Upstairs in Polly’s flat Jack was a little anxious. The milkman’s alarm call, unusually early though it was, had reminded Jack that the night would not last for ever. Dawn was to be at seven fourteen that morning and Jack wanted to be away long before then. He had found out the things he needed to know. He was reasonably certain that his history with Polly was a private one, and he knew the whereabouts of Polly’s stalker.
One thing Jack was certain about: this man Peter would have to die. Whether Polly liked it or not, Peter was a dead man.
“I have to leave quite soon,” Jack said, taking another slug of his drink.
It was like cold water. Somehow Polly had stopped thinking about Jack’s leaving.
“I want you to stay,” she said.
“I can’t, not for much longer.”
Polly felt desperate. All those familiar emotions were back, all those painful old feelings, the ones it had taken so many years to get over. Why had he returned if only to tease her and then leave her again? Now she must suffer the pain of rejection a second time and live with a newly broken heart.
“I got promoted recently,” said Jack.
Polly did not know what to say to this. It was such a non sequitur. Did he think she was still interested in making polite conversation?
“I’ve been promoted quite a lot over the last few years, actually. I’ve done very well.”
What was he talking about? Was he still fighting himself? Perhaps he really did want to stay. Perhaps he really wanted to make love. Perhaps this chattering was just a way of avoiding making a decision.
“Congratulations,” said Polly. “You certainly never let anything stand in your way, did you?”
Everything Jack said reminded Polly of his desertion.
“You do not make four-star general just by avoiding ruinous love affairs. Nor by working hard or being talented. You have to get lucky. Very lucky.” Jack paused for a moment and then said, “Sex.”
“What?” Polly asked.
“That’s what got me where I am today.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Sex is what made me, Polly. What brought me to my current elevated status.”
“I’m not interested, Jack,” said Polly wearily.
“I need to tell you what brought me here today,” Jack insisted.
Polly sat back. It was pointless to resist. Whatever Jack wanted to do or say he would do or say in his own good time. She tried to concentrate as he spoke.
Jack began. By the end of the Gulf War, he said, he’d been a full colonel, one of the most successful soldiers of his generation, but despite this his prospects for future advancement had not looked particularly good. Traditionally, war was the way to get promoted in the army and despite Saddam’s honourable efforts real wars, proper wars, were becoming less and less likely. There was, according to George Bush, a new world order. The Soviet Union had collapsed, taking with it the Warsaw Pact, thus depriving the Western allies of their best available enemy. The Chinese, who had always been next in line to fight, were embracing capitalism and waging war on the stock market. MacDonald’s was opening up in Beijing, and the US was importing gangsters from Moscow. The West had won. For career soldiers like Jack it was a depressing time. All those weapons and nobody to kill. It just wasn’t fair.
Of course there were the various UN, humanitarian and peacekeeping missions around the world, but that wasn’t soldiering, and it certainly wasn’t the way to make a four-star general. As Jack and the guys moaned to each other over bourbon in the mess, it was a very tough call to set your career alight dropping powdered milk on dead African people. Or digging up football pitches full of skulls in Bosnia.
Jack had seen the way the wind was blowing when Bush wimped out of going all the way to Baghdad.
“We should’a had Saddam’s ass hanging on the Pentagon flagpole,” he and his comrades had assured each other through mouthfuls of beer and chili fries. “But Old Man Bush listened to Pussy Powell. What kind of soldier was he? Too scared to risk his men. For Christ’s sake, what is happening to the world? We have an army that thinks it has a right not to get killed! Powell was probably worried his men would sue.”
In Polly’s flat Jack was pacing up and down telling his story, almost ignoring her. She wondered what on earth he could be getting at. Whatever it was, she wasn’t interested.
“Pussy Powell?” she asked.
“Lots of men left the service,” Jack continued. “But I couldn’t. I didn’t know any life other than soldiering. I had nowhere else to go. Besides, I’d sacrificed too much to give it up.”
They looked at each other. Polly might have spoken but Jack continued.
“Then something strange happened. Just when everybody thought they’d never get promoted again, sex came along. Sex is what saved the entire US military career structure from stagnation. Sex replaced war. Funny, huh? Kind of what you guys always wanted in a way. Make love not war and all that bullshit.”
“What are you talking about, Jack?”
Polly had resigned herself to the evening’s going round in circles for ever.
“Remember Tailgate?” he continued. “Bunch of navy flyers couldn’t hold their brew and started waving their dicks at some lady sailors?”
Polly did recall it. The scandal had been big enough to be reported in the British media. There had been an appalling display of drunken brutality at a US naval conference.
“As I recall, it was all a little more serious than dick waving,” Polly remarked.
“Jesus, did the shit hit the fan. They court-martialled everybody! ‘Sir! Yes, sir! I waved my dick, sir!’ Dishonourable discharge! ‘Sir. Yes, sir! I waved my dick too!’ Out goes another one. A hundred and fifty thousand dollars’ worth of training – gone! The brass thought they could calm things down by throwing a few minnows to the sharks. They couldn’t. The shit flew upwards. ‘Yes, I failed to ensure that dicks were not waved.’ ‘Yes, I allowed a dick-waving culture to develop…’ You want to know how many admirals were eventually implicated?”
Polly did not. She was not even slightly interested.
“Thirty-two, Polly! That’s a historical fact. Thirty-two admirals. Our attack readiness was compromised. Navy morale was shot to ribbons. Comfort was given to our enemies. And all because we live in a world that thinks it can legislate against guys acting like assholes.”
Polly could scarcely believe it, but even at this point in the evening Jack still seemed to be anxious to compare their political points of view and yet again, despite herself, she could not help but oblige.
“You can legislate against rape and intimidation and harassment.”
“Jesus!” Jack snapped. “These guys were sailors! The navy never should’a let those women anywhere near them. There was a time when being a disgusting fucked-up maniac was a military career requirement!”
“Change hurts sometimes,” Polly snapped back.
“Oh yes, it does, Polly, it sure does. Change hurts all right. I’ve seen men cry. I’ve seen marines cry because they’ve just discovered that when they pinched some secretary’s ass at the Christmas party they were in fact making a career decision.”
Perhaps Jack had been right earlier when he’d spoken to Polly of “her kind”. She could certainly empathize with this situation and her sympathies were not with the weeping marine. At her work Polly was called upon to deal with similar situations all the time and she knew all about the sort of activities that guys called “just bum-pinching”.