War Baby (22 page)

She had never been inside a McDonald’s before so Webb ordered for her; a Big Mac and a large fries. She unwrapped the hamburger with elaborate care, as if she were defusing a bomb.

She took one mouthful, made a face and put it back in its box. The fries grew cold on the tray. Instead of eating she contented herself with drinking her Coke and most of his as well.

‘You have to eat something,’ he said.

She shrugged her shoulders.

Time to bite the bullet, he supposed. ‘All right, let’s see if you can take some of my home cooking,’ he said.

* * *

While Webb was in the kitchen, Phuong wandered out to the yard. He watched her from the window. Seagulls had gathered on the lawn, near the bulkhead rocks at the foot of the garden. One stood separate from the others, its head turned into the breeze. Phuong moved very slowly across the grass until she was just a few yards away, crouched directly behind it.

What the hell is she doing? Webb wondered.

She inched imperceptibly closer to the bird. Webb felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck.

God Almighty.

She moved so quickly that he did not realize what she had done until it was over. He heard the panicked screeching of the other gulls. Phuong was rolling on the lawn. When she stood up she had the gull in both hands. There were flecks of blood on her hands where it had bitten her. It was still alive.

He ran out on to the deck. ‘No. Let it go.
Let it go!
’

She stared up at him, bewildered. Then she did as he said and the injured bird fluttered to the ground. It flapped helplessly on the grass and he thought she had broken its wings but after a while it took off, squawking in outrage.

‘What were you doing?’

‘I was hungry, Uncle.’

My God, what sort of creature have I allowed into my house? She’s practically feral. ‘If you’re hungry I’ll cook you lunch inside.’

He put his arm around her and led her back to the house.

Good God. At least now he knew how she had survived for so long without food on McAdam Reef.

* * *

She ate two bowlfuls of
pho
without comment. Afterwards she stood at the window watching the grey clouds gather over the cove. He wondered what she was thinking. Finally she turned around and he braced himself for what might come next.

‘I think it is going to rain, is it not?’ she said.

‘Yes, it looks like it could rain.’

Another long silence. ‘You . .. very rich?’

‘No, not really.’

He knew she did not believe him. A house like this, a big car; it would take a while for her to understand that in America these were things that many people accepted as their birthright.

‘You are a businessman, isn’t it?’

‘I write books.’

She frowned. This was something beyond her comprehension.

‘I’ll show you. Come on.’

A wrought-iron spiral staircase led to a loft area that he had added to the original cottage a year before. At the top of the landing there were two doors; one led to his bedroom, another to his study.

Two of the walls were lined with bookshelves, the third was hung with perhaps two dozen framed photographs. A dormer window overlooked the cove. There was a PC, a printer, and a phone fax, crowded on to a desktop jumbled with notes, manuscript drafts and post-it notes.

Phuong looked around, perplexed.

‘I used to be a journalist,
bao chi
. These days I write books.’

He took a hardback book from one of the bookshelves and showed it to her. On the front cover was a photograph of a helicopter lifting from the roof of the United States Embassy in Saigon in 1975. The title was embossed in red and gold:
Goodnight, Saigon.
Hugh Webb.

She turned the book over in her hands. There was a black and white photograph of Webb on the dust cover.

He pointed to the muddle of papers on his desk. ‘My next book.
Voices from America.
It’s about Vietnamese living here in the US. The
bui doi
. People like you.’

‘You write this book about me, please?’

‘No, not just about you. About ... many Vietnamese.’

She looked at the photographs on the wall. Most were from his Vietnam days; one of him sitting on an APC at Chu Lai; another crouched in the door of a Huey; another with Cochrane and Crosby and Ryan in a Saigon street.

He held his breath.

‘You?’ she asked him, pointing to one of the photographs.

‘I looked a bit different then. No grey hair.’

‘Soldier?’

He shook his head. ‘No, no,
bao chi.
' He pointed out the photograph Ryan had taken of him, out on patrol somewhere in the Delta, a camera slung around his neck.

''
Bao chi
,’ she repeated.

He watched her as she studied the rest of the photographs. He waited for some sign of recognition on her face.

Nothing.

It’s not her, he thought. If it was her she would have recognized Ryan straight away. Or would she? She was just five years old when Saigon fell, and Ryan was hardly ever there.

Anyway, it could not possibly be her. On the UNHCR form her mother’s name was given as Ngai, Ngai Dieu-Quynh. Ryan had introduced them once, but he could not remember Odile’s surname, had never learned her real name, her Vietnamese name, the one she would have reverted to when the communists took over.

Phuong examined each of the photographs carefully. He dropped his gaze to her fist, still tightly closed. ‘Have a good look around. Take as long as you like.’

He left her alone in the room and went downstairs.

He went into the kitchen to make coffee. When he looked up again, she was standing on the stairs watching him. ‘You like coffee?’

She shook her head.

‘There’s Coke in the refrigerator. Help yourself whenever you want.’

The previous evening, using a Vietnamese dictionary, he had made a number of handwritten signs and had tacked them around the house: above the house phone he wrote ‘telephone’ on a piece of cardboard, and then the Vietnamese equivalent,
dien thoai
, underneath. He did the same on the oven, the refrigerator, the table, the doors, walls, chairs and so on around the room.

Phuong went to the refrigerator, peered intently at the sign. ‘Refrigerator,’ she repeated slowly. She went to the oven. ‘Oven.’ She leaned over the range. ‘Hot pl —’

She let out a shrill scream and jumped back.

She clutched at her left hand, gasping in pain. He pulled her towards the sink, turned on the cold tap and put her hand under the running water. There was a pink burn along all the knuckles of her left hand.

‘It’s okay,’ he said, ‘it’s okay, it’s not a bad burn. It’s okay, Phuong.’

She started crying. He put the plug in the sink, kept her injured hand in the water, put his other arm around her shoulders. ‘That’s why they call it a hot plate, I guess. You’re okay.’

Something caught his eye. Whatever Phuong had been holding in her fist had dropped to the floor. It was a small gold crucifix. He looked at her hand. She had been gripping the crucifix so tightly for so long that it had formed a bruised imprint in the flesh of her palm.

She pulled away and retrieved her treasure from the floor.

‘No one’s going to take it away from you, Phuong. Let’s just fix this burn. No one’s going to steal it.’ But it was clear she did not believe him. ‘Was it your mother’s?’ he said.

She nodded.

‘She was a good Catholic, wasn’t she?’

She sank to her haunches, cradling her injured hand in her lap.

He knelt down on the floor beside her and rocked her in his arms. Enough questions. Just let it be, Spider, he heard a voice say in his head. None of us will ever know for sure.

The next morning he drove to the shops to get milk and bread. When he got back he found her in the kitchen, reading the signs he had put up for her, committing each object to memory. He put the grocery bags on the counter top. ‘How’s your hand?’

She held it out for his inspection. Two of the knuckles had blistered.

‘You’ll live.’ He walked over to the range. ‘What’s this?’

‘Hot plate,’ she said.

He grinned. ‘Right.’ He reached into his pocket, took out a small box. ‘I’ve got something for you.’

Her face registered only suspicion.

He opened the box. Inside, lying on a bed of red velvet, was a gold chain. ‘Twenty-two carat,’ he said. When she still did not respond, he undid the clasp and laid it on the counter top. ‘It’s a cross chain,’ he said. ‘Like your mother would have worn. You put the cross over the link here, and thread it down. Then you wear it around your neck. It saves wear and tear on your hands.’

She did not move.

‘Phuong, trust me. No one is going to try to take your mother’s cross away from you? It’s a gift. Take it.’

‘I don’t understand, Uncle.’

‘Yes you do. You understand.’

She slowly opened her fist. She fixed the chain through the eye at the top of the cross. Their eyes met.

‘You want me to put it on for you?’

She nodded.

He fastened the clasp behind her neck. She ran to her bedroom. He followed her; she stood in front of the dressing table staring at herself in the mirror, at the cross nestled in the hollow of her throat.

‘Thank you very much, kind sir,’ she said.

‘That’s all right, good lady,’ he said, and went back to the kitchen to finish unpacking the groceries.

Seventh Regiment Armoury

‘A gold cross doesn’t prove anything,’ Wendy Doyle said.

‘No,’ Webb agreed, ‘it doesn’t.’

‘Did you ever think of telling Ryan about her?’ Crosby asked him.

‘Why?’

‘He would have known the right questions to ask.’

‘I knew the right questions to ask.’

‘Where was Ryan anyway?’

‘He was in Washington. Lee here decided he’d look good in front of the camera instead of behind it.’

Cochrane shrugged. ‘He came to me and said he wanted a job that would keep him in one place. We’d just lost our White House correspondent to another network and I had this idea of giving Ryan a screen test. He was a natural.’

‘He made him a star overnight.’

‘He was good,’ Cochrane said, a little defensively. ‘Besides he looked a bit like his father and everyone remembered him. The entertainment papers lapped it up.’

‘Where was Mickey?’ Doyle asked.

‘She was with him. They got married soon after they got back from the El Salvador jaunt.’

Crosby shook his head. ‘Ryan told me once he could never imagine sleeping with just one person for the rest of his life.’

‘Then why did he marry her?’ Doyle asked.

Cochrane leaned forward. ‘In my opinion he genuinely thought he’d had enough. The thing in El Salvador shook him up, badly. I hate to say it, but I think Mickey and marriage was just his way of dealing with all that.’

‘Thank you, Dr Freud,’ Crosby said, with a grimace. ‘But Ryan was always reckless. Rushing into marriage was just like him. What intriguers me more is: why did Mickey marry
him
?’

Doyle looked around the group. ‘So none of you big, tough guys have ever fallen in love with a woman you knew was totally wrong, had no future for you, and was an utter bitch?’

Crosby grinned. ‘No, not this week. But last Wednesday when I was in Denver ...’

Webb stared into his cognac. ‘She loved him.’

‘And you?’ Doyle said.

‘I didn’t love him,’ Webb said, and smiled.

‘You loved
her
.’

‘I was the Invisible Man when he came on the scene. But that was the trouble with Sean. Women came too easy. It’s like being born with money. You never get to value it because you’ve never had to work for it.’

‘Anyone here go to his wedding?’ Doyle asked.

‘I got an invitation,’ Webb said, ‘but I had a prior engagement.’

‘I went,’ Cochrane said. ‘So did Croz.’

‘Registry office,’ Crosby said. ‘It was like they were both frightened that if there were long-drawn-out arrangements they would change their minds.’

‘What happened?’ Doyle asked.

Webb shook his head. ‘I don’t know this part,’ he said. He looked at Cochrane. ‘You’d better tell the story.’

Washington, DC, and Long Island, New York,

May 1984

‘War is the ambulance chaser’s wet dream ... the visions of misery and suffering can also provide a convenient reference point for putting aside one’s own damaged emotions.’

- Paul Harris, freelance photo-journalist, from

Someone Else’s War

The President of the United States emerged from the diplomatic entrance of the White House and strode towards the helicopter waiting for him on the South Lawn. He was greeted with a barrage of questions from the waiting reporters.

‘Mr. President, what’s your reaction to the murder charges being laid against members of the military in El Salvador?’

‘Mr. President, is the United States still going to support the regime in El Salvador?’

‘Mr. President, what’s your reaction to the news of free elections in Nicaragua?’

Reagan grinned in his good-natured-uncle manner and cupped a hand to his ear to indicate that he couldn’t quite hear the questions over the roar of the helicopter rotors. He pointed to his watch to indicate he was running a behind schedule.

He saluted the white-gloved Marine at the foot of the helicopter steps and turned at the door to wave expansively, as if to a large crowd of admirers, instead of a small huddle of shouting reporters and a clutch of television cameras.

‘Jesus Christ!’ Ryan swore.

‘That’s what he wants us to think,’ a voice said. Ryan turned. It was Mike Nesbitt from NBC Washington.

‘This isn’t news, mate. We might as well be doing commercials for the bloke.’

‘Did you see what they called you in today’s Post? “The human bullhorn.” ’

‘Yeah, right, they make out the joke’s on me, but the joke is on the American public. He makes it look like he’s accessible, and he isn’t. He hears the questions all right. If he gets one he thinks he can answer, he shouts back his sound-bite soon enough. Shithead!’

‘Whoa, boy. That’s the President of the United States you’re talking about.’

‘He’s just an out-of-work actor, mate. You would have done better electing Jack Benny. When was the last time this bastard gave a press conference?’

‘It’s all part of the game, Sean.’

The helicopter lifted off the lawn. The news crews began to pack away their equipment.

‘They’re stuffing us around, Mike. We have to show this on the news because it’s the only film we’ve got and they bloody know it. But what have we got? The President looking busy. And it’s all bullshit. I bet right now he’s strapped in the dickie seat with his cardie over his knees, snoring. I reckon they fly him up and down the bay all day just to keep him out of the fucking way.’

‘Take it easy, Sean, you’ll give yourself an ulcer.’

Ryan’s cameraman, Danny, looked up at him. ‘What now? The usual stand-up shot with the White House in the background?’

Ryan shrugged. Why not? What else was there to do on another frustrating spring morning in Washington?

* * *

The Four Seasons was one of Washington’s most elegant hotels, with an address in the fashionable Georgetown district. Lee Cochrane was sprawled in an armchair in the air-conditioned hush of the Garden Terrace lounge. Ryan was escorted to his table by a waitress. She took the bottle of Chardonnay from the cooler on the table and poured a glass for him as he sat down.

She departed with a longing smile in his direction.

‘I don’t know what it is you’ve got,’ Cochrane grunted, ‘but she wants some of it.’

‘Money,’ Ryan said.

Cochrane grinned. ‘How’s things?’

‘Fine.’

‘Mickey?’

‘Yeah, she’s fine too.’

He settled back in his chair and regarded his new boss and mentor. His most vivid memories of Lee Cochrane were of a scrawny hippy in a camouflage jacket clutching the floor of their Saigon apartment because he was afraid he was about to fall off it. That Lee Cochrane had somehow metamorphosed into a senior news editor in the New York headquarters of a national television network, boasting a power haircut, manicured nails and a Rolex Oyster Perpetual. The camouflage jacket had been replaced by a button-down two-tone silk shirt, a Sulka tie, and an Armani double-breasted wool suit. Even the grey at his temples had the appearance of an expensive executive accessory.

Ryan no longer felt comfortable around Lee Cochrane. They were still good friends; it was Cochrane who had got him this job, and the exorbitant salary that went with it. But Cochrane was part of the establishment now. He had privately nicknamed him Lee Cocaine.

‘How you settling in here?’ Cochrane asked.

‘Fine,’ Ryan said. He shifted uneasily in the lounge chair. He had the feeling he was being interrogated.

‘I just wanted to touch base with you, Sean. How long have you been in Washington now?’

‘Eleven months, three weeks and four days.’

‘It’s a big change from war zones.’

‘I don’t miss it. Look, don’t bullshit me. You didn’t get me here to talk about the weather. What is it, Lee? The suits in New York don’t like what I’m doing?’

‘I told you, Sean, you look good in front of a camera. You’re a natural.’

‘Well that’s good. Right?’

Cochrane held his wineglass to the light. ‘It’s just that, well, you’re right, there are some things management is worried about.’

‘Such as?’

‘I don’t want you to feel pressured by this.’

‘Tell me what it is and I’ll let you know if I feel pressured.’

‘We’ve been taking some heat from Washington.’

‘The whole of Washington?’

A chill smile. ‘Some people in the White House press office.’

‘That’s good, isn’t it? Shows I’m doing my job.’

‘Maybe. But you’ve got to remember this isn’t some third world dictator you’re dealing with here.’

‘No, this is a First World dictator.’

‘Hey buddy, you know I’m on your side. But this isn’t Vietnam or El Salvador. You can’t deal with Reagan like he’s some petty tyrant.’

‘I never said he was petty.’

‘This is America. We have to have a little bit of give and take here.’

‘Yeah, we give ’em an inch, they’ll take a mile.’

‘You know what I’m saying.’

‘You want me to take a softer line on Reagan. Is that it?’

‘The network is worried that your reporting is not showing the proper balance. There’s a difference between being tough and being antagonistic. Just lately the Sean Ryan charm has been a little thin on the ground. You’re coming across pretty sour.’

‘Well, maybe I should go back to just taking the pictures.’

‘That’s your call. But I thought this was what you wanted.’

Ryan looked away. He watched a young and very attractive blonde in a black cocktail dress glide across the lounge to another table. He had never seen so many beautiful women as he had here. Washington was like he imagined Hollywood. Perhaps that old saw about power being the most powerful aphrodisiac was true.

‘Can I talk to you as a friend, Sean?’

‘I’m listening.’

‘I guess I shouldn’t be saying this, but what the hell are you doing in this job?’

‘Mate, you should know. You gave it to me.’

Cochrane raised a hand in acknowledgment. ‘Because you said you wanted it. And I wouldn’t have given it to you if I didn’t think you had the talent. But. .. maybe what you want and what you think you want are two different things.’ He leaned forward, hands on his knees. ‘I saw Croz the other day.’

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘He’s back working for IPA. He’s going to be running their Far East bureau. He needs a photographer to cover the war in Afghanistan.’

‘If you want me out, mate, just say so.’

‘When I want you out, I will say so.’

‘So what’s this about Croz?’

‘You told me when you took this on that you’d had enough of covering combat zones.’

‘I have. That’s a young bloke’s game.’

‘Then lighten up, Sean. The White House isn’t a combat posting. Take off the flak jacket for the stand-ups and stop treating the President as if he’s Joseph Stalin.’

‘I think I’d prefer Joseph Stalin.’ Ryan took a deep breath, thought about what Cochrane had said. ‘I’ll try and tone things down a bit, all right?’

Cochrane smiled.

‘Mate, remember the Hashish Hilton? I never knew anyone could smoke as much dope as you and still get their stories out on time.’

‘Yeah, sometimes I miss all that. But the world turns.’

‘I guess it does.’

‘The thing that bugs me the most,’ Cochrane said, ‘is that you still don’t look a day older.’

‘I put it down to clean living. Are you in town overnight? I’ll call Mickey. We’ll go some place and get a feed.’

‘I have to get the evening shuttle back to New York. Maybe next time.’

‘Yeah, maybe next time.’ Ryan looked at his watch. ‘I’d better get back to the sweatshop. Schultz is giving a press conference at three o’clock.’

‘Think about what I said.’

‘Smile more on camera, don’t mention Central America, and kiss Reagan’s ass.’

‘That’s not quite it, but it will do.’

‘I’ll do my best.’

Ryan got up and walked out through the lobby.
Editors. They were all bastards.
He thought he had been doing well, or as well as he knew how. But there seemed to be some sort of conspiracy to get him back where the guns were. Even people like Cochrane couldn’t accept that he had changed. He’d given him a lifeline and now he was trying to snatch it back again.

Well, bugger them, he wasn’t going to do Afghanistan for Crosby. He’d kiss Reagan’s ass if he had to. And Schultz’s, even Larry Speakes’. Who could tell? After a while he might even get used to the taste, if not the smell.