The Son (23 page)

‘You remember Paul, don't you?' Hao said, still gripping my hand. I could feel the tension in her, like a tremor.
‘Anh Chị nhớ Anh Paul không?
I'll be going with him now.'

She let go my hand and took an envelope from the pocket of her coat. She spoke to the mother, a grim-faced woman in brown slacks and a grey cardigan, who looked back at us with hard suspicious eyes.

‘
Chị
, I must thank you for letting me stay here. I know it hasn't been easy for you. You've been very kind to me. But it's better this way.' She spoke in Vietnamese, in the northern accent, which gave a sharp edge to her words. The family, I remembered, were northerners, like Khiem, and although born and bred in the south Hao could speak pure northern when she wanted, thanks to her father. My own Vietnamese had much improved in recent weeks and I understood most of what she said.

‘This is for you. I've already given you money for my room but this should cover any other expenses.'

She held the envelope out, but the mother made no move to take it. Hao put it on the table. The envelope was unsealed and contained a bundle of notes, in hundreds and fifties.

‘Please. Take it. It's yours. I would hate to think you've lost money because of Eric or me.'

The woman hesitated, then took the envelope and put it in the pocket of her cardigan.

‘Chắc Ông nay giàu lắm, nên Cô mới có nhiều tiền như thế!'
she said in a cutting tone. She had the kind of grating voice common to many Vietnamese women, which seems made for sarcasm. I translated mentally – This gentleman must be very rich, for you to have so much money. Hao flushed angrily.

‘Anh Paul là người hiền và đạo đức, và tôi không phải là gái bán thân! Tiền này là tiền của tôi!''
she retorted. (Paul is a kind and decent man, and I'm not a prostitute who sells her body. This is my money!) ‘But he's been very helpful to me and I'm very happy to be going back with him!'

I couldn't resist.

‘Tôi cũng mừng lắm, vì Cô Hảo la một người bạn quý mến,'
I said in my best Vietnamese. (I'm also very glad, because Hao is a dear and precious friend.) Everyone stared, Hao included. She was the first to recover. She bent down to the older woman, said a few words of farewell, then turned to me. Vietnamese are invariably respectful towards the old, no matter what the circumstances. ‘We can go now,' she said in a low voice. There was a sheen of tears in her eyes. She took my hand again, I nodded around one more time, received a few more nods in return, and we left, picking her luggage up on the way.

‘What was that all about?' I asked as we drove off. She sat upright in her seat, clutching her coat around her, still visibly upset.

‘I didn't know you still spoke such good Vietnamese.'

‘I've been revising it. I wanted to give you a surprise.'

She smiled faintly.

‘She called me a whore.'

‘I thought that's what she said.'

‘Not just then. On Friday, after I called you. And yesterday, when I told her I was coming back with you. She said I was behaving like a bar-girl, the way I was chasing after you, I was bringing shame on the family, and on Khiem's name. If only she knew!'

‘What a nasty thing to say! Didn't she know why you came to stay the first time?'

‘I don't think she cares. All she could think of was the family name. She said who did I think I was, with my fancy clothes, running after white men, if I wanted you so much why had I come back, you must have got tired of me–'

‘You should have told me, I could have come yesterday–'

She shook her head.

‘It was my fault. I shouldn't have gone back there. I knew what she was like, and they've only got a small house, and they're a large family – but that's the way with Vietnamese, when you're family you can always make room for one more, and it wasn't as if I didn't do anything, I paid for my board, I helped as much as I could, in the house, in the shop–'

‘You certainly paid them enough. That was quite a sum you gave her.'

‘I didn't want them to think I was leaving because I owed them any money.'

I reached across and put my hand on hers. She gripped it briefly, then released it so I could concentrate on my driving.

‘How was your trip to Canberra?' she asked. ‘Did everything go as you wanted?'

‘Pretty well. Did Eric tell you about it?'

‘He hardly said anything. He said you'd explain. But he was very excited. He kept talking about some photos you'd got him.'

‘They're photos of his father. I'll show them to you later. I asked if they had any and they got some from records.' I knew I owed her a detailed explanation, but I didn't want to go into it just then.

‘I'll tell you about it tomorrow. Everything went well. Don't worry. They liked him.'

She didn't say anything. When we got home we put her luggage in her bedroom, then went to the sitting room. The flat was chilly and I switched on the heater. I asked if she wanted something to eat but neither of us was hungry. I helped her off with her coat and recognised the brown dress with white spots she'd worn when I'd taken her out to dinner, nearly four weeks earlier.

‘I love that dress,' I said. ‘That's the evening I started to fall in love with you.'

She smiled.

‘I bought it specially that day. I went into town straight after your phone call. I was so happy that you'd seen Eric, and you seemed to be getting on.'

She put her arms around me. I held her close, feeling her slender strength through the thin material. I still couldn't quite believe my luck.

‘You do love me, don't you Paul?' she asked. ‘You weren't just saying that?'

‘No. I mean it. Why, don't you believe me?'

‘I do. But I need to be sure. People sometimes imagine things.'

‘Believe me, I've never been surer of anything. What about you? Do you love me?'

‘Yes. I do. Very much.'

‘Well then, it's alright, isn't it. We don't need that talk after all.'

‘Yes we do.'

‘Alright. Let me clean up first. I feel rather grotty after that long drive.'

She sat down and I went off to have a shower. I shaved as well, even put on deodorant. Whatever the evening held in store I wasn't taking any chances. I changed into clean clothes and went back to the sitting room.

Hao was still sitting where I'd left her, staring gloomily at the heater. I sat down next to her.

‘Don't let that woman get to you,' I said. ‘She's probably just jealous. I'm sure deep down she wishes she could be like you, wearing fine clothes, free to do what you want …'

‘Maybe. But she was right, you know. I have behaved like a whore.'

‘Don't say that.'

‘Not with you. Before. I had an affair, Paul. When Khiem was still alive. And I behaved pretty badly.'

‘It's alright. You don't have to tell me. It's none of my business.'

‘No. I want to tell you. You need to know about it, if we're going to be together. I'm only afraid you'll think what a slut I've been.'

‘I'll never do that.'

His name was Robert, and he was one of the partners at the place where she worked. It was a family firm; George, the managing director, was his older brother. She worked for them both. He was about forty-nine, married, handsome – she liked him, they got on well together. She was even attracted to him. And she knew he liked her too. But she never expected anything to happen.

‘I was going through a bad stage at the time. I'm not saying that to give myself an excuse. But Khiem and I weren't happy together. I'm not sure why, we still loved each other in some ways, but it was as if we'd grown apart, lost touch with each other. Maybe it was the strain after all these years. We both worked hard of course, but apart from Eric we didn't have much to talk about, we seemed to live almost separate lives. We hardly even made love any more. I often felt very lonely.'

‘One evening I went to a party, at George's place – a large dinner party, for friends and contacts of the company, over a hundred people. They have a big house just outside Leeds. Khiem was supposed to come too but he'd decided to stay home. He said he was tired, he still had work to finish for the following week, and anyway he didn't like large parties like that very much. I was angry. I'd been looking forward to it, we didn't go out very often. I told him he was being selfish, these were the people I worked for, he could make an effort. But he wouldn't budge. “You go,” he said. “You'll enjoy it better without me.” So I went alone.'

‘Robert was there of course, without his wife, she was visiting their daughter in the US. He asked me why Khiem hadn't come. I told him. I'd told George and his wife that Khiem wasn't feeling well, but I was tired of making excuses and I told Robert the truth. I said we'd had a quarrel, Khiem preferred his work to my company. I even said my marriage wasn't going well. I shouldn't have, it wasn't very loyal, but I was still angry with him.'

‘I tried to enjoy myself. I mixed with people, helped to look after the guests. There was a band there, people were dancing, I danced with Robert. He kept me company, when he wasn't busy with guests. But it didn't work very well. I was too depressed. I also drank a bit too much. I don't normally drink very much. At one stage we went out, to find somewhere quiet. It was towards the end of the evening, the party was very noisy. He took me to another part of the house, some kind of guest wing, there was no one about. In one of the rooms he kissed me, he told me he loved me, I kissed him back–'

‘Nothing happened that night. Nothing else I mean. He wanted me to stay back after the party, but I wouldn't. We went back in, and soon after I went home. But afterwards I kept thinking about it. I didn't love Robert. I liked him, a lot, but that was all. But when he'd kissed me – it was as if something had snapped. I'd almost given in. It was only the thought of Khiem that had stopped me. He'd even – I'm sorry. I shouldn't be telling you this. I was wearing stockings, I'd put them on specially that night, I'd hoped earlier that Khiem and I might make love when we went home after the party. Robert had pulled my dress up and started caressing my legs. That was when I stopped him. I couldn't, not like that. Khiem was asleep when I went home. I wanted to wake him up, to shake him, tell him what I'd done, what had almost happened, but I didn't. I just lay there all night, thinking about it. I kept wishing I'd said yes.'

‘After that I suppose it was just a matter of time. Two weeks later Khiem went to London for a maths conference. Eric wanted to stay over with a friend. I told Robert. His wife was still away, she wasn't due back for another week. He asked if I was sure this time. I said I was. He took me out to dinner. Afterwards we went to a hotel, and I spent the night with him.'

‘I'd never done anything like that before. I'd never been with anyone other than Khiem. Unless you count those men on the boat. I don't know what I was expecting – something like Khiem I suppose. But when it happened – it was totally different. It was like a dam breaking. We made love all night. Literally. We hardly slept. I'd never felt anything like it. The next morning I didn't even feel guilty. The first time after the party I'd felt like a criminal. This time all I felt was a – an enormous sense of liberation. As if it was something I should have done long ago. When Khiem came home I just said I'd had a quiet weekend, gone to see a film …'

‘And that was how it started. We started meeting after that. Secretly. I didn't want to hurt Khiem in any way, or Eric, and he didn't want to damage his own marriage either. We went to hotels at first, but we didn't like that very much, and it was too risky. So after a while Robert rented a flat, a small apartment in town, and we met there, when it was safe. I'd go there after work, once or twice a week, for an hour or two before I went home. I'd tell Khiem I was working late, or going out with friends after work. I didn't like lying to him like that, but there was no way round, and he never questioned it. Sometimes we met on weekends, though that was harder to arrange.'

‘Khiem wasn't sick then,' I interrupted.

‘No. That came later. I knew I was behaving very badly, like a trollop, but I didn't care. I enjoyed it too much. It was just sex, Paul. Maybe I did love him for a time. But when we were together all we did was have sex. As if I was trying to catch up, after all those years. I told myself it didn't really matter, I wasn't doing any harm, as long as Khiem never found out, it wasn't as if I was taking anything much away from our marriage. I even looked on it as a kind of compensation sometimes, a reward – for all those hard years, the loneliness, the unhappiness – almost a revenge, for what had happened on the boat. I told you I wasn't very nice.'

‘Why the boat?' I asked. ‘That wasn't Khiem's fault.'

She was silent for a moment.

‘No. You're right. But there's something I didn't tell you about that. You remember when I said that some men had resisted, tried to stop the Thais from taking us, and they were beaten up and one man was killed? Well Khiem didn't.'

‘You mean he didn't do anything?'

‘No. He just stood there. As if paralysed. Even when we were being carried away to the other boat, screaming, calling out to him to do something, to save us, he didn't do anything.'

‘What could he have done?'

‘Nothing. I know. He would only have been beaten up, and maybe killed. Like the man they stabbed and threw overboard. I know it's unfair, it wouldn't have made any difference. But he didn't even try. And I could never forget that. I still can't.'

I was startled by this revelation, more than by the affair itself. From what she'd said earlier I'd assumed that Khiem had been among those who had resisted, and been beaten up for his pains. The reality it seemed had been very different. I pictured the scene – the women screaming, being dragged away, the threatening Thais, the men cowering, hanging back, even the rise and fall of the boats on the water. And I asked myself what I would have done in his place. Would I have had the courage to resist, to try and stop them, even though I knew it was hopeless, I would only get beaten up or worse? It was easy enough to imagine being heroic, leaping forward, fighting tooth and nail to save the woman I loved, but short of being there myself there was no way to know for certain. It was a frightening thought. And the knowledge of his failure thereafter, whether due to cowardice or simple awareness of the futility of doing anything, must have been almost too much to bear, must have eaten at him like a disease, like the cancer that had finally killed him. No wonder they'd had a poor sex life.