The last of Lance’s anger ebbed away and only irritation remained. ‘I don’t know how anyone so bright can be se ignorant,’ he said.
She grinned. ‘I presume you are referring to me, and not Kyle?’
He snorted with derision at the thought of saying anything complimentary, however obliquely, about Kyle.
‘Weil,’ she said, changing the subject, ‘at least I don’t get myself arrested, brother mine. How many times have you been taken into custody this year for disturbing the peace? Six? Seven times?’
It had been seven times, but the next time a Blyth-Templeton found themselves in the middle of controversy, and consequently in the gossip columns of the nation’s newspapers, it wasn’t Lance who stood there. It was Serena.
She had spent the evening at Annabel’s with a party of friends. Toby had been there, and since they hadn’t seen each other for quite a while, the champagne had flowed and they had danced on the small, dark dance floor until the early hours of the morning. When the brutal noise of hard rock changed to a slower, smoochier rhythm, she inebriatedly announced that she had had enough, and that she was going home. Alone.
Toby, more than a little drunk himself, knew by now that when she said alone, she meant alone, and he made no attempt to follow her.
As she stepped out of the foyer, two middle-aged men in evening dress alighted from a taxi cab and walked towards the nightclub’s entrance.
‘Did you hear the late night news?’ one of them was asking the other. ‘Hanoi Radio has apparently reported that several captured US pilots have been paraded through the city in front of angry crowds.’
‘The Americans won’t like that,’ the other said grimly. ‘Too humiliating by half.’
There was a short laugh and then, as the doorman opened the door to them, the words, ‘Poor buggers, whoever they are.’
The taxi had moved off, and she stood on the pavement, making no attempt to flag one down. Airmen. She presumed they had been ref erring to bomber pilots shot down over the North and captured.
There had been a photograph of one such airman in one of the leading Sunday newspapers a week or so earlier. He had been brought by his captors to stand on what looked to be a small, bare stage, before members of the World press sympathetic to the North Vietnamese cause. His head had been shaved and was lowered, his eyes blinkingly shying away from the fierce light of flashbulbs as he confessed to being a Yankee imperialist aggressor and a war criminal.
Thinking of the conditions under which he was no doubt being imprisoned, and under which his confessions had presumably been extracted, Serena had thought that perhaps his eyes would have shied away from any light. Even daylight.
He had been wearing ill-fitting, coarsely woven prison garments and sandals cut from old rubber tyres. His hands had been shackled behind his back and he had looked so prematurely old and stooped, so utterly alone and so abject, her throat had tightened with rage and pity.
Now, as she thought of the young American pilots being paraded through the Hanoi streets so they could be jeered and spat upon, her rage and pity returned tenfold. Kyle could so easily be one of those men, might one day be one of them. She pulled her white mink jacket closer around her shoulders and, abandoning the idea of a taxi, began to walk down Charles Street towards Hyde Park Corner.
In the two months that Kyle had been in Vietnam she had received only two letters. She hadn’t been surprised. It was impossible to imagine Kyle as a letter writer, and she herself had written only a couple of times more often. She knew where he was based and had gone to the trouble of looking the area up on a map. She knew the type of missions that he was assigned, and she knew that nearly all of them entailed flying over countryside held by the Viet Cong.
She hadn’t yet heard of a helicopter pilot captured and taken north to the infamous prison known as the Hanoi Hilton. But it could happen. And at the thought of Kyle being subjected not only to physical torture but to public humiliation as well, her hands clenched until the knuckles showed white.
It was early August and the night air was warm and balmy. She crossed Hyde Park Corner, which was ethereally quiet apart from a few stray taxicabs, and began to walk down Upper Belgravia towards King’s Road. About forty-five minutes later, as she crossed King’s Road and entered Chelsea, a crowd of drunken teenagers spilled from a nearby club, chanting riotously, ‘Americans out of Vietnam!’ and ‘Ho-Ho-Ho Chi Minh!’
As they stumbled past Serena, one of them fell against her. ‘Ho-Ho-Ho Chi Minh!’ he yelled into her face.
It was the last straw. Ali the fear and rage and pity that was burning deep inside her broke free. ‘To hell with your bloody Ho Chi Minh!’ she shouted back at him, raising her ivory-clasped evening bag and hitting him violently across the face.
The boy staggered backward, falling into the street, and as he did so, and as Serena began to viciously kick out at one of his friends who was trying to seize hold of her, a police car sped into the Street, screaming to a halt.
Serena was oblivious. One of the boys has pulled her mink jacket off her shoulders and was trampling on it as he vainly tried to ward off the blows she was raining on him with her evening bag.
‘Bastard!’ she shrieked at him, her fury at the damage that was being done to her jacket increasing the fury that she felt at their anti-American slogans.
When the two officers intervened, trying to separate the pair of them, Serena hit out at them as viciously as she had hit the boy who was still on his hands and knees in the gutter. The ivory clasp of her evening bag caught one of the officers at the corner of one eye. Blood poured from the cut. Seconds later she was ignominiously bundled into the rear of the police car, still struggling violently.
Her appearance next morning at the Magistrate’s Court charged with being drunk and disorderly and having assaulted a member of Her Majesty’s Police Force did not go unnoticed by the daily press. By the time the afternoon editions hit the streets, they all contained photographs of Serena, still wearing her knee-skimming, sequin-encrusted, Mary Quant evening dress, a rather grubby white mink jacket slung nonchalantly around her shoulders.
Rupert had bailed her out, ignoring with admirable élan the reporters and photographers who jostled them on their walk from the Magistrate’s Court to his waiting Lagonda. As they drove into Cheyne Walk, there was an enterprising photographer waiting for them on her doorstep.
Serena stepped out from the Lagonda, sweeping past him, disdaining to shield her face from the flashbulb that went off uncomfortably near her eyes. Her telephone was already ringing, and she knew with wry humour who would be on the other end of the line.
‘Well, at least I don’t get myself arrested!’ Lance said mincingly, mimicking the words she had used to him the night she had told him that she and Kyle had been reunited. He chortled gleefully. ‘You have now, sister mine, you have now! Welcome to the club!’
Chapter Sixteen
Ten days after the baby’s birth, Gabrielle wrapped him snugly in a shawl given to her by the Hótel Fontainebleau’s proprietor’s wife, and returned to Paris by public transportation. She felt fit and happy and full of optimism. Gavin was fulfilling the ambition that had brought him to Europe, and in doing so, he was fulfilling her own ambition, an ambition which, until she had met him, she had not even suspected: the deep, burning desire to identify more closely with the country of her birth; to strengthen the links between herself and her Vietnamese aunt and uncle and cousins; to become, after living for more than ten years in France, more Vietnamese Than French.
Her father met her at the Gare de Lyon. He pulled the shawl gently away from le petit Gavin’s face and his own aged and sombre face creased into a smile.
‘He looks wonderful, ma chére. Every inch a Frenchman.’
Gabrielle smiled and retucked the soft wool of the shawl once more around le petit Gavin’s head. Her son was only one quarter French, and she did not think that he would ever look archetypically French. His hair was the wrong colour, for one
thing. Like Gavin’s, it was a warm honey-gold, but there were hints of auburn among the gold and she knew that as he grew older, the auburn would deepen into a glossy, spicy red.
‘Maman is thrilled,’ her father said, guiding her protectively through the crowds entering and leaving the station. ‘She has a crib all ready, and she has ironed and aired all the baby clothes you and she have been so busy sewing and knitting this past few months.’
He had flagged down a taxi and was holding the door open for her. ‘The christening is all arranged too,’ he said as she stepped inside and sank back against a cracked leather seat reeking of Gauloises. ‘I spoke to Father Gerald two days ago, and Gavin Étienne Dinh is to tie christened on the first Sunday of next month.’
The taxicab slewed out of the boulevard Diderot and into the avenue Daumesnil. ‘It is a pity that his father will not be able to attend the ceremony,’ her father said as the taxi swerved violently to avoid a pack of cyclists. ‘But…’ He shrugged philosophically. ‘He is an Australian, and I do not suppose that christenings are as important to Australians as they are to us French.’
Gavin was not a Catholic, and though she knew that he would not mind le petit Gavin being baptized a Catholic, she knew that for once her father was right. It was not a ceremony that would have any great meaning for him. She wondered where he was at that precise moment, if he was still in Saigon, or if he had moved north to Hue, or Da Nang. She wondered if he had made contact with Nhu. And she wondered how long it would be before his first letter would reach her.
‘Michel came to the house yesterday morning,’ her father said as the taxi checked, and then ground to a reluctant halt behind a bus. ‘He said he had something very important to talk to you about, and asked that you get in touch with him as soon as possible.’
‘Michel?’ Gabrielle hadn’t given a thought to her young pianist the whole time she had been at Fontainebleau. ‘But we had no engagements. We haven’t had for nearly two months.’
Gavin had insisted that she accept no offers of work in her last weeks of pregnancy, or for several weeks after the baby was born. Michel had been understanding. He was too good a pianist to be adversely affected by her decision. There were always vocalists looking for good accompanists, and if he didn’t wish to form another partnership, however temporary, then there were always clubs who would be only too happy to hire him for his talent alone. And Gabrielle, after years of performing, was glad for the small self-indulgent break.
The taxi driver, running out of patience, accelerated and overtook the bus with a bare three centimetres to spare.
Her father steadied himself with the hand strap and then said with another of his habitual shrugs, ‘He didn’t say what it was that he wanted to talk to you about, ma chére. Bu he did seem extremely anxious. He wanted to know where you were so that he could telephone you, but your mother refused to allow me to give him the name of the hotel. She insisted that you needed rest and that today would be quite soon enough for you to be disturbed.’
At the thought of her fragile, gentle mother laying the law down with such unaccustomed fierceness, Gabrielle smiled. No doubt that same fierceness would also be extended to herself, once she arrived home. She knew that her mother would not want her to return to work, either modelling or singing, but would want her to stay home all day, to be company for her. And she knew that she was completely incapable of doing any such thing for an extended period of time. Eventually, the desire to perform, to sing for others, would lead her back to the clubs.
‘Philippe also stopped me in the street, asking after you,’ her father said as the taxicab swerved across the place d’Angers and into the avenue Trudaire. ‘I told him that the baby had been born and he said to give you his congratulations and to tell you that he has work for you if you want it.’
Gabrielle made no comment. It was nice to know that at least one of the artists who had always so regularly commissioned her was prepared to use her again, even after le petit Gavin’s birth and the inevitable changes that had taken place to her figure. But she had done less and less modelling in the months that had followed her marriage to Gavin, and now it seemed as if modelling was very much a part of her past.
The taxicab bumped over the Montmartre cobbles and then skidded to a halt outside the shabby entrance to their apartment. She stepped out of the cab into the warm July sunlight and was greeted by the sound of Madame Garine’s canaries trilling loudly.
‘I’m sorry, mes petits,’ she said affectionately as she walked past their cage. ‘But I have no birdseed with me. I’ll bring some down for you in a little while.’
As they entered the lobby she could hear, three floors above them, the door of their apartment open and then the sound of her mother’s footsteps hurrying down the stone stairs towards them.
‘Gabrielle? Gabrielle? Is that you?’
Gabrielle hurried up the stairs to her mother, le petit Gavin stirring restlessly in her arms, his fist pressing against his mouth as he sought hungrily for food.
‘Oh!’ Her mother paused for a moment, overcome with emotion as she rounded the second landing and came face-to-face with Gabrielle and her grandson. ‘Oh!’ she said again, this time much more softly, running down the last few steps that separated them, the ankle-length tunic of her ao dai, split to the waist over loose silk trousers, floating diaphanously around her. Very, very gently she lifted le petit Gavin from Gabrielle’s arms. ‘Oh!’ she said for a third and last time, and this time her voice was unimaginably tender. ‘Isn’t he absolutely beautiful?’
There were tears of joy in her eyes as she looked down at her now wide-awake grandson. Gabrielle kissed her mother lovingly on her cheek and then, putting a hand beneath her arm in order to steady her, she began to lead her back up the stairs towards the apartment.
‘And have you plenty of milk, ma chére?’ her mother asked concerned, a little while later as Gabrielle sat on the sofa, her blouse undone to the waist, le petit Gavin at her breast.
‘I have enough milk for a score of babies, Maman,’ Gabrielle said with unabashed truthfulness.
There was a knock at the door, and her father went to answer it.
‘That is good, ma chére,’ her mother began to say ‘because…’
‘Philippe would like a word with you, Gabrielle,’ her father said, coming back into the room, Philippe at his heels.
Her mother rose agitatedly to her feet, appalled at her husband inviting a man into the room when Gabrielle was breastfeeding. Gabrielle smiled up at Philippe, completely unperturbed. ‘Have you come to congratulate me, Philippe? Or to try to coerce me to sit for you?’ she teased.
‘Both,’ he said, grinning through his beard and sitting his massive figure down in a chair opposite her. ‘And I want you to sit for me exactly as you are sitting now. With the baby at your breast, your body lush and ripe and utterly superb.’
Her mother’s eyes widened in disbelief, ‘Di!’ she said to him furiously, lapsing into Vietnamese, as she always did on the rare occasions when she was overcome by anger. ‘Di! Di!’
Philippe was totally baffled. ‘What is the matter?’ he asked, rising perplexedly to his feet. ‘Have I done something to offend you, Madame? Have I perhaps said something?’ If he had, he couldn’t for the life of him imagine what on earth it could have been.
Only the anguish in her mother’s voice prevented Gabrielle from succumbing to helpless laughter. With great difficulty she suppressed it. ‘It’s all right, Maman,’ she said in Vietnamese, ‘Philippe is leaving now,’ and then, to Philippe, ‘Maman mistook something you said, Philippe.’
Before he could ask what it had been, she rose to her feet, crossing the room toward him and beginning to walk with him to the door. ‘I’m not sure that I want to do any more modelling, Philippe, at least not for a little while.’
‘You will be a great loss to me, ma petite,’ he said in his deep rumbling voice, pausing in the doorway and looking down at her with genuine regret. ‘Promise me one thing. P
romise me that if you will not model for me, you will not model for anyone else. Especially that bastard Léon Durras.’
The laughter she had been suppressing with such difficulty burst free. ‘I promise.’ She stood on tiptoe and kissed him on his bearded cheek.
‘And the singing?’ he asked quizzically, deeply pleased. ‘Will I still be able to hear you sing at the Black Cat?’
‘I’m not sure,’ she said, suddenly thoughtful. ‘I shall still sing. I shall always sing. But for some reason that I do not understand, I do not think that I will ever sing again at the Black Cat.’
‘You must be telepathic,’ Michel said an hour later as she told him about Philippe’s visit. He sat across from Gabrielle. ‘I’ve been frantically trying to get in touch with you since yesterday morning to tell you that you’ve got the chance to do something really different.’
Gabrielle sat in the old, comfortable armchair that dwarfed her, but that had been barely big enough for Philippe. Although she was dressed in a loose black cotton top and a black leather miniskirt, she glowed with colour. Her sumptuous red hair had grown longer in the months she had been pregnant, and tumbled around her face in a riot of untamed waves and springing curls. Her green cat eyes danced with happiness. Her suntanned legs and feet were naked, her toenails painted the same vibrant glossy pink as the nails on her fingers.
‘And what is that, chéri?’ she asked affectionately, curling her legs beneath her with restless energy.
Michel grinned at her. Though he was absolutely bewitched by her, he had known from the instant he had met her that his feelings would never be reciprocated. He had learned not to mind. Instead of being her partner in a love affair, he was her musical partner, and he was he friend. And as musical partnerships and friendships often lasted for a lifetime, whereas love affairs seldom did, he had come to terms with the situation. ‘Rock and roll,’ he said, enjoying the look of incredulity that crossed her face ‘Good old-fashioned, beat-dominated rock and roll.’
White Christmas in Saigon Page 28