‘You mustn’t be, Nan.’
‘I’m married, Max.’
‘Mrs Nan Brompton, San Diego?’
‘Yes.’
She watched his eyes, dark and troubled. He reached out and held her hands again. ‘I’ve a lot to talk to you about, Nan.’
She nodded slowly. ‘Order me some wine,’ she said, ‘and we’ll talk.’
He signalled to a waiter and ordered a bottle of Riesling.
‘First tell me why you’re here, Max.’
‘I don’t want to try to answer that question,’ he said carefully. ‘Not yet.’
‘I could ask you a thousand questions,’ she said. ‘But only one really interests me.’ He nodded for her to go on. ‘I’m married,’ she said. ‘I have no right, but I need to know how you feel.’
‘I have no right to say so but the answer is, the same.’ She swallowed hard. Her eyes closed. ‘And you?’ he said.
‘The same, Max. Always the same.’
The waiter came and placed the long-necked bottle and two glasses before them. When he made to pour the wine, Max thanked him in German and took the bottle from him. ‘Why are you here in New York, Nan?’ he said, filling her glass.
‘The story’s too long, too full of hatred.’ She touched his face. ‘You have no part in it.’
‘Your father,’ he said. She withdrew her hand. ‘Have you found him?’
‘I’m close.’
Max nodded slowly. ‘In Ho Chi Minh City I went to the Eros Hotel. Just to see it. I found your grandmother, Bernadette, living among the rubble.’
‘Bernadette… Nan Luc said the name slowly. ‘It seems a lifetime ago.’
‘She told me why you left.’ Nan looked at Max without speaking. ‘She told me you believe he was responsible for your mother’s death.’
‘Then you understand why I had to come to America.’
‘If this man Stevenson is guilty, you can leave him to the law.’
Her head came up, hurling the hair from her face. ‘The law? You think he could ever be found guilty of something that happened fifteen years ago? In what’s now virtually an enemy country? I’ve seen the American system, Max. Even in the few months I’ve lived here I’ve watched lawyer cross with lawyer over tiny, unreal points, I’ve watched trials prolonged and guilty men, even murderers, walk free.’ She caught her breath. ‘If that happened to him, I would kill myself.’
‘Let’s go,’ Max said brusquely. They stood and he dropped money on the table next to the untouched bottle of wine. ‘I’ve something to tell you.’
She stood up slowly. ‘Something about my father?’
He hesitated. ‘Yes, Nan. Something about your father.’
In the street outside he made no attempt to put his arm round her. He walked with slow, heavy paces, both hands deep in his trouser pockets.
Beside him Nan Luc walked flooded with unhappiness. Since Cahn Roc she had carefully compartmented her life – Edward – the search for her father – her memory of Max. But now all that was important to her had been thrust together, every decision had been made to overlap.
‘What right have you to take revenge,’ Max said, looking down at the sidewalk, ‘if he is not your father?’
‘Are you telling me what my aunt, Louise, tried to tell me? That my father’s name died when my mother died?’
He shook his head. ‘I’m not telling you that, Nan. I’m asking you if you’d feel the same way if he were not your father.’
‘Don’t say that, Max. Please don’t say that.’
‘He could still be brought to justice.’
‘No,’ she said bitterly. ‘You still don’t understand, Max. For me, justice is only justice. Justice is not enough.’
In the darkened lobby of the Chelverton Hotel they sat, both leaning forward towards each other, both holding cups of coffee in their hands.
‘I wanted it to be so different,’ she said, ‘if we ever met again.’
‘I dreamed of a different ending, too.’
‘So tell me,’ she said.
‘You want more coffee?’ She nodded. He lifted the pot and poured a thin trickle into her cup. She touched his arm. ‘Forget the coffee,’ she said.
‘OK.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I told you in Cahn Roc that my mother was sick, beyond all hope of recovery.’
‘I remember.’
‘Last week she died. In her desk was a file of my father’s papers.’
‘From his time in Vietnam?’
He paused. ‘Some of the papers belonged to your mother,’ he said.
A shudder passed through her. ‘What papers?’
‘Details of her service record with the Field Hospital.’ His eyes never leaving her face, Max reached into his pocket. ‘And this.’ He laid the photograph on the table between them. ‘The man,’ he said, ‘is my father.’
She stared down at it. He could see the fear grow on her face. ‘What does it mean, Max?’
‘Look at them, Nan,’ he said gently. ‘Look at their faces. I think you know what it means. What it must mean.’
‘No.’ She fought to control her voice. ‘They knew each other perhaps. They were friends, that’s all.’ Her hands rose to cover her face.
He reached out and held her wrist. ‘We have to face the possibility that it’s more than that, Nan.’
‘No,’ Nan Luc whispered through her fingers. ‘No, I don’t believe it… I won’t believe it. If that’s what you want to think, it’s your decision, Max.’ She dropped her hands. ‘Is that what you want to believe?’
‘If it saves you from ruining your life, if it saves you from a twenty-year jail sentence for murder,’ Max said. ‘Yes.’
She ran because it seemed the only way to fill the other void inside her, ran to stop the uncontrollable tears and the pulse thundering in her temples. Ran through the wet, almost empty streets, across intersections, past night repairmen, urged on by flashes of bright neon. She had asked Max to get some more coffee and slipped from the hotel before he realised. She could hear his shouts echoing behind her now.
Swinging round a corner she saw a yellow cab cruising towards her and she waved her hands desperately. As it slowed beside her and she grabbed the handle of the still moving cab, the driver looked up into the wild blaze of her eyes, heard the man’s shouts and running footsteps reach the corner.
‘Oh, no lady.’ He was shaking his head in alarm.
But she had already thrown herself into the back seat. ‘Drive,’ she ordered. ‘Just drive.’
The cab pulled away past Max and swung back up West 44th Street.
In the back Nan Luc fought to control her breathing. She retched at the thought of what Max had said. In one stroke he had deprived her of everything that had kept her alive for the last year.
If Stevenson was not her father, then did she still have a right to a unique, personal revenge? Did it mean that the only course now was to bring Stevenson to justice, to a long wrangle in the courts, against clever, amoral lawyers? With the chance, the everpresent chance that he would finally, finally walk away free.
‘You want me to drive all night?’ the cab driver said. She gave him her Greenwich Village address.
Was it not possible that Max was mistaken? Of course it was. It was possible that her mother had met Peter Benning long after she had known Stevenson. Long after she had had Stevenson’s child.
As she ran up the steps to the house, as she let herself in and ran along the corridor, her mind was desperately clawing away the idea that Peter Benning was her father.
She slammed the door of the apartment and walked slowly, deliberately, into the living room. The words were thrumming in her head. Phone Edward. Immediately. She punched out the numbers and waited. Even with the time difference he would be in bed.