‘He used to cook for you?’
‘Often.’
‘And was it …’ Molly shrugged, ‘OK?’
‘Oui. It was simple, of course, but here you have no choice. He liked rice very much. With chillis. Spicy food.’
Molly nodded, remembering James’s passion for Indian curries. One of the excuses he gave for not staying longer whenever he came home was Thorpe’s lack of a good takeaway.
‘And other things? Apart from cooking? He helped you with those as well?’
‘With lots of things. He helped all the time. He was …’ she frowned, hunting for the right expression, ‘very practical. And fun, too. He made me laugh. Silly things. Little jokes.’ She nodded. ‘Oui.’
They were on the outskirts of Muengo now, the shell damage less visible, the wattle-and-daub dwellings largely intact. Ahead, shimmering in the heat, was the place Christianne had described earlier. The hillock was crowned with a clump of mango trees and at the foot of the rising ground lay the grave. Only this morning, Christianne had discovered that the hillock had a name. The Africans called it ‘O Alto dos Mil Espiritos’. The hill of the thousand spirits.
‘You’d been here before? You and James? Was it a special place?’
‘No.’
‘Shame.’
Molly had her arm linked to Christianne’s. She liked the feel of the girl, her warmth, her sturdiness. She had a rare candour, too, a talent for asking direct questions without risking the slightest offence.
‘You came to take him away,’ she was saying. ‘Were we wrong to bury him here?’
‘No, not at all.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Yes.’ Molly squeezed her arm. ‘I feel close to him now, just talking to you.’ She glanced across. ‘You understand what I’m saying?’
Christianne shook her head.
‘No,’ she said.
Molly paused, stopping in the road, trying to frame the thought anew. The girl’s question had opened doors inside her own head and what lay beyond them seemed suddenly important.
‘I think James must have changed,’ she began. ‘I think something must have happened to him. Maybe he grew up. I don’t know. But you were here. You must have seen it.’ She paused. ‘Does that make sense?’
‘Yes. Absolument.’
‘So what happened? What made the difference?’
Christianne eyed the nearby hillock. Crude wooden crosses had appeared at the head of the long grave. Some were draped with strings of beads. At the foot of one was a Coke can full of flowers.
‘I don’t know,’ she said at length, ‘except I miss him.’
McFaul got out of the Land Rover and stood beside the road for a full minute. The bush stretched away to the horizon, scrub and grass newly greened after the recent rains. Down the blacktop, away from the city, he could see yet another UNITA road-block, the torn-off bough of an acacia tree supported on two oil drums. Soldiers were watching them through binoculars, ever-curious.
‘It’s the closest I can get,’ McFaul said at last.
‘No chance of going to where it happened?’
‘None. Unless you fancy talking to our friends there. And that could take several days.’
Llewelyn shrugged and told him not to bother. He’d already erected the tripod and fixed the camcorder to the metal plate on top. Now he was squinting through the viewfinder, lining up the shot. Satisfied, he opened the back of the Land Rover and took out the red placard he’d borrowed from McFaul’s storeroom back at the schoolhouse. The placard was already fixed to a stake. Under a white skull and crossbones, it read ‘DANGER – MINES’. He stepped off the road, the stake in one hand, a mallet in the other. McFaul was watching him.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Over there.’ Llewelyn indicated a patch of bare earth ten metres in from the road. ‘To put this in.’
He began to move again, the knee-high grass parting in front of him. Then he felt a hand on his shoulder, pulling him back. McFaul was laughing now, derisive.
‘What’s the matter?’ Llewelyn said, visibly irritated.
‘What’s the matter? What do you fucking think’s the matter? You come all this way, thousands of miles. You give me all this righteous shit about the Third World and what we’ve done to it, fucking mines everywhere, ninety per cent of the country off-limits. You spend all afternoon filming me at it, giving you chapter and verse, where you find the fuckers, what a pain they are to lift, what happens if you get it wrong. You look at all the pictures, all those horror shots we use, kids bleeding to death, kids with no legs, kids mangled beyond belief, and you’re asking me what’s the matter? You serious?’ He nodded at Llewelyn’s feet. ‘Or is this just research? Seeing if they really work? Seeing what it feels like, losing a leg?’
Llewelyn looked uncertain for a moment.
‘You’re saying this is dangerous?’
‘Yeah. I’m saying you’re a step away from the full Angolan experience. Only give me a moment or two before you try one out.’
‘You mean this bit might be mined?’
‘Sure. That’s why the guys up the road have got the binos out. It’s like us and fireworks. Everyone likes a good bang.’
‘Shit.’
Llewelyn stepped carefully back towards the road, tiptoeing like a child in very cold water. Then he stopped, planting the stake firmly in the loose soil beside the road.
‘What are you doing now?’
‘Putting this in. Here has to be safe.’ Llewelyn frowned. ‘Doesn’t it?’
Ten minutes later, Llewelyn was ready for the take. He’d moved the tripod back to the middle of the road, tightening the shot to exclude the tarmac. Over his left shoulder, the death’s-head placard was clearly visible. McFaul had already pointed out that there’d been no such warning at the spot where James Jordan had met his death but Llewelyn had ignored him. Reality, he said, occasionally needed a helping hand. Sticking to the facts one hundred per cent could sometimes get in the way of the story. Viewers had to have a reason for staying with the film, an assurance that something dreadful was about to happen. Otherwise their attention might stray.
Now, McFaul stood behind the camera. Llewelyn had given him a pair of miniature headphones to monitor the sound. In the viewfinder, he could see Llewelyn’s upper body turned towards the camera, one shoulder slightly lowered, a pose that evidently gave the delivery more punch.
‘Ready?’
McFaul nodded, fingering the Record button. A red light began to wink in the viewfinder and he watched, fascinated, as Llewelyn lifted his head and began to talk about James Jordan. On camera, the man was transformed. He became authoritative, grave, concerned. He talked about the Terra Sancta boy as if he’d known him most of his life. Here was someone young, white, idealistic. Someone who cared. Someone who wanted to make a difference. He’d lived and worked amongst the native Angolans. He’d sunk wells for them, piped clean water from the river. He’d eaten with them, sung with them, danced with them. Then, one hot summer’s night, he’d taken one step too far.
At this point, Llewelyn gestured back towards the bush.
‘That sound OK?’
McFaul looked up. The camera was still running.
‘He didn’t live with them,’ he pointed out, ‘no one lives with them. And he didn’t eat with them either. Most Europeans hate mealies.’
‘I meant the delivery.’
‘The what?’
‘The delivery, the performance.’ Llewelyn was frowning. ‘Did it sound all right? Look OK?’
‘Fine …’ McFaul shrugged, putting the camera on Pause, ‘I suppose.’
‘Good.’
Llewelyn told him to tighten the shot still further. Llewelyn’s head was to fill the frame. The second piece to camera was to butt straight onto the first. Cut together, it would add to the effect.
McFaul was beginning to lose his temper.
‘Effect?’
‘Just tighten the shot.’
�
�I have done.’
‘Good.’
Llewelyn looked away again, over his shoulder, the way he’d done before. On a cue, McFaul pressed the Record button and Llewelyn’s head turned into camera, picking up the story. James Jordan had gone looking for a child from the town. Darkness was falling. Everyone had known there were mines but a child’s life, in the eyes of the young aid worker, was more important. James Jordan had always been a gambler. But in the hot Angolan darkness, his luck had finally run out.
Llewelyn paused. Then his voice took on a new gravity.
‘He died instantly,’ he intoned, ‘his body ripped to pieces by just half a pound of high explosive.’
There was a long silence. Then McFaul stood up behind the camera. Llewelyn was looking at him, waiting for a reaction.
‘Well?’
‘Luck didn’t come into it. The boy died because he didn’t listen.’
‘That’s what you said this afternoon. We’ve got that, lots of it. It’s important, too, all that stuff about manuals for aid workers. Makes the point.’
‘I know. So why all this shit about luck? This was an incident, not an accident. You should be talking about blame, not fate, or luck, or whatever fucking excuse you want to use.’
Llewelyn crossed the road and began to rewind the videotape, one eye to the viewfinder, ignoring McFaul’s outburst. When he got to the start of the first take, he played it back. McFaul watched the smile spread across his face.
‘Good,’ he was muttering, ‘excellent.’
One hand had come up to his face, fingering the bruise. At length he got to the end of the take, lifting his head from the viewfinder and looking for McFaul. McFaul was already behind the wheel of the Land Rover. Llewelyn removed the camcorder and collapsed the tripod. Beside the driver’s door, he paused.
‘I was worried about the bruising,’ he said, ‘but actually it looks quite good. Even adds a little something.’
McFaul studied him a moment, then started the engine and engaged gear. Over the chatter of the diesel he leaned out of the window and jerked a thumb towards a distant curl of smoke.
‘City’s back that way,’ he said. ‘Shouldn’t take you long.’
Molly spent the evening with Christianne at the MSF house. Robbie had dropped off a handful of the tins spared by the UNITA troops at the airstrip and Molly cooked a risotto of tuna, rice and a sprinkling of black olives while Christianne hunted for a spare battery for her two-way radio. The old rechargeable had run down and without a handset she was, in her own phrase, ‘stuffed’.
Molly had laughed, recognising one of James’s favourite epithets. After supper, they sat in candle-light while Christianne mused aloud about where life might have taken them both. They’d had plans to travel. They’d made a list. Berlin, for some reason, was at the top. Followed by Dublin, Bali and California. In this, as in so many other ways, they’d thought alike. Food had been the same. And music, too. And the simple, physical things. Swimming. Playing volleyball with the kids. Going for long hikes in the mountains.
‘The mountains are miles away,’ Molly pointed out, ‘and travelling’s supposed to be dangerous.’
‘Doesn’t matter. We’d have got there somehow, I know we would. You know what he used to say? If you’re hungry, you eat. If you want to do something badly enough, you’ll do it. Anything’s possible. As long as you’re serious. Mountains?’ She looked wistful. ‘Pas de problème.’
Past ten o’clock, Christianne finally gave up on the spare rechargeable. Molly watched her circling the room, restoring things to their proper places, making ready for bed. Tomorrow, with luck, there’d be news of an evacuation flight.
Molly got up, stretching, one last question still unvoiced.
‘Did you see him at all?’ she began. ‘James? After he died?’
Christianne was chasing a mosquito with a slim paperback. She shook her head.
‘It was very dark.’
‘But afterwards. When you’d brought him back here. Did you see him then?’
‘No.’
‘At the hospital at all?’
‘No. His body was inside a sack, a bag, you know …’ Christianne had the mosquito trapped in a corner. She flattened the book against the wall and then stepped back.
‘And after that you buried him?’
‘As soon as we could, yes.’
‘And he was …’ Molly stared hard at the smudge of blood on the wall, ‘pretty much in one piece?’
‘Yes, oh yes. Excuse me.’
There was a second knock at the front door. Christianne left the room. Molly heard voices in the hall. Then a shadow appeared, someone tall, stooping into the room. Molly turned round. She’d been examining a photograph propped on the mantelpiece, James standing knee-deep in a river, grinning at the camera, kids all over him. The photograph was still in her hand.
‘This is Andy McFaul,’ Christianne was saying, ‘he knew James, too.’
Molly stared up at the face above her. The hair was greying, cropped brutally short against the skull, and the candlelight played across the hollows of his face. The bottom half of his face was latticed with deep blue scars, giving the smile a curious deadness. McFaul, she thought. The name at the end of the report she’d read at the embassy. The man who’d wasted so few words on her dead son.
Molly glanced across at Christianne, offering her the photo of James. McFaul withdrew his hand.
‘There’s a message from Luanda.’ He nodded at Christianne’s radio, lying on the bed. ‘We’ve been trying to raise you.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yeah. The ambassador. He wants you to get in touch.’ He paused. ‘I get the impression it’s urgent.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
Next morning, McFaul was still half-asleep when Bennie told him about Katilo. A message had come in via Fernando at the UN compound. The UNITA commander had scrubbed their morning meet. McFaul and Christianne were now to present themselves at a road-block on the northern edge of the city at two o’clock. Arrangements would be made to take them on to Katilo’s headquarters from there.
Now, getting dressed, McFaul was still furious. Deferring the meet by half a day meant losing precious time in the minefields. If the rumours about the evacuation were true then Muengo might yet be denied access to fresh water. The existing safe paths led straight to the most polluted stretches of the river. A couple of days’ work could transform the situation.
Outside, McFaul heard the chatter of a diesel. The engine died, a door slammed, and there were voices. One of them was Christianne’s. The other belonged to the woman he’d met last night, the dead boy’s mother, Molly Jordan. McFaul cursed, hopping across the room on his good leg and fumbling beneath a pile of dirty laundry for his last clean shirt. He was still pulling it on, snagging the stitches on his upper arm, when the door opened behind him. McFaul manoeuvred himself round. His plastic leg with its straps and its Velcro lay on the camp-bed. He felt utterly naked.
Molly Jordan was first into the room. McFaul could see Bennie behind her, trying to explain to Christianne that the boss had been a bit late getting up. Molly was staring at McFaul’s left leg. The amputation had been an inch or two below the knee. The skin was gathered and tucked into the stump, the flesh above scarred and pitted where the surgeons had removed fragments of shrapnel.
McFaul stood on one leg, motionless. Under the circumstances there was little else he could do. Molly was already backing through the door. She was wearing a blue T-shirt with some kind of bird on the front.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she was saying, ‘I’d no idea.’ McFaul shrugged.
‘Heavy night,’ he muttered. ‘Slept in a bit.’
‘No, I meant …’ Molly shook her head, making way for Bennie. ‘We’ll come back later.’
She turned and hurried out through the schoolroom. McFaul heard a door slamming, footsteps outside, then the growl of the diesel as the Landcruiser restarted. Too late, he remembered the change of plan.
‘Tell he
r Katilo’s off until this afternoon,’ he shouted to Bennie. ‘Tell her it’s back here for one-thirty.’
The two women returned an hour later. McFaul gave them the last of the instant coffee he’d been saving. They were sitting round the table in the schoolroom while Bennie and Domingos readied the piles of spare equipment for crating. Word had finally arrived from the UN in Luanda. Negotiations with UNITA’s national leadership were going well and an evacuation flight had been scheduled for three days hence. The World Food Programme people had volunteered one of their big Hercules freighters and with Katilo’s acquiescence, they’d all be out of Muengo by the weekend.
Now, McFaul emptied the coffee-pot into Christianne’s cup. Bennie had organised some biscuits from somewhere, Peek Frean dry crackers, and McFaul nudged the plate towards Molly Jordan, apologising gruffly for the absence of cheese. Last night, at the MSF house, he’d met her only briefly but a couple of minutes’ awkward conversation had been enough to sense her bewilderment and her vulnerability. Under the tight smile, this woman was plainly lost.
McFaul glanced across at Christianne. She’d already checked into the UN compound, hearing first hand from Fernando about the postponed meeting with Katilo.
‘Did Fernando let you use the HF,’ he asked, ‘to talk to the embassy people?’
Christianne looked at Molly, then shook her head.
‘We didn’t ask.’
‘Why not?’
‘I’m …’ she shrugged, ‘not sure.’
There was a silence. Then the sound of hammering from the road outside. Molly couldn’t take her eyes off the stretchers. There were four of them, lightweight aluminium, neatly propped against the wall.
‘My fault,’ she said at last, colouring slightly.
McFaul reached for a biscuit, breaking it between his fingers. Food was beginning to be a problem and he hadn’t eaten properly for days.
The Perfect Soldier Page 19
