Old Friends in Paradise

Huge thanks to Laurel for arranging my edits to Chapter 1, not vast changes but more historically and militarily accurate for the readers out there in Lit-land, sorry for the delay!

*****

I was frozen to the spot, like I was a guilty teenager again, and my red cheeks that had resulted from him asking me out to dinner the next night disappeared and I just knew that I'd lost all of my colour just from Christian's look at me.

"Chrissie, you OK?" he said with some shock.

"School," I blurted out, remembering that last day so clearly, "look, I was young, I..." I felt my bottom lip tremble as the guilt re-instated itself after so many years. "S...sorry Chris... tian..."

"Heeeey, easy Chrissie," he said reading my look, "it was a long time ago and a lot of water has gone under the bridge mate."

"OK!" I managed to gasp out.

He smiled at me and that almost made it worse, he was just as nice as he ever was!

"Chrissie," he said, "I promise I won't let any feelings or opportunities for revenge affect your training tomorrow... honest..." he tried to hold back his grin but couldn't and saw that I hadn't picked up on his joke, "there's no hard feelings," he said, "promise. I'm just going to grab a coffee, want one?"

I nodded and watched, my nervous smile somehow achieved as he stood up and walked away disposing of his plates and cutlery. I sipped my water but my hand trembled slightly.

Across the canteen I saw that he was chatting with one of the Royal Military Police Sergeants and I fought to keep the smile glued to my face despite the huge weight of the anxiety I could feel settling on my chest and stomach and if I was feeling bad, then what did he feel about the girl that had been one of his best mates and then did nothing to stop people being shitty for no other reason other than I was loved up with someone that I could now barely muster a single good feeling for despite our high school romance that had lasted over two years.

It was horrible; a mix of guilt and shame, a horror that someone I had really cared about then treated so badly for months - or at least watched him being treated so badly - was still being so nice to me. just as he always had.

All because I was one of the school's top 'cool girls' going out with the 'coolest boy' and it seemed like I couldn't be his friend because my boyfriend hated him for some reason.

The coolest of that coven of pretty 'mean girls', something straight out of a Hollywood teen movie only I was the blonde that lost the hero in the last reel, not the sweet heroic Hermione Grainger winning at the end. Surely he must still feel some element of the disgust and contempt I'd seen at our last meeting in that service road beside the school and now so fresh in my memory.

Disgust at that horrible girl that had been part of making his last two years at school even more miserable than it should have; and here he was ready to start his first week on one of the most sought-after tours and I had probably wrecked it for him.

I was here before him, and would be here long after he had gone, a visible presence to remind him of all the continued and systematic bullying during what should have been the happiest days of his life. Perhaps I'd also been the bitch that Rodge had accused me of being as well?

My bottom lip started to tremble and I had to get out.

I left the cookhouse quickly, forgetting my planned trip to the pool with Penny, Sam and a clutch of the other girls that had been on the training that day - no way could I be 'that girl' with a bunch of pretty mates hanging around the pool, not today.

I went back to my room, avoiding the bar and the Sovereign Base Police Station, managing to hold back my tears until I flopped onto my bed to cry my eyes out.

I woke up from a whole mess of dreams disturbed by visions of my old best friend Christian, a bleeding and beaten teenager with broken glasses, denouncing me in front of all my military friends and colleagues, me being marched before the JPU's Commanding's Officer for the bollocking to end all bollockings only to see Mr Maguire my history teacher in the Boss's chair telling me how disappointed he was in me.

I woke with a start and my wet-haired roomie Penny sat on my bed giving me a shake.

"Wassup Honey?" she said seeing my red eyes, "shit, Christina, whatever is it Babe?" She stroked my hair back from my tear wet face. "You haven't seen Rodge have you?"

With the number of aircraft that staged at Akrotiri on their way east and back there was a very real chance I could meet him somewhere on the air station if I was there for any reason. Penny knew him from when we worked together at Bastion and liked him even less than she did before once we broke up.

"No," I said wiping my cheek with my duvet cover, "someone from my past, something a little embarrassing actually."

"Wanna talk about it Babe?"

"No Pen," I said, "It'll be fine honest, I'll have a bit of a chat with the guy tomorrow and... err... clear the air a bit."

She'd obviously seen me sat and chatting with Chris before,

"It's that Marine isn't it," her fury rose, "what the fuck did he do to you?! Fucking commando PTI or not I won't have anyone..."

"No!" I burst out, "It's rather the other way around I'm afraid..." Time to bite the bullet, it was bound to come out and everyone would hate me for it, "I was... the bully... well one of them at least, and he was very much the victim, he didn't look anything like he does now of course."

"Oh," she said, and she looked at her soppy blonde roommate that she occasionally felt she had to look after, her look of disbelief crept up to some element of non-judgemental judgement which had my bottom lip trembling again.

"Yeah," I said sitting up and hugging my knees, "I was such a cow to him Pen; he was one of my very best friends all through childhood yet for our last couple of years... we were so horrible to him."

"What about?" she said, sitting straighter.

"Anything," I said, "We were quite a posh school and he ended up being from a single parent family that lived on benefits so you can imagine the shit that got thrown in his direction."

"Oh..." she said and smiled back at me even though I didn't feel that I deserved any of her pity or compassion. "Look Chris," she said, "Catch up with him first thing and let him know straight away how sorry you are. Clear the air, if he still hates you, the pair of you will just have to..."

"I'm not sure he hates me, it's just..."

"See him first thing tomorrow Babe, you can't spend the rest of his tour crying your eyes out or hiding from him."

I made a couple of mugs of tea and brought one back for Penny. To clear my head and arrange my thoughts I got out my laptop and wrote my diary, or in this case confessional, email I sent my lovely Mum each week and detailed how embarrassed and ashamed of my behaviour I was ten years later. I had an idea of how I should go with my apology, even how I was going to phrase it.

But the literary purge did the trick and I was able to sleep, although I came round a few times from dreams of both school and military retribution and I was quite pleased when I eventually woke to my alarm and the BFBS Radio breakfast show.

I showered and dressed back in trackies and T-shirt and got out my equipment belt ready for the second day of training and I skipped breakfast not wanting to meet him or have 'that' discussion yet.

In the gym there was Christian in the same sort of gear from the day before with big smiles for everyone, including a big one for me and that morning we were all about the ASP baton and how we could and couldn't use it. By lunchtime we had all showed we were able to use them and had battered the stand-up dummies and each other holding the big attack bags, then when it came to retire to the canteen for lunch Chris was grabbed by the Army MP's that would be his section and I could see that the Marine was having his work cut out with the pongo's and their banter.

In the afternoon it was a refresher on all that we had done in the last two days and in no time flat Christian passed us all as trained, signed the necessary paperwork and we were let loose on the soldiers, sailors, airmen and airwomen and marines of Cyprus for another six months.

I waited for the guys to all move on as Christian started to collect his paperwork and pack away the gear we'd used.

"Err... excuse me... Err Sergeant... Christian..."

He looked at me and smiled,

"Chrissie!" he smiled at me, "call me Chris or we'll be here all day mate."

Christian was still the only person that ever got to call me 'Chrissie', my parents normally called me by some affectionate shorthand saving 'Christina' or 'Christina Lillian' for tellings-off. I introduced myself as 'Christina' and that was what people generally went with - but not Christian, I was Chrissie to him and always would be, I'd forgotten how much I'd liked it.

I had looked around and saw that we were all on our own as our colleagues had taken advantage of the early finish to get into the bar for an extra long Friday happy hour.

"Look Christian," I dropped my eyes as we headed for the door, "I am so fucking embarrassed about how I treated you at school and..."

"Chrissie?" he dropped a little to look me in the face as he closed the door of the gym and locked it, "It was over ten years ago, we were hormonal teenagers and you were in love," he said pausing, then added, "with an arsehole!"

I laughed through my tears I hadn't been able to stop.

"Yes," I said, "he was that."

"And you know what?" he put a hand on my shoulder, "That arsehole boyfriend of yours made my life a misery, and yeah I was angry, I was angry that you couldn't see what an arsehole he was; walk with me," he said and extended an arm for me to take and I did. The years rolled back and we were walking home again, only this time I was carrying a police belt with riot stick and handcuffs not a school bag with my homework.

We slowly headed back towards the cookhouse and the accommodation blocks and he looked down at me - gulp - that look!

"I felt cheated Chrissie, I felt robbed - BY HIM! He took two of my best mates and turned them against me and convinced the world that I was the bad person.

Yeah I suppose I was pissed that you didn't step in and stop him but then Rachel didn't either, and on reflection it was swimming against the tide.

Gav completely turned against me, he went from my best mate to enemy in one conversation, at least you never did that." He squeezed my arm with his like he used to, "I came through it fitter and stronger, that school bully created what you see before you. But like I said, it was over ten years ago and I've moved on Chrissie, please don't worry."

"Sorry Christian," I said, "I..." I thought back to my writing of the night before, "I have no excuse, guilty as charged and if you never want to speak to me again I'll quite understand, and will find a way of staying out of your way for as long as it takes."

"Well..." he said taking a deep breath, "that could be a bit a problem."

"Why?" I shuddered, what now?

"Tonight you were going to take me out and show me where MP's go for dinner."

"I thought you'd forgotten about that," I said, "after yesterday evening I thought perhaps you didn't want to talk to me..."

"I thought you had the same opinion - when I got back carrying two coffees from chatting with Ben Turner about his training next week, you'd gone."

"You came back?"

"Of course, with your coffee!" he said stopping our walk, "thought I'd upset you. More so when your roommate, Corporal..." he looked down at the list with our names on, "Pennington?"

"Penny..." I said simply.

Penny's real first name was Charlotte-Louise and of course the Royal Air Force dubbed her 'Penny' during the second week of her phase one training only her parents, younger brother and old friends called her Charlotte, although her boyfriend Steve, an officer in the Royal Artillery, read her dog tags late one evening as they got cosy a month into their relationship and from that point she would forever be 'Charlie' to him at least, even when they married a year after her return to the UK.

"Penny, well she caught me, all but pinned me to the wall on the way to breakfast this morning and told me how upset you were and how I should give you the benefit of the doubt because you were such a beautiful girl, inside and out."

"Penny said that?"

"Yep," he grinned and we carried on walking, "so you cried yourself to sleep last night?"

"Rather afraid I did," I said squeezing his arm a tiny bit, "Shame, guilt, embarrassment, call it what you will, I remember the last time we spoke, how upset you were..."

He squeezed his eyes closed at that memory.

"Oh hell, I'd forgotten about that, I'm sorry about how I shouted at you, I was fired up, I think I just wanted to beat up the world that afternoon, and I shouldn't have shouted at you, not you - and not over him." His look made tears spring to my eyes again, "I'm not worth your tears Chrissie, it was all about bloody teenagers falling out - ten years ago, so don't think on it anymore - OK?"

"OK!" I said leaning forward and hugging him, wiping my eyes and kissing his cheek as I figured it was allowed; "Oh thank heavens!" I said thinking about our previous conversation added, "look, is this your first trip to Cyprus?"

He shook his head,

"Been once doing adventurous training, bit of sight-seeing and mainly on-camp. They never let Royals out as we tend to break things and make a mess."

"Tell me about it," I said, "look, there's a very nice out-of-bounds restaurant that only cops are allowed to use in the town, let me buy you dinner tonight to make up for those days I was so shitty to you."

"That would be very nice," he said. We'd reached our accommodation blocks and I was rather giggly, but gave his arm a final squeeze and told him to meet me there at half seven that night and left him with a wave.

After a hot shower and a brief siesta I was flicking through my wardrobe and finally decided on one of my short dresses, not wasting too much time on what undies, choosing pretty, brief, white and lacy, my favourite off-duty set. Then it was to my dressing table and make-up and as I rifled through the drawer for my lipsticks and re-arranged my cleavage a couple of times, my original thoughts of the hot, very fit commando sergeant came back to me.

This was the same man that I'd made eyes at in the canteen, the one I pulled my dress tight to show off my bottom and panty-line to, the one that I'd had a rude dream about what he was about to do to me in the search bay, the dream I'd masturbated to not three nights before.

My four in the morning wank-fantasy was my old nearly next door neighbour and childhood playmate Christian.

I smiled at my reflection, putting on a darker red lipstick, sprayed some of my most expensive perfume, buttoned my dress almost all of the way up and found him outside the block dressed in chino's and a linen shirt against the Mediterranean heat of the evening.

I'd borrowed an unmarked police car from the lot; we were allowed to sign them out for special occasions after hours and the Chief Petty Officer regulator in charge of them was another girlfriend of mine and once I told her who I was taking out that evening, she bumped the young off-duty army lance-corporal that had booked it for the night and threw the keys to me.

We drove out of the Sovereign Base and into the town, and I stopped at the restaurant and was welcomed in by the host. Shown to a balcony overlooking the blue med, we were presented with a bottle of a local fruity white wine and two glasses on the house while we picked through the menu.

With some guidance from me we made our choices, then it was the inevitable and we rolled back the years and talked about the old days.

*

We lived two houses away from each other for the first fifteen years of our lives and he was two days older than me; he was Christian, I was Christina and our parents swore it was just circumstance.

I went to his house and he came to mine and our mums were best friends who shared coffee and chats. My Mum did his Mum's hair while his Mum gave my parents some excellent financial advice, and our Dads played golf every other weekend. We had sleepovers in both of our houses and some camping weekends, we played together, went out on daytrips together, mostly with his Mum who worked part-time and when looking after his younger brother.

We were inseparable and often taken for brother and sister, best friends through pre-school then primary school then secondary school - most of secondary school.

We got to 'where and when it went wrong'; at the start of year ten.

Being a curvy, slim natural blonde with a love of attention and a hairdresser mum and a senior international sales manager Dad, I fell in with the beautiful people in our reasonably posh school, while Christian didn't.

He was skinny, spotty and newly bespectacled, and his Mum now worked in Tesco's all day and as an office cleaner most of the evening, and along with his younger brother they now lived in a small two bed council maisonette over a 7/11 store because his Dad had done a runner with his new 'business partner', taking all of the money in their joint account, cashed in the carefully chosen investments in both of their names and he'd re-mortgaged their house without telling his wife.

The lovely four bed semi-detached house he'd grown up in two doors from ours was repossessed, his previously successful and well-off Mum declared bankrupt and they moved out of the village into the town and onto the council estate.

The entire school talked about it and watched as over the months his trousers bottoms crept further up his ankles, his shirt collars puckered with wear and his shoes went down at the heel. That sort of thing didn't happen in 'our' part of the world.

He sipped from his glass of wine.

"Suddenly everyone was 'busy'," said Christian touching the edge of his lips with his napkin after the first fantastic course, "No one wanted to come to my house anymore because of where it was, and more than that the invites to theirs' dried up as well."

I couldn't maintain eye contact with him, and I felt the back of my eyes sting for a bit. I was one of those and even my Mum had mentioned it to me at the time.

OK, we were mates, but we were both fourteen years old and I'd rationalized and defended myself that him coming to my place would have suggested all kinds of things to some other boys that had started to crowd around me and my friends. Previously he was the ONLY boy I wanted to be around me.

Who was I kidding though, he wouldn't have cramped my style - it was just because over that summer holiday he had morphed into the poor boy that walked or used his free bus pass to cover the two miles each way from the council estate every day to the school where most of the kids were dropped off in Dad's executive saloon or Mum's SUV or MPV. If you rode a bike it was brand new and with the latest gadgets, not third or fourth hand, cheap and beaten up.

"Sorry Christian..." I said.

He straightened up and forced a smile,

"Ah don't worry Chrissie, you were in good company mate that's for sure. Remember Gavin Mills?"

"Of course."

"All the way through year seven, eight and nine we were best mates right?" he smiled, "a pair of inseparable comedians, we used to quote 'The Life of Brian' and Black Adder sketches to each other. Mr Hobbs the Physics teacher called us 'the double act', an unbreakable partnership... or so I thought."

He picked up the wine bottle and poured another glass each,

"That summer Mum lost the house, and everything else for that matter, she told me and Stevie that we had to move away from our big house with the big garden in the village, down the road to a first-floor maisonette over the shops on the housing estate and we'd have to share a bedroom. I can still remember her voice breaking a bit when she said that we both had to look after our school uniforms as the vouchers she'd got wouldn't stretch as far as she'd hoped. My blazer that summer was from the charity box in the school office and I joined the 'free bus pass' and 'free school meals' gang - social suicide and the end of any kind of acceptance.