Opium (26 page)

Whoever was in the chair uttered a sob of alarm.

“Noelle,” Dale said.

He got slowly to his feet, and holstered the revolver, feeling foolish. He picked up the lamp and brought it over to the chair.

They stared at each other, frozen.

“I think you are going to shoot me,” she whispered.

“Sorry. Old habits die hard.”

“What habit,
monsieur
?

“Well, I guess the habits you pick up when you're not advising folk about agriculture.”'

The lantern hissed and flared.

“I am sorry. It was wrong to come here. You must think bad of me.”

When he did not answer her she said: “You think I am a tramp.”

He shook his head. His arms and legs felt like lead. “I'm just surprised that's all.” His voice didn't sound like his own.

“Do something,” she said.

He put the lamp on the floor, then knelt down in front of the chair. The lantern threw flickering shadows over their faces.

Noelle got to her feet. “I am wrong to come.”

He grabbed her arm and pulled her back down again. He took her face in his hands and kissed her on the mouth. Immediately her arms went around his neck. Her tongue explored his mouth. She put her fingers inside his shirt and he heard the buttons pop and scatter on the teak floorboards.

Too late to stop it now.

***

They lay naked side by side on the bed. He felt the sweat cool on his body. He could not believe what had just happened to him. Guilt nudged at him, but he tried to ignore it. He felt her fingers trace the contours of the muscles in his chest and shoulders. She found the scar just below his collarbone and circled it with her nail.

“Bullet,” he whispered.

“Where?'

“The Philippines. I was an adviser to Magsaysay.”

“Agriculture?'

“Animal husbandry.”

“It is more dangerous than agriculture, then?'

She wrapped her leg across his thigh, he felt her hot breath on his cheek. He kissed her. She tasted of mint.

Noelle was not like any European woman he had ever known. She did not appear to be embarrassed, did not try to hide herself under the sheet. He could not imagine any American woman coming to a man's room like this, pursuing him so ... well, shamelessly. Why had she done it? he wondered.

Perhaps she sensed the direction of his thoughts. She sat up. “You think I'm a whore,” she said.

“No.”

“Of course you do.” She said it as if it was irrefutable fact. She pushed the mosquito net aside and went to the window. Her mood had changed abruptly. She crossed her arms across her breasts. “You must not feel bad. I did this to get revenge on my husband.”

Oh, great.

“Did you hear me?'

“Don't be angry.”

“Why shall I be angry? Because I do everything wrong in my life?'

“Is that all this is for you? A way to even the score?'

She turned back to the window and did not answer.

“Why don't you leave him?'

“And go where?'

“Anywhere.”

“That's what a man would do. For a woman the choices are not so easy.” She started to snatch her clothes from the floor. “I must go home now.” She threw her dress over her head and fumbled in the dark for her underwear. She collided with the chair and sat down heavily.
“Merde!
'

The sudden shift in her mood bewildered him. He had never been reckless like this, he realised, well not emotionally. His work was different, sure you took chances sometimes, that's how he had wound up taking a bullet. But with women he had always needed to convince himself a hundred times that everything was right before he did anything. He had never done anything like this before.

She found her leather sandals and sat on the edge of the bed to put them on. “I find my way in, I will find my way out. Just leave the money on the dresser.”

He reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. “It wasn't wrong,” he whispered.

“Of course it is wrong! What is the matter with you? You don't have no morals?' She sounded as petulant as a schoolgirl and he didn't know how to answer her.

He heard her stamp away down the front steps. He lay back and stared at the ceiling. Already the hour he had spent with his dream girl was receding like a half-remembered dream. In the morning he would think he had imagined it all.

***

As soon as Noelle reached the house, she heard the sound of a child crying. She had been gone longer than she intended. Poor Lucien.

Then she saw the Packard in the driveway. What was he doing home? He spent almost every night in one of the bars or nightclubs, tonight of all nights he had come home early. Well Noelle, she thought, not only is your revenge complete, it is out in the open as well.

Chao was walking the child up and down the hall, her bare feet pat-patting on the teak. Her eyes were sullen, accusing.

“U
n cauchemar,”
Chao said, patting Lucien's back. A nightmare.

Noelle took him from her and at once he stopped crying. She carried him back to his bedroom. There was no sign of Baptiste. Perhaps he had been too drunk to notice she was gone.

She sat down on the edge of her son's bed.

“Where have you been?'

She looked up. Baptiste was standing in the bedroom doorway, his hands on his hips. Lucien started crying again.

“Wait until he's settled,” she said.

“I said: Where have you been?'

“I was out. Now stop shouting! You're upsetting Lucien!'

“Out where?'

“When have you ever been concerned where I was before midnight?'

“You have a child, Noelle!'

“So do you!' Why was it that he had been unfaithful a score of times and had never shown a moment's remorse; she had cheated him once and her chest felt like a barrel of stones?

“You should have been here with Lucien! What sort of a mother are you?'

The accusation took her breath away. She remembered the first time she saw him, the night he drove into the lobby of the Constellation. Whatever made her think a man like that would be a model husband and father? “It is true I will never win any prizes for motherhood. As you won't, for being a husband.”

Three steps into the room and he was standing over her. Lucien wriggled and shrieked. She tried to quieten him. From the corner of her eye she saw Baptiste's fist open and close at his side.

“Don't try and threaten me, Baptiste. Hit me and I'll take a knife to you, I swear it. And if I miss, my father won't.”

“I would never hurt you. You're my wife.”

“I wish I wasn't.”

“Just tell me where you have been!'

“You never tell me where you go when you come in late at night. Why should I tell you?'

He bent down so that his face was inches from hers. “You whore,” he said.

“Everything I am, I owe it to you.”

He backed away and slumped against the lintel of the door. “Why do you do this? I love you, Noelle. I love you more than anything in my life.”

He started to cry. She had expected anything but that. If he had hit her, should have left. But this made it impossible. “I will try and change,” she heard him say. “I promise. You're everything to me. Everything.”

He stumbled back to the bedroom. Lucien quietened, and she rocked him back to sleep. He was getting too long for her to hold in her arms now. Perhaps Baptiste is right, I have babied him too long. Is it because I want to protect him from his father? Or do I use him as a shield between me and my marriage?

She thought about what she had done that night with Jack. How could she explain or excuse it? She did not understand herself any more.

Chapter 47

Xiengkhouang Province

B
EYOND the lines of sandbags and barbed wire the dark green mountains rose into a washed blue sky. A corporal brought their breakfast on to the veranda, rice noodle in a soup of vegetables and meat.

It was almost eight o'clock. A soldier ran to the middle of the beaten earth parade ground to sound the seven o'clock reveille.

Colonel Kaysone grinned as he bent over his bowl and began to scoop the noodles into his mouth. “Late again!' he chuckled.

It was times like this that Dale's hopes turned to dust. It seemed impossible that these cheerful, lazy people were all that stood between Laos and the communists.

Kaysone gave a high-pitched giggle. “What you think? Can we win this war?'

Dale looked at Gates. “Trust us, colonel,” Gates answered. “The United States won't let you lose.”

He giggled again.

It was market day down in the village. The Hmong had come down from the hills, distinctive in their black pyjamas edged with dark blue. Most of them wore their hair long, straggling over their collars. They looked Chinese but their skin was a smoky bronze colour. Several of them had slingshots hanging around their necks.

Ironic, Dale thought. Because we don't dare use our atomic missiles against the Russians and Chinese we'll fight a proxy war here, using people who still thought the earth was flat and hunted with Stone Age weapons.

“You think these
Meo
can beat the Pathet Lao?' the colonel asked.

“Well, that's what we're here to find out,” Gates drawled. He and Dale planned to spend the next few months here in the mountain with these people, eating and sleeping with them. It should give them some idea. They would train them as best they could and hope it all came out all right.

Hard to think war right now. For the first time in his life there was a woman he couldn't get out of his mind.

He had not seen Noelle again before he left Vientiane. The memory of that one night remained a bewildering enigma. Why had she come to him? Why hadn't she come back? Was that all there would ever be?

He pushed his breakfast away.

“Are you all right, Jack?' Gates asked him.

“Just not hungry.”

“You'll be okay,” Gates said and slapped him on shoulder, thinking it was just pre-combat nerves.

But Dale doubted that he would be okay. In fact he wondered if he would ever be quite okay again.

Chapter 48

Kowloon Tong

T
HERE were no high rises in this part of Hong Kong; instead there were miniature Indian palaces and English Tudor country homes, all with their own gardens. Real estate prices to boggle the mind. Kowloon Tong was Hong Kong's equivalent of Beverley Hills.

They passed a high wall topped with broken glass and barbed wire, and drove through two huge wrought iron gates mounted with closed circuit television cameras. A man in dark glasses watched them drive through, holding a Pinscher on a short chain leash.

The winding driveway was flanked by cypress pines and manicured lawns tended by Hakka gardeners. At the end of it was a white two storey house built entirely of concrete and glass.

As they parked the Porsche, Dragon Fist told him what was happening: “There's a big meeting, tonight,” he said. “A lot of big shots will be here. This house belongs to the 489 of the Fei Lung. He took over six months ago when his brother died, though he still lives some of the time in Saigon. You have to be very respectful, okay?'

Douglas nodded. He was excited but tried not to show it. One day, he thought, I am going to live in a house like this.

***

A white jacketed servant led the way through an echoing marble foyer to two huge carved doors, which were guarded by gilt dragons. They were ushered into a long rectangular room, dominated by a mahogany table with ball and claw feet. Douglas could see his own reflection in the polished marble floors. There was little other furniture in the room; a chair, upholstered in tiger skin, a spirit altar, a ceramic spitoon decorated with hand-painted pink flowers, and a photograph of the Queen.

There were eight of them, all middle aged
chiu chao
Chinese, playing
mah-jong
. Douglas was disappointed. He had expected more. These men were dressed much alike, most of them in shirtsleeves and trousers with high belts; some of the leading triads in Hong Kong and they looked like the old men who practised
tai chi
in the park.

“Sit down,” the 486 said, indicating two straight-backed chairs, and then he turned back to the game and ignored them. A servant brought them green tea and they sipped the scalding liquid and waited. A goldfish with huge winged fins watched them through the thick glass of its aquarium.