Coming back to life was almost worse than trying to leave it.
When I regained consciousness I was in Royal North Shore Hospital at St Leonards, a short drive up the Pacific Highway from my office in North Sydney and less than ten minutes over the Bridge by high speed ambulance from the scene of the shooting. Considine had had a medical team on standby, and they had wasted no time. That, and the skill of the surgeons, was what saved me.
I was badly wounded: a bullet through the right shoulder – relatively minor – a deep cut on the upper arm, another shot to the chest. It was the second shot which had done the damage. The bullet had missed my heart but perforated my left lung front and back, causing it to collapse, with massive internal bleeding, and then had careened in a downward spiral, fortunately missing any other major organs but ending up against my spine, in my lower back. Between the second and third lumbar vertebrae, to be exact. The spinal cord wasn’t severed but the bullet was too firmly wedged to be removed without a further operation, which was dicey. For the present I was forced to lie still, wrapped like a mummy from my waist to my neck, unable to move my arms, or even my legs very much.
Worse than my wounds was my anguish. I was convinced that Eric was dead. I had seen him fall, seconds before I was shot myself. What had gone wrong? Had Considine forgotten to put a protective vest on him? Had a bullet got through somehow, had he been shot in the head? When I tried to find out all I could manage was a groan. Don’t try to speak, someone said. You’ve been badly wounded and we’ve just operated. You’re going to be alright. But right now you must rest.
I remained in that state for over twenty-four hours, alternately sleeping and staring at the ceiling, not sure when I was awake or hallucinating. When I slept I dreamt of falling, of being pursued by demons through monstrous landscapes, like a painting by Hieronymous Bosch, of being branded on the chest with red-hot irons.
When I woke I thought of Eric, and how I had failed him.
Then, on the morning of the second day, two police officers came to see me. They were from Internal Affairs, and were investigating the circumstances of the shooting at the Southern Cross Apartments, during which a foreign official had been killed. I was still in intensive care and wore an oxygen mask but I was able to communicate by then and the doctor reluctantly allowed them in. They said it was urgent.
I answered their questions as best I could, by sign language where possible, pushing my oxygen mask aside when I had to talk. They seemed satisfied with most of my answers, but the question they kept coming to was what I had seen when Truong Dzu was shot.
‘Who?’ I asked.
‘Truong Dzu. The man who shot you. The tall Vietnamese. Did you see what happened when he was shot? What he was doing?’
‘No,’ I said. By then I was flat on the floor, trying hard not to scream my head off. I thought I had heard shouting, and another shot, but I couldn’t remember even that part clearly before I blacked out.
‘Who shot him?’ I asked, but they wouldn’t tell me.
‘That’s still under investigation.’
They were about to leave when I pushed the mask aside again.
‘Why are you so concerned about how he was killed?’ I rasped out. ‘That man Truong Dzu. Why don’t you ask about the young man he killed?’
‘You mean Eric Tran? But he’s not dead. We interviewed him last night. He’s got a flesh wound in his arm and some bad bruising but otherwise he’s fine. Sorry, we thought you knew.’
After they left I went back to sleep. This time there were no more dreams.
After that the visitors came.
The first was Eric, closely followed by Brian Considine. Eric was being released from hospital and the Considines were taking him in, until something more permanent could be arranged. We spent an emotional moment together. He wore his arm in a sling and had dark rings under his eyes, but otherwise looked unharmed.
‘I thought you were going to die,’ he said, a glint of tears in his eyes. ‘I wanted to come in the ambulance with you but they wouldn’t let me.’
‘I didn’t look after you very well, did I.’
‘Commander Considine says you saved my life. He said if you hadn’t come in when you did I’d almost certainly have been killed.’
He hadn’t heard from his aunt, and didn’t know how to reach her in San Diego. I told him Viv had the number, and suggested he get the key to the flat from her as well, so he could move in whenever he wanted.
‘Just one thing,’ I said. ‘When you speak to her, don’t tell her I’ve been badly wounded. Just say I’m OK, I’m recovering well.’
I wanted to ask what was happening in Cabramatta, but I was too tired, and it was Considine who brought me up to date, on his next visit. He was in uniform this time, complete with shoulder tabs and that broken down cap of theirs, which makes them all look a bit like thugs. He sat down next to the bed and took his cap off.
‘Was it you who shot Truong Dzu?’ I asked. He nodded.
‘Gave me no choice. When I came through that door I told him to put down his weapon but he refused. Twice. I thought he was about to shoot you again, or one of my men. So I shot him.’
He shook his head.
‘First time I’ve ever killed a man. Over thirty years in the force. I know the bugger deserved it, but I can’t say I enjoyed it very much.’
He ran his hand through his wiry hair. He looked tired too, and not very happy.
‘Now of course there’s all hell to pay. It’s standard procedure to have an inquiry when there’s been a fatality during a police operation, but when a foreigner’s involved, with diplomatic status … That’s what the fuss is all about. That’s why they wanted to interview you so soon. Fortunately Eric was able to tell them quite a lot.’
‘But what happened?’ I asked. ‘What took you so long to get there?’
‘Oh, it’s a long and sorry tale,’ he said wearily. ‘As the senior man I should never have let things get to that stage. But there was nothing I could do! I wanted to put someone on that floor, take a room and stick a couple of my men in it, but Roger wouldn’t allow it. Mustn’t do anything which might tip them off, he kept saying, otherwise they’ll abort and the whole exercise will have been in vain. We’ve got to catch them red-handed. Even went over my head. Special request from Canberra, straight to the Minister and the Commissioner. Highly sensitive political case, let our man on the ground have the final say. Fortunately Bob Maynard was more reasonable. His men had installed a hidden camera in one of the ventilation vents, thanks to him we were able to get video coverage. Otherwise we would have been blind.’
Gradually he filled in the picture. How Eric had turned up, carrying his pizza boxes. Considine had commandeered a room on the ground floor, as I’d suggested, and his men had taken Eric there, ostensibly to search him. Considine was there too and together they’d gone over the next stage. Considine told him they’d be watching him on CCTV, and they’d jump in at the first sign of trouble. They didn’t talk long. Considine made him put on a flak jacket under his shirt – luckily it was a large size and the jacket didn’t show. Then they sent him on his way.
‘Cool as ice, he was,’ Considine said. ‘I could see he was tense, but there was no way he was going to back out. ‘Don’t worry about me,’ he said. ‘I’ll be alright.’ Of course what none of us had foreseen was that they’d pounce on him so quickly and block access to the floor.’
They had tracked his progress on a screen on the floor below. As soon as they saw the two men, Truong Dzu and his associate, move up and grab Eric they knew they had to act fast. They raced up the stairs, only to find the door locked and barred against them. By the time they broke the door down it was almost too late: I had burst in through the window, Eric and I had both been shot, Truong Dzu stood sneering at the big policeman. He had thrown the silenced twenty-two pistol at Eric’s feet but kept hold of his own weapon, even raised it when Considine shouted at him to drop it, as if to challenge him – whereupon Considine had quite properly shot him.
‘We had it all on tape. Didn’t see you coming in, the camera was pointing the other way, but everything else, when we played it back it was all there: how Truong Dzu took the pistol from Eric, loaded it, started down the corridor, turned round, started to panic … right up to the moment I shot him. But you know what? The tape’s gone! Roger took it! Wanted in Canberra, he said, Top Secret Sensitive, the Minister needs to see it, can’t leave it lying around, might fall into the wrong hands. I couldn’t even use it in my defence when I was challenged to prove I had acted correctly. That’s why Internal Affairs had to interview you, as well as Eric and the other cops with me. Fortunately it was all fairly straightforward.’
‘What about the man with the knife?’ I asked.
‘Oh, he dropped it quickly enough! I arrested him and we took him into custody. But he refused to answer any questions and we had to release him less than an hour later. Diplomatic immunity again. Seems you can do anything when you have a diplomatic passport and not be held to account. The best we could do was kick him out of the country. PNG’d, as Roger put it. Persona non gratis.’
‘Non grata.’
‘What?’
‘Persona non grata. It means he’s no longer welcome.’
‘Too right he wasn’t! That was the one thing that gave me pleasure. Putting him on the next plane to Hanoi without letting him go home to change. His consulate kicked up a fuss but there was no way we were going to show him any favours! Almost made me wish I’d shot him as well.’
‘Where was Loc during all this?’
‘In his room, at the other end of the corridor. Where Truong Dzu was heading when you broke in so rudely. Locked in his bathroom. Seems someone in Roger’s mob had got word to him earlier, said they thought there’d be an attempt against him that evening, asked him how he wanted to play it. ‘Go ahead,’ he said, ‘Let them go ahead with their plan, if you think you can stop them in time – I want them caught too.’ Another one with ice in his veins. When it was over he came out, not a drop of sweat on him. Called his embassy, and his government too I think, told them what had happened, helped us sort out the mess. Postponed his departure for New Zealand by a day to do it. A tough one, no doubt about that. I wouldn’t want to be in his enemies’ shoes when he gets back to Hanoi.’
It had gone pretty well as I had expected, give or take a few details.
‘One thing I don’t understand,’ I said, ‘is how they managed to fix that pizza delivery. They were taking a big chance, weren’t they?’
He laughed curtly.
‘They’d worked that out as well. Seems Loc has a craving for pizzas. Well known in his entourage, it seems. Whenever he travels abroad he has to have one. Can’t get the real stuff at home apparently. Odd, isn’t it. What some of these people need to keep ’em happy. At least he didn’t ask for a woman, the way some of them do. That would have complicated matters.’
As we reconstructed it, someone in Loc’s group, perhaps Truong Dzu himself, had rung a local pizza shop to place an order that evening, about an hour after they came home from the reception. Asked for it to be delivered to the apartments. Then soon after someone else had rung – the pizza shop thought it was the same man, but they couldn’t be sure, more likely it was someone working with Bach, maybe Bach himself – said forget the delivery, they’d send someone to pick it up. An Asian man had come in, the pizza shop staff said, well-dressed in a dark suit, had paid for the order in cash, and taken the boxes. They didn’t think they could recognise him. Eric was waiting in a car nearby, already dressed for his role in a red and white shirt and a cap, complete with the shop’s logo – they’d even thought of that. The man had handed the pizzas to him and he had gone on his way.
‘They must have been planning it for months. God knows what would have happened if you hadn’t put a spoke in their wheels. They might have got away with it.’
I thought about that too, then and later. Something I never really discussed with Eric. Would he have gone through with it, if the plot had been left to take its course without interference from me? I remembered how hard I’d had to work to turn him round, convince him that he was not on the side of the angels. But I also thought of him, as I had got to know him. He had never been meant to pull the trigger, of course – that was Truong Dzu’s job, all that was required of Eric by then was to let himself be conveniently killed. Even so, had it come to the crunch I couldn’t see him willing to shoot down a defenceless man. If he’d really been required to do it, instead of merely playing a (deadly) role of make-believe, I was sure, I believed deep inside me that he would have balked, found a way out, refused to become a cold-blooded killer.
At least I very much hoped so.
‘And the others involved? Bach Ho? Vo Khanh and the Mad Buffaloes? What’s going to happen to them?’
‘We’ve rounded up most of them. The small fry anyway. Raided that farm up in the hills, took the owner in as well. We’ll have to let most of them go, with a caution. They didn’t have much of a clue, all they did was take part in the demonstrations in Canberra. But as for the top guys … we caught Vo Khanh too, as he was about to leave. But with Bach Ho I’m afraid we were too late. Him and his offsider, that young man Binh, who you think committed the earlier murder – they’d disappeared. They won’t get far. We’ll catch them eventually. But right now no one knows where they are. They must have prepared their escape in advance.’
‘All this is strictly between us,’ he went on, still sounding bitter. ‘Canberra wants to put a lid on it! I’m not sure if it’s Roger’s idea or comes from higher up. But they want to put it out that it was just an amateurish assassination attempt by a group of lunatic extremists among the Vietnamese community, that Truong Dzu and his friend were only doing their job defending their leader, and you and Eric were innocent bystanders who got caught in the cross-fire. Perpetrator or perpetrators unknown, apparently broke in through a window at the end of a rope, tried to shoot their way through, failed but escaped the same way, whereabouts currently unknown … We know it’s bullshit, Roger says, and they know that we know it’s bullshit, but this is the best way to help them save face, let them wash their dirty linen in private …’
He stood up, screwed his cap down on his head, tilted it at a rakish angle.
‘Nasty business, politics. Makes police work look like kinder-garten stuff. Now I’d better go. Got to face another hearing. When’s that woman of yours coming back?’
‘I’ll tell you when I know,’ I said.
‘Nice homecoming she’ll be having. At least you’re still alive. The both of you.’
He leaned over, gripped my right hand in his, in a brief, oddly touching gesture. Then he left.
By now I had most of the puzzle worked out. That was one advantage of lying flat on my back – the only one. I had time to think things out. It had been an inside job alright, as I’d begun to suspect earlier. That was what I’d told Considine when I’d met him in Hyde Park on the last morning, and he hadn’t needed much convincing. Truong Dzu’s actions had been the final proof.
What was interesting was the care and the time they had taken over it. They must have been working on it for months, perhaps ever since Eric had first appeared on the scene and planning had started for Loc’s visit to Australia. Who were they working for? We’d never know for sure, but my guess was some hardline faction in Hanoi, wanting to get rid of a troublesome liberal, and make it look like the work of anti-communist fanatics among expatriate Vietnamese in Sydney. Neat! That meant Bach Ho and at least one other must have been working for them. Not that fat oaf Vo Khanh, all muscle and no brains. As an ex-Marines officer he probably hated the communists more than anything on earth. Most probably Binh, whom I suspected of having murdered Quang.
What would have happened if they’d succeeded? With Eric killed, shot dead by Truong Dzu as the latter (apparently) tried to protect Loc (too late) against an unknown assassin, there would have been no witnesses, nothing that could incriminate Bach or even Vo Khanh. Whatever the police or ASIO or anyone suspected, they would have been unable to prove it. It was only Eric’s testimony, and what I had seen myself, which could bring them undone. And that they couldn’t foresee.
I had to admire the evil ingenuity of it all, even if we’d never know all the details.
But there were other questions which bothered me, and to which I wanted answers. And when Roger came I pulled no punches. He was among the last of my visitors, as he’d had to return at once to Canberra, no doubt to explain himself to his masters, only reappearing a few days later.
‘You bastard!’ I said. ‘You knew! You knew all along they were planning to kill Loc, and they were going to pin it on Eric! What was it? A power struggle inside the Vietnamese Politburo? The hardliners trying to get rid of a rival, and blame it on anti-communist extremists? Was that it?’
He didn’t say anything.
‘And when did you find out, that’s what I want to know! Was it when you got the traces on Bach, from the Americans? Was that it? When you told Considine and me they had nothing on him, you were lying! They did! I bet they knew all about him! They had to! Otherwise why would they have refused to accept him into the US? Come on, Roger! Tell me the truth! I’ve got a right to know, surely!’
‘Nothing would have happened to you if you’d done what you were told. But you always were an insubordinate sod!’
‘Thank Christ I was! Why, do you think it would have ended happily if I hadn’t been there? You saw what happened, Roger! You saw what those bastards tried to do to Eric! They would have killed him, and might have killed Loc too. There was no way Considine could have got through that door in time! But you don’t care, do you! You were quite prepared to sacrifice him if need be, to push your little scheme through!’
He made to say something but I ploughed on.
‘You were in this with the Yanks, weren’t you! To make sure that Loc came out on top and his enemies were unmasked. Loc’s their golden boy, isn’t he! They want him to get the top job. And so do you. And you were prepared to do anything to make sure he gets it. Foiling an assassination attempt wasn’t enough! Identifying the inside men wasn’t enough! You had to make sure they got caught red-handed, so that the hard men in Hanoi would know, so that Loc’s faction would get the upper hand, take the fight back to them … I bet you’ve even sent them a copy of the tape, to make sure it’s all there on record. What’s going to happen now, Roger? A few demotions among the hard men on the left? A few hardliners pushed aside for a time, so that the golden boy can have a smooth ride to the top? What is he, Roger? Is he working for you? For the Americans? Is that it? Their top man in Hanoi?’
That stung him.
‘Don’t be stupid, Paul! Do you think a man of that calibre would work for another country? He’s a nationalist, for Christ’s sake! You said it yourself! He loves his country!’
‘So why did you do it Roger? To uphold democratic values?’
‘Don’t sneer, Paul. Is that so wrong? Loc’s one of the key men in that government. He’ll be prime minister one day. And he’s one of the few who’s got any understanding of the outside world, who’s ready to open his country to the west instead of trying to push it back to some Stalinist paradise! Of course he was worth defending! That’s our job, remember? That’s what we’re in the business of doing, when we get the chance! So what’s your beef all about?’
‘Nothing! Except that you very nearly got Eric killed! And now you’re trying to pin the blame on anybody except the real culprits. Make it look as if it was all the work of some loonies in the Vietnamese community! Isn’t that a little self-defeating? Playing Hanoi’s game for them?’
‘It’s the price we have to pay! We can’t afford to rub their face into it publicly. This is the only way we can be sure the information will be used properly. Otherwise it’ll have the opposite effect and strengthen the hand of the hardliners in Hanoi. Besides, that’s the way Loc wanted it played. He asked us himself to handle it like this. Of course it’s nasty. Whoever said it wasn’t? Don’t be so naïve, Paul.’
We glared at each other.
‘What about the Vietnamese community here? Don’t you care that their reputation will suffer? They already get a bad enough press as it is!’
He shook his head.
‘It won’t last long. People will soon see it was just a lunatic fringe. If necessary we can push that line with the press, feed it through some tame journalist. Besides, don’t forget that some members of that community were only too happy to take part. Even if it was hatched by Bach Ho. Vo Khanh, for one. And those others who volunteered for it. Eric himself probably, if you hadn’t turned him!’
I was silent. His cynicism floored me.
‘I’m sorry to see you laid up like this, Paul,’ he went on. ‘I really am. If it’s any help, I got approval from Bill for the office to cover all your medical bills. But please don’t play the innocent with us. You knew we would have to take this all the way, or you should have known. Don’t forget, he volunteered, Paul. And you brought him to us. Did you think we were just going to sit on our hands? Come on! And think what would have happened if you hadn’t brought him to us. If you hadn’t turned him and he’d genuinely tried to do the job for them. He would surely have been killed then! So don’t play the injured party, Paul. It won’t wash.’
He paused, seemed to pull himself back, conscious that he was going too far.
‘Besides, you got what you wanted,’ he went on more calmly. He pulled an envelope out from his coat pocket, took out two passports. He held them out for me to see. But when I reached for them he pulled his hand back.
‘Sorry, can’t let you have them just yet. When she comes back from her trip. She and Eric will have to go to Immigration in person, and be sworn in like everyone else. You can be there as witness. No need to look so grateful. Did you think I was going to renege on the deal? But there’s one condition, Paul.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Not a word, to anyone! I mean it! Stick to the approved version. You can say if you must that you got wind through Eric of some attempt to attack Loc and you tried to step in and got shot for your pains, but nothing else, not a word about Truong Dzu or inside help. I need your word, Paul! Otherwise they don’t get these.’
He held the passports up, then put them back in the envelope. I nodded.
‘You have it.’
‘Good. That’s settled. I’d better be going. I have a plane to catch. I’ll come back and see you in a couple of days. Meanwhile Bill and the mob send their love. He thinks you did well, by the way.’
‘Thanks. But I still have one request.’
He sighed in exasperation.
‘Not another one, surely! Don’t you ever stop?’
‘Not for me. For Quang. He had a daughter. She came to the funeral last week. Lives in Paris with her mother. From what I saw she’s not too well off. I think some compensation would be a nice gesture. Anonymously, of course. Some investment of Quang’s that paid off? A hundred thousand dollars? That shouldn’t be too much for the Agency’s coffers, should it? After all, it’s not as if this operation cost you much. Others did most of the work.’
He sighed again, but nodded.
‘I’ll put it to Bill. You’re right. I’m sure we can work something out.’
I looked after him as he went. Roger had tried to be decent at the end, and had lived up to his promise about the passports. I had to give him that. But I couldn’t forgive him for the way he’d been prepared to sacrifice Eric. I knew that nothing would ever be the same between us.
More visitors. Vivien of course, almost every day. Maisie was back on the south coast, but I’d instinctively played it Roger’s way with them, telling them how Eric and I had helped foil an attempted assassination, but were now under strict orders not to reveal any further details, for fear others might learn from them. They were both thrilled to the core, beneath their concern for me.
With Jack Lipton I was much more frank, when he and Sen came to see me. I didn’t see why I should lie to him, when it was through him that I had first met Quang, and because of it that Quang had been killed. So I told him the bare bones of the truth: that Bach had been at the centre of a plot to kill Loc, working through a group of crazy extremists, but that he himself was in fact an agent of Hanoi, working for some unholy elements there; I also told him I was pretty sure that was why Quang had been killed, because he was getting too close to the truth, and that it was probably Binh, Bach’s offsider, who had done the killing. I said it for a reason: both Bach and Binh had disappeared; but Jack had many contacts in the Vietnamese community. If he discreetly spread it about that they were in the pay of Hanoi, it would make it that much harder for them to escape. He said little, but took it all in. I knew he’d put the information to good use.
As for the man himself, Dang van Loc, that was another surprise. He showed not the slightest distress at what had happened, as if it was all part of the job. He’d been through worse in his life. But on the way back from New Zealand he made an unexpected stop, breaking his journey in Sydney to come and see me in hospital. We had been forewarned, Eric was there, with Brian Considine. He didn’t stay long, an hour between two flights, but he shook my hand warmly, and Eric’s and Brian’s, and praised our courage for what we had done, and expressed his regret at the way I’d been hurt. He was startled when I spoke to him in Vietnamese: a couple of stilted phrases I’d rehearsed beforehand, to which he replied in his own stilted English.
‘Where did you learn Vietnamese?’ he asked. ‘Were you a soldier?’
‘Thư’a, không,’ I said mischievously, keeping to Vietnamese. ‘No. I worked in the embassy, in Saigon.’ I deliberately used the old pre-communist name. ‘April 1975. I was there at the end.’
He nodded and smiled.
‘We call it the new beginning,’ he said.
I smiled back and we savoured each other’s wit.
‘I recently met an old friend of yours,’ I went on more seriously, in English. ‘Le Minh Quang. I believe he worked for you for a while on the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee.’
‘That’s right. An old friend, as you say.’
‘He was killed two weeks ago. Murdered by one of the men who plotted to kill you.’
He nodded gravely.
‘It was largely due to him that we found out about the plot. He was very anxious that you should be protected.’
‘Thank you for telling me. I had heard he was dead, but I wasn’t sure how. I am very sorry.’
We exchanged a few more comments. He shook hands again with Brian and Eric, and thanked them both too, and all who had helped foil the plot.
‘My life is not important. But what those people tried to do is bad for Vietnam, and such people must not be allowed to succeed. Thank you for that.’
He turned back to me. His large head was all skin and sinew and bone, alive with an intense energy. His black eyes bored into me.
‘I will not forget my friend Quang. Or you either, Mr Quinn. Good-bye.’
His eyes swept over the others in the room, rested gently on Eric for a second. When he limped out, with his assistant in tow, who hadn’t uttered a word, the air felt a little less charged.
My wounds were healing nicely, and I was now able to sit up. My legs were the worry. Physio didn’t seem to be doing much good, I had hardly any sensation in them, and the neurologist who took x-rays was still reluctant to operate.
‘The bullet is deeply embedded. The spinal cord itself doesn’t appear to have been directly damaged but there’s a good deal of pressure on it and we may do more harm than good if we try and remove it. Let’s try more physio first. If it doesn’t work then we can think again. I think tomorrow you can start using the walking machine.’
Anything was better than staring at the ceiling.
‘I talked to my aunt.’ Eric had finally contacted Hao. He’d moved into the flat, and reached her at her brother’s house. She had caught the bare facts of the assassination attempt on the news and she was in a high state of alarm.
‘I had to tell her you were still in hospital. She’s going to ring you tonight.’
I waited anxiously for her call. It was now ten days since her departure, and so much had happened since that it felt as if she’d been gone much longer. When I heard her voice I almost couldn’t speak at first.
‘Paul? Can you hear me?’
‘Yes.’ I cleared my throat. ‘How are you? How’s your mother?’
‘Better. She’s back home now. She still can’t talk or move very well but the doctor thinks she’ll recover most of that in due course … How are you? Viv told me you were shot! Are you badly hurt?’
‘Not too badly. Recovering satisfactorily, as they say. I’ll be okay.’
I didn’t tell her about my legs. I didn’t want to tug at her pity.
‘What happened? Paul? Why didn’t you call me earlier? Eric said he also got shot …’
‘It’s a long story. I’ll tell you when you get back. But don’t worry about him. He’s fine, it was just a small wound …’
‘He said you saved his life.’
I didn’t say anything.
‘Paul? Is that true? He said you were wounded when you tried to stop someone from shooting him …’
‘It’s okay,’ I tried to say. ‘He’s being dramatic. It was my fault.
You were right. I should never have let things get to that stage.’
I sighed.
‘I’ll tell you all about it later,’ I said again, lamely. ‘When are you coming back? Is everything alright with you?’
‘Yes. No. How can it be?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Here I am worried to death, and missing you dreadfully, and you’re lying in a hospital bed … I’ve been trying to book a seat to Sydney but all the flights are booked up for a week – I’m on stand-by for Wednesday evening. I should never have left you!’
‘Yes you should. You had to.’
‘Do you still want to marry me?’
‘What a stupid question! Have you changed your mind?’
‘Of course not! When I was in Leeds, I kept thinking of you, and how much my life has changed since I met you … and …’
She paused. I waited. I could hear her breathing.
‘When I saw Robert I told him all about you,’ she said. ‘I told him you were sweet, and loveable, and you would never have forced me to have an affair with you. I also told him – I told him – you make love even better than him.’
Only one more hurdle to clear: how would she face having to live with a cripple?
I was at physio when she came. Straining on the walking machine, sweat pouring down my face, trying to put one foot in front of the other and avoid putting too much stress on my chest. I wasn’t aware of her at first, it wasn’t until the physiotherapist looked towards the door that I turned and saw her. For a moment I stood there, gripping the bars and trying to stay upright. Then I levered myself into my wheelchair and she came forward.
‘Oh Paul! What did they do to you!’ she cried, and ran towards me. She knelt and put her arms around me. We wet each other’s shirts with our tears.