- •I chose York Harding's The Role of the West and packed it in the box with Phuong's clothes.
- •I said, "She's got a date every night."
- •I said to Pyle, "Do you think there's anything in the rumour about Phat Diem?"
- •I said, "Come back to the Chalet. Phuong's waiting."
- •I look at the dance floor. "I should say that's as near he ever got to a women."
- •I translated for her. "Import, export. She can do shorthand.’
- •I said, "It's like an enormous fair, isn't it, but without one smiling face."
- •Importance compared with what is happening a hundred kilometres away at Hoa Binh. That is a battle."
- •I was still not fully awake.
- •I laughed. I couldn't help it. He was so unexpected and so serious. I said, "Couldn't you have waited till I got back? I shall be in Saigon next week".
- •I told her, "Pyle's coming at six."
- •I said idly, "What did they want plastic for?"
- •I said, "I haven't seen you since Phat Diem."
- •I said, "We've been offered the safety of the tower till morning."
- •I thought that knowledge somehow would bring them into the circle of our conversation. They didn't answer: just lowered back at us behind the stumps of their cigarettes.
- •I hadn't meant to hurt him. I only realised I had done it when he said with muffled anger,
- •I knew well that it could be nothing else but bad. A telegram might have meant a sudden act of generosity: a
- •I said, "If you are hinting that you are a Communist, or a Vietminh, don’t worry. I'm not shocked. I have no politics."
- •I quoted Pascal back at him - it was the only passage I remembered.
- •It was as if he had been staring at me through a letter-box to see who was there and now, letting the flap fall, had shut out the unwelcome intruder. His eyes were out of sight.
- •I thought of Phuong just because of her complete absence. So it always is: when you escape to a desert the silence shouts in your ear.
- •I wondered idly what appointment they had.
- •I don't think he knew what he was saying. He was seeing a real war for the first time: he had punted down into Phat Diem in a kind of schoolboy dream, and anyway in his eyes soldiers didn't count.
- •I held the whisky out to him, so that he could see how calm my nerves were.
- •Vigot said, "I know you were not present at his murder."
- •I said, "I'd rather not remember that night."
- •I said to Phuong, "Do you miss him much?"
I said to Phuong, "Do you miss him much?"
"Who?"
"Pyle." Strange how even now, even to her, it was impossible to use his first name.
"Can I go, please? My sister will be so excited."
"You spoke his name once in your sleep."
"I never remember my dreams."
"There was so much you could have done together. He was young."
"You are not old."
"The skyscrapers. The Empire State Building."
She said with a small hesitation, "I want to see the Cheddar Gorge."
"It isn't the Grand Canyon." I pulled her down on to the bed. "I'm sorry, Phuong."
"What are you sorry for? It is a wonderful telegram. My sister..."
"Yes, go and tell your sister. Kiss me first." Her excited mouth skated over my face, and she was gone.
I thought of the first day when Pyle was sitting beside me at the Continental, with his eye on the soda-fountain across the way. Everything had gone right with me since he had died, but how I wished there existed someone to whom I could say that I was sorry.
Comment on the following
‘I don't think he will bother me again.’
‘I like happy endings too.’
‘Here's your happy ending.’