Neither Fleur nor David wanted to come home. To stay meant early promotion for David and he could still fly as well as do an admin job. Fleur was teaching dance twice a week at the International School. The twins would start school next year and they had both jumped at the chance of staying on at the naval base.

The day before her flight home, Sam rang her from Melbourne.

‘I hear you’ve been ill, sis, and look cadaverous!’

‘Gee, thanks, Sam. You and Mum are so good for my morale.’

‘Are you fit enough to go back? Dad seems very worried about you.’

‘Is he? He hasn’t said anything. I’m fine now. You know what these tropical diseases are like. It takes time to pile the weight back on.’

There was an unlike-Sam silence and then he said in a different voice, ‘Fleury, I don’t think it’s your physical welfare that’s concerning Dad, you’ve always been skinny. It’s what he calls your “air of sudden sadness” . Are things OK with you and Dave?’

‘Dad asked you to phone?’

‘Yes. Because he knows I’m the only one you ever talk to. I want you to know that you still can.’

A lump formed in Fleur’s throat and tears sprang to her eyes and ran down her face, surprising her with their suddenness. She did not want Sam to suspect so she coughed and said brightly, ‘Dad is sweet. I’m OK, honestly. It’s only…I don’t usually get ill and I guess it depressed me to be left here while David and the twins flew home.’

Fleur had not answered and Sam persisted. ‘So, you and David are all right, still happy?’

‘Why on earth shouldn’t we be, Sam? Of course we are!’

But the damn tears would not stop. They fell onto her hands holding the phone. They were going to make her voice thick and ugly with misery. They were going to give her away.

Sam, thousands of miles away, heard. ‘Fleur? You still love him?’

‘Oh, yes!’ he heard her whisper. ‘Oh, yes, Sam.’

‘And he loves you?’ Sam held his breath. There was the tiniest of pauses. You would have to know and love someone to detect it.

‘Yes. He loves me.’

But? Sam thought. Then, Bugger it! Dad’s right, something is wrong.

‘OK…Got a pen? Right, this is my telephone number and address for the next three months…I’ll let you know when and where I move on to. Tell Dave he owes me a letter, will you?’

‘Yes, I will. Sam?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m glad you rang.’

‘So am I. Take care, Fleury.’

‘And you, Sam.’

Sam walked away from the phone with a heavy heart. Shit! Dave was obviously bloody well not behaving himself. He had seen so much of it growing up in a foreign posting. Too much temptation and too much heat, booze and bare flesh. Tiny cracks in a marriage would widen in that sometimes vacuous life with too little to do.