“Hello Gina, I’m —”

“I know, Major Brian Raymond Wilson. Carol sent me Brian’s email, the one he had his solicitors sent to you that you discovered after leaving hospital.”

“Sorry for your loss, Gina. I didn’t know about our daughter Alexandria. Carol explained Mark’s garbled email to me. We had lost contact for years, so he’d had it sent to my Regiment; they printed it out and put it in with my Get Well cards. Carol thought I shouldn’t see the email until I was released from rehab and mobile on my new legs.”

“Carol said that she’d recognised you at hospital after your Afghanistan repatriation last year, and that you were bearing my Brian’s name.”

“My name, not Mark’s, er ‘Your Brian’s’. I didn’t recognise Carol at the hospital from all those years ago, even after we became lovers, being a doctor.”

“Please don’t tell Alex that you’re her real father yet, Brian’ll always be remembered by her as her wonderful ‘Dad’.”

“Okay, no, of course I won’t. Can I be her ‘Uncle Ray’ instead?” I asked.

“Sure,” Gina smiled, her red eyes wet, “Why ‘Ray’?”

“Too many Brians at Sandhurst, so Lieutenant ‘Ray’ Wilson, sorta stuck. He was a famous footballer a long time ago, so the drill sergeant used my second name and I prefer it now.”

“Is Carol okay with this... ?”

“I proposed yesterday. Carol said ‘yes’,” I grinned.

“Good, really good,” Gina smiled, “Something good has come out of this mess, anyway.”

“There’s Alexandria!”

“Of course, there’s always Alex.”

“You and Carol always lived locally then, not miles away?”

“Yes. We lied to you and ... my ‘Brian’. We were letting our hair down - our first holiday abroad in years, after establishing our medical practice here. We’re both big liars ... like my ‘Brian’ was.”

“Doctors, then, not nurses as you pretended to be?”

“Fewer ... complications, we thought. So, you were Officer cadets, then, not Squaddies?”

“Mark flunked Sandhurst,” I sighed, “Holiday romances! He really wanted you, immediately you emerged covered in that nightclub foam.”

“So why did you —?”

“My dibs, I picked you before I’d even seen Carol,” I grinned, “We took turns choosing partners.”

“We did that week, too!”

“Oh!”

“Indeed!” Gina laughed, “I picked you. Almost twins, the pair of you, but your short hair was so ... ginger!”

“Strawberry blond!”

“Whatever! Not much of it left now,” Gina observed.

“It was thinning even back then, unlike Mark’s dark thatch!”

“When I missed my period, I rang what he said was your number, the one that he’d put on my phone in the nightclub. I asked if he’d been my redheaded date that night? My ‘Brian’ said ‘yes, he was’ over the phone.”

“That’s when he shaved his head —”

“He shaved ... everywhere!” Gina smiled, lost in memories, “All that garage work, he was built like a bodybuilder, so I just assumed he shaved his body hair out of vanity.”

“That’s also when Mark distanced himself from me, his friends and his family.”

“Family?”

“Mark’s mum and dad still live in Mountfield, George and Joan Bateman.”

“So, Alex has two more grandparents — No, surely your —”