Adam's Daughter (40 page)

Arthur left.
Garrett heard his father’s footsteps going up the stairs and the closing of a door.

H
e was filled with a simmering anger. Right from the start, his father had dismissed the North American expansion plan. But now he was not only endorsing it, he was all but taking it over, calling the shots and effectively reducing Garrett again to little more than a glorified minion.

He leaned his head back on the sofa. The
long flight to London and the drive to Durdans was finally catching up to him. He closed his eyes and his thoughts returned to Kellen.

He could feel her, smell her, and taste her
, just as he could feel the crisp salty air of Carmel. Every muscle in his body ached to get back to her and California.

His
father was right about the Bryant chain. It was the ideal property. Maybe Father is right about her, too, Garrett thought, maybe she can be convinced to sell. Maybe together they could... 

He open
ed his eyes.

Now who’s being sentimental
?

He rubbed his eyes and got to his feet. He glanced down and noticed his glass sitting on the table in a ring of water. He looked to the desk and saw the other empty glass where his father had placed it
—- in a silver coaster.

Garrett picked up his glass and instinctively reached out to wipe the table, but it was too late. A faint gray ring
was burned into the old mahogany.

The weekend passed slowly, as time always did at Durdans. Garrett tried his best to occupy himself but in a short time he was restless with boredom. There was no more need for his presence; Arthur had obviously given him his orders.

By Sunday afternoon, Garrett was looking forward to the drive back to London. He had a ticket in hand for the Monday mo
rning flight to New York.

Just after tea, Arthur surprised him by asking him if he wanted to take a walk. They left the house, striking out over the grounds and heading toward the woods. The day was chilly and gray, and Arthur was done up in a dapper tweed jacket and cap. He carried a silver-headed walking stick, which he jabbed into the soft earth at precise intervals as they walked
silently along.

They entered the soft gloom of the woods, passing under the branches of the old trees and over the graves of racehorses, buried there by a former prime minister, Lord Rosebery, one of Durdans’ previous owners. They stopped occasionally at one tree or another, for Arthur to point out the plaques put there by the people who had planted the trees
—- Queen Mary, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia, and all the other royals who had been house guests during Durdans’ illustrious history.

Garrett had seen the plaques before, but he had never paid them much heed. Now, as he listened to Arthur read each one, he realized he had been wrong about his father’s lack of attachment to the old house. It had been the first thing Arthur purchased when his fortune was assured. He had been barely thirty at the time, and a year later he had married Helen.

Garrett glanced over at Arthur, wondering if his father harbored any regrets, wishing he felt comfortable enough to ask him.

They emerged into the open. Arthur paused and pointed the tip of his stick toward a sweeping willow tree. “That,” he said, “was started from a cutting of a tree growing near Napoleon’s grave at St. Helena.”

“I didn’t know that,” Garrett said.

“There are a lot of things you don’t know about this place.”

They walked on, down the hill to the lane. Being outdoors had a calming effect on Garrett. He had not walked around the grounds since he was a teenager, and now he found himself unexpectedly filled with a deep sense of nostalgia.

“This makes me think of derby day,” he said quietly, glancing at Arthur. "Remember how we used to come down here and walk to the race with the crowd?”

Arthur nodded. “I carried you on my shoulders. I was afraid you’d get swept away.”

“The first time you took me to the derby I was eight,” Garrett said. “You gave me a quid to bet.”

“And you got so angry because they sent you away from the window, saying you were too young,” Arthur said, with a smile.

“My horse won,” Garrett said.

“You always had an uncanny ability to pick the winners.”

They paused and Arthur looked
up at the gray sky. “It’s getting late. We’d better start back,” he said, turning around.

They began their walk back toward the house.

“You know, Garrett,” Arthur said after a long silence. “The expansion plan. It’s a damn good idea.” Arthur didn’t look up, and the walking stick, poking at the ground, didn’t miss a beat. “I’m quite proud of you.”

The words so surprised Garrett that for a moment he wasn’t even sure what he had heard. In all the years he had worked at his father’s side he had seldom heard such direct praise, especially in recent years when Garrett’s own struggle for power had seemed to cause Arthur to cling to his throne more tightly.

Garrett found himself staring at the stick as they walked.

“Thank you, Father,
” he said. “I appreciate your confidence. I won’t disappoint you.”

They walked on for a while, saying nothing.

“How long are you staying?” Arthur asked.

“I have a flight to New York in the morning.”

Arthur stopped, turning to look at him. “Your mother and I would like it if you’d stay on a while, Garrett.”

“I have to get back to San Francisco, Father.”

Arthur’s fingers, grasping the walking stick, flexed. “It’s been some time since you’ve been at Durdans, and we...I was hoping we’d have some time together. Go riding, perhaps.”

It was quickly growing dark but Garrett could see the hopeful look in Arthur’s eyes.

“Of course, Father,” he said. “We’ll go riding.”

They stood looking at each other for a moment,
both knowing that it would not happen. Then they turned and started up the hill and soon the house came into view, its lights warm in the gray dusk.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

Looking back, no one could say when it was that the quiet neighborhood of old Victorian homes near Golden Gate Park became the mecca for a new culture. It had started slowly, with just a few little shops with strange names. A boutique called House of Richard began selling Mexican sandals and ponchos. A place called the Mnasidika stocked mod clothing. And Blind Jerry’s hawked health foods.

But it was a coffee shop on Hayes Street called the Blue Unicorn that became the unofficial community center. There, a person could find a good chess game, a piano to play, free secondhand clothes, or a sagging sofa for a quiet hour of reading. The owner began to issue handbills spelling out the Unicorn’s philosophy: “We have a private revolution...a striving for realization of one’s relationship to life and other people.”

Something strange was happening. When word finally made it across town to the
San Francisco Times
, a reporter was dispatched to the Unicorn.

He came back overflowing with adjectives about a “bohemian culture blooming in our midst.” The wire services picked up the
Times’
story, and soon other newspapers across the country were printing stories about the little nonconformist coffeehouse. And the quiet neighborhood of old Victorian homes was never the same.

By the spring of 1966, the Unicorn’s bohemian
philosophy had grown into a rough consensus of new sub-culture. And its geographic heart was the intersection of two streets -- Haight-Ashbury.

Haight-Ashbury had its own art, led by avant-garde theater and mime groups. It had its own music, led by the Grateful Dead, whose rambling Victorian house had become a shrine for pilgrim musicians.
It had its own economy, based on drugs. It had its own fashions, slogans, language, and its own unique spirit.

Soon, thousands of young people
-- a motley army of dropouts and runaways -- were pouring into the Haight in cars, vans and motorcycles, and by busload from the Greyhound Terminal on Seventh Street. Eventually, they found their way to Hippie Hill in Golden Gate Park, or to the Diggers’ Free Food truck, parked under the eucalyptus trees in the Panhandle.

The curious straights and pretenders came, too. High school students from Burlingame would park mom’s station
wagon just outside the perimeters, ditch their shoes and walk barefoot into paradise. Faces from the society pages would wander through the hip stores.

And then came the tourists. Every hour, Gray Line tour buses made the journey from the downtown hotels out to the “Hashberry.” It was called “The Hippie Hop,” six bucks a head. Operators hyped it as “a safari through psychedelia...the only foreign tour within the continental United States.”

It was a grand party. No admission fee, no questions asked. And everyone was invited.

Tyler stood, leaning up against a building in front of the Psychedelic Shop
. He had been standing in the same spot for an hour, just watching the parade.

He felt so good this mo
rning. The sun was warm on his shoulders and from somewhere nearby came the soporific sound of the new Beatles’ song “Strawberry Fields.” And the joint he had smoked an hour ago had left a pleasant lingering high.

He felt the back pocket of his jeans. The other joint was still there if he needed it. He hardly ever smoked the stuff, but he liked having it on hand to give away. It was a sure-fire way of making friends.

He pushed his pink-tinted wire rims up on his nose. He didn’t need the glasses but he wore them because they were part of the look. The look was important: flare-bottomed secondhand jeans, an old fatigue jacket, and beads hanging over his bare chest. He used to have a pet tarantula that he let wander over his shoulders, just to see the looks on people’s faces. The spider met its demise one night in the crush of a Beau Brummels concert at the Fillmore.

No one ever guessed he was only thirteen. He told everyone he was sixteen, and here in the Haight no one ever bugged him.

Tyler brushed his hair out of his eyes. People often commented on his handsome looks and tall slender body. But his shoulder-length corn silk hair was his best feature. Girls envied him for it. Even guys noticed it. If you were a chick, I’d go after you myself, his friend Katz joked all the time.

Katz. He was supposed to be here by now.

Last night, Tyler had given him some money because Katz claimed he could lay his hands on some LSD. Since the state had made LSD illegal last fall it had been getting harder to come by, but Katz said he could get some Owsley tabs, the best around. Tyler had never tried acid and the idea scared him, but Katz promised him it would be fine.

Katz was always sponging off people
—- dope, money, food -—and Tyler was always there to oblige. It was a small price to pay for Katz’s friendship. Katz was nineteen and he was the lead guitarist for the Katzenjammer Kids. He was going to be the next Jerry Garcia.

Tyler sighed
and scanned the street again. Katz was not going to show. Tyler stuck his hands in his jacket and sauntered off toward the
Oracle
office.

Tyler had drifted into the
Oracle
office several months ago by accident, and after hanging around the periphery he fell into the job of running errands. The
Oracle
was the official newspaper of the Haight and it made Tyler feel as if he were part of something big and important. It was a place to go after school because he couldn’t stand going home to the big gloomy house on Divisadero.

Often he stayed instead at Katz’s place, an old Victorian on Pine Street that Katz shared with fifteen other people. It had faded leather wallpaper, window seats and stained-glass windows
. It was filled with music, dirty dishes, and strangers making love on mattresses on the floor.

Tyler pushed open the door of the
Oracle
office, and went over to Chas, the corpulent balding man who was in charge of printing and distribution.