It was crazy, of course. He should run away with her now — today, this week, before she took that plane to Saigon.
She wiped her eyes and stood up to dress. ‘We must go and buy toothbrushes and dentifrice,’ she said, with startling practicality. She looked at him with her large eyes and smiled: ‘I’m sorry, but you taste a little bit of whisky. Only a very little, and I don’t mind. Really I don’t mind. I probably taste too. But we mustn’t be like Ryderbeit. He must taste disgusting this morning!’
They laughed at Ryderbeit’s expense, as they crept down the stairs and out of the empty lobby. The hotel was still asleep. In the main street there were a few Laotian schoolchildren on bicycles, and long-haired beggars sat in the shade of the pagoda roofs, listlessly offering their wooden bowls. Between the pagodas were long flights of steps down to the river where naked children were preparing sampans for fishing.
They found a tiny shop that sold a few Western pharmaceutical goods, alongside the more traditional healing herbs and potions. Jackie also bought a comb, and Murray a razor. Afterwards they climbed a steep shaded path to the top of the hill in the centre of the town, to the little golden-spired pagoda which had a terrace with white stone balustrades and a small ivory buddha set back in a shrine full of strong-smelling flowers. From here they could see the whole town and the great brown Mekong winding deep between the hills, past the Royal Palace, which was like a miniature French chateau with long windows and a lily pond in the garden. Then the tiny airfield with its rows of helicopters and the T 28 fighter-bombers, lined up like bumblebees; while somewhere to the north, beyond the layers of dim blue hills, was a muddy little square with a lonely American called Wedgwood and the broken body of a G 46 transport plane. It seemed very remote now, very unreal.
He stopped and looked at her carefully. ‘What will happen, Jacqueline, when we get back to Vientiane?’
‘I will see you perhaps.’
‘It won’t be easy.’
She shrugged. ‘No, of course not. And I go to Saigon next week.’
He took her arm and led her back to the zigzagging steps down into the town. It was breathlessly hot, even in the still shade. Halfway down she turned to him: ‘You don’t want to see me again, do you? You don’t want the complications. Why should you?’ She started off again, walking fast now until she was almost running down the last few terraces of steps. He began to run too and almost collided with her in the steel light of the street. For a moment they walked together, out of breath and in silence. Then she said, without looking at him: ‘We’ll see each other in Saigon, perhaps?’
‘How do you know I’m going back to Saigon?’ he asked sharply.
‘You have to go back — you have your work there.’ She began to walk away again, briskly down the middle of the street. The few pedestrians avoided her, strolling in the margin of shade. Murray followed, but did not try to catch her up. Outside the hotel they were waylaid by a line of little girls who leapt up from their haunches, trying to sell them lengths of embroidered silk. Jackie brushed past them, but Murray was inveigled into a shrieking, giggling argument which he could not comprehend, and missed her as she entered the hotel.
When he got inside, she had already disappeared. There was only Ryderbeit, sitting alone in the restaurant, sipping a glass of milky liquid. He looked up at Murray with eyes like bruised fruit. ‘Hello soldier. How are the tubes?’
Murray sat down reluctantly. ‘Where are the others?’
‘Sick as dogs.’ He grinned through his cracked lips, his smooth greenish complexion sprouting only a fringe of black stubble. ‘And how was the long night with you, Murray boy?’
A waiter in shorts and singlet came and poured Murray some coffee. ‘Fine except for you. What the hell did you think you were doing?
‘Drunk. Smashed into small pieces. And how’s the lovely Mrs Conquest? Playin’ it pretty close there, aren’t you, soldier?’ He leant closer across the table, breathing the sweet aniseed odour of Pernod. ‘Come on, Murray boy, credit where credit’s due. If you didn’t screw that lady last night, I’m a pork chop in a synagogue!’
Murray nodded into his coffee. ‘What’s that got to do with you?’
‘Trouble, that’s what. If we want to set up an operation like ours, and you go and screw the wife of a high Yank Intelligence officer, you’re asking for trouble. For all of us.’
Murray began to stand up. ‘Forget it,’ he said. ‘Forget it, I’m tired.’
‘I bet you’re tired. But don’t forget it. Just work on it. Work on it hard, soldier — because if my reckoning’s right, you’re on to a good thing.’
‘I don’t follow you.’
‘Don’t you? Sit down. Sit down and finish your coffee.’ Murray sat down. ‘Let’s talk about
