Alexandra Waring (64 page)

Promptly at four Alexandra, rang the bell of Lord Hargrave’s offices on South Audley Street. The offices were contained in a four-story Victorian house of red-orange brick, gray stonework, white window sash and black wrought-iron railing. The front entranceway extended out in a porch from which a large wrought-iron lantern was suspended. Alexandra was standing just past the lantern, in the recess of an enormous mahogany door. There was a single brass knob in the middle of the door and a brass mail slot to the left of it, on which was engraved:

Hargrave World Communications, Ltd.

The door was opened by a pleasant young woman who introduced herself as Antonia. She led Alexandra right upstairs. There were the sounds of telephones ringing in the house, of typewriters clacking away, but thus far there had been no sign of where these sounds might be coming from. It simply appeared to be a gracious old home of gorgeous woodwork, sedate carpets, and paintings and furniture older than the hills. Alexandra looked up the stairs; the gallery of portraits. and pictures on the stair wall continued upward for another two flights. On the second landing Antonia led her down the hall, knocked softly on a set of mahogany parlor doors and slid them slightly apart. “Alexandra Waring, Lord Hargrave,” she said softly. And then she nodded and stepped back, sliding the one door back for Alexandra to pass through.

She stepped into a very large, wonderful room that was part library, part office. At the far end of it were tremendous windows in a bay, looking out over South Audley Street and down Stanhope Gate, and then the room widened slightly, with bookcases from ceiling to floor, and a few leather chairs, lamps and tables. There was a very large Persian rug, dark wood floors gleaming at the edges of it.

But this end of the room was a square sort of office, with a heavy carpet down, and there was Lord Hargrave’s ornate and obviously very old desk that had papers piled in mahogany boxes all over the place. There were a few shelves along the walls, holding books and things—a brass sextant, a crystal globe—and there were several old paintings. There were a large leather couch, coffee table and chairs, and back to the side of the doors was a huge wardrobe, whose doors were opened at the moment, displaying a four—foot television screen inside.

“My dear, hello, how very wonderful it is to see you,” Lord Hargrave said, coming around his desk and holding out his hand to her.

As Alexandra took a step forward, one of the floorboards beneath the carpeting creaked.

“Hello, Lord Hargrave,” she said, taking his hand.

He smiled, bowed slightly and kissed it, making her smile. “One of the few pleasures of growing older in England,” he said, winking as he straightened up. “Certainly the weather is not. Here, my dear, do please sit down. I cannot tell you how very glad I was to hear you were coming,” he continued, walking over to the double doors and sliding them open. “Ah! Miss Dillon, wonderful—I was just coming to look for you.” He stepped back as a woman rolled in a tea cart. “I hope you don’t mind if Miss Dillon does the honors, Alexandra. I’m afraid I’m quite particular when it comes to my tea.”

“No, of course not,” Alexandra said, sitting on the edge of her chair, legs together to the side, hands folded in her lap. ‘This is a wonderful treat.”

As Miss Dillon poured tea, Lord Hargrave talked a little about milk subsidies (his family estate was used primarily as dairy land now); asked Alexandra’s opinion of how the American subsidy program had gone so wrong (“You are, are you not, my dear, from a farming background?”); and answered Alexandra’s question about the building they were in.

“Oh, my, no,” Lord Hargrave said. “Our home was in Regent’s Park. This was the home of my grandfather’s mistress, Mrs. Rivers. That’s her portrait over there. Interesting woman, really. Of course, it was not public knowledge, the relationship Mrs. Rivers maintained with my grandfather—though perhaps some people were aware of it. One never knows, does one?” He chuckled. “There was a Mr. Rivers, or so she always maintained, though most people found it a trifle odd that anyone could be posted to India without leave for fifty-seven years.”

And then, finally, he eased into the subject of the purchase of DBS News, during which time he rose out of his chair and began to walk back and forth, discussing the structure of the new company if they were to buy it. Alexandra listened to him, sipping her tea, nodding and murmuring assent as he went along. And then Lord Hargrave abruptly stopped in his tracks and turned to her, tilting his head to the side. “You’re not very keen on buying DBS News, are you? Jackson was, initially. But I could tell yesterday he was cooling on the idea and now here, with you, the idea seems to be positively freezing.”

Alexandra had to laugh a little.

“Well, no matter,” Lord Hargrave said with a wave of his hand, moving to sit down again, “I was only trying to do my friend Jackson a favor. And I suppose I still am—you are going to use our offer to your advantage, I hope.”

“They’re sending Cassy over tonight,” Alexandra told him. “To represent Darenbrook Communications.”

“Oh, good,” he said, clapping his hands. “The whole show. What fun—I’d love to see what you get out of them.” He leaned forward. “Cassy’s in on it too, I suppose. I imagine she’s much fonder of all of you than she is of the board.”

Alexandra laughed. “You probably know more than I do about what’s going on right now. All I know is that Jackson asked me to come here and listen to your offer.”

“But you knew he wasn’t really going to buy it, didn’t you?” Lord Hargrave asked her. “No offense, my dear, but DBS News isn’t worth very much without the related companies—the cross-resource aspect, you understand.”

“Not worth much to you,” Alexandra said, correcting him.

He smiled. “You are very loyal, aren’t you?”

“I know what it’s worth,” Alexandra said.

“No, I meant to Jackson. You’re very loyal to him.”

“I owe him a great deal,” she said. “And that’s why I’m here. Otherwise I don’t think it’s a good idea for me or any DBS News employee to vie for ownership of the institution we work for.”

“Really,” Lord Hargrave said. “You don’t believe that liberating journalists from corporate types in management is a good thing?”

She blinked several times, leaning forward to put her cup and saucer down on the tray. Then she sat back and looked at him. “I don’t believe in journalists as their own profit-oriented business managers, no. The temptations on many levels in such an arrangement are too much. And speaking for myself, I think I have a long enough road back to being a first-class reporter again as it is. I’ve had to do things—and involve myself in things—in this past year on a business level that I hope I never have to do to such an extent again.”

She shrugged. “But I was hired to launch a new news network on commercial television, and so I’ve had to involve myself in commercial things. And lately I feel the detriment, as a journalist. Too much time being concerned with management, policy—even too much time spent in planning meetings—starts to affect my outlook. Many times, in the past few months, I’ve felt as though I’m somewhere way out there”—she held out her right hand—”while the world is way over here—” She held out her left hand. “And we’re just
looking
at each other,
admiring
each other, but not interacting the way we should be.

“But you know,” she added suddenly, leaning forward, “one of the most wonderful things about my tour across America is that it makes me know—with every cell in my body—that we’re on the right track. And sometimes
…
” She stopped herself.

“Sometimes,” Lord Hargrave said, nodding once.

“Sometimes I think that the reason why I keep getting shot at is—because Somebody doesn’t want me wasting any more time trying to become a celebrity,” she said, laughing. “Like—here’s the shortcut kid, now, right now,
now
, this very day, it’s time to put your all into introducing the United States to the United States in the context of its very complicated self. And to an extent we’ve started to do that. Our affiliate reporters, rough as some of them may be—but only for now, because we’re training them and they’re getting better every day—our affiliate reporters don’t talk like TV people. They talk like reporters who live in a certain part of the country, a part they know like the back of their hands and want to introduce to viewers.”

Lord Hargrave was smiling.

“We are so diverse in the States,” she went on, “I really believe that our way is the only way to properly educate people about the country we live in, so they can really understand national news. Understand the basic areas where we hang together as a country, and the reasons behind our constant conflicts. And a big part of my job—whether I like it or not—is to provide, along with my fellow New York editors, that kind of culturally bland glamour stuff that people seem to need if they’re to watch network news. I’m the lure DBS uses to hook them, so we can drag them into the process of understanding the news until they learn enough so it becomes easy and second nature—like local news is for them. If viewers can’t read, fine. If they’re relatively uneducated and frightened of the world outside their town or city or block or front door,
fine
. All I’ve got to do is strut my stuff past their window and hope they invite me inside—and if they do…” She laughed. “It’s all over. Our guys take over. Open the door and in marches America, accents and all!”

Lord. Hargrave laughed.

“Because, you see,” she said, shifting in her seat, gesturing with her hand, “if we teach a little something about different pockets of America each night—in our stories, in the way our reporters talk and walk and see the community around them—over the weeks and months viewers just start to
know
things. They get educated. And it’s not from remembering specifics from our newscast, it’s from the whole DBS News process. Ours is really an endeavor to use broadcast commercial television to revitalize viewers’ curiosity, their capacity to learn, and to break down that resistance that comes with not knowing how to read properly, for example—”

“None of which has much to do with running shareholders’ meetings in the newsroom,” Lord Hargrave said.

Alexandra smiled, shaking her head. “No. It doesn’t.”

Lord Hargrave reached for a biscuit, took a small bite and slowly chewed it, watching her carefully. “I know quite a bit about you. Are you aware of that?”

Alexandra shrugged.

“Does that mean yes or no?” Lord Hargrave asked her.

“I know you’ve made some inquiries about me,” she said.

“And I’ve been told you are quite trustworthy,” he said.

“Yes,” she said. “I am.”

“So you would keep a confidence, if I were to ask you to.”

“A personal one, yes,” she said. She smiled. “I can’t promise anything if it has to do with the fate of the world, though.”

“If I were to make you a proposition, Alexandra,” Lord Hargrave said, “and you chose not to accept it—could you maintain a confidence about that?”

“You mean, don’t tell Jackson.”

Lord Hargrave nodded. “No one need be upset if nothing were to come of it.”

Alexandra smiled, shaking her head. “This is why I would never make it in business. You guys play games with rules I have never understood.”

He smiled. “Someday you must ask Jackson about how it happened that I hired Dr. Kessler and he showed up for work at Darenbrook Communications,” he said. “We’ve played many games over the years, Jackson and I, but we’ve remained good friends. And we’ve made good money too.” He paused. “But this is not a game for you, Alexandra. This is what’s known as the opportunity of a lifetime.”

Alexandra waited.

Lord Hargrave pressed his index finger against his mouth, looking at her. Then he lowered his hand and said, “I would like you to do for me what you are doing at DBS, only I wish you to do it internationally. English language, of course, but we’ll do four translations to start French, German, Spanish and Japanese.”

Alexandra sat there, her expression unreadable.

Lord Hargrave smiled. “That’s right, my dear. I would like you to anchor my global newscast.”

49
Alexandra and Cassy Have a Talk

Alexandra called the Connaught at six o’clock from Lord Hargrave’s offices and found that, yes, indeed, Catherine Cochran had checked in.

“Hi,” Alexandra said.

“Hi,” Cassy said. “You don’t suppose I could sneak to a play sometime between dinner and the studio, do you? Diana Rigg is in something somewhere.”

“Ah, yes,” Alexandra said, “something somewhere. I hear it’s supposed to be very you—know.”

“You’re sounding uncharacteristically jokey, my dear,” Cassy said, “which makes me suspect it’s going to cost Darenbrook Communications plenty to keep DBS News.”

“Enough to be interesting,” Alexandra cheerfully assured her.

Instead of just meeting for dinner, Cassy asked Alexandra if she wouldn’t mind going for a walk first, to get out and wander around and get some exercise. Alexandra thought it was a wonderful idea and went back to the Ritz to change into her “airport” shoes. She met Cassy downstairs and the women set out from the front door of the Ritz, heading west on Piccadilly, along Green Park. They debated about cutting down through the park to Buckingham Palace but decided to wander on into Belgravia instead and promptly got lost. The fact that they had neglected to bring a map seemed to be a source of delight for them both. “You, Alexandra?” Cassy said. “You who still carries a map of New York City?”

“That’s just for emergencies, subway and bus routes,” she said. “I always carry one for whatever city I’m in, like any good reporter should. But I decided to leave my map in my work bag tonight, figuring that
you
, certainly, would bring one.” She stopped, gesturing to the intersection they had reached: Pont Street, Chesham Place, Belgrave Mews, Lowndes Place. “Which way?” Cassy pointed in the direction of Pont Street and so they walked that way, and Alexandra sighed, smiling, slinging her arm through Cassy’s, pressing her shoulder into hers. “I frankly love the idea of not knowing where I’m going—for an hour or two. Know what I mean?”

Cassy smiled, walking along. “Yes.” She looked at her. “And it must be a relief not to be recognized.”

“You mean it’s nice that everyone’s looking at you again,” Alexandra said, laughing.

“No one’s looking at me,” Cassy said. “No one looks at a forty-three-year-old woman walking with a thirty-year-old who looks like you.”

“Well, they’re looking at this forty-three-year-old,” Alexandra told her. “Look at that man there. What is it about blondes, anyway?”

“Good evening,” the man said pleasantly, walking past. He had only glanced at Alexandra and had said it to Cassy.

“See?” Alexandra said, giving her a slight shove, making them weave on the sidewalk.

They had fun. It was a warm, gray-sky summer evening, and it was London, so everything seemed astonishingly attractive and neat and tidy, if not slightly magical. For a while they talked about what new concessions Cassy thought she could get out of the board for DBS News, but that conversation somehow slipped away to Cassy’s son, Henry, and Cassy adjusting to the idea that he now had a life of his own, quite separate from hers.

They knew they were in Knightsbridge, then, because they stumbled upon Harrods. They decided to continue down Brompton Road, only to discover at the Victoria and Albert Museum that they were somehow not on Brompton Road anymore but on Cromwell Road. “Now where did it go?” Cassy said, turning around, scratching her head.

“Exhibition Road!” Alexandra suddenly said. “Oh, I want this come on, I want to see something. But wait—” she said a second later, yanking Cassy back to a stop. “Which way is north? Oh, this way, I think,” she said, turning them around and charging onward, pulling Cassy along. And so they walked up Exhibition Road between the Natural History Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

“I take it we’re in Kensington,” Cassy said later, standing on the traffic island in the middle of Kensington Gore Road that Alexandra had dragged her onto. The light had changed and traffic was flying past them on both sides.

“Okay,” Alexandra said, taking hold of her arm with one hand, “now look at that and tell me what you see.”

Cassy looked, “I see Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park,” she said. And indeed, they were looking at an entrance leading into the magnificent acres of green.

“No,” Alexandra said, “I meant the gate. What do you think of it?” Then she frowned, looking up and down the road. “I think this is the one. This is Exhibition Road, right?”

“Right,” Cassy said.

In comparison with others in this part of London, the very tall, black wrought-iron gate in front of them seemed a bit plain—though it was quite stately and elegant all the same, as black wrought-iron English any things tend to be. There were two inner carriageways, through which one lane of traffic was entering the park and the other leaving it; and there were two outer walkways for pedestrians. Flanking the carriageways on high were four lanterns.

“Do you think it’s lovely, strong and expedient?” Alexandra said.

“What?” Cassy said, laughing, looking at her as if she were crazy.

“Do you think it’s lovely, strong and expedient?” Alexandra repeated, laughing too. Her eyes were bright, happy.

“Okay—sure,” Cassy said, looking back at the gate. “But why?”

“Lord Hargrave says I’m like that gate.”

“What?”

“He did. He said I was like the Alexandra Gate—lovely, strong and expedient. That’s what he said.”

Cassy looked at the gate and then back at Alexandra. “Looks like the ‘No Trucks Unless Authorized’ Gate to me,” she said, referring to the sign on it.

“No, come on—that must be it,” Alexandra said as the light changed, pulling Cassy across the road. “He told me where it was.”

They walked through the gate and looked around on the other side. And, sure enough, there was a sign:

ALEXANDRA GATE

“Huh,” Alexandra said, standing there looking at it. “So that’s me. That’s what I’m like. Interesting.” She looked at Cassy, closing one eye. “Expedient?”

Cassy was looking around. “I think the concept of traffic running through you may be appropriate. Where exactly are we, anyway?”

Alexandra turned, pointing east. “I think that’s the Hilton over there.”

Cassy looked. There were four tennis courts, and then there were people playing soccer, and there were acres and acres of grass and trees and way, way, way off in the distance there were some buildings marking the east end of the park. “So what does the Hilton mean?”

“It means the Ritz is straight down there somewhere,” Alexandra said. “But let’s walk in the park some.”

“The park?” Cassy said, looking at her.

“The park,” Alexandra said. “But you’d rather go see Diana Rigg in something-somewhere, right?” She looked at her watch. “And I want to take a nap before going to the studio, so maybe—”

“No, no, let’s walk some,” Cassy said. “We need to talk some more about DBS. And I need to talk to you too—about something else.”

Alexandra looked at her. “About
…
?”

“Me,” Cassy said.

“Great,” Alexandra said, gesturing to the park. “There’s a restaurant in here somewhere. We can get something to eat.”

They looked at a posted directory of the park and then followed Exhibition Road in to a rather unusual-looking complex overlooking the Serpentine. One half was a kind of concrete and glass space-age dwelling housing a restaurant; and next door was a one-floor glass structure that looked a little like a carnival fun house with its multicolored lights. The sign said this latter building was the Pergola Café, a family restaurant.

They chose the presumably nonfamily restaurant and were immediately glad they did, for inside it was very quiet and had a wonderful panoramic view. The maitre d’ seated them at a small booth for two by the window, and they were very happy with it. They looked out over a grassy backyard, dotted with white wild flowers, the outer edge of which was beautifully landscaped with leafy trees and flowering bushes. And then there was a steep embankment, dropping down to the waters of the Serpentine. To the left was a stone bridge across the water; to the right, in the distance, there were boaters rowing in to shore.

It was lovely and cool, the evening drawing quickly toward night.

*

The only surprise Cassy had about the concessions Alexandra wanted from Darenbrook Communications for DBS News, as she sat there making some notes—increased funding, moving up the schedule of expansion, overseas news liaisons, etc.—concerned Alexandra’s mysterious employees Mr. Graham and Miss Moffat, whom Alexandra had been paying out of her own pocket. Alexandra wanted them on the DBS News payroll, heading their own division called Research and Development, where they would recycle the DBS newscasts for subsidiary rights income, both domestically and internationally, and she wanted

“But Mr. Graham is seventy years old, Alexandra!” Cassy said.

“Seventy—one,” Alexandra said.

“And Miss Moffat is like—like—”

“Sixty-eight,” Alexandra said.

Cassy looked at her.

“And their one hundred and thirty-eight years of experience are going to make us some money—to say nothing of producing some very prestigious projects,” Alexandra said.

“Like what?” Cassy said.

“Like packaging Gary’s weather segments as a natural phenomena video for junior high and high school science classes,” Alexandra said. “He’s already got a deal with
Scholastic
lined up.”

Cassy looked at her.

“And Sony’s interested in a series of videos depicting contemporary America on a regional basis. You know, edit together a year of stories pertaining to specific areas. They’re interested in using it in their orientation program for employees they send here to work—and Mr. Graham says there are fifty-six other international corporations that want to talk to us about it too.”

Cassy’s mouth was open.

“And then he has this whole airline deal cooking,” Alexandra said. “We’ll produce a weekly summary newscast—out of our regular ones —an hour long, and they’re going to use it on their international flights coming into the States, to catch people up on what’s going on in America. And so then he thought, well, why can’t we use the same hour video for schools and libraries? So then he started talking to a friend of his at—”

“I don’t believe this,” Cassy said. “Mr. Graham?”

“Oh, he’s wonderful, Cassy—and the stories he has to tell! He was in newsreels and he has that kind of mind—you know, waste not, want not. His whole mind is oriented toward using every little scrap of good footage for as many things as he can. He’s been doing a lot of those war series for cable, using the old newsreel footage. And some video series. And Miss Moffat is sort of his sounding board, but she also makes a lot of the calls—people are quite disarmed by her. And all they’re going to need is one young, smart producer and a couple of good secretaries. We can use our same editing staff. Actually, Hex has been helping them on the sly already. But I want them on the payroll. And I want to pay them well, Cassy. And I want them to have titles and I want to announce it in the press and really make a big deal out of it.”

“Why?”

Alexandra looked at her. “Because I think they’re wonderful and deserve to have a fuss made over them.” And then she added, “And DBS News is not staying at Darenbrook Communications unless you approve it. Now. And I know you can approve it because I was going to ask you to anyway before all this stuff started—and if you said no, I was going to do it anyway out of my syndication money from Jessica’s show.”

Cassy threw up her hands. “Langley was wrong,” Cassy said, laughing, bringing her hands down to the table, “you are a tsarina.”

They smiled at each other, gazing at each other across the table.

“Okay,” Cassy said then, making a note on her pad. “Consider Research and Development approved.”

They ate supper, talking over various other aspects of DBS News, but then that business was done and Alexandra asked Cassy what she thought was going to happen to Jackson. What he would do, and if there was anything she should or could do for him.

Cassy stopped eating then, sighing, looking out the window.

“What’s the matter?” Alexandra said.