War Baby

by Colin Falconer

  She closed her eyes. ‘Jesus.’

  ‘I have to go.’

  ‘No, you don’t have to! You want to. You’re a journalist, you should know the correct usage of these words.’

  ‘I’m dying here.’

  ‘No chance of that over there, of course.’

  ‘You knew the kind of guy I was when you married me.’

  ‘Yes, but you said you wanted to change.’ She swallowed back tears.

  ‘It will only be for a while.’

  ‘Sure. How long can a war of attrition last anyway?’

  ‘It’s a three-month tour.’

  ‘Which you’ll extend when you start having fun again.’

  ‘Wars aren’t meant to be fun.’

  ‘But they are, aren’t they?’

  They stared at each other. First one to blink loses, she thought. Ryan looked away. So you won the argument and lost ... a husband, such as he was. Funny how it had all crumbled away so quickly. Fifteen months: not a record, not in America, but still screwed up much faster than she would have believed possible. ‘The break away from each other will do us good,’ he said.

  ‘Goes without saying.’

  ‘Mickey, I need to recharge my batteries.’

  ‘What are you, a torch?’

  ‘You think I want out of the marriage?’

  ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’ve spent too long at the White House. You can lie almost as good as they can. You looked like George Schultz when you said that.’

  He stood up, the water streaming off his hard, muscled body. Too damned attractive, that was Sean Ryan’s trouble. You miss him too much when he leaves.

  ‘Well, I guess that’s a wrap, then, as they say in the business.’

  ‘Mickey, it’s only three months.’

  ‘You already told me that.’

  She stood up too, put her hands behind her head. ‘Take a good look, baby. Something to think about when you’re curled up in a shellhole in the Hindu Kush in the middle of a blizzard, with the Russians kicking the shit out of you.’

  ‘Mickey ...’

  ‘Don’t Mickey me, you son of a bitch.’ She grabbed a towel, wrapped it around her. ‘When are you leaving?’

  ‘Monday.’

  ‘Monday? Monday? How long have you known about this?’

  ‘I didn’t make up my mind until this afternoon. That’s the truth.’

  ‘You piece of shit.’ She went out trailing wet footprints across the carpet on the landing. She went in the bedroom, locking the door behind her.

  Chapter 58

  Lincoln Cove, Long Island

  Webb stood at the water’s edge, on a large and flat piece of shale, the collar of his hunting jacket turned up against the biting wind. A catamaran tacked through the neck of the channel in the hastening evening, the red and green riding lights lit on the mast.

  ‘If only you could know for sure,’ he said aloud. He wondered what he feared the most; discovering that she was Sean Ryan’s daughter, or finding out she wasn’t.

  * * *

  They were in the kitchen making spring rolls, a skill Phuong had learned as a small child from her mother. He stood beside her at the kitchen bench, to his elbows in pastry, bean shoots, shrimp and diced vegetables.

  His first several attempts split open and spilled onto the counter top.

  ‘This is impossible!’

  ‘You’re not making a hamburger! You have to be gentle.’

  ‘My fingers are too fat.’

  ‘Your pastry is too wet. Like this. See?’

  Webb shook his head. ‘Perhaps I’ll stick to pizza.’

  ‘No way! Just keep at it! All right?’

  He smiled. Those were the exact words he had used on her every day for the last twelve months, when she found her English lessons too hard, or when she was having trouble making new friends, or even when she couldn’t bait a fishing hook. Keep at it. Don’t let it beat you. You can do it.

  And she could, and she did. She had a good ear for language and after just a few months her stilted phrase-book English had been replaced by New York idioms. She had started to make many new friends at school, and she had become a better fisherman than he was.

  She had dropped her Vietnamese name and had chosen Jenny as her adopted English name. She had even developed a taste for Big Macs though he suspected it was because her friends liked to hang out at MacDonald’s.

  He picked up a green chili from the bowl on the counter. ‘I’m feeling lucky.’

  She laughed. ‘You’ll need more than luck.’

  She chose one from the same bowl, and they faced each other, like duelists waiting for the seconds to call out the paces. She giggled: ‘You’re a wimp.’

  He bit into the chili. Oh, God. Napalm you can eat; that was what Dave Crosby had called green chilis. But he grinned at her as if he was enjoying it.

  The chili-eating contest had become a set play with them very early on, a way she could assert herself when every other part her new life was overwhelming her; when her homework was too difficult; when she could not find the right words to express herself; when she was defeated by cardboard milk cartons and electric can openers and VCRs and long division and English grammar.

  But now Webb found ‘Jenny’s’ newfound cockiness irritating, and he wanted to beat her at this, just once.

  On the second chili he knew it was futile.

  She grinned, swallowed her chili and selected another. ‘Do you say uncle, Uncle?’

  His eyes were streaming and he could not talk. It was like being tear-gassed. He went to the refrigerator, took out the iced water and swallowed two large glasses, one after the other. Jesus Christ. Her mouth must be lined with asbestos.

  The telephone rang. ‘Webb,’ he croaked.

  ‘Hugh?’

  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘It’s me ... Mickey ...’

  ‘Mickey?’

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes ... fine ... just... just a head cold.’

  Jenny grinned and wagged her finger at the lie. He turned away.

  ‘Is everything okay?’ He hadn’t heard from her in months.

  ‘Sure. Just called to say hi. What’s new with you?’

  ‘Not a lot.’ Mickey and Sean didn’t know about Jenny; they had never been up to visit so it was easier not to say anything at all. Oh, by the way, Sean, this girl I’ve adopted, I’m still not entirely sure she’s not your daughter.

  ‘I saw you on the Today show the other week. You were talking about your book. The one about the refugees.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m famous now, like Sean. I get people stopping me in the street all the time asking for my autograph.’

  Jenny made a face at him.

  ‘So the book’s doing well?’ He frowned: not like her to take him seriously.

  ‘It made the New York Times best seller list for one whole week. I get fan mail from Norman Mailer.’

  ‘I got a copy at the station bookstore last week. Next time I see you, you’ll have to sign it for me.’

  A long silence. Why would she want to see him? ‘What’s up, Mickey?’ he asked her, finally.

  Jenny dropped the spring rolls into hot oil. He couldn’t hear what Mickey was saying. He covered the mouthpiece. ‘Take the damn things out of there!’

  ‘It’s too late. The oil will make them go soft.’

  ‘Take them out!’ He took the phone into the living room. ‘Sorry, the radio was on too loud.’

  ‘Sean and I have split up.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ It was true, he was sorry; just not very surprised. All that surprised him was that it had taken so long. He knew about Ryan walking out of his job at the network, of course, some of the news channels were still replaying the shouting match he’d had with Reagan in the Press room. ‘What happened, Mickey? Is it another woman?’

  ‘Another war.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘His buddy Dave Crosby gave
him an offer he couldn’t refuse: freezing snow, religious fanatics, communists tanks and all the bullets he could eat. You just don’t pass up chances like that.’

  ‘You want to come and stay here for a while?’

  ‘Maybe that’s not such a good idea.’

  ‘So what are you going to do?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m all kind of mixed up.’

  ‘Is he coming back, Mickey?’

  ‘He says he’ll be back in three months. But he won’t be. Will he?’

  ‘I guess not.’

  There was a long silence while they both searched for the right thing to say.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said at last.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Christ, don’t make me spell it out. I’ve made some big fucking mistakes in my life, but the biggest mistake I made was marrying Ryan. And the second biggest was letting you go.’

  He’d always thought that, too. Well, it was too late now. ‘Are you going to be okay, Mickey?’

  ‘Sure. You know me. Keep in touch, huh?’

  ‘Mickey?’ For a moment he imagined himself getting on the shuttle and flying down to see her. But even as he thought it, he decided that wasn’t such a good idea. She had hurt him twice. He wasn’t going to let her do it to him again.

  ‘Take care,’ he said.

  She hung up.

  He walked back into the kitchen and put the phone back in its cradle. ‘You okay?’ Jenny asked him.

  ‘An old flame.’

  ‘You still really like her, huh?’

  ‘No, I’m over it now.’

  ‘Yes, uncle.’

  ‘Look what you’ve done, you’ve ruined the spring rolls. You can’t put them in the oil and take them out again before they’re cooked. It makes them go soft.’

  ‘Got to find yourself a wife, uncle. You look too sad on your own.’

  That was the trouble with having a fourteen-year-old around the place, he thought. They thought they knew every damned thing. ‘How about we forget about my love life and try and salvage dinner? Okay?’

  * * *

  It was a hazy evening in June. She got off the school bus and started the long climb up the bluff to the cottage. A salt wind skimmed the whitecaps in the cove, and bent the branches of the pink oak beside the road. Far below her an old whaler crashed through the narrows, bucking in the swell.

  It hit her without warning; I can never return. She heard the sound of rain hissing on a charcoal brazier in a Cholon alleyway; the chatter of the women selling noodles and duck eggs; the ringing of a wooden bell on the cart of an old man selling steamed sugar cane.

  I’ll never ever get it back. Vietnam is gone forever.

  So long since she had thought about the boat, how they had capsized on the reef. She should have drowned that night, but she had survived somehow, like a dutiful daughter should, following her mother’s last instruction to her: Stay alive. Don’t die! Stay alive!

  All this first year in America she had told herself her mother was there watching her, encouraging her, laughing at every small success. But she wasn’t; she was dead, consumed by the crabs, her bones bleaching on a reef somewhere.

  It is just me here, in this strange town with an even stranger name. Driftwood. Dust.

  She stopped her halfway up the hill. All the breath went out of her and she staggered two steps back. It was gone, all gone.

  Chapter 59

  ‘I can’t find anything physically wrong with her,’ Dr. Clooney said. ‘It’s probably psychosomatic.’

  The blinds in Clooney’s surgery in the Whaler’s Reach Medical Centre were drawn against a grey afternoon shower. A fluorescent tube buzzed overhead. Clooney leaned back in his chair, his sleeves rolled to the elbow, and tapped the end of his fountain pen on his desk.

  He consulted the file in front of him. ‘When you first brought her to see me she was undernourished and well below average height for her age. We treated her for lice, intestinal worms and a tropical ulcer. Now she’s five foot four inches tall and almost ninety-five pounds. She’ll never play women’s basketball and I doubt if she’ll ever need the Scarsdale Diet, but overall she’s in pretty good physical shape. I’d say you’ve done a good job.’

  ‘I thought that, too, until about a month ago.’

  ‘Like I said, I can’t find anything really wrong with her.’

  ‘She wouldn’t get out of bed all last week. She said she was too sick to go to school. This week I made her go. But I don’t know if all this tough love is doing any good. As soon as she gets home she throws herself in front of the television and doesn’t move.’

  ‘Sounds like my daughter.’

  ‘I’m not the only one who’s noticed a change. Her teacher rang me last week to ask me if there was something wrong. On her final assignment last term she got an A in English, her first ever. The last assignment she handed in she got C minus. I tried to talk to her about it. She screamed at me, told me I was pushing her too hard, that I was ashamed of her because she was Asian. She’s turned into a complete stranger.’

  Clooney took off his spectacles and pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘I don’t know what to say to you. You’ve crossed a mountain range with this kid, and now you’re panicking because you’ve taken a couple of steps back. When you got Jenny, you had no idea what her life experience had been before she came to you.’

  ‘I think I had a better idea than most.’

  Clooney shrugged his shoulders. ‘Within reason.’

  ‘I don’t understand this. Everything’s been going so well. I thought she was doing okay.’

  ‘I can give you a referral if you want.’

  ‘A referral?’

  ‘A therapist.’

  ‘I was hoping you’d find something physical - make it easy for me.’

  ‘We can wait for the results of the blood tests, there might be something. But I think you’ve already made up your mind what the problem is. Haven’t you?’

  Clooney was right. She had settled into her new home and her new school so fast he thought it was all going to be so easy. But he had known in his heart that it would take more than a few good meals and a private tutor. Logic dictated that. Here was a child accustomed to stealing food and sleeping in the street; after a month at Lincoln Cove she was washing down her vitamins with a glass of water every morning, then running for the school bus in her new Reebok joggers; a girl who had survived alone for months on a deserted island reef was suddenly unable to run an errand to the shops without her Walkman.

  She had adapted too far, too fast. ‘I’ll take the referral and talk to Jenny about it.’

  ‘Sure,’ Clooney said. ‘Good luck.’

  * * *

  Odile was drowning.

  Jenny was in the aluminum runabout that Webb used to go fishing. She sat at the stern, one hand on the throttle of the outboard. She saw her mother over the troughs in the waves, one hand reaching skywards. She was calling out to her, but the words were carried away on the wind. She twisted the throttle as far as she could but the little boat could not go any faster and she knew she would not reach her in time. She disappeared under the cold, grey waters of the cove.

  She woke as the rain hurled another flurry of rain at the window. ‘Mother,’ she whispered.

  * * *

  Webb stood in the doorway. ‘Time to go to school.’

  ‘I’m sick.’

  ‘Dr Clooney says there’s nothing wrong with you. Come on, get up.’

  Jenny pulled the covers over her head and turned her face to the wall. ‘Leave me alone.’

  ‘What is it? If there’s something wrong you can talk to me about it.’

  ‘I’m sick. My head hurts.’

  Webb looked around the bedroom. Over the last few weeks the posters of Michael Jackson and Bruce Springsteen had come down, had been replaced with pictures of Vietnam painstakingly cut from magazines, scenes of a pastoral Asia she could not possibly remember, an idealized version of her heritage; peasants in stra
w non las laboring in rice fields; water buffalo hauling wooden ploughs; incense burning at a Buddhist altar; pavement hawkers at a market; bright oranges, rambutan, a wok sizzling with noodles and shrimp.

  ‘You have to go to school today.’

  ‘What’s the point? So I can grow up to be a blonde homecoming queen?’

  ‘Homecoming queens? Is that what this is about?’

  No answer.

  He grabbed the covers and pulled them off the bed. Jenny lay in a foetal position in her T-shirt. ‘You want me to get real sick and die? Okay, I’ll lie here till I freeze to death!’

  ‘You’re not going to freeze to death because it’s summer. And you’re not going to lie there because you’re going to school.’

  ‘Screw you,’ she said.

  Webb bit back his anger. ‘Am I supposed to be impressed by your new command of the language?’

  ‘Screw you double.’

  He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her off the bed. She rolled on to the floor, screaming, covering her head with her hands. ‘That’s it, go on, beat me. You’re just like the communists! Go on, make me do what you want!’

  ‘You can’t lie here in bed all day!’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You didn’t get through everything you’ve been through just to lie here and turn into a vegetable! Is that what your mother wanted for you? Is it?’

  ‘Don’t talk about my mother, okay? You didn’t know my mother! Don’t you talk about her!’

  Maybe I did know her. He nearly said the words aloud but stopped himself.

  He bent down, his face inches from hers. ‘Okay, you want it to be like Vietnam, we’ll make it like Vietnam. You want to eat, you work for it. You go to school, I feed you. You stay at home, you starve. No food, no water, nothing.’ There were some jays and gulls squabbling where the ragged lawn met the rocks. ‘If you get really desperate you can go back to eating birds. Is that what you want?’

  ‘I don’t care!’

  He was getting nowhere with her. He went out, slamming the door behind him. He leaned against the wall, closed his eyes, let the anger drain out of him. Oh, that was a great way to handle things. What was needed was calm, assertive, rational; instead he had turned it into a shouting match, then a wrestling match, and had finally delivered an ultimatum that would be impossible to enforce. Brilliant parenting.