White Christmas in Saigon

by Margaret Pemberton

  ‘No,’ Trinh whispered, stepping back uncertainly, her free hand stretched out as if feeling for some form of support. ‘No, I do not believe you. You are mistaken. You are talking of another American. Another Kyle Anderson.’

  On the floor near the desk was Serena’s shoulder bag. Serena picked it up and opened it, taking out a dark green Gucci wallet. Silently she withdrew a photograph of Kyle. It had been taken in Scotland, only hours after their Gretna Green marriage. Kyle was laughing, his dark hair tumbling low over his brow. He was holding a can of lager in one hand and was wearing a pair of hip-hugging jeans and an open-neck shirt. Behind him were moors and the gleam of a distant loch. Serena didn’t remember where they had been when she had taken the photograph. She could only remember their laughter, their crazy elation at having pulled off a prank that was going to shock all four parents to the core. It all seemed so long ago now. A different lifetime, a different world.

  She held the photograph out towards Trinh. The girl didn’t take hold of it. She simply stared at it, the blood draining from her face. ‘No,’ she whispered again, her hands tightening around the child in her arms. ‘No, I do not believe it! I cannot believe it!’

  ‘It’s true,’ Serena said starkly. She withdrew a pack of cigarettes from her bag. ‘Would you like one?’ she asked, offering the pack to Trinh.

  Trinh shook her head, tears rolling mercilessly down her cheeks. ‘He never told me that he was married. I had no idea. I did not know. I am sorry, Madame. I do not know what to say. How to apologize to you …’ Her voice broke completely, and she could not continue. Her tears were failing on to her ao dai, on to the bewildered child in her arms.

  ‘Sit down,’ Serena said practically, moving a chair towards her.

  Trinh didn’t move, didn’t seem capable of moving, and Serena took her lightly by the arm, pressing her down into the chair.

  ‘It isn’t up to you to apologize,’ she said, amazed at the maturity she was displaying and which she genuinely felt. ‘I believe you didn’t know that Kyle was married. Do you know where he is now? Do you know that he is imprisoned in Hoa Lo?’

  Trinh’s head shot upright, relief replacing shocked distress in her eyes. ‘He is alive? Do you know for sure that he is alive? His friend wrote to me and told me that he was alive after his helicopter crashed, but that there was no news of him afterwards.’

  ‘His friend?’

  Tears still coursed their way down Trinh’s face. ‘Mr Chuck Wilson,’ she said thickly. ‘That is the name of Kyle’s friend. In Saigon, they were always together.’

  Serena’s nostrils flared. So Chuck had known about Trinh; he had probably known about Kylie, but he kept his knowledge to himself. She didn’t know how she felt about his deceit. It was something she would have to think about later. She could not possibly start to assess it at the moment.

  Kylie had begun to squirm in Trinh’s arms and to vocally protest at being held for so long, so tightly. Trinh set her down on the floor, her eyes still holding Serena’s as she waited tensely for whatever information Serena could give her.

  ‘I know that after he was shot down he was taken to Hanoi,’ Serena said, feeling so overwrought that she could quite easily have burst into tears herself. ‘In October of the year he was shot down, the North Vietnamese released a list of names of men being held in Hoa Lo. Kyle’s name was on the list. There has been no communication from him, but there has been no communication from the vast majority of POWs being held. Only a very small percentage has been allowed to write to their families. Kyle hasn’t been one of them, but that doesn’t mean that he isn’t still alive.’

  ‘Oh, Choi oui!’ Trinh gasped softly. Oh, my God!

  She began to sob and Serena, feeling equally emotionally spent, walked slowly back to her desk and sat down behind it, weak-kneed.

  The child, sitting happily on the floor, regarded her with a steadfast, curious gaze. Serena returned it. Every Amerasian child she had ever seen had been stunningly attractive and Kyle’s child was no exception. She was ravishingly beautiful, with the kind of bone structure that indicated a beauty that would last lifelong.

  Serena was tempted to rise to her feet again and to pick the child up and sit her on her knee. She resisted the temptation, unsure of how Trinh would react if she were to do so.

  Trinh’s sobs of relief had begun to subside, and when she was able to speak she said awkwardly, ‘You have been very kind to me, Madame, under the … the circumstances.’ She paused, remembering that though Kyle was alive and in Hoa Lo, he was also married. He had lied to her. He had not been going to marry her. He had never intended to marry her. Her heart was breaking and she didn’t know how she was going to bear the pain. She said stiffly, ‘I will go now. You will not want my daughter here, at Cáy Thóng.’

  She rose from the chair, bending down and scooping Kylie into her arms.

  Serena regarded the pair of them thoughtfully. She, too, had thought of the difficulties attendant on taking Kylie into Cáy Thóng. And she had also thought of the alternatives – the other orphanages in the city, crammed and dirty and loveless. It was unthinkable that she should allow Kyle’s child to suffer in some such institution.

  She said, choosing her words carefully, ‘I would very much like Kylie to be cared for at Cáy Thóng. She would be as well cared for here as she could possibly be anywhere, and no one but us would know of the rather peculiar relationship that exists between us.’

  Trinh stared at her, her face troubled, and then said hesitantly, ‘Forgive me asking, Madame, but do you and … and’ – she swallowed, continuing only with the greatest difficulty – ‘and Kyle have children of your own?’

  Serena shook her head, ‘No, we were married a year before Kyle came to Vietnam, but during that year we were together for only a few days.’

  For a moment Trinh was too stunned by Serena’s frankness to be able to react, and then relief flashed through her eyes, followed by a look of triumph that she couldn’t quite hide.

  Serena waited, knowing why Trinh had asked her if she had children of her own, knowing what was troubling her.

  ‘Some of the children at Cáy Thóng have been adopted by British and American families,’ Trinh continued. Serena’s display of frankness encouraged her to be equally frank. ‘You have no children of your own, Madame. Perhaps if I left Kylie here, with you, because she’s your husband’s, child, you would take her from me?’

  ‘No,’ Serena said quietly. ‘I will not take Kylie from you. I do not want her for myself. I simply want to ensure that as she is my husband’s child, she is suitably cared for.’

  She knew it was useless to say anything more. Trinh would either believe her or not. For the child’s sake, she hoped very much that Trinh was going to believe her.

  From outside the open window the babies could be heard, beginning to noisily demand feeding. Trinh stood silently, Kylie in her arms, struggling to come to a decision.

  There was a brief knock on the rattan door, and a New Zealand girl opened it, saying, ‘Sorry to interrupt, Serena, but the babies are ready to be fed. As Lucy is still at the hospital, could you possibly give me a hand?’

  ‘I’ll be right with you,’ Serena said, rising to her feet.

  When the door had closed and they were once more by themselves, Trinh said unhappily, ‘I do not think I have any choice. I will bring Kylie to Cáy Thóng to be looked after through the day while I work. And I will return for her every evening.’

  Serena nodded, relieved. They were not a day nursery, and the arrangement was not a usual one, but she knew that she would be able to square it with Mike Daniels.

  ‘And nothing will be said to anyone?’ Trinh asked again anxiously. ‘No one will know that she is your husband’s child?’

  ‘No,’ Serena affirmed. Christ. It was the last thing in the world that she wanted. She could just imagine Mike Daniels’s reaction. Lucy’s reaction. She rose from behind the desk and crossed the small room, opening the door for Trinh and Ky
lie.

  In the doorway Trinh paused. ‘Thank you,’ she said simply. For a moment they were only a heartbeat away from friendship, and then Trinh said formally. ‘Cháo bá, Madame.’ Good-bye. And the moment was lost.

  Serena stood in the doorway, watching as Trinh walked gracefully away down the corridor, her hyacinth-blue ao dai fluttering softly around her legs. Kylie was in her arms, facing back over her shoulder. Her eyes met Serena’s and suddenly, beneath the dark mop of hair, her face broke into a wide, mischievous smile.

  At that moment she reminded Serena so much of Kyle that the blood pounded in her ears. She had encouraged Trinh to use Cáy Thóng as a nursery for Kylie because any other alternative had been unthinkable. But she still had no idea how she was going to come to terms with having Kyle’s illegitimate daughter at Cáy Thóng, or of how she was going to come to terms with seeing Trinh every day, as she deposited and collected Kylie.

  ‘When you’re eventually released from Hoa Lo, you’re going to have one hell of a lot of explaining to do, Kyle Anderson!’ she said grimly under her breath as the hyacinth-blue ao dai disappeared around a corner and then, more emotionally confused than she had ever been before in her life, she hurried out into the courtyard to help feed the now-crying babies.

  Kylie soon became a favourite at Cáy Thóng. She was the only child who was neither an orphan nor abandoned, and though some members of staff had been mildly curious about the arrangement, none of them ever suspected the truth about her paternity.

  For her own mental well-being Serena took great care not to establish any sort of special relationship with Kylie. It wasn’t easy. Kylie was by nature an affectionate and gregarious little girl, and Serena’s gentle but firm rebuffs left her obviously hurt and bewildered. Serena steeled her heart. She could not allow mutual affection to spring between herself and Kylie. It would lead to all sorts of complications and, possibly, to untold misery. And so the rebuffs continued and eventually Kylie no longer approached Serena. But she would often stare at her, her dark blue eyes uncomprehending and miserable.

  Whenever she brought Kylie to the orphanage, or picked her up, Trinh avoided Serena as assiduously as Serena avoided Kylie. The situation was one that Trinh didn’t know how to handle. Kyle had lied to her, but she still loved him and she was living in the hope that despite the strangeness of their last meeting he still loved her. His wife had said herself that she and Kyle had lived together only a few days. Perhaps that was why Kyle had not mentioned his marriage to her, because it was not truly a marriage at all. The thought had cheered her, but left her perplexed about Serena’s presence in Saigon. She could imagine a woman doing such a thing only if she were very much in love. And if Kyle’s wife was very much in love with him, then perhaps she would be able to persuade him to return to her when the war was over, and when he was released from Hoa Lo.

  For the next year Serena rarely moved beyond the suburbs of Saigon. Mike Daniels made regular trips to the provinces, visiting regions as far apart as Da Nang and Hue in the north of the country, and Soc Trang and Can Tho in the Delta. He always returned with more orphans and more abandoned waifs, and Serena’s work, trying to find loving homes for them in Europe and in America, never ceased.

  Serena often thought that her relationship with Mike Daniels was very like her relationship with Trinh. It was a relationship that was going nowhere, a relationship that neither developed nor regressed. Although occasionally she thought she caught a look of interest in his eyes, his manner never changed. He tolerated her, and that seemed to be all. It was a masculine reaction that Serena had never encountered before, and it was one that infuriated her beyond bearing.

  It wasn’t that she lusted after him. Not the way she had with Chuck. If he had propositioned her, she would have turned him down flat. But she did admire him. He was dedicated to the task of improving the lot of the sick and the destitute. As an eye specialist, his workload at the local hospital was enormous, and he took other clinics as well, clinics at the refugee camps in the city’s suburbs, clinics in Cholon, clinics in the outlying villages around Saigon. And every penny he earned went into the running of Cáy Thóng.

  Without Mike at the helm organizing the funding, and bullying and brow-beating the government and the military for whatever provisions he could get from them, Cáy Thóng would have been unable to survive. The children that were tended with such loving care in clean, sanitary surroundings would instead have had to fight for their survival in the unspeakably overcrowded and often rat-infested city orphanages.

  But though she admired him unreservedly, he often seemed to be barely aware of her existence. Only rarely did he suggest they have a drink together at the end of the day, and when they did so their conversation was always impersonal. He knew nothing whatsoever about her private life, about her initial reason for being in Saigon. And she knew nothing at all about him. Not even if he was married, or had been married.

  In 1970, at about the time she was arranging for Sanh to be adopted by Abbra and Scott, Serena told Mike of her intention to adopt not just one child, but several children.

  ‘Ridiculous,’ he said shortly, not looking up from the paperwork on his desk. ‘I haven’t taken children in from the streets and from unbelievably bad provincial orphanages in order for them to run wild with drunken journalists at the Continental.’

  ‘They wouldn’t be running wild with drunken journalists at the Continental,’ she retorted with acerbity. ‘They’ll run wild in acres of glorious English countryside.’

  He put his pen down and looked up at her. ‘Just what the hell,’ he said heavily, ‘are you talking about?’

  For once she had his attention, and she felt a stab of satisfaction. She pulled a battered cane chair near the corner of his desk and sat down. She had been nursing a sick child all night and her long pale-gold hair was scooped into a loose knot at the nape of her neck. There was no makeup on her face, and her amethyst-grey eyes were dark with tiredness. Even so, she was still the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

  ‘With Ho dead, and the peace talks under way, the war must be coming to an end,’ she said practically. ‘When it does, I shall return to England, to Bedingham.’

  ‘Bedingham?’ he queried, his winged brows drawing together perplexedly.

  ‘My home.’

  He pushed his chair away from his desk a little, leaning back in it. The sun was behind him, and she couldn’t see the expression in his eyes.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said briefly, his interest quickening. Serena didn’t receive a piastre for her work at, Cáy Thóng, and yet she lived permanently, and with obvious financial ease, at the Continental. Her family home had to be more than a grandiosely named semi-detached villa in a London suburb.

  Serena stretched out her long legs and crossed them at the ankles. They’d never been so relaxed together before. For once he was obviously prepared to give her some time and to listen to her.

  ‘Bedingham,’ she said, her voice warm with love as she spoke its name, ‘is my ancestral home. It is in Cambridgeshire and was originally an abbey. Henry VIII put an end to its clerical life and gave it to one of my ancestors, Matthew Blyth, as a reward for services rendered.’

  She told him of how Bedingham had survived under Mary Tudor’s reign, and then under Elizabeth’s. She told him of how, in the reign of the roustabout Charles II, Bedingham had reached its apotheosis, playing host to the king and his Portuguese queen, and being lavishly extended, with west and east wings added, and elaborately formal gardens conceived and executed.

  ‘Only in the last two hundred years or so did Bedingham run into any real problems,’ she finished. ‘And as these were financial, my grandfather very sensibly solved them by marrying the only daughter of an American railway king.’

  He was grinning, the first time she had ever been aware of him doing so to her.

  ‘And when I adopt my children, Bedingham, with its lake and its lawns and woods, is where I am going to take them and where I am going to m
ake a home for them.’

  He had moved slightly in his chair and the sun was no longer behind him. The expression in his eyes was one of frank curiosity.

  ‘Is Bedingham yours? Have you inherited it?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, my parents are still alive. But I’ve written to both my father and to my twin brother about my plans. My father says as long as his study and his library are sacrosanct, I can do what I like with the remainder of the house.’ A small smile played at the corner of her mouth. ‘Bar holding a pop concert, that is. Lance, my twin brother, is a left-wing Socialist. He says he can think of no better use for Bedingham than its becoming a home for Vietnamese war orphans. So you see, there are no objectors.’

  His eyes were suddenly devoid of expression. ‘What about Mr Anderson?’ he asked, his voice studiedly neutral. ‘You never mention him, but I assume that he exists. What is his opinion?’

  ‘I haven’t been able to ask him,’ she said, rising to her feet. ‘For the last four years he’s been held in Hoa Lo prison, Hanoi.’

  The shock on his face was naked. Before he could recover from it she turned on her heel, and with an odd sense of satisfaction, swept out of his office.

  Lucy had always been the person delegated to escort groups of children leaving for adoptive homes in Europe and in America, but at the beginning of 1971 Serena asked Mike if she could act as escort for the next group of children due to leave for the US

  ‘Sure,’ he said easily. ‘Any particular reason?’

  Since their téte-á-téte re Bedingham and her long-term plans, and about Kyle, their relationship had slowly changed until it had reached a point where they could be safely described as being on friendly terms with each other.

  She shifted the baby girl she was holding from one arm to the other. It had entered the orphanage only two days previously, and its hair had been infested with lice. She had got rid of the insects by powdering them with DDT, and had spent hours picking out the eggs by hand. Even now she was unsure as to whether the baby was lice-free or not.