Unofficial and Deniable. John Davis Gordon

There was a box of loaded magazines and I just kept firing, slapping in one magazine after another. Stupid, because journos aren’t supposed to become combatants if they don’t want to be treated as an enemy, but I was frantic about Paulo. Anyway, finally a bullet got me. Here.’ She tapped her left breast. ‘Missed my heart, fortunately. Next thing I knew I was being loaded into one of your helicopters and flown off to one of your bases, where they patched me up – which was nice of them, seeing as I’d been trying to shoot the hell out of them an hour earlier. Then they deported me.’

      ‘Oh, yes, I heard about this. So you’re the blonde bombshell who threatened to sue us. Wasn’t there a row about your photographs?’

      She smiled. ‘Your guys developed my film to see what they could find out about the enemy’s hardware. I kicked up a fuss and they gave me my negatives back.’

      ‘Did they interrogate you?’

      ‘Sure, but I told them to go to hell.’ She added, ‘I must admit, grudgingly, that they were perfectly gentlemanly about it.’

      Harker wondered what she would feel and say if he told her he knew the truth. ‘And this man Paulo – you were in love with him?’

      She nodded. ‘Wildly. Or I thought so. I’d only known him for a little more than a month. Now with the wisdom of hindsight I realize that I was only infatuated, and confused by my admiration for him. He was a very admirable man. And swashbuckling.’ She smiled.

      ‘And handsome, no doubt.’

      ‘But that doesn’t cut much ice with me. It is what’s in here that counts.’ She tapped her heart. ‘And here.’ She tapped her head. ‘He was an entirely honest, dedicated social scientist, if that’s the word, dedicated to the well-being and betterment of his people – a true Christian, but for the fact that he was an atheist, of course, being a communist. Dedicated. His men loved him. Several medals for bravery. And ‘a great sense of humour. And a great reader, a very good conversationalist in both Spanish and English.’

      Harker couldn’t stand the man. No doubt a fantastic Latin lover too. ‘Sounds good. But?’

      ‘But,’ Josie smiled, ‘I now realize it wouldn’t have worked. For one thing I’m not a communist. For another I espouse God. English is my mother tongue, and freedom of speech and of the press is my credo. And I’m a fully liberated Americano who regards herself as every inch her man’s equal, not as a Latino wife. Oh, he was macho, Paulo. Machissimo.’ She smiled wanly. ‘And there was something else wrong. I knew it at the time but wouldn’t admit it to myself – there was lots of lust, and lots of fun, but I knew deep down that it was just a rip-roaring affair, not love with a capital L.’

      Harker was pleased to hear that: Señor Paulo sounded quite a tough act to follow. Before he could muster something appropriate Josephine asked with a smile, ‘And what about that extremely silly lady who nearly became Mrs Harker, then lost her marbles?’

      Harker smiled. ‘Well …’ He was tempted to exaggerate, to match her description of Paulo, then he decided to do it straight. ‘Well, rather like your Paulo, who had something missing, my Pauline – and that was truly her name, would you believe the coincidence? Pauline was also dedicated to liberal politics, uplifting the Africans. Trade unionism, defeating apartheid, et cetera. She was a teacher, and she was going to set the world on fire. Anyway, I was off in the bush most of the time, dealing with her pals the enemy, and she met this crash-hot stockbroker who took her away from it all.’

      ‘And the first you knew about it was when you came back from the bush?’ She shook her head. ‘Well, he must have been one hell of a sexy stockbroker.’ She smiled at him.

      The compliment made Harker’s heart turn over. And he longed to reach out across the table for her hand.

      Then she confused him by changing the subject abruptly. ‘And tell me, do you believe in God?’

      For the next half hour, through another round of Irish coffees, religion was the animated if solemn topic. Yes, Harker did believe in a Creator but he had arrived at this conclusion by logic rather than by what had been instilled into him at Sunday School: the upshot was an inability, on the evidence, to conclude whether He was the Christian, Islamic, Buddhist, African or some other kind of god. Josephine on the other hand described herself as ‘eighteen-carat Catholic’: ‘Alas, I believe in Heaven and Hell, the whole nine yards.’

      ‘But why the “alas”?’

      Josephine tossed back her head and grinned at the ceiling: ‘“Oh Lord, make me good, but not yet”.’

      Harker smiled. ‘Saint Augustine.’

      Josephine pointed a red fingernail at his nose. ‘So you’re not such an infidel after all. Inside that rugged exterior there’s a Christian trying to get out …’

      And then she said, halfway through the third Irish coffee, ‘And they tell me, Major, you’re a shit-hot sailor.’

      Harker was surprised. ‘Who told you that?’

      ‘I’ve made a few enquiries around this club, and the feedback is you’re probably a gentleman, maybe even a scholar, but certainly a very good sailor. But you don’t come here often enough, they say.’

      Harker was pleased with his credentials. And more pleased that she had enquired. ‘Unfortunately I can’t afford the time to come here often. But, yes, I’ve put my name down as crew for a few regattas and some kind skippers have taken me on. I’ve had a lot of fun.’

      She leant forward: ‘Oh, isn’t sailing fun?’ Her eyes sparkled. ‘The wind, harnessing it, squeezing the most out of the sails? Even the skipper bawling you out. And getting drenched, and all the bullshit back in the clubhouse, the hot toddies and the post-mortems – I love it!’ She looked at him happily. ‘I’m a very competitive soul, Jack Harker. And I think you are too, huh?’

      Harker ached to take her hand. Yes, of course he was fucking competitive, you have to be in the military. But a lot of the steam, the fight, seemed to have gone out of him since he had become a .civilian in New York. ‘Not as much as I used to be. Something to do with age.’

      ‘Bullshit. You’re not even forty. And you emerge from God-knows-how-many years of mortal combat and decide to become a publisher! That’s a very competitive business. Oh, he felt a fraud. She continued. ‘It takes balls. In New York, of all places. Why did you choose America?’

      ‘The American dream?’ He smiled.

      ‘See? Anyway, before I tell you my American dream, have you ever sailed across an ocean?’

      ‘I’ve been crew in the Cape Town to Rio de Janeiro yacht race several times.’

      ‘Oh, I’d love to do that! Was it scary? Those huge waves?’

      ‘Well, you knew you had a good strong boat and a good strong crew.’

      ‘Love to do it. And one day I will.’ She hunched forward. ‘Okay, my American dream: I’m going to make a pile of money out of writing, then buy a good strong boat and sail around the world.’ She grinned. ‘What do you think of that?’

      Oh yes, Harker would love to do that. ‘Marvellous.’

      She said with a twinkle in her eyes, ‘Okay, so what else are we compatible about, Major? We’ve canvassed books, booze and boating very successfully.’

      ‘How about ballooning?’

      ‘It’s wonderful!’ Josephine cried. ‘Did it in Kenya, over the Serengeti game reserve. Oh, what a sensation! Tell you what, a friend of mine has started a ballooning business upstate, we’ll do it one weekend!’

      ‘Sounds good.’

      She took a gulp of her Irish coffee. ‘And, of course, you must be a parachutist?’

      ‘Had to be.’

      ‘And I’m a parachutist.