White Christmas in Saigon

by Margaret Pemberton

  ‘It isn’t kindness at all,’ Patti Maine said dismissively. ‘If Bernadette’s hunch about your work is correct, and Bernadette’s hunches usually are, then it’s you who will be doing me a favour, not the other way round. When can you come and see me?’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ Abbra said instantly, and then apologized for her foolishness. ‘I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking. You’re obviously very busy. I can come and see you whenever it is convenient for you.’

  ‘You’re right, I am very busy,’ Patti Maine said briskly, ‘but as it happens, my lunch date for tomorrow has just cancelled. If you get to the office by twelve-thirty, we can have a chat and then go on to the Beverly Wilshire. It means I won’t have to cancel the table.’

  Abbra felt disorientated. ‘Thank you,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Thank you very much. I look forward to seeing you. Thank you. Good-bye.’ By the time she had uttered her last thank you she was speaking into thin air.

  ‘That’s terrific!’ Scott said when she telephoned him with the news. He had driven straight back to Los Angeles after dropping her off at her home, his thoughts and emotions in turmoil.

  He couldn’t go on seeing her. It would lead to disaster. Sooner or later, he was bound to reveal his true feelings for her and at the thought of her horrified reaction when he did so, he felt sick. There was only one sensible course of action to take, and he had already taken it. He had a date for that evening and the following one.

  ‘Patti Maine is a big name,’ he said, his pulse rate increasing at the mere sound of her voice. ‘Hell, even I’ve heard of her! Your lady editor in New York has certainly done you a big favour, sweetheart.’

  The minute he uttered the endearment he could have bitten his tongue, but she seemed not to notice it, saying nervously, ‘We’re having lunch at the Beverly Wilshire. I haven’t a clue what I should wear. Do you think my white linen suit will be okay? Or should I wear something more sophisticated? Like black?’

  ‘Good God, no!’ he said, laughing. ‘Wear the white linen. You look sensational in it.’ It was true, and he found some relief in being able to tell her so in a way that would cause her no unease.

  ‘What will she want to talk to me about?’ There was a note of panic in her voice. ‘I’ve only written a few short stories!’

  ‘One of which a leading women’s magazine is about to publish,’ he finished for her. ‘Don’t be so modest, Abbra. Your editor wouldn’t be introducing you to an agent of Patti Maine’s stature if she weren’t sure you had something to offer. Enjoy the lunch and don’t worry. Patti Maine will do the talking. All you have to do is tell her what she wants to know and be your bright natural self.’

  ‘I’ll try,’ she said, feeling slightly reassured. ‘I think our lunch will be over by three. Probably long before if Miss Maine discovers I’m not the literary sensation she expected! Can you meet me around three-fifteen, or three-thirty? Or will you be at practice?’

  ‘It might be a little difficult,’ he said resolutely. ‘I have a date tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh!’ Abbra was momentarily taken aback. For a highly eligible bachelor, Scott rarely dated. In fact, she couldn’t remember his ever having dated all the months she had known him.

  ‘That’s great,’ she said a trifle uncertainly. ‘She must be very special.’

  ‘Oh, she is,’ Scott agreed, unable to remember what the woman looked like. Underneath Abbra’s congratulations, he could sense her disappointment. She had been looking forward to telling him everything about her meeting with Patti Maine. He wasn’t picking up his date until seven o’clock. There was no reason why he couldn’t see Abbra first. No reason except that he would be breaking his hard-won resolution even before he had had a chance to put it into practice.

  ‘I’ll meet you at three-fifteen,’ he said, despising himself for his weakness. ‘In the Polo Lounge.’

  It was their usual rendezvous whenever she came down to see him.

  ‘Are you sure it won’t make things difficult for you?’ There was sisterly concern in her voice.

  He grinned wryly. ‘No,’ he said, knowing that every time he met her it made things more difficult than she could possibly imagine. ‘See you tomorrow, Abbra. Drive safe.’

  She had worn her linen suit, white kid sling-back shoes, and small pearl stud earrings. Patti Maine’s office was in a luxury apartment block just off Highland Avenue. The walls of the entrance hall were pale magnolia, the ankle-deep carpet was magnolia, and pale, creamy out-of-season magnolias were massed in a tall cut-glass vase. A smiling secretary ushered Abbra through a large, similarly decorated room that obviously served as an office, and into a smaller, even more luxuriously furnished inner sanctum. ‘Mrs Ellis,’ she announced, discreetly withdrawing.

  The woman who rose from the small satinwood desk to greet Abbra was slightly older than her voice had indicated, but not much. ‘Hello, Abbra. I’m very pleased to meet you,’ she said with a wide, easy smile. Her hair was blond and fashionably bouffant, her short skirt was of pale champagne suede, her shirt blouse was of barley-coloured silk, the top two buttons left provocatively undone. ‘What will you have to drink? White wine? A spritzer?’

  ‘A white wine, please,’ Abbra said, immediately responding to Patti’s straightforward friendliness.

  Patti gestured her toward a deep-seated cream sofa and poured out two glasses of ice-cold Chablis. ‘Now,’ she said, handing Abbra her drink and perching on the arm of a nearby chair, ‘tell me all about yourself.’

  Abbra had never been to a psychiatrist, but she imagined that the experience would be very similar to the one she was now undergoing.

  ‘I’m nineteen, I live in San Francisco, and I’m married to an army officer who is serving overseas in Vietnam.’

  Patti Maine cocked her head slightly to one side. ‘And you write …’ It wasn’t a question, simply a statement of fact.

  ‘Yes,’ Abbra said, her confidence growing. ‘I write.’ She hesitated a moment and then added, ‘I’ve brought some of my short stories with me. I left the box in my car—’

  ‘They’re probably very good, but they’re not what I want from you. Nor do I want the kind of thing that you submitted to Bernadette.’

  ‘Then what do you want from me?’ Abbra asked, beginning to rise to her feet, not at all surprised and sure that there had been a big misunderstanding.

  Patti motioned her to sit down again. ‘I want something different from you. Something I have a gut feeling about. Something I feel sure you can do.’ She paused for a moment and then said as if it were the most reasonable thing in the world, ‘I want you to write a book.’

  Abbra stared at her and Patti laughed. ‘You write, don’t you? Why not go for the big one? A book that could become a best seller.’

  ‘But I wouldn’t know what to write about!’ Abbra protested, wondering if Patti was a little unbalanced, or if, perhaps, it was she herself who was unbalanced and imagining the whole conversation.

  Patti put down her glass and rose to her feet. ‘That,’ she replied calmly, ‘is a minor problem and one that we are going to resolve over lunch.’

  As they picked leisurely at their salads, Patti asked Abbra to tell her all about her childhood and her upbringing.

  ‘No,’ she agreed as the waiter poured wine for them, ‘I quite agree with you, there’s nothing in your personal history that would serve as a springboard for a novel. What about your husband? How did you meet him? What sort of a man is he?’

  ‘Oh, there’s nothing there,’ Abbra said quickly, so quickly that Patti Maine’s intelligent eyes flared with interest. ‘I wouldn’t want to use anything in my private life as a basis for a novel.’ She paused, her eyes suddenly becoming unfocused, seeing something that wasn’t visible. ‘But there is something …’

  ‘Yes?’ Patti prompted her, recognizing the creative light in Abbra’s eyes.

  ‘I just came back from Hawaii,’ Abbra said, ‘and something happened while I was there. Something that I can’t quite put out of my
mind.’

  She took sip of wine and then began to tell Patti about her meeting with Des Cawthorn.

  For the next two weeks Abbra barely moved away from her desk. She wrote and rewrote, and as she did so, the characters she was creating took on shape and substance, developing a life of their own. There were times when she stared down in surprise at what she had just written, amazed at how one idea sparked off another, and at how her originally simple story line was taking on twists and turns she had never thought possible. Her novel even had a title now: A Woman Alone.

  Scott had enjoyed his date with Rosalie Bryansten. She had been as unblushingly eager to share his bed as he had been eager to have her share it, and he had found the sexual release of their lovemaking cataclysmic. He was not a man to whom celibacy came easily, and for the first time he realized the incredible strain he had been living under. It was a strain he was determined that he would not subject himself to again. His belief that he could live without seeing or hearing from Abbra lasted all of ten days. By the time the end of the second week was drawing near, he ached for her.

  ‘We’re playing the Chargers on Saturday,’ he said to her on the telephone. ‘Why don’t you fly down to San Diego? We could drive back to San Francisco on Sunday and stop by Carmel.’

  Abbra was about to ask whether the woman he had dated the previous week would be going down to watch the game as well, and if so, whether a sister-in-law might be an awkward third. She decided against it. For some reason she found it hard to speak to him about the unknown woman he was presumably still dating.

  ‘I don’t think I can, Scott,’ she said a little wistfully. ‘I still haven’t finished the outline for the book, though it’s taking shape far better than I ever thought possible.’

  ‘It will take shape even better when you’ve had a rest for a couple of days,’ Scott said encouragingly. ‘Make a reservation for an early Saturday-morning flight to San Diego, and I’ll meet you there.’

  Abbra felt herself weaken. It would be fun to watch Scott play and to spend the Sunday with him and talk to him about the book. ‘Okay.’ She laughed. ‘You win.’

  Scott was exuberant. ‘Great! It’s going to be a hard game. The Chargers have always been tough on defence, and we’re going to need all the support we can get!’

  It had been a happy, carefree weekend. The Rams had won and Abbra had been blissfully unaware of the speculative expressions in Scott’s teammates’ eyes as they asked about Rosalie.

  ‘Rosalie?’ she had asked Scott.

  ‘The girl I’ve been dating.’ His voice was casually dismissive and he did not mention her again.

  After the game they had gone out on the town with a crowd of Scott’s fellow players and their wives and girlfriends, staying overnight in primly proper separate rooms at the Ramada Inn. The next morning, instead of flying back, Scott had rented a car and they had driven via San Clemente towards Carmel.

  ‘The first place Lewis and I ever went together was Carmel,’ Abbra said as the car sped into the little town’s outskirts.

  Scott grunted noncommittally, but when they reached the turnoff for the main street and the beach, he continued straight on.

  She looked towards him, surprised. ‘You’ve missed the exit, Scott.’

  ‘No, I haven’t.’ His voice was light and easy, betraying none of the dark emotions that he was battling with. ‘There’s a restaurant near Sausalito that I’ve been meaning to take you to for a long time.’

  She suppressed her disappointment. Perhaps, after all, it was best that they didn’t go to Carmel. Memories of Lewis would be so strong that they would be nearly impossible for her to bear.

  Scott had looked tense and drawn for the past five days and she wondered if his new girlfriend was causing him problems. She said suddenly, caring for him so much that it was a physical pain, ‘Are you happy, Scott? Is there anything troubling you?’

  He looked down at her, a smile she didn’t understand crooking the corner of his mouth. ‘I’m fine, Abbra, just fine,’ he said thickly, and she had not pursued the subject. But she had not believed him.

  By the end of February her synopsis was finished. She placed the twenty cleanly typed pages into a manilla envelope and addressed it to Patti Maine in a bold, firm hand. ‘Please like it, Patti,’ she whispered to herself as she drove down to the post office. ‘Please God, let Patti like it!’

  Lewis’s letters to her, since his return, had been slightly more informative than his earlier ones, but not much. He had been given another assignment, still in the deep south of the country, but this time a little nearer to the Cambodian border. Although he was still part of the five-man American advisory team, the team was no longer working with a large South Vietnamese infantry battalion. Instead, they had been posted to a small village, Van Binh. Their task was to assist the villagers with rural development projects and to help the villagers protect Van Binh, and the surrounding villages, from the Communists.

  And these people need all the help they can get, Lewis had written to her. The area south of Saigon is so heavily infiltrated by Viet Cong that as far as the government troops are concerned, it’s practically a no-go area. A situation we intended to change!

  There was a postscript, written in a hurried scrawl. My commanding officer has been taken ill and flown out. For the moment I’m in temporary command. Long may it last!

  The situation was the same at end of March, when his next letter reached her. The local district chief is a fine man, doing a very difficult job as best he can. Together I think we can make Van Binh and the surrounding villages secure from both Viet Cong infiltration and Viet Cong aggression.

  It was obvious that he was relishing his new responsibilities. As a co van truong, senior adviser to district chief, I’m in a position to make requests to Saigon for school supplies and building and agricultural development assistance, and you can bet your life I’m taking advantage of the opportunity.

  The letters cheered her up. Although she knew that his primary task was to flush out the Viet Cong operating in his area, he very rarely mentioned them, and never described any encounters with them. Instead, his letters continued to be full of heady exhilaration at being in a position to help the people he had begun to identify with.

  All through spring and early summer the letters continued, and she took great comfort from them, happy to think of him as a benefactor, winning hearts and minds. Not wanting to think of him as a warrior.

  Chapter Nine

  For a moment after Lance struck her Serena was too stunned to react. She staggered backwards under the force of the blow, her eyes wide, her mouth open, gasping in disbelief and pain.

  ‘An American, for Christ’s sake! You have to throw yourself away on a stupid, fucking AMERICAN!’ His face was scarcely recognizable, twisted with revulsion.

  ‘But, Lance …’ She had regained her balance and she stepped towards him, ugly scarlet weals rising across her face.

  ‘Christ, don’t you understand?’ His voice was a sob. ‘It was just beginning for us, Serry, and now it’s all over!’

  Bewilderment overrode her anguish. ‘What was just beginning? What is all over, Lance?’

  ‘This, for Christ’s sake!’ and he seized her shoulders, his fingers bruising her flesh, his head swooping down to hers, kissing her open-mouthed with demented violence.

  Serena could taste blood on her lips. Vainly she twisted her head, trying to free her mouth of his invading tongue, trying to speak to him, to reason with him. But Lance was beyond reason. Serena was the most important creature in the world to him, and he knew that he had lost her for good. She would leave Bedingham, leave England. She would live in a country he hated with a man he had hated on sight. And his sexual desire for her, previously properly held in check and causing him only bemusement, was now unleashed and out of control. There could be no going back now. And he had no wish to go back.

  ‘Serry! Darling!’ His hands were on the white silk of her wedding dress; her veil billo
wed around them.

  ‘Lance! Please!’

  He was deaf to the horror in her voice. She was his. She had always been his. There had always been just the two of them. He and Serena against the world. His mouth silenced her protests, his hands slid down from her shoulders, cupping her breasts, squeezing and kneading.

  She raised her hands to his hair, grasping its silky fineness, pulling his head savagely backwards, freeing her mouth. ‘No, Lance! This is crazy! No! Please!’

  She tried to wrench away from him and he flung her back against a wall, panting for breath as the petals from the rose in her hair scattered around his head and shoulders. ‘You feel the same way!’ he shouted. ‘We’ve always felt the same way!’

  ‘Lance! Listen to me—’

  His hands seized the delicate white silk and ripped it wide, exposing her small, high, brassiered breasts and the ugly marks on her shoulders where his fingers had dug into her flesh.

  ‘Christ, Serry! We must have been mad not to have realized long ago!’ he sobbed, bending his head to her rosy nipples, sucking and biting in an agony of need.

  ‘This is insane, Lance!’ Her voice was strangled with conflicting emotions. Lascivious desire was raging through her, as was horror and anguish. Small beads of blood were dripping from her mouth on to her torn dress, spreading and staining. ‘Please stop, Lance,’ she begged. ‘Please!‘

  However erotic the experience, it was one that she wished to bring to an end. She couldn’t become her brother’s lover. It would be an act that would irrevocably drive them apart. ‘Lance, please!’ Her voice was no longer panic-stricken but was calm and loving, deeply urgent.

  Her dress slithered down to her hips and he groaned, sliding down on to his knees, still crushing her toward him, his face pressed against the soft flesh of her stomach, his mouth only centimetres above her brief panties and the springy blond bush of her pubic hair.