George reached back with his right arm then hit Jasper with a punch that had all the force of his back and shoulders in it. His fist connected with the left side of Jasper’s face. George felt the deeply satisfying squish of soft flesh then, a split-second later, the hardness of teeth and bones. Then pain blazed in his hand.
Jasper staggered backwards and fell to the ground.
Verena yelled: ‘George! What have you done?’ She knelt beside Jasper, careless of her stockings.
Jasper lifted himself on one elbow and felt his face. ‘Fucking animal,’ he said to George.
George wanted Jasper to get up off the ground and hit back. He wanted more violence, more pain, more blood. He stared at Jasper for a long moment, seeing through a red mist. Then the fog cleared, and he realized Jasper was not going to get up and fight.
George turned around, went back to his car, and drove away.
When he got home, Jack was in his bedroom, playing with his collection of toy cars. George closed the door, so that Nanny Tiffany could not hear. He sat on the bed, which was covered by a counterpane that looked like a racing car. ‘I’ve got something very difficult to tell you,’ he said.
‘What happened to your hand?’ Jack said. ‘It’s all red and puffed up.’
‘I banged it on something. You have to listen to me.’
‘Okay.’
This was going to be hard for a four-year-old to understand. ‘You know I’ll always love you,’ George said. ‘Just like Grandma Jacky loves me, even though I’m not a little boy any more.’
‘Is Grandma coming today?’
‘Maybe tomorrow.’
‘She brings cookies.’
‘Listen. Sometimes Mommies and Daddies stop loving each other. Did you know that?’
‘Yeah. Pete Robbins’s Daddy doesn’t love his Mommy any more.’ Jack’s voice became solemn. ‘They got divorced.’
‘I’m glad you understand that, because your mom and I don’t love each other any more.’
George watched Jack’s face, trying to see whether he understood or not. The boy looked bewildered, as if something apparently impossible seemed to be happening. The look on his face wrenched George’s heart. He thought: How can I be doing something this cruel to the person I love most in the world? How did I get here?
‘You know I’ve been sleeping in the guest room.’
‘Yeah.’
Here comes the hard part. ‘Well, I’m going to sleep at Grandma’s house tonight.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s because Mom and I don’t love each other.’
‘Okay, then, I’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘I’m going to be sleeping at Grandma’s a lot from now on.’
Jack began to see that this would affect him. ‘Will you read my bedtime story?’
‘Every night, if you like.’ George vowed to keep this promise.
Jack was still working out the implications. ‘Will you make my warm milk for breakfast?’
‘Sometimes. Or Mom will. Or Nanny Tiffany.’
Jack knew prevarication when he met it. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I think you better not sleep at Grandma’s.’
George ran out of courage. ‘Well, we’ll see,’ he said. ‘Hey, how about some ice cream?’
‘Yeah!’
It was the worst day of George’s life.
*
Driving from the Capitol homeward to Prince George’s County, George brooded on hostages. This year in Lebanon, four Americans and a Frenchman had been kidnapped. One of the Americans had been released, but the rest were languishing in some prison, unless they were already dead. George knew that one of the Americans was the CIA head of station in Beirut.
The kidnappers were almost certainly a militant Muslim group called Hezbollah, the Party of God, founded in response to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in1982. They had been bankrolled by Iran and trained by Iranian Revolutionary Guards. The United States regarded Hezbollah as an arm of the Iranian government, and classified Iran as a sponsor of terrorism, therefore a country that should not be allowed to buy weapons. George found that ironic, given that President Reagan was sponsoring terrorism in Nicaragua by funding the Contras, a brutal anti-government group that carried out assassinations and kidnappings.
All the same, George was angry about what was happening in Lebanon. He wanted to send the Marines into Beirut with all guns blazing. People should be taught the cost of abducting American citizens!
He felt this strongly, but he knew it was an infantile response. Just as the Israeli invasion had bred Hezbollah, so a violent American attack on Hezbollah would spawn more terrorism. Another generation of young Middle Eastern men would grow up swearing revenge upon America, the great Satan. George and all thinking people realized, when the blood cooled, that revenge was self-defeating. The only answer was to break the chain.
Which was easier said than done.
George was also aware that he had personally failed that test. He had punched Jasper Murray. Jasper was no wimp, but he had sensibly resisted the temptation to fight back. As a result the damage had been limited – no credit to George.
George was living with his mother again – at the age of forty-eight! Verena was still in the family home with little Jack. George presumed that Jasper spent nights there, but he did not know for sure. He was struggling to find a way to live with divorce – just like millions of other men and women.
It was Friday night, and he turned his mind to the weekend. He was on his way to Verena’s house. They had settled into a routine. George picked up Jack on Friday evening and took him to Grandma Jacky’s house for the weekend, then brought him back home on Monday morning. It was not how George had wanted to raise his child, but it was the best he could manage.
He thought about what they would do. Tomorrow maybe they would go to the public library together and get some bedtime story books. Church on Sunday, of course.
He arrived at the ranch-style house that used to be his home. Verena’s car was not on the driveway: she was not home yet. George parked and went to the front door. From politeness he rang the bell, then let himself in with his key.
The house was quiet. ‘It’s only me,’ he called out. There was no one in the kitchen. He found Jack sitting in front of the TV, alone. ‘Hi, buddy,’ he said. He sat down and put his arm around Jack’s shoulders. ‘Where’s Nanny Tiffany?’
‘She had to go home,’ Jack said. ‘Mommy’s late.’
George controlled his anger. ‘So you’re on your own here?’
‘Tiffany said it’s a mergency.’
‘How long ago was that?’
‘I don’t know.’ Jack still could not reckon time.
George was furious. His son had been left alone in the house at the age of four. What was Verena thinking of?
He got up and looked around. Jack’s weekend case stood in the hall. George checked inside and saw everything necessary: pyjamas, clean clothes, teddy bear. Nanny Tiffany had done that before she left to deal with what Jack called her mergency.
He went into the kitchen and wrote a note: ‘I found Jack alone in the house. Call me.’
Then he got Jack and went out to the car.
Jacky’s house was less than a mile away. When they arrived, Jacky gave Jack a glass of milk and a home-made cookie. He told her all about the cat next door, which came to visit and got a saucer of milk. Then Jacky looked at George and said: ‘All right, what’s eating you?’
‘Step into the parlour and I’ll tell you.’ They moved to the next room, and George said: ‘Jack was on his own in the house.’
‘Oh, that should not happen.’
‘Damn right.’
She overlooked the bad language for once. ‘Any idea why?’
‘Verena didn’t come home at the appointed time, and the nanny had to leave.’
At that moment they heard a squeal of tyres outside. They both looked out of the window and saw Verena getting out of her red Jaguar and running up the path to the door.
George said: ‘I’m going to kill her.’
Jacky let her in. She ran to the kitchen and kissed Jack. ‘Oh baby, are you okay?’ she said tearfully.
‘Yeah,’ said Jack nonchalantly. ‘I had a cookie.’
‘Grandma’s cookies are great, aren’t they?’
‘You bet.’
George said: ‘Verena, you’d better come in here and explain yourself.’
She was panting and perspiring. For once she did not appear arrogantly in control. ‘I was only a few minutes late!’ she cried. ‘I don’t know why that goddamn nanny ran out on me!’
‘You can’t be late when you’re looking after Jack,’ George said severely.