War Baby (30 page)

Ryan knocked on the bedroom door, opened it without waiting for an answer. Mickey was dressing in front of the mirror. She had on a pair of briefs and was in the process of fixing the clasp on her bra.

‘Get out of here!’

‘Want a hand with that?’

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing? This is my apartment.’

‘Nothing I haven’t seen before.’

‘Christ, you’ve got a nerve.’

‘Comes with the territory.’

He sat down on the edge of the bed and watched her as she pulled on a blouse and skirt. ‘You look great, Mickey. I mean, you haven’t let yourself go.’

‘Why would I want to do that? Because of you?’

‘I didn’t mean it that way. Jesus, don’t be so touchy.’

She knew what he was doing. He did this kind of thing all the time, exercised his charm for the hell of it, not because he meant it, just to see how well it still worked.

‘You look like you’ve really got things together. That’s good.’

She finished dressing. She took a comb from the dresser and dragged it through her hair. She could feel his powder blue eyes fixed on her even when she had her back to him. ‘What do you want?’

‘I just wanted to see that you were okay,’ he said, and it sounded as if he genuinely meant it. He came up behind her and put his hands on her hips. ‘How about we grab some dinner someplace?’

She moved out of reach. ‘What is it, Sean? You’re in town and at a loose end and you’re worried you won’t get laid tonight?’

‘I thought we were still friends.’

‘My friends don’t walk into my room when I’m getting dressed.’

‘Croz said you had your shit together. I just wanted to be sure. I’ve always felt bad ...’ He let the sentence hang.

‘You’re like one of those Irish Catholics who drinks and beats on his wife and kids six days a week but goes to church on Sundays because he feels bad about it. Fuck you, Sean.’ Having got that off her chest, the significance of what he had said hit her. Crosby had told him she was okay; so he had been guaranteed before he got to New York that there would be no demands on him. He could reconnect without feeling bad, perhaps even feel absolved.

He was like a naughty little boy, she supposed. He wasn’t mean, just utterly selfish. He didn’t get that he had done anything wrong. ‘There’s a little Italian place round the corner,’ she said. ‘They do great tortellini.’

He grinned. ‘I love it when you talk dirty,’ he said.

* * *

Ryan arrived at Lincoln Cove in the back of a stretch limousine. Webb stood on the porch with his hands in his pockets and shook his head. The only wonder was that he had not hired a helicopter and landed on the back lawn. He had Mickey with him.

She came up the path first, swinging an overnight bag. They looked at each other.

‘Hi, Mickey.’

‘Hi.’

‘Did you have a swim on the drive up?’

‘It’s only the standard model. It hasn’t got a pool, just a sauna.’

‘That’s the trouble with Sean. He’s cheap.’

Ryan tipped the driver and followed Mickey up the path. He was wearing a camouflage utility with cutaway sleeves, faded jeans and Fabiano leather boots. The combat photographer on holiday.

‘Nice ride,’ Webb said.

‘Live for today. You never know what’s going to happen tomorrow.’

‘I suppose you’ve hired the Queen Elizabeth to go home in.’

‘Peter Arnett’s already booked it.’

Webb wondered if this was really such a good idea. ‘Come on in,’ he said. ‘I’ll make you a nice English cup of tea.’

* * *

‘Nice place.’

‘Thanks.’

He went out onto the deck. It was early evening and the Japanese lanterns were alight in a neighbor’s garden. The breeze was scented with charcoal and sea salt. ‘Great spot for seduction,’ Ryan said. ‘Isolated. Dark. In Lincoln Cove no one can hear you scream.’ He stretched. ‘Where are you working on the Pulitzer Prize?’

‘My study’s upstairs.’

‘Mind if I see? I’ve never been in a real writer’s place before.’

Shit, this is going to be a long weekend, he thought. ‘If you agree to tone it down a bit,’ he said, and led the way upstairs.

Ryan stood in the middle of the room, looking around. Webb leaned against the door, watching him. ‘I can just see you here, mate,’ Ryan said. ‘Sucking on a pencil, ruminating on the meaning of life.’

Look at him, Webb thought. They say the Devil never grows older. He’s still the same fighting weight as Saigon, living in his Boy’s Own fantasy with the body of a thirty-year-old and hardly a grey hair.

‘I envy you,’ Ryan said for no apparent reason.

‘Envy
me
?’

‘You’ve got your life in order. I never seemed able to do that.’

‘Don’t give me that bullshit. You’re as happy as a pig in shit, you always have been.’

‘I’m okay when I’m doing stuff. It’s only when I stop it scares me.’ They stood for a long time in contemplative silence. The shadows lengthened. ‘I never thanked you for saving my life at Que Trang.’

‘No, you didn’t.’

‘Well, it was the least you could do for a mate. But I still don’t understand why you did it. If I were you I would have let them bloody shoot me.’

‘No, you wouldn’t.’

‘I might have. If there was a woman involved.’

‘Well, that’s where you and I are different.’

‘I’m trying to think of one way you and I are the same.’ He switched on the desk lamp, studied the photographs on the wall. ‘God, we looked young.’

‘I saw Croz when he was in town.’

‘Yeah, he told me.’

‘He said he saw you in Zagreb. I still can’t believe twenty years on and you two are still at it.’

‘Mate, I’m hooked. Can’t help myself.’

‘You’re a war junkie.’

‘That’s part of it, but it’s not all of it. That’s one thing I learned from you.’

‘From me?’

‘I accused you once of being Jimminy Cricket. Well, that’s me, these days. When you retired I took over your job. I sit on the world’s shoulder and just keep yabbering away, reminding people of what happens outside their cozy littler living rooms. I’m going to keep yabbering till they put me in a box.’

‘And probably after, knowing you.’

Ryan grinned.

‘You’re not going to change anything, Sean. People are immune to it now. They see so much violence on TV, real and faked, and they’re shock-proofed. They can’t tell the difference between the entertainment and the news.’

‘You’re an idealist, that’s your trouble.’

‘So?’

‘All idealists are also unrealists.’

‘Great. You make up that word or did you go to too many military briefings?’

‘War isn’t hell if you’re winning. If you’ve got a bloody big gun and the other bloke hasn’t, war is fun. It’s like a big video game. You’ve seen it, the door gunner blasting away at some piss-poor Vietnamese rice farmer with an M-60 is having a fucking fine old time. Like the Serbs blasting the living shit out of Vukovar. Tell
them
war’s hell. They’ve never felt so sexy. I’ll tell you something, Spider, I’ve seen wars of liberation, wars of attrition, wars of atonement, every kind of damned war. But you know why people really go to war? They do it because they fucking well enjoy it! Getting men to stop fighting is like trying to make them stop fucking. Being the world’s conscience is idealism. Thinking you’re going to change things is unrealistic.’

‘Maybe,’ Webb said, finally.

‘That wasn’t what I came up here to talk to you about.’

‘You want to talk about Mickey.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Shoot.’

‘Well … how can I put this? It’s hard not to take this personally.’

‘Explain.’

‘I thought you were a mate.’

‘Are you going to give me a lecture about morals?’

‘We’re back to Saigon. I knew it! You’re never going to let that rest, are you? Christ Almighty, how many times do we have to go through it? It wasn’t my fault. I didn’t arrange to get myself blown up.’

‘Going out to the Newport Bridge on the last day of the fighting? You might as well have done.’

‘What am I, a fucking gypsy? And how does that make what you’re doing okay?’

‘You’ve been divorced for five years!’ Webb realized he was shouting and lowered his voice. ‘What the hell’s wrong with you?’

‘I still love her, Spider. I didn’t divorce her because I didn’t love her.’

‘You don’t know the meaning of that word.’

‘I don’t like the idea of one of my mates sleeping with my ex-wife.’

‘What ever gave you the idea that I was your mate?’

He looked shocked. ‘Well, I always liked
you
.’

‘To coin a phrase, so you should.’

Ryan took a deep breath. He peered more closely at the framed photograph on the wall: himself, Webb, Crosby and Cochrane on the Saigon street. Webb had had it reframed, but there was still a brown stain in one corner where the coffee had splashed over it. ‘They were good days back then. We’ll never ever get another war like that one.’

They went back downstairs. Mickey had changed into a tracksuit, and her hair was tied back with a rubber band. She had made tea. She carried a tray with three cups and a teapot to the table by the window. ‘I took Jenny’s room. I hope that’s all right.’

‘Where do I sleep?’ Ryan said.

‘Why don’t you two sleep together,’ Mickey said, ‘then we’ll be even.’

‘Only if Spider’s on the bottom,’ Ryan said. ‘
Then
we’ll be even.’

Ryan was up early, but Mickey and their host were already gone, there was a note on the kitchen table saying they’d gone for a walk on the beach. He padded into the kitchen and put the coffee on. He heard the throaty exhaust of an old car. A canary-yellow Volkswagen pulled up in front of the gate and a young Asian woman got out and bounced up the path in a Mets windcheater, jeans and Reeboks. She unlocked the door.

She stared at him, open-mouthed. He looked down. At least he remembered to put on his jockey shorts.

‘G’day,’ he said.

‘Hi.’

‘You must be Jenny.’

‘You’re Ryan.’

‘That’s right.’

‘I’ve seen you on the news. Uncle’s got your photograph upstairs in his study.’ She looked him up and down. ‘Nice bod.’

‘Thanks.’

She threw her daypack on the floor and shut the door. ‘You’re the last person I expected to find out here. Uncle thinks you’re a jerk.’

‘I’m sure he didn’t mean it.’

She went to the refrigerator, took out an apple, sat down at a bar stool. ‘He never says anything he doesn’t mean.’

‘I was hoping I’d meet you. He didn’t stop talking about you all last night over dinner.’

She raised her eyes. ‘Sorry. He’s a major embarrassment. I think when you foster a kid it makes it worse. You’re always over-compensating. ’

‘Maybe. I wouldn’t know.’

She bit into the apple and studied his body with frank and unnerving interest. ‘That’s an mpressive collection of scars. You look like a quilt.’

‘Want a coffee?’ he said.

‘I don’t drink coffee.’

‘Why not?’

‘The caffeine isn’t good for you.’ She took another bite of the apple. ‘You’ve got quite a reputation.’

‘For combat photography?’

‘No.’

‘Then for what?’

‘Women.’

‘Jesus. That was a long time ago.’

‘Yeah, I guess it was.’

‘Well, not
that
long,’ he said. ‘Spider says you’re a journalist.’

‘Spider?’

‘It’s traditional. In Australia every Webb’s A Spider, like every bloke with red hair’s called Bluey.’

‘Weird.’

‘So how’s the Times working out for you?’

‘Great. You have a Bible club meeting you’d like me to write up or you’ve had your basketball stolen, be sure to give me a call.’

‘He showed me a piece you did on the homeless. That was great writing. Spending a whole night on the streets of New York took a lot of guts. I’m not sure I would have done it.’

‘Uncle had a fit.’

‘Well, if I was your father . .. uncle, whatever ... I would have had a fit too.’

‘It was okay. I was made up like a bag lady. I had a friend in the theatre, and she did the make-up. I looked so horrible any rapist with self-respect would have jumped a dog before me. I had three pillows under my dress and one under my back.’

‘It still took a lot of guts.’

‘Yeah, well, next day I was back at the criminal courts writing up the crack dealers.’ She took a cup down from one of the shelves, poured some coffee out of the percolator and tipped in three sugars.

‘I thought you didn’t drink coffee.’

‘This is for Uncle. I’d better let him know I’m here.’

‘Too late. He was up and out before I got up.’

‘Where is he?’

He nodded towards the beach. Two figures were walking side by side along the rocks from the bluff. ‘Here he comes now.’

* * *

It was cool by the water’s edge and Mickey zipped up her jacket. The dawn was a burned orange stain in the sky over Southampton Bridge.

‘Nothing happened between me and Ryan,’ Mickey said. ‘Okay?’

‘Okay.’

‘Look, I don’t have to justify myself to you. Did I ask you if the investment adviser was round this week to update your portfolio?’

‘Of course she didn’t. What do you take me for? I thought you knew where you stood with me. Now I want to know where I stand with you.’

She stopped, looked up at him. ‘Where exactly is it that you want to stand?’

‘I want to marry you.’

She looked just as scared and confused as she had at Bien Hoa. ‘We’re going to have to give it some time.’

‘The last thing anyone can say is we rushed into this.’

‘We really haven’t known each other that long. A couple of months maybe, if you don’t count the gaps.’

‘But I do count the gaps. I count them every day. They’re bloody long gaps.’

‘Let’s just take this one day at a time.’

‘You knew Ryan for about three weeks and you went straight back to Washington and married him.’

‘And look what happened. What’s the rush?’

‘You asked me what I wanted, I told you. There are no more fish in the sea for me. I’ve got one ocean and it’s all for you.’ They heard shouts from the house. Jenny ran across the lawn towards them. ‘To be continued,’ he said.

* * *

After breakfast Webb drove Ryan and Mickey into town, showed them the whaling museum and the Civil War monument and the old Customs House on Lower Main Street. The tourists were already out, crowding the wharves and the cafes. Ryan went into a souvenir shop and bought them all T-shirts with the cartoon whale logo of Lincoln Cove. It was a typically grand gesture and Webb felt irritated. Mickey took her shirt back into the shop and asked for a refund.

When they got back to the cottage the morning was appreciably warmer and Jenny was already sunbathing on the deck. She lay on a sun chair reading P. J. O’Rourke’s Holidays in Hell, wearing Raybans, a gold bracelet and a black string bikini. Mickey watched her through the French windows; snake-hipped, raven-haired, gleaming with coconut oil. When she was her age she would have killed for skin like that.

Ryan joined her, sat himself down on one of the cane rockers, and made small talk. Webb watched them too, the muscles working in his jaw.