War Baby

by Colin Falconer

  ‘Lucky you.’

  ‘I helped get her the job.’

  Her eyes glittered. ‘No strings attached.’

  ‘That’s right. No strings attached. She’s my daughter.’

  He could almost hear the gears clunk into place as she sorted this. ‘Your daughter? And she’s twenty years old?’

  ‘I call her that. She still calls me her uncle, even though I officially adopted her a few years ago.’ He sipped his drink. ‘She’s a Vietnamese refugee.’

  Mickey shook her head. ‘Here I was thinking you’d become the ultimate hedonist. I should have known better.’

  ‘Widows and divorcees are more my speed these days. I really don’t believe in May-November romances.’

  ‘Not November, surely? Don’t forget we’re about the same age.’

  ‘July, then.’

  ‘That’s better. What’s her name?’

  ‘Her real name’s Phuong but she uses Jenny. Her choice. Part of the integration process.’

  ‘What made you ... ?’

  ‘What made me adopt a Vietnamese refugee? I was researching my book on the boat people and she looked like a good tax deduction.’

  ‘Very cute?’

  ‘Do you have a motive for everything you do?’

  ‘Yes, but I try not to look at my motives too closely.’

  ‘Same here.’

  ‘It couldn’t have been easy. I mean - a bachelor adopting a teenage girl?’

  ‘Looking back from the point of view of the politically correct nineties, it was a lot easier than it should have been. Scary, in fact.’

  ‘Any regrets?’

  ‘Not about Jenny. Oh, she gave me my share of heartache. A brush with the law and a few other incidents I’d rather forget. She actually hit a boy at her school with a copy of Webster’s unabridged dictionary after he called her a gook. She must have taken quite a swing because he had to go to the doctor’s with concussion. If it had been the complete works of Shakespeare she would have killed him.’

  ‘You’re making light of it now but I bet it was damned hard.’

  ‘Good bet. I was guru, helpline and kicking-post for the first two years. Fortunately she’s very bright and she did well at school. I got her some private tuition and by the end of her final year of high school she’d not only caught up with her peers, they were eating her dust. I wanted her to go to college, but she was in too much of a hurry for that. A friend of mine got her a job as a rookie with the New York Times. She’s bright, she’s ambitious, she’s opinionated and she scares the hell out of me.’

  ‘You sound very proud.’

  ‘I am.’

  She shook her head. ‘Funny.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘You think you’re looking so hard for something, but in fact it’s right there under your nose all along.’ She leaned across the table and smiled at him, the way he’d always wanted her to.

  The waiter arrived and asked them if they’d like to order.

  There was nothing on the menu remotely like what they’d eaten during the real Revolucion! at La Esperanza: green chili with pork, grilled tuna and avocado salad.

  She decided on the tuna; he chose the dish with the green chili, to show off.

  ‘Why did you go back to San Diego?’ he asked her.

  ‘I had to get out of Washington. I felt a breakdown coming on.’

  ‘Washington makes everyone feel like that.’

  ‘This wasn’t politics. This was rampant alcoholism.’ She smiled at his expression. ‘You didn’t know?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘A bottle of vodka a day, but when Ryan left I moved up another gear. When I got to San Diego I spent my first three weeks at home in bed. My mother must have been worried sick. When I finally went out and got a job as an ER nurse they found me the first day hiding under a trundle bed in the recovery room. Someone gently suggested to me I might like to do my own recovering before coming back to work. So I went to see this shrink for a while and he diagnosed post-traumatic stress syndrome. Vietnam disease.’ She made a face. ‘Hearing that made me even thirstier. Things got a little tacky for a while.’

  ‘Why didn’t you call me?’

  She smiled and said not unkindly, ‘And say what? All I’ve done is hurt you, but will you come and watch me break down for a while? I thought you’d had enough of me. I don’t blame you.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘I was in and out of this place called Riverlands for a few months. I don’t know why it was called that, there’s no river, just a lot of trees and a big fence. Anyway, they got me straightened out to the point where I could manage more than a couple of words at a time. When I got out I visited this therapist for a while. My mother paid for that, God bless her. We went through a lot of stuff, and I finally got to the point where I could work again. No more trauma rooms for Mickey; these days it’s hemorrhoids and prostates. So here I am. Forty-three years old and I’m ready to start life.’

  ‘I had no idea things were so bad.’

  ‘Of course not. I was just this crazy broad who married the wrong guy and caused you nothing but grief.’

  ‘So what now?’

  ‘I nurse at a small private hospital on the Upper West Side. People of private means with very private conditions. I assist in theatre and tuck them into bed at night. It’s a long way from Bien Hoa but it’s better for my health.’

  ‘Any men in your life I should know about?’

  ‘Why should you know about the men in my life? Assuming there are any.’

  ‘Because I have a proposition for you.’

  ‘We’ve only known each other twenty-two years. Aren’t you rushing things?’

  ‘When do you next get a few days off?’

  ‘This weekend, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘Why don’t you come over to the cottage and spend the weekend. You can have Jenny’s room.’

  She smiled. ‘Really?’

  ‘Sure. We can stay up late drinking Perrier water and play salsa music really loud.’

  ‘I’d like that,’ she said.

  He grinned. Hugh, what are you doing? You must be out of your mind.

  * * *

  Webb grilled steaks on the barbecue and brought out a large bowl of Caesar salad, a bottle of mineral water and two glasses. He tried to act as if he wasn’t craving a beer. They sat talking on the deck until the wind turned cool and forced them inside. As the sun slipped below the island Webb turned on the table lamps inside the living room. Other lights flickered on the far shore.

  While he made coffee, Mickey did a slow circuit of the room, examining the local scrimshaw on the stone mantelpiece, picking up and studying each framed photograph.

  Webb watched her. She had on a grey hooded cotton jersey and loose navy boating pants. Her feet were bare. She looked so down home, he felt as if they had been around each other all their lives. Why had it taken them so long to get here?

  ‘This is Jenny?’ she asked him, holding up a photograph he had taken when she was about fifteen. She was wearing braces and a goofy grin.

  ‘The one next to it is a little more recent.’

  It had been taken about six months before, on the deck of a friend’s boat. The gauche teenager’s grin had been replaced with the restrained, almost haughty smile of the confident young woman she had now become.

  ‘She’s beautiful,’ Mickey said.

  ‘Thank you. I think so too.’

  She replaced the photograph on the mantel. ‘Where’s all the war memorabilia?’

  ‘Upstairs in the study. I don’t like having it on show. The only thing I keep out is this.’ He went to the coffee table and picked up what looked like a paperweight. It was a small glass case mounted on a heavy onyx base. He handed it to her. Inside was a shiny brass .762 bullet. It had ‘Hugh Webb’ engraved on the casing.

  ‘Where did you get this?’

  ‘Lee Cochrane gave it to me when I got back from El Salvador. It’s the bullet with my
name on it.’

  ‘If you’ve got the bullet that’s got your name on it, you don’t have to worry anymore.’

  ‘Something like that. Did you hear what happened to him?’

  She nodded. ‘He was still in hospital when I left Washington.’

  ‘Ironic. He got out of the front line because he said he wanted to die in his own bed. Then he has a heart attack at thirty-nine. I suppose if the bullet has your name on it, it doesn’t matter where you are.’

  ‘How’s he doing?’

  ‘Lost twenty pounds, gave up smoking and drinking and got into health foods. He’s back with the network, only these days he chews a stick of celery while he fires people.’

  She handed the paperweight back. ‘Life’s strange, isn’t it?’

  ‘Sure is.’

  ‘When I first met you in Vietnam I never thought we would be standing here doing this twenty years on.’

  ‘First time I saw you I thought that twenty seconds later I’d just be a few bits of charcoal swept into a bag and sent out on the DOA mail. Instead here I am, a pillar of the establishment worrying about my retirement fund.’

  ‘You ever have nightmares about that burning helicopter?’

  ‘Not often. I’m down to just once a week.’

  She back against the mantel. ‘Ever miss it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Liar.’

  ‘Sometimes. For all the wrong reasons.’

  ‘Would you ever go back?’

  ‘I’m too old for all that.’

  ‘Ryan did and he’s older than you.’

  ‘He has more testosterone than me.’ He went back to the kitchen to finish making the coffees. ‘I have the bullet with my name on it. Why worry? Right?’

  ‘You are thinking about it.’

  ‘There’s something insidious about being safe. You slip on the days like a pair of old socks. I’ve got enough money, I’ve got a nice house to live in, I know an A-37 isn’t going to come screaming out of the sky and put a rocket through the window. Salvador would have said I was lucky. But I feel like one of those retired boxers. I’m punch drunk, but I want to get back in the ring just once more.’ He affected a nasal Brando voice. ‘I coulda been a contender.’

  She went to the bookshelf, found a hardback copy of Deception and flicked through the pages. ‘I should have brought my copy. You could have signed it for me.’

  ‘You read it?’

  ‘I wanted to see if I got an honorable mention. Or even a dishonorable one.’

  ‘I didn’t think that would be fair. And, to be frank, you weren’t central to the issue of US foreign policy.’

  ‘I wasn’t? You really know how to hurt a girl.’ Her mood changed, the playfulness left her. ‘I think I’ll skip coffee. I’m tired. I think I’ll have an early night.’

  He showed her Jenny’s bedroom. She still used it when she came out for the weekends, so Webb had left it the way it was, with the Luke Perry and Axl Rose posters taped over the curled and torn photographs of Vietnam paddy fields, which in turn had been tacked over the Bruce Springsteen posters. It was the archaeology of Jenny’s adolescence. On a shelf were Jenny’s trophies from the debating society - Webb had always teased her that she had done all her practicing on him - and there was a stuffed toy, a puppy called Woofer, on the end of the bed, which was still made up with Jenny’s lace pillowslip and quilts.

  ‘This is my room,’ Webb said. ‘Do you want to see where you’re sleeping?’

  She grinned. ‘I picked you straight away for a Guns n’ Roses freak.’

  ‘The soft toys, the rock posters, the lace - she’s actually not like this at all. When you meet her you’ll know what I mean.’

  ‘She won’t mind me using her room?’

  ‘She will, but not for the reason you think. She’ll just be disappointed in me. She thinks it’s avant-garde having a father who has to worry about safe sex more than she does.’

  She gave him a wistful look, then opened the French windows and went out on to the narrow balcony. He stood behind her, watched the riding lights of a fishing boat making its way along the channel between the red marker buoys.

  ‘It’s beautiful out here. Peaceful.’ She sighed. ‘God, I’ve wasted so much time.’

  ‘It wasn’t wasted if it taught you something.’

  ‘What’s that, a quote from Richard Bach?’

  ‘No, I think it might have been the Eagles. Can’t remember how the tune goes.’

  ‘Don’t try and cheer me up.’

  ‘All right, I won’t. Can I ask what happened between you and Ryan?’

  ‘What do you think happened with me and Ryan?’

  ‘I think he touched his boredom threshold about three and a half hours after getting to Washington, that he had an affair a day later and on the first rainy day he didn’t find a new Watergate to report on he went off looking for a war.’

  ‘If you could see it coming, why didn’t I?’

  ‘I suppose you were in love with him. I wasn’t.’

  She hugged herself. ‘You always wondered why him and not you, huh?’

  ‘No, I never wondered that. I could tell myself it was because I had malaria, but that wouldn’t be true. He could have caught dysentery, dengue fever and been ravaged by smallpox and he would still have got you. It’s always been the way. He has a deadly kind of charm. It seems to appeal to the masochistic in a woman. I know it isn’t politically correct to say so, but it’s true.’

  ‘I was flattered that a man like him really wanted me.’

  ‘Okay, but why marry him?’

  ‘I thought I could change him. I thought he really wanted to change. Here’s a guy with a famous father who abandoned him as a baby, who later publicly drank himself to death. He grows up and spends almost his entire adult life taking photographs of dismembered bodies. I thought he was damaged. I thought he needed healing.’

  ‘You’re breaking my heart. The man’s an emotional vacuum.’

  ‘He speaks well of you too.’

  ‘I got the man out of some deep shit. I’m allowed to say what I like.’

  ‘Well, maybe you’re right.’

  ‘You didn’t find any other guys after Ryan?’

  She shook her head. ‘I gave up men for a while. They’re like cholesterol. As you get older you have to really cut down on your intake. I gave up them up along with the booze and the ER; everything I enjoyed was killing me. Last few years I’ve lived a quiet and sober life. I read a lot. I’m thinking of getting a puppy’

  ‘So what brought you back to New York?’

  ‘My mom died a couple of years ago. No more reason to stay in San Diego. I figured I was ready for one more crack at the world. I applied for some jobs, this one came up. I thought, sure, why not. New York’s as good as anywhere else. And here I am.’

  ‘Here you are,’ he said, still not sure where all this was leading.

  ‘I don’t want to waste any more time.’ She picked up his hand and placed it on her breast.

  ‘I don’t think we should do this,’ Webb murmured.

  ‘That’s my line.’ When he didn’t smile, she added: ‘I don’t want to sleep in here with Luke Perry. I’m forty-three years old.’

  He took his hand away. He wanted her, always had. But she was dangerous for him. ‘Let’s slow down a bit.’

  She folded her arms, leaned on the railing, close to tears. ‘You’re still mad at me?’

  ‘Of course I’m mad at you. You broke my fucking heart!’

  ‘Well, give it back, then,’ she said. ‘I’ll see if I can mend it.’

  He led her upstairs to his room. They stood facing each other in the dark. She could hear the murmur of the waves lapping on the shale at the bottom of the garden.

  ‘I’ve never done it on a water bed,’ she said.

  ‘It’s easy. You start with a six inch wave, build to a three-foot swell and finish with a tsunami.’

  ‘The six inch wave sounds do-able. But a three foot swell? You
fishermen always exaggerate.’

  He took her hand. ‘I’m nervous.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘After all this time I’m afraid this is going to be a disappointment for you.’

  ‘It’s got to be better than the first time.’

  ‘You fell asleep.’

  ‘No reflection on your performance.’

  ‘The second time was okay. Of course you were a lot younger then.’

  He kissed her gently, felt the answering pressure of her body against his. This isn’t going to work, he thought. After all this time, after Ryan, after everything, it just isn’t going to work.

  Chapter 65

  He rolled on to his back, his heart banging in his chest. He turned towards her and they both laughed.

  ‘Wow. You must have every divorcee in Lincoln Cove queuing up here during the week.’

  ‘I’ve been saving that up for twenty years.’

  ‘It feels like it.’ The moon shining through the open window sculpted shadows on her body. She held him in her fingers and stroked him. ‘If only he could talk.’

  ‘It would be a pretty short and boring conversation.’

  ‘I don’t see any signs of rust. Come on, I’ve been honest with you. Let’s hear all your dark secrets. I can tell you haven’t let this enormous talent go to waste.’

  ‘I nearly married an editor at my publishing company a couple of years ago.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘She wanted to leave work and have children. She was too good an editor to lose.’

  She laughed at that. ‘And now?’

  ‘There was a divorcee lives on Baypoint Road. She’s some sort of investment adviser. She used to call by every Monday and Thursday to examine my portfolio.’

  ‘Didn’t work out?’

  ‘She traded in her options to go long on a retired banker on the point.’ He groaned. ‘Don’t do that.’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Do what you’re doing.’

  ‘What am I doing?’

  ‘For God’s sake, woman.’

  ‘I think he’s reloading.’

  ‘Mickey, I can’t. You’ll kill me.’

  ‘It’s okay. I know what I’m doing. I’m a medical professional.’