let alone recognized, he never received commendations and certainly never discussed his work with the Regiment. He would only say he was in the ‘Army’, mumbling uncomfortably when he did so, thus encouraging the former Ted and fan of greasy Gene Vincent to suspect that his daughter’s baby-faced boyfriend was some kind of poofter.
Now the baby-faced, whispering poofter was asking Vince for his daughter’s hand in marriage. Well, what could you say?
‘Right,’ Vince said magnanimously. ‘I guess that’s it, then. You want to marry Darlene – OK then, I won’t stand in yer way. Me and Darlene’s mum, we married young as well, so I guess we can’t say no.’
He smirked at Darlene’s bottle-blonde mum as she pursed her lips in a sensual ‘O’, blowing a couple of smoke rings, her bosom rising and falling impressively under a tight, low-cut blouse.
‘Dead right,’ she replied.
‘Thank you, Mr and Mrs Dankworth,’ Danny said. ‘I won’t let Darlene down. God, I’m so pleased. Thank you.’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ good old Vince said impatiently. ‘Hey, love, you’ll soon have a son-in-law. That should turn you grey!’
It wasn’t the kind of house where you uncorked champagne, so Danny took Darlene out for a beer and a game of pool in the local pool hall, a right den of iniquity, to which he had been introduced by Vince.
‘Paul Newman and Jackie Gleason,’ Vince had said. ‘That movie, The Hustler. A fucking masterpiece, kid. A work of art. A real man’s game, is pool.’
Danny, though not yet a man in Vince’s eyes, had learnt the game quickly, but was careful never to beat his girlfriend’s dad. With his dreamy baby face hiding the instincts of a killer, Danny knew exactly what he wanted – and what he wanted was Darlene.
‘You probably think I’m pretty coarse playing pool,’ Darlene said as they walked along slummy streets to the pool hall. ‘But a lot of me workmates play it as well. It’s the real gear around here.’
Darlene was a switchboard operator for British Telecom, and her workmates, as Danny had noticed, could be a bit on the free side. Danny, who had his innocent side, thought this was real neat.
‘It’s a good game,’ he told Darlene reassuringly. ‘It sharpens the reflexes.’
‘Oh, you don’t need those sharpened,’ Darlene said with a surprisingly coarse chuckle. ‘Your reflexes are wonderful!’
Danny blushed brightly with embarrassment and pride, which made Darlene love him all the more.
‘God,’ she said, ‘you’re so sweet.’
Which made him blush all the more.
Once in the pool hall, they ordered a pint of beer each and while waiting for a vacant table discussed when they should marry. As Danny was between ops with his Regiment, and therefore based in the camp in Hereford rather than in Belfast, they agreed that they should do it as soon as possible.
‘I can’t wait any longer,’ Darlene said. ‘Oh, I do love you, Danny.’
When Danny studied Darlene’s sweet, moon-shaped face, bright-green eyes and jet-black hair, a lump always came to his throat. Now, with Willy Nelson singing ‘Always On My Mind’ coming from the radio perched high on one wall, that lump returned to his throat and filled him up with emotion.
‘I love you, too,’ he said.
He wasn’t a man of many words, but Darlene didn’t mind. She responded to his tender, loving nature and was touched by his reticence.
‘That table’s free,’ Danny told her.
Though only five feet two, Darlene had a perfect body and long legs. She liked to show off in tight sweaters and jeans – to ‘wind ’em up’, as her mother had always taught her. When playing pool, which involved certain contortions, Darlene was a sight to behold.
Perhaps for this reason, a player at the next table, another member of the great unwashed – a ring through his nose, with another dangling from one ear, hairy chest bared in a leather waistcoat above black leather pants and tatty high-heeled boots decorated with skull and crossbones – eventually put his head back, blew a stream of cigarette smoke, and sneered to his mates, ‘With tits like that bouncing on the velvet, how can she lose, guys?’
The sudden silence that followed was like an explosion, freezing everyone momentarily, as Danny spun his pool cue over, slid his grip to the narrow tip and brought the handle down like a club on the sneering git’s skull.
As the lout howled and grabbed his head, pouring blood, looking dazed, Danny moved in without thinking to karate-chop him twice in the guts. The guy jack-knifed dramatically, making a strangling sound, and was vomiting even as Danny jumped back and again used his hand like a guillotine. This one chopped smartly at his exposed nape, for he was leaning forward, and he was face down on the floor in his own puke before he knew what was happening.
Danny knew he was doing wrong – using his skills for personal reasons – but his killer instincts were overwhelming, so great was his rage. He raised his right boot, about to break the bastard’s neck, but Darlene cried out ‘No!’ and pulled him away, leaving his victim free to continue spewing on the floorboards.
‘Shit, man!’ someone whispered in fearful admiration. Then Stevie Wonder, who was singing ‘That Girl,’ was cut off in mid-sentence.
‘This is a special announcement,’ the radio announcer said. ‘Today, 2 April, 1982, a garrison of British Royal Marines guarding Port Stanley, capital of the Falkland Islands, was forced to surrender to…’
‘The Falkland Islands?’ Danny broke in, instantly distracted, no longer angry, and oblivious to the groaning man on the floor. ‘Where’s the Falkland Islands, Darlene?’
It was just another day for Major Richard Parkinson. As usual, he awoke at six in the morning and slipped quietly out of bed, letting his wife, Jane, get a little more sleep. Leaving the bedroom, Parkinson took the stairs up to his large converted loft, where he stripped off his pyjamas, put on a pair of shorts and proceeded to do 75 press-ups.
Though proud that at forty-four he could still do that many, Parkinson didn’t stop there. Rising from the floor, his whipcord body slick with sweat, and then standing on tiptoe to grab the chin-up bar he had inserted between two crossbeams, he began his usual fifty pull-ups.
Most men half his age could not have managed this with such ease, but Parkinson, though a little out of breath, was otherwise still in fine shape when he finished. After a few more exercises – touching his toes and lifting weights – he went downstairs, into the bathroom, stripped off his shorts and stepped into the shower, where he switched the water from hot to icy cold. Cleansed and invigorated, he dressed in his freshly pressed OGs, complete with medals and winged-dagger badge, then sauntered into the country-style kitchen, located at the back of the house overlooking a well-kept lawn and garden and offering a panoramic view of the countryside. From here you could see the rooftops of Hereford and the spire of the church.
When not overseas or at the Duke of York’s Barracks, in London’s King’s Road, Parkinson treated his wife to tea in bed every morning. He did this now, waking her up gently, running the fingers of his free hand through her hair as he set the cup and saucer
