The Perfect Soldier (37 page)

Molly opened her mouth, trying to speak, but nothing happened. She half-turned, seeing a movement behind her in the sitting room, then Giddings was stepping onto the balcony. He was carrying a towel. He knelt beside her, mopping the tears. She clutched at the towel, burying her face in it, the phone abandoned. Giddings picked it up, muttering an explanation, promising to call back. Then Molly felt his hands pulling her gently up, and she let him take her inside, away from lengthening shadows on the balcony.

The bedroom was cool after the warmth of the sunset and Molly turned on her side, hearing the door close. She put the knuckle of her forefinger in her mouth and sucked it, something she hadn’t done since childhood. The curtains were drawn over the window above her head. Grief and bourbon thickened the darkness and by the time Giddings returned, minutes later, she was asleep.

She woke up to a raging thirst. She tried to look at her
watch. It was past midnight. She got out of bed, wondering where the cellular blanket had come from. Very gently, she opened the door to the sitting room. Giddings was curled on the sofa, his head pillowed on his arms. The light on the CD player was winking in the darkness and the doors to the balcony were still open, the night wind stirring the long net curtains. She retreated to the bedroom again, not wanting to wake him, and she’d resigned herself to the thirst when she saw the tumbler of water on the chair beside her bed. Propped against it was a packet of tablets and a scribbled note. ‘Take two,’ the note read. ‘God bless.’

Molly reached for the water, ashamed already of the scene on the balcony. It was her responsibility to cope. That’s what she’d been doing so well. That’s what she’d have to do for the rest of her life. Breaking down like that was unforgivable. She didn’t want sympathy. She didn’t want people feeling sorry for her. She just wanted something strong, something positive, to come out of this whole ghastly experience. She swallowed a mouthful of the water, then another, then the rest of the glass. Stepping back towards the bed, she paused, hearing a noise in the street below. It sounded familiar but for a moment she couldn’t quite place it.

She went to the open window, pulling back the curtain, leaning out. A young man was hurrying away up the hill, his shoulders hunched over the wooden crutches, the stump of his left leg hanging from his shorts. The sound of the crutches echoed up from the surrounding buildings and Molly could still hear him as she slipped between the sheets. Tap-tap, the young man went, tap-tap.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The rains returned past midnight, curtaining the schoolhouse from the dim silhouettes of the nearby buildings. McFaul lay beneath a blanket on his camp-bed, savouring the smells of the newly dampened earth, listening to the drumbeat of the rain on the metal body of the army truck parked outside. The cordon of armed sentries around the schoolhouse had been Katilo’s idea, a public confirmation of McFaul’s importance. There were half a dozen soldiers in all and McFaul pictured them now, huddled beneath the dripping eaves, looking for protection from the downpour.

Across the room, Christianne lay asleep in Bennie’s bed. McFaul could see the shape of her body beneath the single sheet. Her face was turned towards the wall, her knees drawn up to her chest, and from time to time she gave a tiny cry, almost a gasp, as if someone had touched her.

Katilo had kept his promise, allowing her to come along on the filming, and she’d helped McFaul as best she could but by the end of the day she’d been exhausted. Katilo’s agreement that they both return to the schoolhouse, safe behind a ring of armed troops, had been a godsend. He’d given them a boxful of army rations, supplies delivered by the incoming Hercules, and after plates of tinned sardines and rice they’d retired to bed.

McFaul smiled in the darkness. While Christianne slept, he’d reviewed his afternoon’s work, replaying the video
footage through the camcorder. For an amateur, he thought, he hadn’t done badly. A device inside the camera kept everything in focus and some of the angles he’d used did ample justice to the image he knew Katilo wanted to portray. Katilo’s soldiers had driven some of the locals out of their homes and the modest cavalcade had paraded around and around a grid of shell-pocked streets while Katilo formally took possession of the conquered city. The locals, under orders to cheer, had answered his regal wave with a display of wary enthusiasm and McFaul had done his best with the faces at the roadside. Some of them he even recognised, women and children who’d attended his lectures about the minefields, and he’d wondered quite what they made of his role in this strange masquerade. Did they think he’d been working for UNITA all along? Or would they simply shrug and turn away, blaming the insane logic of war? In his heart, McFaul knew it didn’t matter. These people had far more important things to think about than the loyalties of a one-legged white man.

Across the room, Christianne had begun to stir. The rain, if anything, was heavier, sluicing noisily off the roof, puddling the earth beneath. Somewhere in the room McFaul could hear a steady drip-drip, then another, and he got up on one elbow, trying to locate the leaks. Several shells had landed nearby during the bombardment. He’d seen the craters only this afternoon and he knew the blast must have loosened the tiles on the roof. Christianne was awake now, sitting upright, holding the sheet to her chest. As she did so, the sound of the dripping quickened and she swore softly in French, her feet finding the wooden floor.

‘You OK?’

‘Wet,’ she said.
‘Merde.’

She got out of bed, peering up at the ceiling. In the darkness she could see very little. McFaul watched her for
a moment then got out of bed himself, pulling back the blanket.

‘Here,’ he said. ‘I’ll sleep on the floor.’

Christianne was already pushing the camp-bed towards the middle of the room, trying to avoid another leak. The driest spot was a foot away from McFaul’s pitch. She told him to get back into bed. Everything would be fine.

McFaul sank back and reached for the blanket, quietly relieved not to be spending another night trying to will himself to sleep. The damp from the cave seemed to have seeped into his bones. There wasn’t anywhere in his body that didn’t ache.

Christianne was back in bed now, her face close to McFaul’s. She reached out, touching him, and McFaul felt himself tensing, immediately unnerved. The beating at the hands of Katilo’s soldiers had affected him more than he cared to admit. Not the pain necessarily but his helplessness at the hands of others. There’d been nothing he could do, no way of fighting back. His sole option had been to submit and under the circumstances he suspected he’d been lucky to have lost consciousness so quickly. That way, at least, he was spared a little of the pain.

Christianne was whispering now, asking him how he felt. So far, he’d told her nothing about the last couple of days, checking only that she’d delivered the money to Celestina.

‘Fine,’ he said, ‘I feel fine.’

‘Your head?’ Her fingers found the back of his scalp where he’d fallen at Elias’s house. ‘Still bruised?’

‘It’s nothing. It’s OK.’

‘And everywhere else? Tell me, I can help.’

Her fingers trailed briefly across McFaul’s face, over his mouth and chin, then slipped down towards his chest and McFaul caught her hand, feeling hopelessly exposed. His
body was a wreck, he knew it. Christianne was like a surprise visitor turning up at the front door when he hadn’t cleaned or tidied for weeks. He was pleased to see her. He wanted to let her in. But he was ashamed of what she’d find, the state of the place, the extra bruises she might inflict by beating an embarrassed retreat. Some women were like that. They always expected everything to be perfect.

‘Listen …’ he began.

He could see her smiling at him in the darkness. The sleep must have done her good. She looked far from exhausted.

‘You hated him, didn’t you?’ she said suddenly.

‘Who?’

‘James. He said you hated him.’

‘He’s wrong. I don’t hate anyone. It’s a waste of time, hating.’

She looked at him a moment, thoughtful, then she rolled sideways in the bed, propping her head on one elbow. She wore a crucifix around her neck and the thin gold chain looped down over the neck of her T-shirt.

‘Katilo?’ she said at last. ‘Don’t you hate Katilo?’

‘He’s different. I hate what he’s done, what he’s doing, but whether I hate him personally …?’ McFaul thought about the question, not knowing the answer.

‘You should. You should hate him. He’s evil.’

‘You think so?’

‘I know it. I was there this afternoon. Remember?’ She withdrew her hand, scratching her nose, then reached out again, the softest touch. ‘I think James was jealous really. He admired what you did. He thought you were brave. I know he did. He told me so.’

‘Then he should have listened,’ McFaul said drily.

‘I know. That’s what I told him. But he wasn’t like that. He didn’t listen to anyone.’ She paused. ‘Do you listen to anyone?’

McFaul laughed, taken aback.

‘What sort of question’s that? Of course I listen.’

‘Did you listen to your wife?’

‘My wife?’

‘Yes, did you listen to her? Were you close?’

McFaul stared at her. She’d never been less than candid. It was one of the reasons he’d always liked her, always enjoyed her company.

‘I’ve had two wives,’ he muttered, ‘and I think I listened to both.’

‘But were you close? Really close?’

‘Obviously not.’

‘No?’

‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘At the beginning maybe but …’ he shrugged, ‘you grow apart.’

‘Always?’

‘For me?’ He nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘Why? Why did you grow apart?’

McFaul lay back, turning his head away. He’d wrestled with this question for most of the last five years. He had a thousand answers, a thousand explanations, but none of them really hit the mark. He’d married his first wife far too early. He’d been too young, too trusting, too callow. That he knew for sure. But the rest of it?

He shook his head.

‘Dunno,’ he said. ‘Can’t say.’

‘You have children?’

‘No.’

‘You wanted children?’

‘Yes,’ he nodded, ‘definitely.’

‘And your wife? Your first wife? She wanted children?’

‘Sure. And we tried, believe me.’

‘And your second wife?’

‘She couldn’t. She had …’ he frowned, ‘a problem.’

Christianne nodded, saying nothing, and McFaul peered up at the ceiling, remembering the letter Gill had shown him, that last week in the Falklands, before he’d finally left. As an eighteen-year-old, a decade earlier, she’d had a fall from a horse. Her broken pelvis had been set a week later in a Buenos Aires hospital. The letter from the Argentinian surgeon confirmed that her chances of successfully conceiving were probably slim. Not that she’d ever bothered to share the news.

McFaul closed his eyes. Another betrayal, he thought. Another home defeat.

‘Marriage can be tricky,’ he said at last. ‘It’s not as simple as it seems.’

‘Did you ever think it would be?’

‘Yes, once I did. But not now.’

‘So who is it?’

‘Who’s what?’

‘Who is it in your life? Who matters? Who do you write to? Who do you miss?’

‘No one.’

‘No one?’

‘No, there’s no one. I’ve got friends, sure, people I see from time to time, people I’m fond of. But not, you know …’ McFaul frowned, unable to find the right word. He looked across at Christianne. It was hard to be certain in the darkness but he thought he recognised the expression on her face. ‘Don’t pity me,’ he said. ‘I don’t need that.’

Christianne shook her head at once.

‘I don’t pity you. It’s not pity.’

‘What then?’

She gazed at him for a long time before beckoning him closer. McFaul hesitated, uncertain, then he eased his body towards her. Her face was very close now, her lips slightly parted.

‘You know how it is,’ she whispered, ‘with some men?’

McFaul shook his head.

‘No.’

‘They don’t see in front of their noses. They don’t see the obvious, what’s really there. James didn’t. You don’t. And you know why? Because you don’t look.’

She knelt upright on the camp-bed and pulled off her T-shirt. Then she leaned towards McFaul, reaching out, easing him gently towards her. McFaul found his face buried between her breasts. He moistened his lips, dancing his tongue across the sweet, firm flesh, finding the nipple. He sucked it gently, feeling it grow in his mouth, hearing her beginning to groan, and he rolled across the intervening space, sliding off her knickers, fitting himself to her body, not caring any more about the scars he carried. She began to move beneath him, her hands on his buttocks, pulling him down. Then she stopped, her eyes half-closed, her hair splayed across the pillow.

‘Don’t be frightened,’ she whispered.

‘What does that mean?’

‘Don’t be frightened. I won’t hurt you.’

McFaul began to protest but she kissed the tip of her finger and then sealed his lips. McFaul felt her legs parting beneath him, and a pressure on his shoulders as she guided him gently down her body until his tongue found the tight curls of pubic hair, already moist. She arched her back, bringing herself to meet him, and he lapped and lapped, tasting layer after layer of sweetness, hearing her tiny gasps, that noise again. She was open now, and swollen, and when she began to moan he levered himself upwards, entering her, moving very slowly. After a while, he felt the pressure again, her hands pressing him deeper, and he began to quicken, pumping harder, his eyes closed, the pain and the rage
forgotten. She was crying out now, half French, half English, calling James’s name, and then she bucked wildly, rigid with orgasm, and McFaul heard his own wild shout, gleeful, abandoned, before he scalded her with a final thrust and collapsed face-down on her glistening body.

There was silence for a moment between them. Then the drumming of the rain returned, and the soft sound of laughter, outside in the wet darkness.

Molly Jordan sat in the window of Alma Bradley’s hotel room, the interview finally over. Alma’s cameraman, a taciturn young Scot called Keith, was checking the tapes on a small colour monitor, propped against one leg of the bed. Alma stood beside him, her eyes on the screen.

‘There,’ she said.

Keith stopped rewinding the tape. They’d just begun the interview again after a break. Molly was talking about Muengo, the impact the place had made on her after the madness of Luanda. The word she was using was ‘shock’. She was shocked by the poverty. Shocked by what the war had done. Shocked, even, by the way the people managed to cope. Life in the UK would never be the same again, she said. Cancelled trains or the odd spot of vandalism didn’t matter. Muengo did.

Alma was nodding. She rarely smiled.

‘You were good,’ she said. ‘Bloody good.’

‘So were you.’

‘Yeah?’

Alma shrugged the compliment aside, her attention caught by the next passage in the interview, and Molly leaned back, gladdened by her own performance. With Alma Bradley it had been easy, a genuine conversation, woman to woman.
Alma didn’t lard her questions with Todd Llewelyn’s brand of false sincerity. She didn’t pretend to be personally involved. She wasn’t after tears or confessions. On the contrary, she was simply curious to know the way it had been. Just tell me the story, she’d said at the start, and we’ll take it from there. Molly had done just that, explaining about James’s determination to work in Africa, about getting the news of his death, about deciding to fly over, and whenever she got to a bump in the road, a potentially sensitive detail, Alma had simply nodded, helping her over it, keen that the account shouldn’t be disfigured by what she termed ‘swampy moments’. The facts, she’d said at the end, always speak for themselves.

Now, Alma was deep in conversation with Robbie and Molly watched her, fascinated by how brisk she was, and how businesslike. She never pretended emotion she didn’t feel. She didn’t play the games Llewelyn played. Robbie was explaining again how hard it would be to get into Muengo. The place was in UNITA hands. The government people in Luanda were hardly going to sanction an official visit.

‘Then what do we do?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘How did you get in?’

‘Through a private deal. South African guy Llewelyn found. Big dollars. Do anything.’

‘Where is this guy?’

‘Don’t know,’ Robbie said again, ‘but I’ll find out.’

Alma nodded. They both knew how important it was to get back to Muengo. The film Robbie had proposed centred on Llewelyn’s cassette. If the thing still existed then McFaul was the key to finding it. And the first place to start looking for McFaul was Muengo.