War Baby

by Colin Falconer

  Cochrane shrugged. ‘He came to me and said he wanted a job that would keep him in one place. We’d just lost our White House correspondent to another network and I had this idea of giving Ryan a screen test. He was a natural.’

  ‘He made him a star overnight.’

  ‘He was good,’ Cochrane said, a little defensively. ‘Besides he looked a bit like his father and everyone remembered him. The entertainment papers lapped it up.’

  ‘Where was Mickey?’ Doyle asked.

  ‘She was with him. They got married soon after they got back from the El Salvador jaunt.’

  Crosby shook his head. ‘Ryan told me once he could never imagine sleeping with just one person for the rest of his life.’

  ‘Then why did he marry her?’ Doyle asked.

  Cochrane leaned forward. ‘In my opinion he genuinely thought he’d had enough. The thing in El Salvador shook him up, badly. I hate to say it, but I think Mickey and marriage was just his way of dealing with all that.’

  ‘Thank you, Dr Freud,’ Crosby said, with a grimace. ‘But Ryan was always reckless. Rushing into marriage was just like him. What intriguers me more is: why did Mickey marry him?’

  Doyle looked around the group. ‘So none of you big, tough guys have ever fallen in love with a woman you knew was totally wrong, had no future for you, and was an utter bitch?’

  Crosby grinned. ‘No, not this week. But last Wednesday when I was in Denver ...’

  Webb stared into his cognac. ‘She loved him.’

  ‘And you?’ Doyle said.

  ‘I didn’t love him,’ Webb said, and smiled.

  ‘You loved her.’

  ‘I was the Invisible Man when he came on the scene. But that was the trouble with Sean. Women came too easy. It’s like being born with money. You never get to value it because you’ve never had to work for it.’

  ‘Anyone here go to his wedding?’ Doyle asked.

  ‘I got an invitation,’ Webb said, ‘but I had a prior engagement.’

  ‘I went,’ Cochrane said. ‘So did Croz.’

  ‘Registry office,’ Crosby said. ‘It was like they were both frightened that if there were long-drawn-out arrangements they would change their minds.’

  ‘What happened?’ Doyle asked.

  Webb shook his head. ‘I don’t know this part,’ he said. He looked at Cochrane. ‘You’d better tell the story.’

  Chapter 51

  Washington, DC, and Long Island, New York,

  May 1984

  ‘War is the ambulance chaser’s wet dream ... the visions of misery and suffering can also provide a convenient reference point for putting aside one’s own damaged emotions.’

  - Paul Harris, freelance photo-journalist, from

  Someone Else’s War

  The President of the United States emerged from the diplomatic entrance of the White House and strode towards the helicopter waiting for him on the South Lawn. He was greeted with a barrage of questions from the waiting reporters.

  ‘Mr. President, what’s your reaction to the murder charges being laid against members of the military in El Salvador?’

  ‘Mr. President, is the United States still going to support the regime in El Salvador?’

  ‘Mr. President, what’s your reaction to the news of free elections in Nicaragua?’

  Reagan grinned in his good-natured-uncle manner and cupped a hand to his ear to indicate that he couldn’t quite hear the questions over the roar of the helicopter rotors. He pointed to his watch to indicate he was running a behind schedule.

  He saluted the white-gloved Marine at the foot of the helicopter steps and turned at the door to wave expansively, as if to a large crowd of admirers, instead of a small huddle of shouting reporters and a clutch of television cameras.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ Ryan swore.

  ‘That’s what he wants us to think,’ a voice said. Ryan turned. It was Mike Nesbitt from NBC Washington.

  ‘This isn’t news, mate. We might as well be doing commercials for the bloke.’

  ‘Did you see what they called you in today’s Post? “The human bullhorn.” ’

  ‘Yeah, right, they make out the joke’s on me, but the joke is on the American public. He makes it look like he’s accessible, and he isn’t. He hears the questions all right. If he gets one he thinks he can answer, he shouts back his sound-bite soon enough. Shithead!’

  ‘Whoa, boy. That’s the President of the United States you’re talking about.’

  ‘He’s just an out-of-work actor, mate. You would have done better electing Jack Benny. When was the last time this bastard gave a press conference?’

  ‘It’s all part of the game, Sean.’

  The helicopter lifted off the lawn. The news crews began to pack away their equipment.

  ‘They’re stuffing us around, Mike. We have to show this on the news because it’s the only film we’ve got and they bloody know it. But what have we got? The President looking busy. And it’s all bullshit. I bet right now he’s strapped in the dickie seat with his cardie over his knees, snoring. I reckon they fly him up and down the bay all day just to keep him out of the fucking way.’

  ‘Take it easy, Sean, you’ll give yourself an ulcer.’

  Ryan’s cameraman, Danny, looked up at him. ‘What now? The usual stand-up shot with the White House in the background?’

  Ryan shrugged. Why not? What else was there to do on another frustrating spring morning in Washington?

  * * *

  The Four Seasons was one of Washington’s most elegant hotels, with an address in the fashionable Georgetown district. Lee Cochrane was sprawled in an armchair in the air-conditioned hush of the Garden Terrace lounge. Ryan was escorted to his table by a waitress. She took the bottle of Chardonnay from the cooler on the table and poured a glass for him as he sat down.

  She departed with a longing smile in his direction.

  ‘I don’t know what it is you’ve got,’ Cochrane grunted, ‘but she wants some of it.’

  ‘Money,’ Ryan said.

  Cochrane grinned. ‘How’s things?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Mickey?’

  ‘Yeah, she’s fine too.’

  He settled back in his chair and regarded his new boss and mentor. His most vivid memories of Lee Cochrane were of a scrawny hippy in a camouflage jacket clutching the floor of their Saigon apartment because he was afraid he was about to fall off it. That Lee Cochrane had somehow metamorphosed into a senior news editor in the New York headquarters of a national television network, boasting a power haircut, manicured nails and a Rolex Oyster Perpetual. The camouflage jacket had been replaced by a button-down two-tone silk shirt, a Sulka tie, and an Armani double-breasted wool suit. Even the grey at his temples had the appearance of an expensive executive accessory.

  Ryan no longer felt comfortable around Lee Cochrane. They were still good friends; it was Cochrane who had got him this job, and the exorbitant salary that went with it. But Cochrane was part of the establishment now. He had privately nicknamed him Lee Cocaine.

  ‘How you settling in here?’ Cochrane asked.

  ‘Fine,’ Ryan said. He shifted uneasily in the lounge chair. He had the feeling he was being interrogated.

  ‘I just wanted to touch base with you, Sean. How long have you been in Washington now?’

  ‘Eleven months, three weeks and four days.’

  ‘It’s a big change from war zones.’

  ‘I don’t miss it. Look, don’t bullshit me. You didn’t get me here to talk about the weather. What is it, Lee? The suits in New York don’t like what I’m doing?’

  ‘I told you, Sean, you look good in front of a camera. You’re a natural.’

  ‘Well that’s good. Right?’

  Cochrane held his wineglass to the light. ‘It’s just that, well, you’re right, there are some things management is worried about.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘I don’t want you to feel pressured by this.’

  ‘Tell me what
it is and I’ll let you know if I feel pressured.’

  ‘We’ve been taking some heat from Washington.’

  ‘The whole of Washington?’

  A chill smile. ‘Some people in the White House press office.’

  ‘That’s good, isn’t it? Shows I’m doing my job.’

  ‘Maybe. But you’ve got to remember this isn’t some third world dictator you’re dealing with here.’

  ‘No, this is a First World dictator.’

  ‘Hey buddy, you know I’m on your side. But this isn’t Vietnam or El Salvador. You can’t deal with Reagan like he’s some petty tyrant.’

  ‘I never said he was petty.’

  ‘This is America. We have to have a little bit of give and take here.’

  ‘Yeah, we give ’em an inch, they’ll take a mile.’

  ‘You know what I’m saying.’

  ‘You want me to take a softer line on Reagan. Is that it?’

  ‘The network is worried that your reporting is not showing the proper balance. There’s a difference between being tough and being antagonistic. Just lately the Sean Ryan charm has been a little thin on the ground. You’re coming across pretty sour.’

  ‘Well, maybe I should go back to just taking the pictures.’

  ‘That’s your call. But I thought this was what you wanted.’

  Ryan looked away. He watched a young and very attractive blonde in a black cocktail dress glide across the lounge to another table. He had never seen so many beautiful women as he had here. Washington was like he imagined Hollywood. Perhaps that old saw about power being the most powerful aphrodisiac was true.

  ‘Can I talk to you as a friend, Sean?’

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘I guess I shouldn’t be saying this, but what the hell are you doing in this job?’

  ‘Mate, you should know. You gave it to me.’

  Cochrane raised a hand in acknowledgment. ‘Because you said you wanted it. And I wouldn’t have given it to you if I didn’t think you had the talent. But. .. maybe what you want and what you think you want are two different things.’ He leaned forward, hands on his knees. ‘I saw Croz the other day.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘He’s back working for IPA. He’s going to be running their Far East bureau. He needs a photographer to cover the war in Afghanistan.’

  ‘If you want me out, mate, just say so.’

  ‘When I want you out, I will say so.’

  ‘So what’s this about Croz?’

  ‘You told me when you took this on that you’d had enough of covering combat zones.’

  ‘I have. That’s a young bloke’s game.’

  ‘Then lighten up, Sean. The White House isn’t a combat posting. Take off the flak jacket for the stand-ups and stop treating the President as if he’s Joseph Stalin.’

  ‘I think I’d prefer Joseph Stalin.’ Ryan took a deep breath, thought about what Cochrane had said. ‘I’ll try and tone things down a bit, all right?’

  Cochrane smiled.

  ‘Mate, remember the Hashish Hilton? I never knew anyone could smoke as much dope as you and still get their stories out on time.’

  ‘Yeah, sometimes I miss all that. But the world turns.’

  ‘I guess it does.’

  ‘The thing that bugs me the most,’ Cochrane said, ‘is that you still don’t look a day older.’

  ‘I put it down to clean living. Are you in town overnight? I’ll call Mickey. We’ll go some place and get a feed.’

  ‘I have to get the evening shuttle back to New York. Maybe next time.’

  ‘Yeah, maybe next time.’ Ryan looked at his watch. ‘I’d better get back to the sweatshop. Schultz is giving a press conference at three o’clock.’

  ‘Think about what I said.’

  ‘Smile more on camera, don’t mention Central America, and kiss Reagan’s ass.’

  ‘That’s not quite it, but it will do.’

  ‘I’ll do my best.’

  Ryan got up and walked out through the lobby. Editors. They were all bastards. He thought he had been doing well, or as well as he knew how. But there seemed to be some sort of conspiracy to get him back where the guns were. Even people like Cochrane couldn’t accept that he had changed. He’d given him a lifeline and now he was trying to snatch it back again.

  Well, bugger them, he wasn’t going to do Afghanistan for Crosby. He’d kiss Reagan’s ass if he had to. And Schultz’s, even Larry Speakes’. Who could tell? After a while he might even get used to the taste, if not the smell.

  Chapter 52

  Ryan brought a glass and a bottle of Bushmills out to the green wrought-iron table on his Georgetown patio. A yellow carriage lamp threw shadows across the paving. The evening was cool, ripe with the scent of flowering jasmine.

  He poured a slug of the whisky and swallowed it down, closing his eyes as the liquor burned the back of his throat.

  He picked up the ashtray on the table, a souvenir from the Continental in Saigon, and stared at it. He remembered the evenings he and Crosby and Cochrane and Webb had spent on the Shelf, drinking and talking over Saigon politics or their most recent contact in the boonies. The best of times, the worst of times. From inside the house came another fragment of that memory, the electric buzz of Jimi Hendrix.

  He couldn’t help it, Cochrane had got to him. He was right, he did miss Saigon. The trouble with peace, he decided, is that it’s dull. Sure everyone wants peace; most of the time and most places. But you had to have a war somewhere or people would go crazy.

  But he was not going back. He had given his word; to Mickey, to Salvador, to the dead women and children in the plaza at La Esperanza. He’d given his word to whatever god there was that listened to him babbling that night Buford chained him to the bed.

  He heard Mickey at the front door. She took Hendrix off the record player and replaced All Along the Watchtower with an Easy Listening CD. Compact disc technology, something else he hated about the eighties. He liked the dust and the scratching. Who needs perfection?

  Mickey appeared on the balcony with a Stoli and orange.

  ‘What’s this shit you’re listening to?’ he said.

  ‘It’s the Police.’

  ‘Sounds more like the school prefect.’

  ‘Planet Earth calling Sean Ryan. We have a message for you. The sixties are over. Do you receive?’

  He scowled at her.

  ‘Have a bad day?’ she asked him.

  She was still in her nurse’s uniform. She leaned over his chair to kiss him; her clothes smelled of sweat and antiseptic. It reminded him of too many bad times spent in hospitals.

  ‘I saw Cochrane today.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He thinks I look too sour, whatever that bloody means. Like charm is everything for a journo, right? I mean, what am I, a stand-up comic? I could do El Salvador jokes, right? How many death squads does it take to change a light bulb?’

  ‘You did have a bad day.’

  ‘Schultz gave a press conference on Central America. Evidently the Russians are going to invade New Mexico sometime in August. Helping the El Salvador government massacre half the native population is a diversionary tactic.’

  She poured him another Bushmills.

  ‘How about you?’

  ‘One T&T gunshot wound, a stabbing, a road trauma DOA, two drug ODs, one of them a twelve-year-old black kid. The usual.’

  ‘You okay?’

  ‘It’s cold out here. Let’s go inside.’

  Ryan went into the kitchen and made coffee. Mickey sat at the breakfast bar. She worked a long strand of hair loose from her ponytail and started to chew it. Ryan watched her for as long as he could stand it.

  ‘What’s up?’ he said.

  ‘I don’t know how to tell you this.’

  ‘What, you’re sick? You lost your job? Tell me.’

  ‘I think I’m pregnant.’

  Oh, great. The perfect end to a perfect day. ‘Are you sure?�
��

  ‘No, I’m not sure. I missed my period. My nipples are sore.’

  He nodded.

  ‘Are you pleased?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘You don’t look very pleased.’

  ‘The thought of being responsible for somebody else’s life terrifies me.’

  ‘Me too.’

  They looked at each other like two total strangers, trapped in the same lift. The television was on in the lounge room, a news report of the latest fighting between the Russians and the mujahideen in Afghanistan. His eyes moved away from her to the screen.

  ‘How come you never look at me like that?’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You just look so horny when you see a Pathan with a handheld missile launcher. I can’t compete.’

  ‘Not that again.’

  ‘If you’re not interested in this baby ...’

  The kettle boiled on the range. ‘I thought you wanted a kid,’ he said.

  ‘But will you still be around when it’s born? When it’s growing up.’

  ‘Of course I’ll be around. Where else would I be?’

  ‘That’s the burning question, isn’t it? Get it right and you win the car.’

  ‘Translation?’

  She stood up. ‘I don’t want any coffee. I’m bushed. I’m going to have a shower and an early night. I’ve got another early shift tomorrow. Are you coming to bed?’

  He looked vague. ‘I’ll be up in a while.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘It may just be a false alarm.’

  She went upstairs to the bedroom, then decided she would shower in the morning instead. She stripped off her clothes and fell into bed. It would have been nice to have had him slip between the sheets beside her, so she could hold him, have him hold her. She put a hand on her belly, wondered if she could feel anything growing in there, or if it was all just imagination. She had wanted a baby so much.

  She had thought he had wanted it too; but it was hard to know what her husband wanted any more.

  * * *

  The EMTs were running with the gurney towards the emergency room. They had put an inflatable MAST suit on the boy’s legs, and had an intravenous line running a unit of plasma into his arm, but he had already started convulsing. It didn’t look good.