by Ray Connolly
"All right." And taking the dime from the coin return slot he made his selection.
Again the machine whirred.
“Only you, can make this world seem right, Only you…” the song began.
Kate smiled in recognition. “I know this one. It’s an old one, but I don’t know who’s singing.”
“The Platters.” Gadden mused, his expression now distant. One hand on the glass dome of the juke box, his head down as he listened and watched the record go round.
“Why this record…?”
“My mother used to play it.”
“Your mother?”
“On an old Dansette thing she had.”
“I haven’t heard you mention your mother before.”
“No. Probably not.”
“When you hold my hand I understand the magic that you do…”
Suddenly his face softened and putting his arms on her shoulders he moved her gently around the floor in time with the song. It was like old-time dancing. As the song reached its climax, he drew her closer.
“You’re my dream come true, my one and only you.” With a hiss the pick-up reached the end of the song and the record was lifted back into the stack.
"Will we go to bed now, Kate?" he said.
Treading silently on the wide stairs, they went up to her room where, closing the door, they moved across to the bed. Then, kissing, they took their time, before, sinking on to the sheets, they started to undress one another.
A woman of her age and experience was supposed to be confident when embarking upon such a course, able to slip from her clothes with casual ease, she told herself, as, for a moment, the safety pin she’d fastened on her new dress became snagged in her hair. But she wasn’t behaving like a woman of her age.
“Let me,” Gadden murmured as she tried to untangle the knot.
She waited. Delicately he slipped the remaining clothes from her. She helped. For a moment he hesitated, looking down at her naked body. Then, bending forward, he sank his face into her, his long dark hair, falling loosely around her thighs.
In the half light of the room, a glow still shining up from the floodlights on the lawns and terraces, Kate gazed at the canopy of the bed above her. Jesse Gadden and she were from different worlds with nothing in common. This was all an adventure.
Chapter Sixteen
It had never happened before and she wondered what she had said or done to cause it. She lay motionless. Gadden was silent alongside her. She could feel his leg resting against hers. He hadn't spoken and she was afraid to. Somewhere, perhaps from an adjacent room, she could hear the sound of one of his records. She pulled a sheet across them both.
"Tell me about Owoso." The request was muffled, his face pushed into the pillow.
She thought she must have misheard. "I'm sorry?”
He turned his head to her. "What happened? In Owoso. What really happened that day?"
“I don’t understand.”
“Yes, you do.”
Was he punishing her? Was this because of their failure? His failure? Or did he consider it her failure: her failure to arouse him? "Why do you want to know?"
"Just tell me."
Later she would wonder why she hadn't got up from the bed at that moment. Perhaps it was embarrassment that kept her there. "It was on television," she said. “You probably saw it."
It would have been difficult to miss. Thrilled by their scoop WSN had syndicated sections of her Owoso report to all their rival news stations. It had gone around the world.
"I saw what they chose to show us. But I know there was more." His voice was soft, coaxing.
She could feel his breath on her skin. She stared into the folded drapes of the four poster bed. "It was...untransmissable. No television company could have shown everything. I tried to tell them. They wouldn't listen."
"Tell who?"
"The rebels...freedom fighters, the FLO, the Front for the Liberation of Owoso. I tried to explain that television audiences in the rest of the world would be sickened by the violence. They didn't believe me. They said it was exactly what they would want to see." The pictures ran again in her mind.
"Well, you can't blame them for thinking that, can you? Wasn't that why you were there? To show us all the massacres first, fast and soonest?" The derision in Gadden’s voice cut into her.
She didn’t answer. Was that why she'd been there? She didn't know any more. Slowly, feeling for the words, she started talking, crowding out the silence of her doubts. "FLO spells Flo. Everyone thought they could reason with them...the Foreign Office, the State Department, the U.N...."
"You were wearing a cream shirt with breast pockets…”
A curious thing to remember! "Yes." And she pictured herself speaking to camera as earlier that day she'd set the scene, crisp and efficient in freshly ironed clothes, imagining she understood everything about Owoso, but knowing hardly anything.
"It was splashed with blood.”
The odour of horror seeped back. It had never been far away. She’d arrived back in London still wearing the soiled clothes, having left everything else behind. "I didn't realise at the time," she said.
They lay still as Kate sifted through her memories. The music in the next room seemed louder now.
"Tell me." His voice was calm and even.
The thrill of imminent sex which had summoned her to bed was gone. She was aware of his skin, his body, but it no longer spelled intimacy. They'd tried to be intimate and it hadn't worked.
“Tell me.”
She began to talk: "No one had expected it. The front line was supposed to be seventy miles away in the forest. We'd been invited to the President's summer palace. It was remote, by the sea, cooler. He thought he was safe there. He was using us, WSN, to appeal for more help from the West. We understood this. In those situations everyone wants a sound bite on the seven o'clock news. We'd let him have his say and asked some questions about his government's violation of human rights. All the usual things. Then suddenly there they were."
She could sense Gadden listening.
"We'd heard some gunfire to the south earlier," she went on. "We should have left then, but I insisted on staying. Perhaps…perhaps I half guessed something might happen and wanted to be there. The others put the shooting down to high spirits by some of the army, thinking it was just young soldiers letting off steam." She hesitated, then began again. "We'd just finished transmitting some unedited footage and were repacking the Land Rover when they just seemed to roll out of the jungle...the FLO. We didn't notice their guns at first, and because hardly any of them wore uniforms, we thought they were a delegation of local people. But then a government guard put up an arm to wave them to stop and they machine gunned him where he stood. He didn't have time to be surprised."
And she watched the young soldier thrown backwards by the velocity of the bullets, as she’d remembered it so many times. "I'd never realised anyone could die so quickly."
"Go on."
He moved closer and she felt his hand on the curve of her body between waist and hip. She was distantly puzzled by this, but Owoso filled her thoughts.
"There was panic everywhere. People tried to run into the forest and were hacked down. A boy who did the gardens had his head nearly cut in two when he ran into a machete. There were girls who worked in the kitchens and cleaned the palace. The FLO took them for themselves. Those who didn't co-operate were shot."
"The blood on your shirt? It wasn't your blood."
"No." The music now seemed closer, in the room with them. "Why do you want to know?"
"Don't you want to tell me?"
Kate stared into the darkness. She'd never talked about it before. Not in detail. When she’d got back, she'd wanted to talk, desperately, but her colleagues had tiptoed around the subject. Then after her breakdown, yes, she could admit it to herself now, it had been a breakdown, they'd gone out of their way to find other things to discuss. She’d quickly given up trying. "It's painful," she said.
"Yes."
"It was the President's blood. He had a new young wife...sixteen, I think, possibly younger. He thought we could help him. He came running to us, pulling her after him, begging us. At first we thought he wanted to hide in the Land Rover, then we realised he thought he might not be harmed if we were there, that the presence of the television camera might protect him. He began asking us to start transmitting again, to send what was happening live by satellite to the outside world. He didn't realise that time had to be booked, that we couldn't just do it whenever we felt like it.
"The FLO just watched, surrounding him, laughing as he pleaded with us. They were drunk, excited. Some of them had been doing a lot of drugs. They thought they were under a spell of invincibility. They were hardly more than boys. Then suddenly they got bored and one of the older ones took his rifle butt and smashed it into the president's face. That was the signal for the others to join in. I was standing quite close. The blood seemed to explode out of him. They would have killed him then, but..."
She stopped. Gadden had moved closer to her.
"Go on."
"I..."
"Please. I want to know. I want you to tell me."
He turned to her, and in the half glow from the garden lights she caught sight of his eyes. They were unblinking. She stared at them.
"Tell me," he repeated.
She tried again. "They held us overnight in a hut by the seashore. I tried to comfort the President’s wife. She was a child really. She was crying for her mother and sisters. They took her out three or four times for sex. She knew what was going to happen to them both. She could scarcely stand up she was so frightened."
Kate watched again as the moths made their haphazard circumventions of the light bulb, hearing the sound of Abba coming from another hut, then listened as a couple of the young rebel guards occasionally sang along. "They were listening to records,” she said. “Enjoying them.”
"Yes, you said. In your report, you mentioned it."
She could scarcely remember what she'd said in her report. That had been the following morning. She'd been trying to describe the night, filling space, as, with guns trained on them, she’d watched the captives led out of the huts towards the beach at just after dawn.
The WSN cameraman, Rajah, a plump, jovial Indian from Kenya, a freelance hired for the job, had been trembling as he'd held his camera. He'd refused to film at first. That was when they'd attacked Liberty, the local Owoso translator. Colin, the WSN satellite engineer, had been screaming into the satellite phone, begging for a vision link, a Kalashnikov at his neck, saving Liberty's life.
"We expected to be shot," she went on. "During the night the FLO had been out into the villages rounding up everyone, demanding that they come to watch. A huge crowd was filling the beach. There was drumming. It went on and on. Everyone was afraid, including the people watching. They executed a government minister first. Then others. One of their wives pleaded, offering herself."
And she saw again the woman running, like a frightened hen, in circles of terror, begging for mercy, bargaining for her life, while the soldiers laughed, and pointed at the blood running down between her legs. Then bored with the sport, and irritated that her pleading hands had besmirched his new uniform, pillaged from the summer palace, one of the rebel officers deliberately tripped her, pushed his automatic rifle into her breast and opened fire. Her body jumped and shuddered as the bullets cut through her into the sand.
"Keep filming," the officer had said. "You came here to take pictures for the satellite. Take your pictures. Show them in London and America what we do to bad people here…” She stopped.
"Yes...?" Gadden prompted. "And then…?”
She could feel him against her. But it was different. The music that she’d thought to be coming from another room was now quite loud. It was in the room with them.
"They made us film everything and send it live by satellite..."
"And you? What did you do?"
"You saw. They made me report it. They took the President out. They castrated him. In front of his wife. He screamed. She was sobbing. Then they took her, making him wait and watch her die. She couldn't walk, so they dragged her. They tied her to a post. They were bad shots. They were too far away, like in the films. She was gasping in agony. They forced us to carry on filming. In the end they cut her throat to finish it..."
"And him?"
"Longer. They wouldn't let him die. He bled to death."
She was staring into the blackness of the room, hearing the waves, and the grunts and squeals and unrequited prayers for a merciful death. The drums had finally stopped.
She'd never told it before, though she'd lived with it, every day. She'd heard later that Liberty had hanged himself. Rajah had returned to Nairobi and gone to work in his father's grocery store. Sometimes she saw Colin, the WSN engineer, but they never talked about what had happened. He had an internal job at the studio now and was seeking early retirement.
They hadn't been harmed further. The FLO had turned them loose at the border. Twelve hours later they'd been back in London, with Kate Merrimac the most famous foreign correspondent in the world. She'd been taken straight to hospital.
She realised now that her face was wet, although she hadn't been aware that she'd been crying. Putting her arm up, she wiped her eyes.
At her side she felt Gadden stir. She thought at first he was getting up from the bed. But he moved against her and she felt his erection press into her thigh. She was so surprised she didn't immediately move. The music, his music, his guitars and mournful, pleading voice, was now loud, with them, in the room. Putting his head into the angle of her shoulder and neck he slipped his hand between her legs, touching her.
She recoiled. "No," she gasped, and, pushing his hand, pulled away from him.
He followed her, gripping her shoulder, pulling the sheets back, and hauling himself on top of her. "No!" he mimicked, as though it were a game. And he kissed her lips, his mouth open. “Come on, Kate! You know you want it.”
She moved her face away. His touch repelled.
He leaned more heavily, his knee forcing her legs apart.
"No!"
"For Christ's sake!"
“No!” She was shouting now, her hand at his throat, her leg buckling up and kneeing hard into him.
Momentarily his pressure eased in pain. “Agh!”
But in that second she’d forced him from her and was sliding across the bed and then out of the room and into the bathroom.
Slamming the door, she locked it, her body convulsing.
Chapter Seventeen
She knelt on the bathroom floor as waves of nausea gripped her. The horror she’d been forced to witness in Owoso had become a pornographic fantasy of which she’d allowed herself to become both its narrator and then object of desire. She felt blood-soaked.
At length the sickness passed and she began to shiver uncontrollably, and, reaching up, she pulled two large bath towels around her for warmth. Then she lay quite still, curled in a foetal position. An hour passed, maybe more, before she heard her bedroom door open and close as Gadden left. She didn’t move, but was aware that the music she’d heard had ended at some point. She hadn’t noticed when.
It was a long night without sleep, of shock and confusion, but mostly of self-disgust, and only as the monotone light of an autumn dawn reached the window did she unlock the bathroom door. Stepping cautiously into the bedroom, she dressed and quickly packed. Lastly she put her phone into her jacket pocket.
The house was silent and she assumed everyone else to be still sleeping. But as, carrying her bag, she made her way out on to the landing and along to the stairs, she became aware of a movement behind her. The freckled Swedish girl, Agnieta, who the previous evening had asked Gadden for a song, was standing watching her. Like a guard, her pretty face was expressionless.
Ignoring her, Kate began her descent of the stairs. Dana, the American girl from the kitchens, was stationed on
the floor below. Where the previous evening both had been giddy with smiles, now they offered no reaction.
She carried on down to the hall, but, as she did, it quickly, silently, began to populate. The Glee Club, young men and women, some still in their night clothes, their expressions ranging between puzzlement and rancour, were assembling to watch her.
Kerinova was standing in front of the main door, her bleached, blank face almost luminescent. “You’re leaving us?” she said
Alongside her stood Stefano and Kish. There was no sign of Gadden.
“Yes.”
“Without saying good-bye to Jesse? He’ll be disappointed.”
Kate didn’t answer. But, walking around the Estonian, she made for the door.
Stefano blocked the way.
“May I get past, please.”
He didn’t move.
She turned another way.
Kish stepped forward to stop her.
She looked around at the hostile faces. Then, with her eyes back on Stefano, she slipped a hand into her jacket pocket, pressed the send button on her phone and lifted it out.
“WSN-TV,” came the voice of the switchboard operator down the phone.
For a moment she noticed Stefano’s eyes switch to Kerinova.
“WSN…can I help you?” repeated the operator.
“This is Kate Merrimac…” Kate spoke into the phone.
Kerinova didn’t wait. “Somebody open the door,” she snapped. “Our television friend is leaving.”
Two young men hurried to unlock the oak door. It creaked as it opened and a draught of cold morning air swept into the hall.
Kate stepped outside on to the terrace, half-expecting to be grabbed from behind. It didn’t happen. Without looking back she went down the wide steps towards the long avenue of trees, her phone to her ear. She was trembling.