Jack always tried to act as if things were not important.
“Not great. You know the good cop, bad cop thing? I think there must have been an administrative cock-up. I got bad cop, bad cop. No fags, no cups of tea, just a lot of abuse.”
“That’s cops.”
The police, who for a while had been friendly, had begun to tire of the Greenham women’s disruption and vandalism and had started to get tough.
“I was thinking while they were both shouting at me that perhaps down the corridor someone else had got good cop, good cop. Constant tea, endless cigarettes, keep the coupons…”
The sun was nearly gone. Inside, the room was almost completely dark.
“Polly, are you sure you’ve never told anybody about us?”
“Jack, you always ask that.”
Jack got out of bed and went to the toilet. He left the bathroom door open, which Polly hated. She liked to keep a little mystery in a relationship where possible. Having a toilet door was such a luxury for her that it seemed deeply decadent not even to bother using it.
“You’ve told nobody?”
Jack raised his voice above the tinkling and flushing. His tone was firmer, as well it might have been, since the whole course of his life depended on Polly’s discretion. He returned to the room, as always utterly unselfconscious about his jiggling, dangling, bollock-hanging nakedness. This was a side of male bedroom manners that Polly would never get used to.
“Of course I haven’t told anybody,” said Polly. “I know the rules. I love you…”
Polly waited, as countless women had waited before her, for the echo of that phrase, and, like the vast majority of those women, she was eventually forced to ask for it.
“Well?”
“Well what?” said Jack, lighting another two cigarettes.
“Well, do you love me too?”
Jack rolled his eyes ceilingwards. “Of course I love you, Polly, for Christ’s sake.”
“Well say it properly, then.”
“I just did!”
“No, you didn’t. I made you. Say it nicely.”
“OK, OK!”
Jack assumed an expression of quiet sincerity. “I love you Polly. I really love you.”
There was a pause.
“But really really? Do you really really love me? I mean really.”
This is, of course, the reason why so many men don’t like to get into the “I love you” conversation, because it is open-ended. Very quickly degenerating into the “How much do you love me?” conversation, the “I don’t believe you mean it,” conversation and finally the dreaded “Yes, and I’m sure you said the same thing to that bitch you were going out with when I first met you,” conversation.
“Yes, Polly. I really really love you,” Jack said in a tone that suggested he would have said he loved baboon shit on toast if it would keep the peace.
“Good,” said Polly. “Because if I thought you were lying I think I’d kill myself…”
The room was now almost pitch black save for the glowing ends of their cigarettes.
“Or you.”
18
When Jack got back to the base that night he went straight to the bar and ordered beer with a bourbon chaser. The room was empty save for Captain Schultz, who was alone as usual, playing on the space invaders machine. Poor Schultz. He hated the army as much as Jack loved it, not that he would ever have admitted it to anybody, even himself. Schultz tried not to have strong opinions about anything, in order to avoid unpleasant arguments. He had joined the army because that was what the men (and some of the women) of his family had always done. The fact that he was entirely unsuited for military command, being incapable of making a decision, was irrelevant. There had never been any choice for Schultz.
Jack had known him at West Point where Schultz had just scraped through with a combination of family connections and very hard work. Not too long afterwards, while billeted at the US base in Iceland, he had been made captain virtually by default. Schultz’s superior had found the posting rather cold and had attempted to warm himself up by trying to seduce every young woman in Reykjavik. After one too many dishonourable discharges the man was dishonourably discharged and Schultz found himself achieving early command. Jack had found it an interesting circumstance that he, the most successful student in his year at military academy, and Schultz, the least successful, should be advancing at much the same pace. Jack’s rise was due to his own excellence, Schultz’s to the frailty of others, but they were destined to shadow each other throughout their whole careers.
That night in the bar Jack wanted someone to talk to. He was still thinking about the conversation he’d had with Polly and was in a rare communicative mood. He wished that Harry was there so that he could talk to him about the painful mixed emotions he was experiencing. But Harry was thousands of miles away in Ohio. There was only Schultz. Jack stood by the space invaders machine and watched Schultz lose all his defenders in a very short space of time.
“Jesus, Schultz,” said Jack. “That must be the worst score anybody ever got on that machine.”
“Oh no,” Schultz replied, giving up the game. “I’ve had much worse.”
“What the hell are you like with a gun?”
“As far as possible I try not to use one,” Schultz said, sipping at his soda.
“Tell me something, Schultz,” Jack enquired. “Did you ever really really want something you couldn’t have?”
Schultz considered for a moment. “Sure I did, Kent. Why, only tonight in the refectory I absolutely set my mind on the profiteroles and then they told me they just sold the last portion. I hate that. They should cross it off the board. Why do you ask?”
“Forget it.”
Jack finished his drink and returned to his neat little army cell.
“
19
Their embrace ended as suddenly as it had begun.
Polly broke away. “I shouldn’t be hugging you, Jack. I shouldn’t be hugging you at all.”
So much of her longed to continue, but a larger part remembered the hurt that this man had caused her.
