by Lewis Orde
“Take my word for it, Raymond, it wasn’t. Why didn’t you make one during those few days in New York?”
Barnhill chewed his lip. “To begin with, I was too embarrassed and too mortified over that other time. I still am. I cringe whenever I think of it. And secondly, it isn’t good strategy to make a pass at the boss’s daughter.”
“Even if she wants you to?”
“I thought you were well set up with Saxon in New York.”
“He was well set up with his briefcase and his papers. He took me along, I suspect, as a companion, an ornament for when he had a business dinner.”
“Then why do you still see him?”
“You asked me that before.”
“I know. This time I’d like a different answer.”
“Because, for all his arrogance and his occasional insensitivity, John Saxon is a very hard habit to break.”
At nine-thirty, Barnhill asked Katherine to telephone for a taxi to take him back to the Mayfair. He had one more meeting at the Eagle early in the morning, before catching an afternoon flight home.
“I’ll drive you.”
She parked the Porsche a couple of hundred yards from the Mayfair, and they walked the rest of the way. Two couples in evening dress passed them in the lobby, and Katherine noticed a sign giving information about the annual dinner and dance of something called the “B.O.B. Association.”
“What do you think that is?” Barnhill asked. “A fraternal society for men named Bob?”
“I haven’t the foggiest idea.”
“Coming upstairs?”
“Yes. I think I should see what kind of accommodation Eagle Newspapers affords its foreign staff.”
“In case it’s too opulent? So you can make cuts once you’re on the board of Eagle Newspapers?”
She smiled at the thought of herself on the board. “Just the opposite, in fact. Journalists are the heart and soul of newspapers . . . we deserve the very best.”
Once they entered the room, Katherine removed her sheepskin coat and sat on the edge of the bed, bouncing up and down. “Does it meet with your approval?” Barnhill asked.
“Come and test it with me.”
The mattress sagged as Barnhill joined her. “I think we’d be doing the bed a favor if we sat in the middle, and not on the edge,” Barnhill said, grinning broadly. “Is that a pass?”
“That is most definitely a pass.” She moved a couple of inches closer, took one of Barnhill’s hands and held it to her lips. His fingers were long and slim, flattening slightly at the tips. The nails were carefully filed, the cuticles pushed back to show white half-moons. Katherine felt an involuntary shudder as she anticipated those fingers discovering her body.
She lay back on the bed, arms outstretched. He lowered himself until his face was an inch above hers. Katherine’s mouth opened, her tongue drew a glistening circle across her own lips, then darted out to meet him.
“You taste of mint sauce,” she said.
“It went well with the lamb.”
“Mmmm . . . It’s wonderful. Please, sir, may I have some more?” While Barnhill laughed, she clutched him tightly. Through their clothing, she could feel him digging into her. His long fingers worked at her dress. Her own hands slid beneath his shirt to caress a body that lacked a single ounce of spare flesh.
“Katherine, I think I’ve been in love with you from that day we first met, at the magistrates court.”
“Show me,” she whispered. “Show me just how much.”
It was eleven-thirty when they returned downstairs. The annual dinner of the B.O.B. Association had just finished. The lobby was full of men and women in evening dress, waiting for their cars to be brought to the front of the hotel.
“I’ll walk you to your car,” Barnhill said, “if we can get past all these men named Bob.”
“Thanks. I don’t want to let go of you just yet.” She held his arm tightly, as if to emphasize her words. Making love with Barnhill had been a vastly different experience from making love with Saxon. No matter how much she had enjoyed her lovemaking with Saxon, she had always had the feeling that he was an athlete on display, a man justifiably proud of his prowess and determined to show it off to perfection. Barnhill possessed a tenderness that Saxon lacked.
“Katherine . . .!” a man’s voice barked. “What a surprise to see you here.”
She turned around to see a white-haired man with a slightly curling moustache, and a livid scar down his right cheek. Now she knew what the B.O.B. Association was: not a society for men called Bob, but a group of Battle of Britain veterans.
“Sir Donald, how nice to see you. You know Raymond Barnhill, don’t you?”
“Yes, yes, of course I do, from your party. There are some people here you know as well. My guests for the association’s annual bash. Always take a table, got to keep up the standards, eh?” He looked around, and Katherine tugged Barnhill’s arm for them to escape. She knew the retired air vice marshal meant Jeffrey Dillard, and she had no wish to see him.
She was too late. Dillard appeared, with his wife, Shirley. Behind them came two more couples. One couple Katherine did not recognize. The second couple comprised John Saxon and a tall brunette in a shimmering gown of black and gold. They were holding hands and laughing, and then the woman kissed Saxon on the cheek with the fondness of long familiarity.
Katherine’s eyes moved from the woman to Saxon. “Hello, John. Did you enjoy your dinner?”
He seemed surprised to see her, but he recovered quickly. “Yes, thank you.” He turned his gaze to Barnhill. “I didn’t realize you were back in the country.”
Barnhill answered, “I’m a guest at the hotel.”
“Really?” Saxon whispered something to the brunette, and a smile crossed her face. “Are they your own clothes you’re wearing, or did you have to borrow some again?”
Barnhill tugged Katherine’s arm. She could feel him shaking with barely suppressed fury. “I’ll see you to your car.”
From the corner of her eye, Katherine saw Saxon leave the woman in the black and gold dress and come after her. He caught up just as she and Barnhill stepped out into the street.
“Katherine, I want to talk to you.”
Barnhill stepped between Katherine and Saxon. “She doesn’t wish to talk to you.”
“No one asked for your opinion, my friend.”
“I am not your friend, and I am giving you my opinion whether you want it or not.”
Katherine pushed her way past Barnhill. Two men fighting over a woman may have been fine in King Arthur’s day, but not in Mayfair in 1981. “What do you want, John?”
“The woman I was with . . . I needed a date for tonight, and there was no point in asking you. Not with Jeffrey Dillard being at the same table as a guest of Sir Donald.”
“You don’t have to explain anything to me, John. You can do whatever you want. We’re all adults, and we don’t have to rationalize our actions to anyone.” She turned around and walked to the car, with Barnhill one step behind. Saxon watched them for a few seconds before going back into the hotel.
“Are you all right?” Barnhill asked as Katherine settled into the Porsche.
“I’m fine. I’m not letting a scene like that upset me.”
When Barnhill leaned over to kiss her good night, he said: “This is good-bye until you come to the States in the summer. Can’t you make it before then?”
“I’m one of the slaves of Eagle Newspapers, just like you. I can’t take time off whenever I feel like it.”
“You could.”
“But I won’t, and you know the reason why.”
Barnhill nodded. “Yes, I know. You’ve got to work twice as hard to prove you’re half as good as anyone else on the paper.” He stood up, hands in his raincoat pockets. “I’ll stroll around the block. I don’t want to meet our friend again, because I have the overwhelming desire to punch him in the mouth.”
Katherine gave the lightest beep of the horn as she passed, and h
e blew her a kiss.
All the way home, she thought about the woman on Saxon’s arm. There had been an intimacy between them that spoke of more than just a convenient dinner date. Had Saxon been sleeping with this woman while he had been seeing Katherine? For two months after the showdown with Dillard, their affair had been platonic. Then Saxon had talked his way back into Katherine’s affections, and talked her into his bed. Had he been making love to this woman at the same time?
*
Saxon telephoned her at the Eagle the following morning. “About last night, Katherine . . .”
“John, you don’t have to explain a thing. I told you two months ago that our relationship had run its course. I was right. Let’s just call it quits, and leave it at that.”
“That’s not what I want at all.”
“What is it, John? Pride? Is pride not letting you accept that it’s over?”
“What do you mean?”
“Your ego’s so big that you believe a relationship’s not over unless you say it is. You can’t accept anyone else telling you.” While he pondered that, she hung up.
He made three more calls to her that morning. The first two times, she asked again why he couldn’t understand that it was finished. The third time, she lost her temper. “John, I don’t want to see you! Can’t you get that through your arrogant, conceited head?”
This time the message got through. Saxon did not telephone again. And Katherine was pleasantly surprised to find that he had not been as hard a habit to break as she had thought.
The weekly letters and telephone calls between Katherine and Barnhill continued. He sent her a copy of the cover of the new book. She thought it was very similar to the first one, except that the figure superimposed over the montage of war photographs was a sergeant in fatigues, instead of an officer in dress blues.
In the last two weeks of August, with two excited children in tow, Katherine boarded a British Airways flight for New York. Barnhill met them at the airport, and took them out for dinner that night. It was a celebration dinner, he explained; days earlier, he had delivered the manuscript for the third book to his publisher.
The following morning, Katherine hired a car, and began a tour of the Northeast with Henry and Joanne, starting and ending with boat rides — from the Maid of the Mist beneath Niagara Falls, to a Circle Line trip around Manhattan. The only complaint came from Henry, who kept asking when they were going to see a cowboy; he had to be satisfied in the end with the promise to visit a dude ranch on his next trip to America.
The second week, they were joined by Raymond Barnhill, who guided them across the Middle Atlantic states, from the District of Columbia, through Virginia and the Carolinas, to Savannah. At night, Katherine stayed in one hotel suite with the children, while Barnhill slept next door. Only when she was convinced that the children were asleep did she pass through the communicating door to where Barnhill waited.
Barnhill was more familiar with the South than any tour guide, keeping Katherine and the children interested with stories about the sites they passed. Katherine was amused at how his accent deepened the farther south they went.
On the return journey to New York, Barnhill drove through the small South Carolina town where he’d been born and raised. It was little more than a handful of shops and gas stations, a couple of churches, a few dozen houses, and a scattering of rusty barns on the farms that spread out from the town. Barnhill’s parents were dead. He had no family or friends in the town, and he did not stop.
The car was silent. The children, sitting in the back, stared through the windows at farmland. Katherine could sense the emotional turmoil this dot on the map caused Barnhill. She tried to help him over it. “You’ve come a long way, Raymond. All the way from nowhere to somewhere.”
“How do you know when you’ve reached somewhere?”
“That’s easy. When you see the friends you’ve made, the life you’ve created, the accomplishments you’ve achieved.”
Taking a hand off the steering wheel, Barnhill placed it on Katherine’s arm. “If that’s what it takes, I guess I have made it to somewhere. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
On the day Katherine and the children left New York for London, Barnhill received copies of Vietnam, the NCOs. He gave one to Katherine. The biography on the inside flap now had him listed as writing the “Glimpses of America” column for London’s Daily Eagle.
The parting at Kennedy Airport was emotional. The children had grown attached to Barnhill. Joanne even clung to his legs, claiming that she wanted to stay in America. Katherine, also, had to fight back tears. What distressed her most was the new contract Barnhill had signed with the Eagle. Until the end of 1982 . . . that was sixteen months in the future!
“Will you come to London for Christmas?” Katherine asked Barnhill, as they prepared to say good-bye.
“Do you want me to bring the turkey?”
“Just bring yourself.” She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tightly. “Thank you for a wonderful time. You keep writing, and I’ll keep telephoning.”
The British Airways 747 took off on time. Once dinner was served, the children fell asleep. Katherine watched the in-flight movie before turning to Barnhill’s book. She read it right through, thinking it was a clone of the first book — too much character analysis, and not enough plot or action. The NCOs in the second book were interchangeable with the officers in the first. There were those who blindly followed orders, and those who questioned. She considered Vietnam, the NCOs apologist in tone, just as its predecessor had been, as though the author was using it as a vehicle to express his anguish for ever having been to Vietnam. When she put the book down, just as the first streaks of dawn showed through the cabin window, she felt very disappointed.
She did not pass on her feelings to Barnhill when she next spoke to him. She just hoped she might be wrong, and the book would be successful despite her misgivings.
For a month, there was nothing to indicate in Barnhill’s letters that Katherine’s view was shared. He wrote that he had seen the book in shops, and early reviews had been promising. Then, on the first Monday in October, Barnhill telephoned Katherine at home.
She knew it was trouble the instant she recognized his voice. He sounded stunned as he told Katherine of the letter he had received that morning from Knight and Robbins, his publishers. “They said that Vietnam, the Officers was a commercial flop, and they’re claiming that the second book’s showing every sign of following suit. They’ve returned the manuscript for the third book on the grounds that it’s unsatisfactory, and I should feel free to approach other publishers with the work, as the contract is now canceled.”
Katherine sucked in her breath. That was a body blow, to Barnhill and herself. There was no point now in telling him that she hadn’t thought much of the second book. He wanted support, not more criticism, even if it was constructive.
“What are you going to do?”
“Now? Throw the manuscript down the incinerator.”
She did not know whether he was joking or being serious. “Don’t you dare!”
“What should I do with it, then?”
“Send it to me. Airmail express. Let me have a look.”
He did not ask why. He just said, “Watch your mailbox.”
The manuscript arrived four days later. Katherine started to read it that evening, after dinner. Sitting cross-legged on her bed, she flipped through the first hundred pages, then reached for the telephone.
“Raymond, I’ve read a hundred pages. I don’t need to read any more to know what’s wrong with it.”
Barnhill, in the middle of writing his column for the Eagle, reacted strongly. “What do you mean — wrong with it?”
Katherine took a deep breath. “Your publishers sent it back, so there can’t be much right with it, can there?”
“Go on.” Barnhill’s voice was like ice.
“Vietnam finished six years ago, Raymond, and you’re still apologizing
for it. When I read the first book, about the officers, I thought it was fair to have some of the younger men questioning their government’s policy. When I read the second book, about the noncommissioned officers, I felt I was reading the same book again, only you’d changed the names and ranks. And now this! You’ve got privates, most of whom are conscripts —”
“Draftees.”
“Whatever . . . but they’re still suffering from the same angst, still wondering why they’re in Vietnam, still saying that they have no business there. My God, Raymond, you haven’t written a trilogy. You’ve written one book and given it three different titles.”
“But that’s the way I felt.”
“Don’t you see? Your own feelings were important enough to be included in only one book. Now do something else.” She stared at the manuscript, thinking. “The way you’re writing it, the Americans in Vietnam were about the most pitiful excuse for a military force that ever existed. Surely there was some fighting instinct . . . what’s that phrase . . .?”
“Gung ho?”
“That’s it. Surely there were some gung ho soldiers who felt proud enough, or crazy enough, to give a good account of themselves. Weren’t there any men who said, ‘While we’re in this damned hellhole, let’s do all we can to win this war’?”
“But it wasn’t winnable.”
“To you, perhaps. But to other men it might have been. At least, their own little war, their own battle, their own piece of the front line, might have been winnable. Let’s hear about them, Raymond, because I think America is just about ready to stop listening to apologies for Vietnam.”
Katherine heard the rustle of pages turning. “You know, you might have something.”
“I might?”
“Okay, you do have something. Satisfied? What’ll we call it? Vietnam, the Enlisted Men is all finished with as a title now, I guess.”
“Why not use a military term? Brigade, regiment, something like that?”
“Too big. Vietnam was a war of small units. A title, come on, damn it! A title!” Katherine could hear him becoming excited over the new idea. “Company? No. What about squad? That’s it! I’ll call it The Squad. Draftees, furious at being in Vietnam in the first place . . . a bunch of reprobates, and they come home as heroes. Those who come home, anyway. Katherine, if you were here right now, I’d hug you so tightly you wouldn’t be able to breathe. The Squad! You’re a genius.”