War Baby

by Colin Falconer

‘What am I, a fucking gypsy? And how does that make what you’re doing okay?’

  ‘You’ve been divorced for five years!’ Webb realized he was shouting and lowered his voice. ‘What the hell’s wrong with you?’

  ‘I still love her, Spider. I didn’t divorce her because I didn’t love her.’

  ‘You don’t know the meaning of that word.’

  ‘I don’t like the idea of one of my mates sleeping with my ex-wife.’

  ‘What ever gave you the idea that I was your mate?’

  He looked shocked. ‘Well, I always liked you.’

  ‘To coin a phrase, so you should.’

  Ryan took a deep breath. He peered more closely at the framed photograph on the wall: himself, Webb, Crosby and Cochrane on the Saigon street. Webb had had it reframed, but there was still a brown stain in one corner where the coffee had splashed over it. ‘They were good days back then. We’ll never ever get another war like that one.’

  They went back downstairs. Mickey had changed into a tracksuit, and her hair was tied back with a rubber band. She had made tea. She carried a tray with three cups and a teapot to the table by the window. ‘I took Jenny’s room. I hope that’s all right.’

  ‘Where do I sleep?’ Ryan said.

  ‘Why don’t you two sleep together,’ Mickey said, ‘then we’ll be even.’

  ‘Only if Spider’s on the bottom,’ Ryan said. ‘Then we’ll be even.’

  Chapter 67

  Ryan was up early, but Mickey and their host were already gone, there was a note on the kitchen table saying they’d gone for a walk on the beach. He padded into the kitchen and put the coffee on. He heard the throaty exhaust of an old car. A canary-yellow Volkswagen pulled up in front of the gate and a young Asian woman got out and bounced up the path in a Mets windcheater, jeans and Reeboks. She unlocked the door.

  She stared at him, open-mouthed. He looked down. At least he remembered to put on his jockey shorts.

  ‘G’day,’ he said.

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘You must be Jenny.’

  ‘You’re Ryan.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘I’ve seen you on the news. Uncle’s got your photograph upstairs in his study.’ She looked him up and down. ‘Nice bod.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  She threw her daypack on the floor and shut the door. ‘You’re the last person I expected to find out here. Uncle thinks you’re a jerk.’

  ‘I’m sure he didn’t mean it.’

  She went to the refrigerator, took out an apple, sat down at a bar stool. ‘He never says anything he doesn’t mean.’

  ‘I was hoping I’d meet you. He didn’t stop talking about you all last night over dinner.’

  She raised her eyes. ‘Sorry. He’s a major embarrassment. I think when you foster a kid it makes it worse. You’re always over-compensating. ’

  ‘Maybe. I wouldn’t know.’

  She bit into the apple and studied his body with frank and unnerving interest. ‘That’s an mpressive collection of scars. You look like a quilt.’

  ‘Want a coffee?’ he said.

  ‘I don’t drink coffee.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘The caffeine isn’t good for you.’ She took another bite of the apple. ‘You’ve got quite a reputation.’

  ‘For combat photography?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then for what?’

  ‘Women.’

  ‘Jesus. That was a long time ago.’

  ‘Yeah, I guess it was.’

  ‘Well, not that long,’ he said. ‘Spider says you’re a journalist.’

  ‘Spider?’

  ‘It’s traditional. In Australia every Webb’s A Spider, like every bloke with red hair’s called Bluey.’

  ‘Weird.’

  ‘So how’s the Times working out for you?’

  ‘Great. You have a Bible club meeting you’d like me to write up or you’ve had your basketball stolen, be sure to give me a call.’

  ‘He showed me a piece you did on the homeless. That was great writing. Spending a whole night on the streets of New York took a lot of guts. I’m not sure I would have done it.’

  ‘Uncle had a fit.’

  ‘Well, if I was your father . .. uncle, whatever ... I would have had a fit too.’

  ‘It was okay. I was made up like a bag lady. I had a friend in the theatre, and she did the make-up. I looked so horrible any rapist with self-respect would have jumped a dog before me. I had three pillows under my dress and one under my back.’

  ‘It still took a lot of guts.’

  ‘Yeah, well, next day I was back at the criminal courts writing up the crack dealers.’ She took a cup down from one of the shelves, poured some coffee out of the percolator and tipped in three sugars.

  ‘I thought you didn’t drink coffee.’

  ‘This is for Uncle. I’d better let him know I’m here.’

  ‘Too late. He was up and out before I got up.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  He nodded towards the beach. Two figures were walking side by side along the rocks from the bluff. ‘Here he comes now.’

  * * *

  It was cool by the water’s edge and Mickey zipped up her jacket. The dawn was a burned orange stain in the sky over Southampton Bridge.

  ‘Nothing happened between me and Ryan,’ Mickey said. ‘Okay?’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Look, I don’t have to justify myself to you. Did I ask you if the investment adviser was round this week to update your portfolio?’

  ‘Of course she didn’t. What do you take me for? I thought you knew where you stood with me. Now I want to know where I stand with you.’

  She stopped, looked up at him. ‘Where exactly is it that you want to stand?’

  ‘I want to marry you.’

  She looked just as scared and confused as she had at Bien Hoa. ‘We’re going to have to give it some time.’

  ‘The last thing anyone can say is we rushed into this.’

  ‘We really haven’t known each other that long. A couple of months maybe, if you don’t count the gaps.’

  ‘But I do count the gaps. I count them every day. They’re bloody long gaps.’

  ‘Let’s just take this one day at a time.’

  ‘You knew Ryan for about three weeks and you went straight back to Washington and married him.’

  ‘And look what happened. What’s the rush?’

  ‘You asked me what I wanted, I told you. There are no more fish in the sea for me. I’ve got one ocean and it’s all for you.’ They heard shouts from the house. Jenny ran across the lawn towards them. ‘To be continued,’ he said.

  * * *

  After breakfast Webb drove Ryan and Mickey into town, showed them the whaling museum and the Civil War monument and the old Customs House on Lower Main Street. The tourists were already out, crowding the wharves and the cafes. Ryan went into a souvenir shop and bought them all T-shirts with the cartoon whale logo of Lincoln Cove. It was a typically grand gesture and Webb felt irritated. Mickey took her shirt back into the shop and asked for a refund.

  When they got back to the cottage the morning was appreciably warmer and Jenny was already sunbathing on the deck. She lay on a sun chair reading P. J. O’Rourke’s Holidays in Hell, wearing Raybans, a gold bracelet and a black string bikini. Mickey watched her through the French windows; snake-hipped, raven-haired, gleaming with coconut oil. When she was her age she would have killed for skin like that.

  Ryan joined her, sat himself down on one of the cane rockers, and made small talk. Webb watched them too, the muscles working in his jaw.

  Chapter 68

  The China Sea rolled as another deep swell passed under the hull. They were two miles from shore in Gardiners Bay, two lines drifting from the stem. Webb emerged from below and threw a can of Budweiser at Ryan. Then he opened a beer for himself and sat down behind the wheel in the cabin.

  There were just the two of them. Mickey had decided to stay behind
at the cottage with Jenny. ‘You two go bond,’ she had said.

  ‘Nice boat, mate,’ Ryan said.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You’ve done all right. Really dug in, aren’t you?’

  ‘I guess.’

  A gust of wind shook the boat and whipped the pennants on the flying bridge. ‘Don’t you ever miss it, but?’

  ‘Miss what?’

  ‘The front line.’

  ‘Why the hell would I miss that?’

  ‘You did well enough out of it. It was worth a few books.’

  Webb watched the horizon. An ink-black border of cloud was climbing the sky. They would have to head back to Lincoln Cove soon and beat the weather. ‘Remember Odile? And the little girl?’

  ‘Christ, Spider, not that again!’

  ‘I just wonder if you ever stop and wonder what happened to them.’

  ‘I know what happened to them. You always bring this up.’

  ‘Let’s get the lines in,’ Webb said.

  ‘I can’t change the past.’

  ‘You piss me off, Sean. You go out there with food parcels and steal medicines for the kids from the PX but when you had a chance to do something for someone you actually knew, for someone who loved you, you ran a mile. Everything you do is just for show until it counts for something.’

  ‘I know what I am. I don’t need you to remind me. Christ, you haven’t changed a bit, have you?’

  ‘Nobody changes, they just get older.’ Webb finished his beer, crushed the can in his fist and threw it on the deck. He went to the stern and started reeling in the lines.

  Ryan brooded, sitting on the gunwale. A gust from the north shook the boat. ‘You’ll go back, mate. One day someone will ask you if you want to do a job in Afghanistan or the Balkans or somewhere and you’ll go back.’

  ‘Not me.’

  ‘Yeah, you will.’

  Webb laid the rods in the fiberglass compartment below the gunwales. ‘Don’t you ever think about taking it all, Sean? Three score years and ten they promise us in the Bible. Maybe that’s better than a bullet in your head in some godforsaken little country while you’re still only halfway through.’

  The wind whipped Ryan’s hair. ‘When I was twelve I had a fight with this red-haired kid in my class. Delaney, his name was. His old man was the publican at the hotel. I beat the living shit out of him. This was a Friday afternoon. Well, Friday night some of my mates came round and told me Delaney’s big brother was looking for me. This kid was sixteen and built like a brick shithouse. Well, at first I thought, okay, I’ll pretend to be sick. Take a few days off school. Or maybe if I get to school late and run home early I can avoid him. But then I thought, what’s the point? He’s going to find me sooner or later. So instead of hiding I went round the pub first thing on the Saturday morning and fronted him. I remember he was round the back carting beer kegs, and his sleeves were rolled up past his elbow and he had muscles like bags of potatoes. I knew I never had a chance. But the hiding he gave me wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. I won his respect, I suppose. And you know something else? I nearly beat the big bastard. That’s how it is with me and dying, Spider. I’ll front him on his own turf so I don’t have to spend the rest of my life worrying about it.’

  There were whitecaps on the ocean now, long black clouds scudding towards them. ‘Then again, if you’d taken a few days off, Delaney’s brother might have forgotten all about you,’ Webb said, and he went up to the flying bridge and hit the motor to pull in the anchor.

  * * *

  ‘So Sean’s your ex,’ Jenny said.

  ‘Yeah, hard to imagine, isn’t it?’

  A flurry of rain spattered against the windows. A mist had drifted down the channel, obscuring the far side of the cove. Jenny pulled on a woolen jersey and jeans and now lay sprawled on the sofa, P. J. O’Rourke on her lap. Her face was framed by a long tapered finger held against her cheek; the other hand held a glass of white wine.

  Mickey curled on a lounge chair, her feet tucked underneath her

  ‘What a cozy weekend,’ Jenny said. A beat, then: ‘Uncle likes you very much.’

  ‘Does he?’

  ‘He talks about you all the time.’

  ‘I like him too.’ The silence hung, so she added: ‘There haven’t been many men in my life recently. I gave them a few years ago.’

  ‘Why did you do that?’

  ‘Divorce is pretty tough on your confidence. I came away feeling like a failure, even though I blamed Sean for everything. And then after a while I started to wonder if the penis, and its ancillary attachment, wasn’t a little overrated.’

  ‘I can’t comment. The jury’s still out on that one for me.’

  ‘I think your dad just dragged the decision back to the appeals court for me, too. I’m listening to arguments.’

  ‘How did you meet?’

  ‘When I was a nurse at Bien Hoa in 1970. He’d just jumped out of a burning helicopter.’

  ‘I hate to use the word, but it sounds romantic.’

  ‘Oh, Bien Hoa wasn’t romantic. Nothing in Vietnam was romantic. Was it?’

  Jenny stared into her wine glass. ‘It’s a long time to know someone and not do something about it.’

  ‘Well, we lost touch after I got back. He was still there, no plans to come home and I was ... here. And besides I was a little … messed up.’

  ‘How were you messed up?’

  ‘I lost my faith.’

  ‘Your religion?’

  She shook her head. ‘I lost my faith in life, and in some sort of kind, beneficent God. I couldn’t carry on a normal life anymore. Everything seemed just, I don’t know, meaningless.’

  ‘Did you try and kill yourself?’

  Mickey felt her guard come up again. ‘That’s a hell of a question.’

  ‘It seems logical.’

  ‘Well, Dr Spock, we Vulcans are a little more tenacious than that. I did alcoholism and promiscuity instead. It’s the same thing only it a little more fun. For about five minutes.’

  ‘And you got better?’

  ‘Yeah, I got better. But I still miss the old me sometimes. You can get back a lot of things but never your innocence.’

  ‘Don’t be angry,’ Jenny said. ‘I really admire you. You must be very strong inside.’

  ‘I’m not angry. I’m just being open, okay?’ But she was angry. She felt as if she was being interrogated.

  ‘I was going to kill myself once,’ Jenny said.

  Ah, so she wasn’t expecting that. It completely disarmed her. What was she supposed to say to that?

  ‘It was the first year I was here. I thought I would just go down to the rocks there and into the water. And just keep walking.’

  ‘What stopped you?’

  Jenny seemed to shiver. ‘My mother told me not to.’

  ‘Your . .. mother?’

  ‘In those days I heard her talking to me all the time. Like a voice in my head. I guess I was a little crazy.’

  ‘No,’ Mickey said, ‘I was the same, I heard voices all the time too. Only my head was like a bar room, loads of people all shouting for another drink.’ Mickey reached out her hand. ‘Did you ever talk to Hugh about this?’

  ‘Uncle would not understand.’

  ‘He might.’

  ‘Well, it doesn’t matter now. I obeyed my mother’s voice so now I guess everything is okay.’ She ran her fingers through her long black hair and pushed it back over her shoulder. ‘I must have come through it for a reason. I don’t think anyone survives just by luck.’

  They heard the jeep pull into the drive. Webb and Ryan got out and ran up the path. They got soaked through in the downpour, but Ryan was laughing about it.

  I have to tell her, he thought, I have to tell her about Ryan. I don’t know if it’s true, and I don’t know if it’s going to make any difference, but I have to tell her what I think. It had been weighing on him all weekend, seeing them together on the deck. Watching Ryan flirting with her
had made him feel physically sick. He could not let it go on.

  What would he say when she asked him why he hadn’t told her before? How could he explain and excuse that?

  * * *

  He had not expected her to stick around on the Sunday evening after Ryan and Mickey had left. He gave them a ride down to the train station, and when he got back to the cottage she was still there, in the kitchen, preparing dinner. She was chopping shallots, with rapid, expert movements of the knife. Something was wrong. Whenever she needed to talk she always went into the kitchen, started preparing food. It was her natural adjunct to important conversation.

  ‘Don’t you have to be at work tomorrow?’

  ‘I’ve got the day off.’ She separated some cloves of garlic and mashed them with the blade of the knife. ‘Fun weekend?’

  ‘It was different.’

  ‘I like Mickey. She’s okay.’ She spilled one of the cloves on the floor. She looked nervous.

  ‘What did you think of Sean?’

  ‘It’s all right. I saw how he was looking at me. Don’t worry. He’s old enough to be my father.’

  ‘There’s something I have to talk to you about,’ he said.

  She dropped the knife on the counter top. ‘No, me first. You probably want to know why I’ve got the day off tomorrow.’

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  She took a deep breath. ‘I’ve got every day off.’

  ‘You lost your job?’

  ‘I quit.’

  ‘Quit? Why?’

  ‘Because I’m sick of writing up court reports and traffic accidents. I want to do proper journalism.’

  ‘The New York Times is one of the country’s - the world’s - leading newspapers. There’s kids would give their right arm to get a break there. You’re only twenty years old, for God’s sake! It’s called a cadetship. Give it time.’

  ‘What were you doing when you were twenty?’

  ‘I was working on a provincial newspaper in Surrey.’

  ‘While you figured out some way to get to Vietnam! If you want to get out of the herd you don’t follow the rest. You taught me that!’

  ‘I meant when you were grown up.’