Spoils of war, p.15
Spoils of War, page 15
It was undoubtedly a pleasant place to live, a suburban environment that everything in his background and temperament suited him to inhabit. Why, then, did he find no contentment in coming back to it? He had lived here happily enough before they had moved to Kuwait, but on his return he had found something oppressively uniform about the place. His neighbours’ families were all much alike in age, size and income bracket. Their conversations were polite, their opinions commonplace. Their houses were furnished and decorated in the same cautious, inoffensive way, and even their cars were of similar makes and price range. They were nice people; they simply weren’t interesting. You wouldn’t come across anyone like Eric Patley or Vincent Hand at one of their Sunday-morning drinks parties; and you certainly wouldn’t meet a Dale Griggs.
He had changed and Alison hadn’t. She had rediscovered a liking for Prescott Gardens. She shared school runs with her neighbours and enjoyed their weekend get-togethers. She went shopping on Saturdays as the other women did, while their husbands mowed their lawns or took their cars to the car wash. She liked the predictability and the sense of continuity it seemed to represent. She fitted in where he no longer did, and this in turn had some bearing on the failings in their marriage.
She came to the front door as he was fumbling for his keys. She greeted him with a constrained smile and a kiss on the cheek, the coolness of the gesture immediately overwhelmed by the shrieking welcome of the twins, running from the kitchen in their pyjamas and red dressing-gowns. He swept them off their feet and held them aloft, squeezing them and submitting to milky kisses and sticky-fingered hugs.
‘We missed you, Daddy,’ said Camilla.
‘You were gone for ages,’ said Claudia.
‘It was only five days, sweetheart!’
‘Well, it seemed like ages.’
‘Was it scary in Kuwait?’
‘It was a bit weird.’
‘Did you bring us presents?’
‘Wait and see.’
The girls’ dinner had been interrupted so all four of them went to the kitchen and sat around the pine table. While the twins continued their meal of scrambled eggs, toast and milk, Jack opened his bags and took out treasures salvaged from the flat: two teddy bears and other favourite soft toys, Claudia’s moth-eaten Garfield and Camilla’s one-eared donkey. He also produced the things he had bought in the duty-free gift shop at Dhahran, two Swatch watches for the girls and a bottle of Fidji scent for Alison.
‘A bit impersonal,’ he said apologetically, ‘but I didn’t have time for any real shopping. There’s nothing to buy in Kuwait.’
‘You shouldn’t have bothered,’ Alison said. She poured Scotch and water for them both and Jack savoured his like nectar.
‘Ah. I’d forgotten how good that can taste.’
The twins strapped on their watches but were more delighted about the return of their old toys. They competed for their father’s attention with a barrage of questions, more to do with the immediate details of his trip than the state of their former home. Seven months is a long time in the life of a pair of six year olds, and the apartment in the Muthanna complex was already a hazy memory to them. In turn he listened patiently to news from their own small world.
‘Rachel at school has got chicken pox,’ Camilla announced.
‘We’re going to get it too,’ Claudia said confidently. ‘You stay off school for a week.’
‘I thought you liked your school.’
‘We don’t like Miss Jackson. She’s our new teacher. Mrs Fox has gone to have a baby.’
‘A baby fox!’
Fits of giggles, splutters of milk. They did have slight colds, but there was no sign that Alison had caught one. Gathered round the table with the twins prattling on, they might have been an average loving family involved in each other’s doings. Jack had known for a long time that the reality was different. Alison, quietly watching the girls with an indulgent smile, knew it too. He noticed that she had dressed up a bit for his return, in a narrow black skirt and a tan silk blouse she had bought in Kuwait, and had caught up her light brown hair with a gold clip, but he suspected this was part of the keeping up of appearances as well.
Soon it was the twins’ bedtime, and their protests were overcome only by Jack’s offering to read them an extra-long story. He did so sitting on a chair between their beds, where they could both see the illustrations, and by the time he was near the end they were nodding off. He kissed them good night, turned out their lights and quietly left the room.
Though she was careful not to point it out, Alison had clearly gone to some trouble in her arrangements for their own dinner. They never used the dining room unless they had guests, but she had set the table in their big kitchen with the best dinner service and the silver cutlery they had got as wedding presents. She’d cooked a feather-light crab souffle, a roast joint of pork that she served with new potatoes and French beans, and an apple crumble. She had also opened a good bottle of St Emilion.
He told her about his trip. He was grateful to have something to talk about, and she listened with at least an outward show of interest to the account of his dealings with the bank and the meetings with Dr Hamadi. He spoke only in vague terms about the commission he had taken on, skating over the details without seeming evasive. He made two deliberate omissions, though. He still did not mention the fifty thousand dollars he had been paid, not because he wanted the money to himself but because he was certain now that it would colour her attitude to him. And, without quite knowing why, he said nothing about Dale Griggs.
He went on to describe the state in which he had found their apartment and their possessions.
‘It’s impossible to ship stuff back at the moment. And I didn’t think there was anything worth going to that much trouble over, frankly. Vincent will keep an eye on the flat and sell the furniture when he thinks he can get a decent price. If that’s all right with you?’
‘Of course.’
They were drinking coffee now and their conversation had taken on the over-polite tone that meant it was running out of steam, threatening to come to a halt. Emboldened by the few glasses of wine he had drunk, he suddenly said: ‘Have you been thinking things over while I’ve been away? About us, I mean?’
She looked at him without expression. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Don’t think I’m ungrateful for the effort you’ve put in tonight, but it makes me wonder.’ He gestured around at the remains of their dinner. ‘You didn’t want me to go, but you’ve welcomed me back. Are you trying to tell me something?’
Alison rested her elbows on the table, laced her fingers beneath her chin and said, ‘I have made one decision. I’m going to sleep in the spare bedroom from now on.’
The announcement came as such an anticlimax that it made him laugh. ‘For Christ’s sake, what do you suppose that’s going to achieve?’
‘Nothing, probably. I just want more space to myself.’
‘Well, it won’t make much difference to our sex life,’ he said grimly. ‘But perhaps it is a good idea. It may bring things to a head. I’ve been thinking even if you haven’t, and the conclusion I’ve reached is that our marriage is dying, if it’s not dead already. Do you agree?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘You suppose so. Is that as close as you’re going to get to having an honest discussion about it? What’s gone wrong between us, Alison?’
‘You tell me.’
‘All right, I’ll try.’ Though the makings were there for another pointless quarrel, he attempted to speak calmly. ‘The accepted wisdom in these things is that there are always faults on both sides, but it’s my admittedly biased point of view that most of our problems arise from your attitude to me. It changed as soon as my business began to fail. It made me think that the only worth you’d ever seen in me was the material kind. In fact, you’ve never gone short of anything, not even in the last eight months. And at the risk of sounding immodest I’m going to say I don’t believe I’ve ever been anything but a good husband and father. I’ve also gone out of my way to find out what’s been bugging you, how I can help you. You just don’t respond. You don’t seem interested in making this marriage work any longer, and I’m on the verge of giving up trying myself.’
‘Are you asking me for a divorce, Jack?’
‘I’m saying that unless you can change your attitude, that’s the way we’re heading.’
Alison spoke with a sudden decisiveness. ‘Then let’s get a few things clear. If you want a divorce I want full custody of the children. I want the house signed over to me and I want an equal division of all our other assets – as they stand now, that is, before you fritter any more of our savings away.’ Her voice had taken on a new, hard edge; there was a marble-cold look in her eyes that he seemed never to have seen before. ‘It’s not up to me to change, Jack; it’s for you to decide whether you’ll meet my terms for getting rid of me. I’ve already seen a solicitor.’
‘Just a minute, just a minute . . .’ He was shocked by the transformation of her mood, taken completely off guard. ‘It’s not just a question of what I or you want. I started out trying to discuss things with you. I didn’t expect to be given a list of demands.’
‘No discussions, Jack. The divorce court will give me the house and custody of the children anyway. If I pushed for it, I’d probably get a good chunk of any future earnings you might happen to make as well. I’d prefer a settlement that will allow me to salvage what I can from this marriage now – and yes, I do mean in material terms. I told you I’d made one small decision; I didn’t say I hadn’t been thinking about bigger ones.’
He was aware of having been drawn into a trap of some kind, but unsure of its dimensions. ‘You’ve just gone ahead and worked this all out behind my back? Have you thought about anything apart from the money? Have you considered how it would affect the girls? They’d be heartbroken.’
‘Of course they would. But you’re the one who brought the thing up. Are you starting to have second thoughts?’
‘I’m trying to take in some of the implications, that’s all. Somebody had to raise the question. We couldn’t go on living the way we have been.’
‘We certainly couldn’t. I’m not buying your self-righteous waffle about being a good father and husband. What matters to me is that you’ve let me down, lost nearly everything we had. For eight months you’ve hung around here like Mr Micawber, hoping that something will turn up, too good to go out the way Reg did and earn yourself a living. Do you know you’re something of a laughing-stock among our neighbours?’
‘You mean the likes of Fred Reynolds?’ he retorted. ‘The world’s champion lawn-mower? It really hurts to hear what he thinks of me.’
‘You go gallivanting off to Kuwait, spending more of our money, coming back with some Mickey Mouse scheme that will lead nowhere. Well, at least you’ve got our savings out of the bank, and I intend to see that I get my fair share of them. You’ll never succeed as an independent businessman, Jack; that’s why I’d prefer to take what I can get now. Think about it: a divorce on my conditions now, or a messy wrangle in the courts later.’
Jack was speechless for a few moments. Remembering how he had become aware a few months ago that Alison was a stranger to him, he realized that the experience should have been a warning. There had been far more bitterness and resentment simmering beneath her apathetic surface than he could possibly have guessed.
With an effort he restrained his temper. He said, ‘So that’s it, as far as you’re concerned?’
‘That’s it.’ She stood up from the table. ‘I’m going to wash the dishes now, and then I’m going to bed.’
He stalked out of the kitchen. In the sitting room he poured himself a whisky and slumped into an armchair, feeling his senses reel under the impact of belated shock. He was even shaking slightly. It wasn’t just the discovery of a side to Alison he had never known was there; he was stunned also at the thought that she actually despised him. And this was the woman Sylvia Patley thought he should feel sorry for? In a funny way, though, Sylvia had been right. Alison’s view of the world wasn’t that of an independent woman. Denied what she wanted, she could think only of hitting back at the source of her frustration. Screwing him for everything she could get out of him was just another, debased form of dependence. Reflecting further, he found that he was more surprised than hurt by her expressions of contempt for him. He knew his own worth, he considered, and nothing she said could undermine it.
On a practical level, there was one thing he could be positively glad about: if she could be selfish, he need have no scruples about being the same. He hadn’t mentioned the money he’d got from Dr Hamadi, and now he had no intention of doing so. It looked as if he might need it to survive on.
The television had been left on with the volume turned down. He stared at it in a daze, feeling suddenly exhausted after the day of travelling and an evening of emotional strain. One of the late-night news magazine programmes was on, dominated, naturally, by events in the Gulf. Few pictures were coming out of the separate conflicts in Iraq, so a succession of talking heads mouthed silently at intervals between snatches of library footage.
Jack got up to pour himself another drink. As he did so, his attention was caught by a caption that flickered on to the screen. It appeared beneath the face of a voluble middle-aged man, being interviewed in an anonymous indoor setting.
The caption identified the speaker as Abdel Karim, Iraqi opposition leader.
Jack found the remote control and turned up the volume. Abdel Karim was a distinguished-looking man with silver hair and gold-rimmed glasses. ‘Unless the West sends help to the Kurds immediately,’ he was saying in impeccable English, ‘these events will end in tragedy. We have indications that Saddam Hussein is regrouping his forces . . .’
Karim was the same Kurdish political leader who had been interviewed on the World Service yesterday morning. Jack had read descriptions of him as a man who’d spent years of exile in England, who was under sentence of death in Iraq for his activities aimed at overthrowing Saddam’s regime. He was also one of the people who had helped in preparing the report on the theft of money from the Iraqi treasury.
As he talked on, Jack was struck by an odd notion. Karim was just the kind of man who would be in a position to know, or at least to make a well-informed guess, about what might have become of someone like Colonel Jalloul. These exile groups all seemed to have their own sources of information inside Iraq, and they could hardly have failed to be aware of the disappearance of a senior military intelligence officer. But how to go about approaching such a man? Jack had no credentials he was free to reveal, no official position to buttress him. On the other hand, if he had guessed right about Hellig Associates being involved in compiling that report, at least he did have a contact there.
He turned off the television, went to the phone and dialled Reg Kilmartin’s number.
His former partner had a little mews house off Ennismore Gardens in Kensington. When he answered the phone Jack apologized for the lateness of the hour and said: ‘Reg, I was wondering if you could do me a favour. Well, a couple of favours, possibly.’
‘Anything I can, Jack.’ Reg had taken more blame on himself than necessary for the failure of the business and would be anxious to make any amends he could. ‘What is it?’
‘Would I be right in thinking that Hellig’s had some hand in producing that report that’s just been published on the money stolen from Iraq?’
‘Sure thing. Kroll’s of New York did most of the work on it but they commissioned us to carry out some of the enquiries at this end. I had nothing to do with it myself, though.’
‘Could you get hold of a copy of the report for me?’
‘Well, I don’t know,’ said Reg uneasily. ‘Only selected parts of it have been made public. The rest is confidential. A tricky business from the legal point of view, naming banks and companies that might have had funny money invested in them, knowingly or otherwise. Can you tell me why you want it?’
‘I’m involved in a confidential job myself, Reg. A bit along the lines of the work you and I used to do, but with added complications. I need to do some research without making it too obvious what I’m looking for. What I also want from you is an introduction to someone. Riding on your professional coat-tails, so to speak, I’d like to get in touch with Abdel Karim, the exiled Iraqi politician.’
‘My God, Jack! That’s like asking to meet Salman Rushdie. The man lives in hiding, in fear for his life.’
‘But the media have access to him. He seems to have them eating out of his hand at the moment. And since I gather he helped Hellig’s in compiling that report, someone there must be in contact with him. If you could just get a message through asking for a brief private meeting, to exchange information that might be to our mutual benefit . . . You know you can trust me. Nothing I see or hear is going to go any further.’
‘I’ll ask about it,’ Reg said. ‘And I’ll see what I can do about the report. Let me call you in the morning.’
‘There’s one other thing I’d like you to think about in the meantime. When was it that you left the Army?’
‘Longer ago than I care to remember. Nineteen seventy-six.’
‘Do you know anyone who could give me an introduction to somebody at the Staff College in Camberley? Somebody who would have records or at least recollections about a foreign army officer who was there around nineteen eighty?’
‘Now that really is out of my league,’ Reg said. ‘I was just on a short-service commission, before I decided that God didn’t intend me for that kind of life. Camberley is where career soldiers get tested to destruction; I never got within an ass’s roar of the place.’
‘Give it some thought, will you?’
