War Baby (28 page)

Webb was lunching with his editor in the Union Street café when he saw Crosby. He stopped on the way to his table to shake hands. ‘Hugh! Haven’t seen you for years. How are things?’

‘I’m fine. Good to see you, Croz.’

‘Good to see you too, man.’

Webb introduced his editor. ‘Croz, this is Peter Crawford. He’s my editor at Putnam. Pete, this is Dave Crosby. I’ve mentioned him a few times in my books.’

The two men shook hands. ‘Right. I feel like I know you,’ Crawford said, with a practiced smile. Crawford was a good editor, and he knew what books, but he thought Webb and his fellow correspondents were all certifiable, had even said so once after one too many spritzers at a book launch.

Crosby turned back to Webb. ‘I’ve seen your stuff around. You must be doing okay.’

‘I almost earned out a couple of advances. What about you? Are you limping?’

‘Piece of shrapnel in my knee. Vukovar. Been covering the Balkan shit for IPA. They airlifted me out to get it fixed, thought while I was here I’d get myself a decent lunch. I’ve been hanging out for calamari. They’re all out over there.’ He lowered his voice. ‘That is a bad, bad scene. You imagine the Middle Ages with rocket-propelled grenades and you have some idea.’

‘I’m glad I’m out of it.’

‘I was with this new kid, a freelancer. He had been there one day.
One day
. I took him around, showing him the ropes, you know. He’s fifty feet away from me in the street, taking a photograph, there’s a thump, and that’s it. Mortar round, blew his fucken head off. His first day.'

‘I can’t believe you’re still doing that stuff.’

‘Someone has to.’ He smiled, realized he was getting intense. ‘Enough of that shit, tell me where famous authors live these days.’

‘I’m out on Long Island. Lincoln Cove.’

‘Guess you’re the local celebrity.’

‘There’s a few writers out there.’

‘You’re being modest. You’d better give me your address.’

‘I’m in the phone book. Only one of me in Lincoln.’

‘I’ll give you a call. Hey, guess who I saw the other day. Remember Sean’s ex? Mickey something.’

‘Mickey van Himst,’ Webb said, and he felt something clutch at his chest.

‘She’s living here now. I saw her over in the West Village. We talked for a while, you know. She’s nursing at some swank hospital on the Upper West Side. Looking real good.’

Webb wanted to ask him which hospital. Instead he said: ‘Seen any of the other guys?’

‘I saw Ryan in Zagreb.’

‘How is he?’

‘You know Ryan. Still the same. Look, I’d better get back.’ He indicated a table of four men on the other side of the restaurant. ‘IPA people. I’m trying to persuade them to send me back to Bosnia. I think they’re worried this metal in my leg will slow me down.’

‘Take it easy, Croz.’

‘Yeah, you too.’

He headed off through the crowded restaurant and Webb talked some more about his next book with his editor, and tried to forget that Mickey was probably just a couple of miles across town. No, he told himself again, that part of your life is over. You can’t ever go back.

* * *

A faint breeze stirred the leaves of the crab apple tree at the bottom of the garden. Webb stared at it. He had barely typed a word since lunch. He was working on a new book called Apple, a social commentary on the history of New York, but it wasn’t coming together. Perhaps that was because he was just doing it for the money.

He took his coffee to the window, sat down on the window-seat. He closed his eyes, letting the sun warm his face. Words had poured out of him those first few years;
Goodnight, Saigon
and
Voices from America
had both sold well, and his third,
Deception
, about American politics in Central America, had been a bestseller and made him something of a champion among American liberals. He had followed that with
The Fall in Spring
, about the last days of Saigon, and had written four others, about Indochina and the Middle East, using as a resource the hundreds of notebooks he had kept from his days with IPA. But now what he had once thought was a bottomless well of was running dry.

He had run out of things to say.

The phone rang. ‘Webb.’

‘Hugh?’

For a moment he couldn’t find his voice. ‘Mickey?’

‘How’s things?’

‘I’m fine.’ He had looked up her number in the directory, once he had almost called her. ‘Where are you calling from?’

‘I’m back in New York.’

‘Yeah?’

‘I’ve got an apartment in the West Village.’

‘You always liked living in the jungle.’

She laughed at that. ‘I was hoping we could catch up. You want to do lunch?’

‘Sure, I’d like that.’

Her voice faltered. ‘It’s been a long time.’

‘How about tomorrow?’

‘Sure. There’s a little place near here we can go. I’ll book.’

‘Okay. I’ll get the train into Grand Central and take a cab. I’ll swing by your apartment about twelve. How’s that?’

‘Sounds good.’

She gave him the address and he scribbled it down on a pad. ‘It’s good to hear your voice again, Mickey.’

After he hung up he went back to his desk, stared at the computer screen. Well, so much for
Apple
. He guessed that would be about as much work as he would be able to handle for the day.

He had always promised himself he wouldn’t do this. But hell, she had called
him.
He could hardly refuse. They would have some gnocchi and a couple of glasses of wine and that would be that. No need to get nervous about it.

He shut off the screen, went downstairs and poured a whisky.

The fashion among the latest Manhattan restaurants was to suffix their names with an exclamation mark. This one was called
REVOLUCION!
The white adobe walls were pasted with memorabilia collected from South and Central American countries: crudely printed leaflets of the Missing like the ones handed out by the mothers of the disappeared in Buenos Aires; framed photographs of Galtieri and Romero and Allende in the attitudes of movie stars; revolutionary pamphlets collected from Peru, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Brazil. Revolutionary graffiti, spray-painted in Spanish, filled the empty spaces.

The waiter led them to a paved courtyard at the rear and a handful of tables surrounding a fake marble fountain.

‘Are you making a statement here?’ he said.

‘I thought it was kind of appropriate. The food’s really good too.’

‘If they’ve got vampire bats on the menu I’m out of here.’

‘No bats, but they do breed a very special kind of malarial mosquito in the fountain over there.’

She smiled at him. The years had been kind to her; they had smoothed out the sharper angles, and there was a poise about her that had not been there before. She wore an apricot loose-fitting jersey over a black cotton skirt and leather pumps. Her hair was cut shorter, and streaked with blond tips. She even looked relaxed.

A waiter approached with the wine list. Webb looked at her.

‘I’m sticking with yuppie juice,’ she said, and pointed to the Perrier water.

‘I’ll do the same,’ he said.

After he left, they just stared at each other. ‘So,’ she said eventually.

‘So.’

‘How have things been with you?’

‘Fine.’

‘A celebrity author these days.’

‘Doing the P.J. O’Rourke thing.’

‘I saw you on the talk shows a couple of times when I was in San Diego. You’re a big shot now.’

He grinned. ‘I’m a little-shot with pretensions to grandeur.’

‘Working on another bestseller?’

‘And working on a mid-life crisis at the same time. Busier than a one-armed paper hanger, as Sean would have said.’

The mention of Sean brought a chill to the conversation. The waiter brought their Perriers. She studied hers with the sort of passion she might once have reserved for pure vodka. ‘Have you heard from him?’ she asked.

‘No. You?’

‘We got officially divorced about five years ago. End of story.’

‘Suddenly there’s a draught,’ he said.

She gave him a wan smile. ‘He was not really the problem but he certainly was not part of the solution.’

‘Well, you look like you’re over it,’ he said. And she did; nails perfectly manicured where once they were bitten down; make-up, expensive perfume, no stray ends of hair in her face. She was sure taking better care of herself these days.

‘What are you staring at?’

‘You.’

‘Counting the wrinkles.’

‘I was just thinking how beautiful you’re looking.’

‘Thank you.’ The old Mickey would probably have thrown an old wound dressing at him, he thought.

‘How did we get on to me? We were talking about you.’

‘Were we?’

‘Your books.’

‘There’s not much else to tell. I live on Long Island in a little cottage in Lincoln Cove, where I spend the days pining for lost loves.’

‘Don’t be sarcastic. And I’d hardly call it a cottage.’

His eyebrow arched in surprise.

She clearly hadn’t meant to let that slip. She looked down at the tablecloth, flustered. ‘I was out your way last weekend. I was going to look in.’

‘Why didn’t you?’

‘You had company.’

It look a moment for Webb to realize what she was talking about. ‘You actually got that close?’

‘You can see the deck from the road. I didn’t want to interrupt anything.’

‘Interrupt anything?’

She gave him a look. ‘You had a girl with you.’

‘Little young for me, don’t you think?’

‘I don’t know. I wasn’t that close.’

‘She’s twenty years old and she’s a rookie journalist at the New York Times.’

‘Lucky you.’

‘I helped get her the job.’

Her eyes glittered. ‘No strings attached.’

‘That’s right. No strings attached. She’s my daughter.’

He could almost hear the gears clunk into place as she sorted this. ‘Your daughter? And she’s twenty years old?’

‘I call her that. She still calls me her uncle, even though I officially adopted her a few years ago.’ He sipped his drink. ‘She’s a Vietnamese refugee.’

Mickey shook her head. ‘Here I was thinking you’d become the ultimate hedonist. I should have known better.’

‘Widows and divorcees are more my speed these days. I really don’t believe in May-November romances.’

‘Not November, surely? Don’t forget we’re about the same age.’

‘July, then.’

‘That’s better. What’s her name?’

‘Her real name’s Phuong but she uses Jenny. Her choice. Part of the integration process.’

‘What made you ... ?’

‘What made me adopt a Vietnamese refugee? I was researching my book on the boat people and she looked like a good tax deduction.’

‘Very cute?’

‘Do you have a motive for everything you do?’

‘Yes, but I try not to look at my motives too closely.’

‘Same here.’

‘It couldn’t have been easy. I mean - a bachelor adopting a teenage girl?’

‘Looking back from the point of view of the politically correct nineties, it was a lot easier than it should have been. Scary, in fact.’

‘Any regrets?’

‘Not about Jenny. Oh, she gave me my share of heartache. A brush with the law and a few other incidents I’d rather forget. She actually hit a boy at her school with a copy of Webster’s unabridged dictionary after he called her a gook. She must have taken quite a swing because he had to go to the doctor’s with concussion. If it had been the complete works of Shakespeare she would have killed him.’

‘You’re making light of it now but I bet it was damned hard.’

‘Good bet. I was guru, helpline and kicking-post for the first two years. Fortunately she’s very bright and she did well at school. I got her some private tuition and by the end of her final year of high school she’d not only caught up with her peers, they were eating her dust. I wanted her to go to college, but she was in too much of a hurry for that. A friend of mine got her a job as a rookie with the New York Times. She’s bright, she’s ambitious, she’s opinionated and she scares the hell out of me.’

‘You sound very proud.’

‘I am.’

She shook her head. ‘Funny.’

‘What is?’

‘You think you’re looking so hard for something, but in fact it’s right there under your nose all along.’ She leaned across the table and smiled at him, the way he’d always wanted her to.

The waiter arrived and asked them if they’d like to order.

There was nothing on the menu remotely like what they’d eaten during the real
Revolucion!
at La Esperanza: green chili with pork, grilled tuna and avocado salad.

She decided on the tuna; he chose the dish with the green chili, to show off.

‘Why did you go back to San Diego?’ he asked her.

‘I had to get out of Washington. I felt a breakdown coming on.’

‘Washington makes everyone feel like that.’

‘This wasn’t politics. This was rampant alcoholism.’ She smiled at his expression. ‘You didn’t know?’

He shook his head.

‘A bottle of vodka a day, but when Ryan left I moved up another gear. When I got to San Diego I spent my first three weeks at home in bed. My mother must have been worried sick. When I finally went out and got a job as an ER nurse they found me the first day hiding under a trundle bed in the recovery room. Someone gently suggested to me I might like to do my own recovering before coming back to work. So I went to see this shrink for a while and he diagnosed post-traumatic stress syndrome. Vietnam disease.’ She made a face. ‘Hearing that made me even thirstier. Things got a little tacky for a while.’

‘Why didn’t you call me?’

She smiled and said not unkindly, ‘And say what? All I’ve done is hurt you, but will you come and watch me break down for a while? I thought you’d had enough of me. I don’t blame you.’

‘So what happened?’

‘I was in and out of this place called Riverlands for a few months. I don’t know why it was called that, there’s no river, just a lot of trees and a big fence. Anyway, they got me straightened out to the point where I could manage more than a couple of words at a time. When I got out I visited this therapist for a while. My mother paid for that, God bless her. We went through a lot of stuff, and I finally got to the point where I could work again. No more trauma rooms for Mickey; these days it’s hemorrhoids and prostates. So here I am. Forty-three years old and I’m ready to start life.’

‘I had no idea things were so bad.’

‘Of course not. I was just this crazy broad who married the wrong guy and caused you nothing but grief.’

‘So what now?’

‘I nurse at a small private hospital on the Upper West Side. People of private means with very private conditions. I assist in theatre and tuck them into bed at night. It’s a long way from Bien Hoa but it’s better for my health.’

‘Any men in your life I should know about?’

‘Why should you know about the men in my life? Assuming there are any.’

‘Because I have a proposition for you.’

‘We’ve only known each other twenty-two years. Aren’t you rushing things?’

‘When do you next get a few days off?’

‘This weekend, as a matter of fact.’

‘Why don’t you come over to the cottage and spend the weekend. You can have Jenny’s room.’

She smiled. ‘Really?’

‘Sure. We can stay up late drinking Perrier water and play salsa music really loud.’

‘I’d like that,’ she said.

He grinned. Hugh, what are you doing? You must be out of your mind.

* * *

Webb grilled steaks on the barbecue and brought out a large bowl of Caesar salad, a bottle of mineral water and two glasses. He tried to act as if he wasn’t craving a beer. They sat talking on the deck until the wind turned cool and forced them inside. As the sun slipped below the island Webb turned on the table lamps inside the living room. Other lights flickered on the far shore.

While he made coffee, Mickey did a slow circuit of the room, examining the local scrimshaw on the stone mantelpiece, picking up and studying each framed photograph.

Webb watched her. She had on a grey hooded cotton jersey and loose navy boating pants. Her feet were bare. She looked so down home, he felt as if they had been around each other all their lives. Why had it taken them so long to get here?

‘This is Jenny?’ she asked him, holding up a photograph he had taken when she was about fifteen. She was wearing braces and a goofy grin.

‘The one next to it is a little more recent.’

It had been taken about six months before, on the deck of a friend’s boat. The gauche teenager’s grin had been replaced with the restrained, almost haughty smile of the confident young woman she had now become.

‘She’s beautiful,’ Mickey said.

‘Thank you. I think so too.’

She replaced the photograph on the mantel. ‘Where’s all the war memorabilia?’

‘Upstairs in the study. I don’t like having it on show. The only thing I keep out is this.’ He went to the coffee table and picked up what looked like a paperweight. It was a small glass case mounted on a heavy onyx base. He handed it to her. Inside was a shiny brass .762 bullet. It had ‘Hugh Webb’ engraved on the casing.

‘Where did you get this?’

‘Lee Cochrane gave it to me when I got back from El Salvador. It’s the bullet with my name on it.’

‘If you’ve got the bullet that’s got your name on it, you don’t have to worry anymore.’

‘Something like that. Did you hear what happened to him?’

She nodded. ‘He was still in hospital when I left Washington.’

‘Ironic. He got out of the front line because he said he wanted to die in his own bed. Then he has a heart attack at thirty-nine. I suppose if the bullet has your name on it, it doesn’t matter where you are.’

‘How’s he doing?’

‘Lost twenty pounds, gave up smoking and drinking and got into health foods. He’s back with the network, only these days he chews a stick of celery while he fires people.’

She handed the paperweight back. ‘Life’s strange, isn’t it?’

‘Sure is.’

‘When I first met you in Vietnam I never thought we would be standing here doing this twenty years on.’

‘First time I saw you I thought that twenty seconds later I’d just be a few bits of charcoal swept into a bag and sent out on the DOA mail. Instead here I am, a pillar of the establishment worrying about my retirement fund.’

‘You ever have nightmares about that burning helicopter?’

‘Not often. I’m down to just once a week.’

She back against the mantel. ‘Ever miss it?’

‘No.’

‘Liar.’

‘Sometimes. For all the wrong reasons.’

‘Would you ever go back?’

‘I’m too old for all that.’

‘Ryan did and he’s older than you.’

‘He has more testosterone than me.’ He went back to the kitchen to finish making the coffees. ‘I have the bullet with my name on it. Why worry? Right?’

‘You
are
thinking about it.’

‘There’s something insidious about being safe. You slip on the days like a pair of old socks. I’ve got enough money, I’ve got a nice house to live in, I know an A-37 isn’t going to come screaming out of the sky and put a rocket through the window. Salvador would have said I was lucky. But I feel like one of those retired boxers. I’m punch drunk, but I want to get back in the ring just once more.’ He affected a nasal Brando voice. ‘I coulda been a contender.’

She went to the bookshelf, found a hardback copy of Deception and flicked through the pages. ‘I should have brought my copy. You could have signed it for me.’

‘You read it?’

‘I wanted to see if I got an honorable mention. Or even a dishonorable one.’