He sighted the bottle, searched out a glass, and poured himself some of the white. Diana watched him and waited; then she asked: “Has anything else come through?”
Glass in hand, Lockhart looked at her and frowned, eyes narrow, cheeks heavy with portent. He tended to create such moments of hiatus and apprehension—his moods, like those of most drinkers, being unpredictable. Now in his mid-fifties, he was a big, heavy man who still had the remnants of handsomeness, and who always held himself well. He still had a head of thick sandy hair, streaked with gray, and his mustache—a relic of his days in the RAF in World War Two—was a foxy color. He pulled up a stool, loosened his tie, took his first sip of wine, and at the same time fumbled in the inside pocket of his tweed sports coat. Finally he pulled out a sheet of paper, which he spread on the counter.
“Better read this,” he said.
Diana and I read it together: it had been torn from a teleprinter.
1800 hrs.
MISSING
Reuter Bangkok, 8 April
Noted Australian-born war photographer Michael Langford has disappeared inside Cambodia: now Democratic Kampuchea. Grave fears are held for his safety.
James Feng, bureau chief for British Telenews in Bangkok, has drawn attention to Langford’s disappearance.
Mr. Feng, a close friend and colleague of Langford‘s, has told the Australian embassy in Bangkok that he believes Langford to be a prisoner in the hands of the Khmer Rouge. According to Feng, Langford crossed the Thai-Cambodian border illegally five days ago, despite the fact that Communist Kampuchea is now closed to all foreigners.
Michael Langford achieved international fame with his daring coverage of the Indochina war, both on film and in still pictures.
Published collections of his photographs are regarded as among the best that record the Vietnam conflict, and he has won a number of important prizes for photojournalism.
“Langford must have snapped his twig to do this,” Lockhart said.
“He’s got out of bad situations before,” I said. “He presumably knew there was a way out of this one.”
Lockhart lit a cigarette and looked at me sideways, waving the match out. “One would hope so, mate, yes,” he said. “But I assume you do know the situation. The country absolutely sealed. No telephones, no post, no air links except with Peking, no foreigners allowed in at all, and that means no journalists either. And mass purges going on. So what did he think he was doing, for Christ’s sake?”
Diana’s expression had now grown mildly fearful; but when she spoke it was to attempt once again to reject any serious concern. “Ray’s right,” she said. “Michael’s always taken risks he knew how to handle. There must be a reason.”
Lockhart looked back at her without expression, and their eyes continued to hold in a married way I couldn’t read. To break the silence, I said: “He may have made a deal with the Khmer Rouge for safe conduct.”
Lockhart turned to me, his cigarette suspended halfway to his mouth. “With the Khmer Rouge?” he said. “I’m sorry, Ray. How much do you know about them? No one makes deals with the Khmer Rouge: not even Langford.”
There was a brutal note in his voice that puzzled me. Lockhart had been deeply fond of Mike in the old days, to the point of sentimentality; yet the only hint of emotion I could detect in him now was repressed anger. Perhaps it was the only one he trusted himself to release. He needed his veneer; he was a man of too many feelings, underneath.
There was nothing about Langford on the seven o‘clock ABS newscast on television, which we watched before dinner. Afterwards we sat over coffee and brandy in the living room, waiting for the second newscast, at nine o’clock.
The Lockharts’ house always seemed to me to smell of the 1930s. One of those chiming clocks from the period sat in the center of the mantelpiece, its bow-shaped wooden case matching the dark timber trimmings in the room. Above it hung a black-and-white photograph of Lockhart’s wartime Lancaster in flight, and next to the clock were more framed photographs: a portrait of Diana, a studio picture of their two daughters as children, and a snapshot of three young journalists—the young Lockhart one of them—standing outside a hotel in Singapore. After being de mobbed from the RAF, Lockhart had become a foreign correspondent, working both in Europe and in Asia, and I’d never understood why he’d come home in his mid-thirties to bury himself as news editor on our modest local daily.
The clock now showed eight forty-five; we’d been sitting in silence for some time. Lockhart looked across at me from his armchair.
“You’re his oldest friend, really,” he said. “Isn’t that right? And he used to say that you were his solicitor.”
“Yes. But I’ve never acted for him,” I said. “He wasn’t the sort of man who has legal problems. He never even owned a house, as far as I know.”
“Did he leave a will?”
“Not with me.”
“Oh, for God’s sake!” Diana was sitting stiffly upright, staring at us with what looked like anger. “Will you stop talking as though he’s dead,” she said. She seemed frozen, one hand spread stiffly on the arm of the chair, the other holding her brandy suspended in front of her.
“I’m sorry, Di.” Lockhart’s voice dropped so that it could only just be heard. “But the possibility does exist. You do see that.”
He drained his brandy, and lit a cigarette; then he looked at me again. “Unless definite news about him breaks tomorrow, I suspect Foreign Affairs in Canberra will get in touch with his relatives,” he said. “And maybe with you too, Raymond, if Mike’s left instructions that way.”
The clock began chiming nine. Lockhart got up immediately and moved across to the television set in a corner of the room: a newsreader in thick-framed glasses looked at us from his studio desk in Sydney. He ran through the headlines.
“In the United States primaries, Democrat Jimmy Carter has retained his front-runner status. Howard Hughes has left a fortune of two thousand million dollars. The whole Government of Democratic Kampuchea resigned yesterday, and will be replaced by appointees of the new National Assembly of workers, peasants and soldiers. And we bring you a story on the disappearance inside Kampuchea of Australian war photographer Michael Langford ...”
We watched in silence as the first two items were dealt with. When the item on Langford came up, the announcer adopted the grave expression usually worn when dealing with a death, and went through much the same detail as we had in the Reuters report. It quickly became apparent that there was no new information—but this report was somewhat fuller.
“According to his friend James Feng, Mr. Langford entered Cambodia illegally five days ago, giving no explanation for his action, but saying that he would be back within twenty jour hours. If he was not, Langford said, he could be assumed to have been detained by the Communist authorities.”
A blow-up color photograph of Langford had been projected behind the newsreader’s desk, and we stared at it as though at a piece of magic. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that Diana had clasped her hands in her lap, her face reflecting the light from the screen. Langford looked nearer to twenty-eight than forty, I thought—unless you took in a subtle hardening about the eyes. Otherwise the looks of his youth were unmarred, the blond hair a young man’s.
He already looks dead, I thought.
Instantly, I tried to dismiss the thought; to disbelieve it. But it did seem to me that Mike’s face had the final, fixed, historic quality of the dead. The newsreader continued, and the picture of Langford disappeared, to be replaced by film clips of black-clad Khmer Rouge soldiers with automatic rifles, marching through paddy fields and villages.
“Violent purges within the country are reported to be continuing, and any Western journalist apprehended entering the country could expect immediate arrest and detention. However, Australian embassy officials in Bangkok have received no report of Langford’s arrest. Enquiries concerning his whereabouts directed to the Government of Democratic Kampuchea have received no response, a
nd the embassy is treating his disappearance as serious.
“Michael Langford began as a news cinecameraman for the Australian Broadcasting Service and British Telenews, covering the Vietnam War. Later he specialized in war photography for magazines such as Life, Time, and Newsweek, winning a number of awards. He has been described as one of the best war photographers of his generation.”
The item ended; another began; Lockhart got up and switched off the set. He turned, standing in front of it with his hands behind his back, contemplating us both. His mustache twitched; he cleared his throat, but said nothing.
Diana was frowning at the gray, extinct television screen, her hands still locked in her lap; she seemed to expect some further image to spring into life there that would change what had gone before. Then she drew in a breath, and shook her head. “No. Not Mike. He’ll be all right,” she said. Her tone was matter-of-fact. “If he wasn‘t, I’d know,” she said.
“Would you, Di? Yes, I suppose you would.” Lockhart surveyed her with an expression that resembled sympathy; but something in his face made me uncomfortable, and wish to draw his attention away from her.
“There must still be a reasonable chance,” I said. “Surely.”
He looked at me quickly. “A chance? There’s always a chance, mate. But it’s as simple as this, I’m afraid: he’d have to have high-level contacts with the Khmer Rouge to survive there for five minutes. And since they’re said to arrest anyone with Western connections, that seems a bit unlikely, doesn’t it? So we have to hope he didn’t fall into Khmer Rouge hands. Because if he did, he’s now in prison, or dead.”
“Michael’s not dead,” Diana said.
“I hope you’re right,” Lockhart said. “But I was trained to take facts into account.”
Diana stood up. “Bugger your facts,” she said. Her tone remained calm, but her face had grown paler than usual. “Excuse me,” she said, and walked out of the room.
Lockhart was still standing in front of the TV set, eyebrows raised. “She’s a bit emotional,” he said to me.
“I should be going,” I said. “Mike survived for so long—I don’t want to believe this either, Locko. Will you let me know if you hear anything?”
“Hang on a moment, Raymond: don’t rush off,” he said. “I’ll see that Di’s all right.”
Left alone in the living room, I sat in my armchair and studied the picture of the Lancaster, and the group outside the hotel in Singapore. The clock ticked loudly.
I sat for a considerable time, hearing the distant murmur of their voices, probably from a bedroom. They weren’t raised; their tone seemed even; muffled. Eventually the voices stopped, and I heard the bang of the back door.
I lost patience, and went out through the dim, carpeted hall with its dark-stained timber paneling and framed colonial prints. One or both of the Lockharts had gone into the garden; the situation was growing awkward, and I intended to find whoever was there and take my leave.
The house at the back looked out across the Tamar to the ranges in the east: I could make out their black outlines against gray and mauve sky. There was still no wind, stars were out, and the air now was cold and astringent. I made my way across the unmown lawn, tripping over a barrow in the darkness. There was a low back gate in the jasmine-covered paling fence at the bottom of the garden, and I made for that.
He was here, a dim figure in a white shirt, leaning on the gate, smoking. I came up and stood next to him, but he gave no sign of knowing I was here. He must have been cold without his jacket, but he didn’t show it. Below us were wide, distant vacancies and lights: those of the town, and the channel beacons out in the Tamar, casting blurred reflections. When Lockhart spoke, he kept his face in profile.
“The funny thing is, Raymond, that they fooled me so well for so long. Really quite amusing, mate. It’s always been a subject for jokes.”
“I didn’t know,” I said.
“No,” he said. “Nobody knew. I didn’t know. But that’s not quite true, of course. I knew and didn’t want to know. When I found out for certain, he’d gone. And now he’s gone again, hasn’t he? The ultimate departure.”
“You really think he’s dead,” I said.
“Of course he’s bloody dead, short of a miracle.” He removed the cigarette from his mouth and swung around on me suddenly, presenting me with a face the color of porridge. His eyes were red-rimmed, and I stiffened; I’d never seen Lockhart weep. “Now he can really be a hero and a saint,” he said. “And what a lot of people will make him into one, won’t they?”
“When did it start?” I asked.
“When?” He turned back to his contemplation of the dark, drawing once on his cigarette before flicking it away, its spark briefly joining the other lights. “That’s where they were so romantic, Raymond: it apparently didn’t start.”
“Then I don’t understand,” I said.
“The three of us were always together, when Mike was on the Courier,” he said. “All those years. I used to be pleased he was so fond of Diana. And he had no shortage of women, did he? Football stars are well supplied with female groupies. Then he got the job in Melbourne, and that was that.”
“Well then, Locko,” I said. “Where’s the harm?”
He had placed both hands on the gate, and spoke to the darkness. “No great harm,” he said. “Especially if you’re the sort who believes what he wants to believe. But three years later, he came back on holiday. He’d resigned from the Age, remember? A month later, he was in Singapore.”
“Yes,” I said. “I remember that visit. I got in a lunch with him—that was all. That was the last time I ever saw him. God, Rex, it’s nearly eleven years ago.”
“I didn’t have a meeting at all,” Lockhart said. “I remember being disappointed by that—even hurt.” He gave a laugh like a cough; he was attempting his tone of irony, but the jerkiness of pain had taken over. “Had to come home in the lunch hour one day. Diana was here; she hadn’t gone in to the shop, I forget why. I went into the kitchen and there was a cigarette smoking in an ashtray: still alight.” He stopped; then went on. “Di’s never smoked. I asked her whose it was, and she said Mike had just called and had gone a few minutes ago. Still he didn’t contact me, after that; I didn’t see him again. I kept seeing his cigarette in the ashtray; it came back into my mind years later. Still smoking. He’d dwindled to a cigarette, you might say.”
“You could be wrong,” I said.
But he ignored this. “I was so bloody fond of him,” he said. “That’s the joke of it. But I never really knew him, I realize that now. Kind; generous: do anything for a mate. That’s the Langford legend, isn’t it? It’s bullshit. It’s what he wanted people to believe: he spent a lot of time working on that image. None of us knew him—and now we never will.”
“It’s such a long time ago, Locko.”
This was the best I could do, and I knew it wasn’t much. I began, shamefully, to want to escape.
“Wrong, Raymond. Nothing like that’s a long time ago.” He sounded as though he were being deprived of breath. “I still feel used,” he said.
2.
The package from Bangkok reached me in the week following the dinner with the Lockharts. I postponed examining its contents until nearly midnight, on the day it came. Then I sat in my study with everything spread out in front of me, in the light of the desk lamp.
After a time, the air through the half-open window began to chill the room. I got up to close it, and a faint, almost imaginary hum of traffic drifted up out of the valley. The sharp hoot of a train came from the railway yards a mile away: icy across icy spaces. There was a fog that hadn’t risen as high as the ridge of West Launceston: the town was invisible, under a quilted white lid. I came back to the desk, switched off the lamp and put on the cassette tape again, sitting in the dark.
There was a large collection of other tapes, and I’d only had time to sample a few. This one had been addressed to me as a letter: something Mike had often done, over
the years. It was now the third time I’d listened to it. There was a faint hiss as it revolved in the Japanese cassette player. I watched the spindles turning, unraveling this brittle clew that stretched between death and life.
—Tape recorded in Bangkok on April Fools’ Day, 1976.
When the quiet voice suddenly spoke, it was as though Mike had materialized in the dark. The recording was of high quality. His calm country drawl was still intact, but with a bland overlay: a journalist’s voice.
—Hello, mate. It’s been a fair time since I sent you a letter or a tape; things have been busy. I’ve got a few important things to say. Important to me, that is.
A pause followed: the yawn of an eternal absence.
-Ray: I’m going to do something a bit tricky in a few days’ time. I’m going over into Cambodia without permission. I should be out again within forty-eight hours: that is, by the fifth. But I reckon you know the current situation in Cambodia: not exactly a place you slip in and out of with no worries. I want you to do me a favor: I want you to be my executor, if I don’t get back. If you’re listening to this tape, that’ll probably be the situation: I won’t have made it. In which case, unless I’m merely in a lockup, this is a fond goodbye.
Another pause; then a small, matter-of-fact, throat-clearing noise. The faintly humorous delivery hadn’t changed; it gave no indication that his “fond good-bye” was something he took seriously. I reached for the button; then leaned back instead. I was compelled to listen to everything again.
—I’m asking Jim Feng to send these personal things on to you if I don’t get back by the tenth. He’d have to assume then that I haven’t made it. Jim’s now bureau chief for British Telenews here in Bangkok, and is one of my oldest mates: we’ve been through a lot together. I hope you’ll meet him someday. He’ll get the package to the Australian embassy, and they’ll send it in the diplomatic bag to Foreign Affairs in Canberra, who’ll send it on to you.
Highways to a War Page 2