrying a little extra weight, the clothes are cut to absolute perfection, concealing such things from a casual observer.

You are quite the most unusual looking person I've seen tonight, and possibly ever while going out in Hoxton and Shoreditch. I look down at the drink in my hand, suspicion warring with curiosity in my mind. Intrigue getting the better of me, I look around to make sure at least some of my friends are keeping an eye on me, and I stride through the crowd of smaller people towards you.

"Alright then, what's this drink going to cost me?" I have to lean in to make myself heard, and catch the tang of your aftershave; bright and metallic, as unusual as your appearance. "Don't you know that sensible girls never accept a drink they haven't seen prepared?"