crisis. And I don’t mean the crisis of people starving. I mean the crisis here, within this building.’
‘The wheat and grain shipments are on stream now. I believe I can contain it.’
‘If you don’t,’ said Panov, in open threat, ‘others will.’
Chapter Thirteen
Blair showered and shaved and changed but still felt cotton-headed. Ruth suggested he try to sleep but he decided against it, not imagining it would be possible despite the aching tiredness. She prepared meatloaf, needing something quick and knowing it was one of his favourites anyway and he tried to eat it – appreciating her effort – but that wasn’t easy either, because he was full of events and airline food. Each tried to over-compensate, urgently beginning conversations – sometimes in competition with each other – and stumbling either into conversational cul-de-sacs or just as abrupt stops, each urging the other to lead. The only positive talk was how they would proceed when the boys came home, after Ruth confessed she hadn’t warned them of their father’s return, for fear that Paul might run to avoid the confrontation. Like so much else – everything else – Blair found it difficult to conceive that his son might try to run away from him. After the difficult meal Blair called each of the counsellors to arrange the required appointments, putting himself at their schedule convenience and thanking both for the help and consideration they had already shown. Still at the telephone he hesitated about calling Langley and decided against it. Instead, still with time to occupy and not wanting to crowd Ruth by his presence, because he was aware of her discomfort, he strolled into the bedroom that the boys shared, gazing around, trying to remember. Very little seemed the same; he supposed it had to be more than two years, nearer three, since he’d been here, actually in the house. It was bound to have changed. Everything was neat, like the rest of the house and like the rest of the house he guessed that it was Ruth, not the boys. There were a couple of junior pennants against a wall and on another, facing it, some advertising posters of a pop group he’d never heard of. Near the bed he guessed to be John’s, because there was a ratty, dirtied-by-love fur dog on the pillow, guarding whatever secrets were beneath, were what appeared from where Blair stood to be some perfectly made-up model kits. Beside Paul’s bed was a baseball bat and a catcher’s mitt; the mitt seemed new and Blair wondered if that was how the boy had spent the twenty dollars he’d sent for his birthday. On the bureau which divided the two beds there was a picture of them both, with Ruth smiling in between. Blair’s own photograph was framed on the wall, squinting into the sunlight from the open terrace of the Continental Hotel in Saigon, his first overseas posting, when he was still young and the American involvement in Vietnam was comparatively new and no one had realise what sort of war it was going to turn out to be. How was this war going to turn out to be? he wondered.
Blair turned at the sound behind him. Ruth had changed, like he had. It was a severe, businesslike suit, the sort of suit to wear to interviews or special meetings – which he supposed this was – and she was carefully made up, not overly so, but properly, as if she had considered that, too.
‘They’ll be home soon,’ said Ruth. ‘Jane Collins has the car pool today: she lives just opposite.’
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘I’m scared, Eddie.’
‘So am I,’ he confessed.
They walked unspeakingly back into the main room and he said, ‘They’ll see the car I rented.’
‘It won’t mean anything.’
‘No, I suppose not.’
‘Can I get you anything? Coffee or a drink or something?’
‘No thanks.’ There was a silence and then Blair said, ‘Do you really think he might have run rather than face me?’
‘I don’t know, not really,’ admitted Ruth. ‘I just spend my time trying to imagine everything that could happen and then doing things to prevent it.’
Poor Ruth, he thought. Poor innocent, trusting, decent Ruth who’d never deserved anything bad and got shit, from every direction.
The telephone rang and she jumped nervously staring at it as if she were afraid to take the call.
‘Do you want me to?’ he offered.
‘No, it’s all right.’ She darted a look towards Blair the moment she answered, as if she were embarrassed, her replies abruptly curt, just ‘Yes… yes.. he’s here… no… fine… thanks.’ She replaced the receiver and looking away from Blair this time said, ‘That was Charlie. He’s been very good. Calls most days. Wants to do anything he can to help. I can’t think of anything.’
‘That’s good of him,’ said Blair, saddened by Ruth’s difficulty. Did he have one? No, Blair thought honestly; he didn’t feel any jealousy at Ruth seeing another guy. How could he? That part of it – whatever that part of it had ever been – was over now.
She was alert to the sound of the car, more accustomed to it than he was, saying ‘Here they are,’ before he properly heard it. She half-rose towards the window, then changed her mind and sat down again.
Blair remembered a lot of noise about their entry into the house, of slamming doors and dumped satchels and shouts of hello but it wasn’t like that this time. He heard the door – just – and then they were at the entrance to the room, held in the doorway by his presence. No one spoke or moved for what was only seconds but appeared much longer and then John’s face opened in an eye-awash smile and he shouted, ‘Dad! You’ve come home!’
Blair was standing, waiting, as the younger boy began running across the room. Behind him Paul said, ‘Of course he hasn’t, stupid!’ and John halted before he reached his father, the smile a look of suspicion now. ‘You have, haven’t you Dad? You have come home?’ he implored.
Blair felt the emotion lumped in his stomach and intentionally he didn’t look at Ruth because he wasn’t sure it would remain at just that if he did. He said, ‘I’m home, for a while.’
John backed away, as if he had been physically rejected. ‘What’s a while mean?’
‘It means I’m going to stay here for some time but that then I’ve got to go back, to where my job is.’
‘To where she is,’ said John, utterly hostile now.
‘To where my wife is,’ said Blair. One of the agreements with Ruth, during the uncomfortable lunch, was that whatever happened and whatever was said, he wouldn’t lose his temper.
‘Mom’s your wife,’ said John.
‘This wasn’t what I came here to talk about,’ said Blair.
‘It’s what I want to talk about,’ said the boy.
‘Don’t talk like that to your father,’ intruded Ruth, her face red.
‘Is he your husband?’ demanded John.
‘You know the answer to that,’ said Ruth. ‘Don’t be silly. And don’t cheek your elders.’
Undeterred the smaller boy said, ‘If he’s not your husband then he’s not my father.’
‘Shut up!’ said Blair, his voice loud. ‘Shut up and get in here and sit down. Both of you.’ Damn what they’d decided at lunchtime: everything was degenerating into a hopeless mess and he had to stop it. When neither moved from their position just inside the door he said again, still loud, ‘I told you to get in here.’
Blair tensed, knowing that both were considering whether to disobey him and not knowing what to do if they did. John was the first to move, still attempting defiance in a strutting walk and then Paul. He didn’t strut. He slouched forward, shoulders hunched, both hands in his pockets, an attitude of complete lack of interest. Paul’s hair was longer than Blair remembered or liked, practically lank and almost to his shoulders. Blair knew the boy’s shoes would have been cleaned before he left the house that morning – because Ruth always cleaned their shoes – but now they were scuffed and dirty, as if he’d consciously tried to make them so and his shirt was crumpled, half in and half out the waistband of his trousers. He looked scruffy and self-neglected. John looked better – his shoes had been kept cleaner and there wasn’t as much disregard about his clothes – but it wasn’t a very wide margin. As Blair watched he saw John become aware of how his older brother was walking and try to change the strut in mid-stride, to conform. They sat down side by side and Blair supposed that a child psychologist would recommend that he thank them, for their cooperation. He didn’t.
Trying to reduce the barriers that had come up, Ruth said, ‘Can I get anybody anything, root beer, a…’ She stopped, too quickly, just as she tried to recover too quickly by finishing with ‘… a soda…?’
Paul laughed, a mocking sound. ‘Pretty close, Mom. Almost said coke, didn’t you?’
