Ken Follett - Code to Zero (2000)

'But your father doesn't know about her, does he?'

Luke flushed. The Admiral had scored a -point Luke and Billie had not met one another's parents.

There had hardly been time. Their love affair had been conducted in snatched moments during a war. But that was not the only reason. Deep in Luke's heart a small, mean-spirited voice told him that a girl from a dirt-poor Jewish family was not his parents' idea of the right wife for their son. They would accept her, he felt sure - indeed, they would come to love her, for all the reasons he loved her. But at first they might be a little disappointed. Consequently, he was eager to introduce her to them in the right circumstances, on a relaxed occasion when they would have time to get to know her.

The fact that there was a grain of truth in the Admiral's insinuation made Luke even angrier. With barely controlled aggression, he said: 'Forgive me if I warn you that these remarks are personally offensive to me.'

The room went quiet, but Luke's veiled threat passed right over the head of the drunk Admiral. 'I understand that, son, but I've lived longer than you, and I know what I'm talking about'

'Pardon me, you don't know the people involved.'

.'Oh, but I think I may know more about the lady in question than you do.'

Something in the Admiral's tone sounded a warning, but Luke was angry enough to ignore it. 'The hell you do,' he said with deliberate rudeness.

Bern tried to intervene. 'Hey, guys, lighten up, will you? Let's shoot some pool.'

But nothing could stop the Admiral now. He put his arm around Luke's shoulders. 'Look, son, I'm a man, I understand,' he said with an assumption of intimacy that Luke resented. 'So long as you don't take matters too seriously, there's no harm in pronging a little Curt, we've all-'

He never finished the sentence. Luke turned towards him, put both hands on his chest, and shoved him away. The Admiral staggered back, arms flailing, and his glass of bourbon went flying through the air.

He tried to regain Jus balance, failed, and sat down hard on the rug. Luke shouted at him: 'Now knock it off before I close your filthy mouth with my fist!'

Anthony, white-faced, grabbed Luke's arm, saying: 'Luke, for Christ's sake, what do you think you're doing?'

Bern stepped between them and the Mien Admiral. 'Calm down, both of you,' he said. '

'The hell with calm,' Luke said. 'What kind of man invites you to his house then insults your girlfriend? It's about time someone taught the old fool a lesson in manners!'

'She is a tart,' the Admiral said from his sitting position. 'I should know, goddam it His voice rose to a roar. 'I paid for her abortion!'

Luke was stunned. 'Abortion?'

'Hell, yes.' He struggled to his feet 'Anthony got her pregnant, and I paid a thousand dollars for her to get rid of the little bastard.' His mouth twisted in a spiteful grin of triumph. 'Now tell me I don't know what I'm talking about'

'You're lying.'

'Ask Anthony.'

Luke looked at Anthony.

Anthony shook his head. 'It wasn't my baby. I told my father it was, so that he'd give me the thousand dollars. But it was your baby, Luke.'

Luke blushed to the roots of his hair. The drunk old Admiral had made a complete fool of him. He was the ignorant one. He thought he knew Billie, yet she had kept something as big as this a secret from him.

He had fathered a child, and his girlfriend had had an abortion, and they knew about it but he did not. He was utterly humiliated.

He stormed out of the room. He crossed the hall and burst into the drawing room. Only Anthony's mother was there: the girls must have gone to bed. Mrs. Carroll saw his face and said: 'Luke, my dear, is something wrong?' He ignored her and went out, slamming the door.

He ran up the stairs and along the east wing. He found Billie's room and went in without knocking.

She was lying naked on the bed, reading, her head resting on her hand, her curly dark hair falling forward like a breaking wave. For a moment, the sight of her took his breath away. Light from a bedside lamp painted a line of gold at the edge of her body, from her neat small shoulder, along her hip, and down one slender leg to her red toenail. But her beauty only made him angrier.

She looked up at him with a happy smile, then her face darkened when she saw his expression.

He yelled: 'Have you ever deceived me?'

She sat upright, scared. 'No, never!'

'That fucking admiral says he paid for you to have an abortion.'

Her face paled. 'Oh, no,' she said.

'Is it true?' Luke shouted. 'Answer me!'

She nodded, began to cry, and buried her face in her hands.

'So you did deceive me.'

'I'm sorry,' she sobbed. 'I wanted to have your baby - wanted it with all my heart. But I couldn't talk to you. You were in France, and I didn't know if you were ever coming back. I had to decide all on my own.' She raised her voice. 'It was the worst time of my life!'

Luke was dazed. 'I fathered a child,' he said.

Her mood changed in a flash. 'Don't get maudlin,' she said scornfully. You weren't sentimental about your sperm when you fucked me, so don't start now -it's too damn late.'

That stung him. 'You should have told me. Even if you couldn't reach me at the time, you should have told me at the first opportunity, the next time I came home on leave.'

She sighed. 'Yes, I know. But Anthony thought I shouldn't tell anyone, and it's not difficult to persuade a girl to keep something like that a secret No one need ever have known, if not for Admiral goddamn Carroll.'

Luke was maddened by the calm way she talked about her treachery, as if the only thing she had done wrong was to get caught, 'I can't live with this,' he said.

Her voice went quiet 'What do you mean?'

'After you've deceived me - and over something so important - how can I ever trust you again?'

She looked anguished. 'You're going to tell me it's over.' He said nothing. She went on: 'I can tell, I know you too well. I'm right, aren't I?'

'Yes.'

She began to cry afresh. You idiot!' she said through the tears. You don't know anything, do you, despite the war.'

'The war taught me that nothing counts as much as loyalty.'

'Bullshit You still haven't learned that when humans are under pressure, we're all willing to lie.'

'Even to people we love?'

'We Be more to our loved ones, because we care about them so damn much. Why do you think we tell the truth to priests and shrinks and total strangers we meet on trains? It's because we don't love them, so we don't care what they think.'

She was infuriatingly plausible. But he despised such easy excuses. 'That's not my philosophy of life.'

'Lucky you,' she said bitterly. 'You come from a happy home, you've never known bereavement or rejection, you have troops of friends. You had a hard war, but you weren't crippled or tortured, and you don't have enough imagination to be a coward. Nothing bad has ever happened to you. Sure, you don't tell lies -for the same reason Mrs. Carroll doesn't steal cans of soup.'

She was incredible - she had convinced herself that he was in the wrong! It was impossible to talk to someone who could fool herself so thoroughly. Disgusted, he turned to leave. 'If that's how you think of me, you must be glad our relationship is over.'

'No, Fm not glad.' Tears ran down her face. 'I love you, I've never loved another guy. I'm sorry I deceived you, but I'm not going to prostrate myself with guilt because I did a bad thing in a moment of crisis.'

He did not want her to prostrate herself with guilt. He did not want her to do anything at all. He just wanted to get away from her and their friends and Admiral Carroll and this hateful house.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, a small voice told him he was throwing away the most precious thing he had ever had, and warned that this conversation would cause him a regret so- bitter that it would bum in his soul for years. But he was too angry, too humiliated, and too painfully wounded to listen.