By The Sea, Book Two: Amanda (9 page)

"Is it true you were caught trying to blow
up your father's shipyard?"

"Have you at any time signed an oath of
allegiance to the Communist Party?"

"There are reports that you're living in
your studio with a married man. Do you care to comment?"

"Is this the man?"

"There are reports that you're living in
your studio with a married woman. Do you care to comment?"

Geoff was being pushed and poked and
photographed along with Amanda. Eyes smarting from the acrid smoke
of a magnesium flash, he cast his eyes beseechingly at the desk
sergeant, hoping, in his English way, that order would be made to
prevail. The sergeant just shook his head admiringly and said,
"Great copy."

Exasperated, Geoff took Amanda firmly by the
arm and smiled thinly into the teeth of the pressing horde. "Miss
Fain is a staunch patriot, an accomplished artist, and a devoted
daughter. This has all been an absurd misunderstanding. A statement
will be issued later." He began to elbow his silent charge through
the crowd.

Under her breath Amanda murmured, "I'm
surprised you didn't choke."

"Put a lid on it, Amanda," he muttered.

"Who the hell is the guy with her?" one
reporter shouted over their heads.

"Someone said her lover."

"Her lawyer? What's his name?"

"Would you spell that for us, sir?"

Amanda pulled up short like a pack mule and
flung Geoff's name at them: "Geoffrey S-e-t-o-n. His dad's a
baronet," she added with satisfaction.

"So you know that, too," said Geoff as he
yanked her back into motion and down the precinct steps. He opened
the door to his—Matt's—Brewster and more or less threw her in.
"What else do you know about me?"

"That you have a crumbling manor in
Hampshire."

He started the car and pulled out into the
traffic. "What else?" He sounded to himself like a used furniture
dealer trying to make another sale.

"That you're carrying the torch for an
American who isn't carrying the torch back." She said it quickly,
without the know-it-all tone that she'd been using to such
infuriating effect.

"Oh for God's—! How do you know that?"

Her mood became defiant again. "They put you
up in my old room."

"And you've retained the rights to rifle
through it in perpetuity?" His tone was deadly.

"Oh, don't be a jerk," she said, sullen now.
"I was looking for a lost earring—which, by the way, I found," she
added, flicking her fingers lightly at her left ear. "The letter,
with a Chicago return address, was open and on the bureau. It was
dog-eared, which told me something. If you must know, I didn't read
it. My eyes fell on the word 'pointless.' What more did I need to
know?" She ran her fingers through her short hair, the way she had
a habit of doing when she felt self-conscious. "I was right,
though, wasn't I?" she said, stealing a look at him.

"You have absolutely no right to an answer
to that question," he said angrily.

"I thought so," said Amanda, settling back
in her seat. She looked around her. "Nice car. Not yours?"

"And that's another thing. What the hell are
you doing driving without registration papers or a license? Have
you no respect for
any
of the laws in this country?"

"The Daniels is registered," she answered
with bored patience. "David must have given the papers up or
something when he got in the accident. And I left my license in my
other bag when I ran out of the house. I suppose I must have been
speeding," she continued, "because I usually am. The other
stuff—disorderly and what not—are trumped-up charges, nothing more
than simple harassment, the usual methods of a police state. You'll
notice that my friends are still in jail. I just told the cops what
I thought of the situation. Incidentally, why wasn't my lawyer
there to meet me?"

"Because your lawyer is also your father's
lawyer, and he knows which way the land lies. He called Mergate
immediately. If you expect client confidentiality, buy yourself a
new counsel."

"Yeah. Do you have any cigarettes?"

"In the glove compartment. Look, Amanda, you
just can't—how old are you, anyway?"

Twenty-four. Old enough to smoke."

"That's not what I mean and you know it.
Have you been to university? Had any formal training?"

"How insulting," she replied calmly.
"Radcliffe, as a matter of fact. BA, political science."

"Didn't they teach you that anarchy is not
the method of choice for reform?"

"No. Quite the opposite, as a matter of
fact. I don't say Anarchy I is part of their formal curriculum, but
the progressive impulse is there, if you know where to look."

"What were you planning to do with your
friends from Café Budapest? Blow up the bars of their cell?"

"I didn't have a
plan,"
she said,
hinting at the immaturity of such an approach. "I just wanted to
make a stink, to get something in the papers. And I did. I wanted
to get people thinking and talking, to shake them up."

"What exactly is it that they should be
thinking about when they see our faces scowling back at them over
morning coffee tomorrow?"

"About whether we want to continue this
build-up of warships, which besides being of dubious use to a
peace-loving world, is driving the price of bread and butter up and
the buying power of a workman's wage down. That's what I want them
to think about."

"And instead they will read the caption
beneath the photo and say to one another, 'What does an heiress
know about the price of a dozen eggs? "

"Where are we going, anyway?" she demanded,
changing the subject.

"How the devil should I know?" he answered,
irritated beyond measure. "I'm just the Fain chauffeur. You tell
me."

"Take me to my Village studio, then," she
said in a tired voice.

"As you wish, Miss Fain," he replied in a
tone somewhere between a sneer and a growl. He calculated that he
could've walked the distance between Newport and New York in the
time it was taking him to get there.

Amazingly, Amanda managed to fall asleep in
the car within half an hour. She lay huddled against the door, her
head cushioned on a stadium blanket that she'd found behind her
seat. Her big gypsy eyes were closed, her mouth composed in the
silence of sleep. For the first time it occurred to Geoff that it
could not have been pleasant, spending the night in a jail cell.
She'd acted so blasé that he'd been tempted to assume that she
spent time there regularly. Amanda Fain put up a good front.

Four bone-wearying hours later, Geoff was
reaching across Amanda's lap to throw open the passenger door.
Sleepy-eyed, she turned to him and murmured through a yawn, "If you
want to come in and freshen up..."

"No, thanks. I need a major overhaul." He
thought of his handsome suite at the Plaza with a longing bordering
on lust.

She yawned again. "It was nice of you to
give me a lift ...."

As if she'd been right on his way! Ah, well,
an expression of gratitude from Amanda Fain was a hundred times
more moving than the sight of an ordinary peasant groveling in the
dirt. "Anytime, Amanda," he replied. He had to smile when he
realized that it was the first time her name had passed his lips
aloud, and unaccompanied by an oath.

****

The morning of the first scheduled race of
the 1920 America's Cup series dawned leaden and still. Geoff felt
reasonably sure that there would be no race for lack of wind, but
he showed up aboard Sir Tom's
Victoria
anyway, just in case.
He was not the only one. Enthusiasm for the Races, bottled up for
the last six years because of the war, was great; the spectator
fleet was huge. Geoff was used to pre-race excitement; he'd been a
regular at Cowes in England until his father had been forced to
sell his yacht. He was used to the bustle of crews readying the
boats to go out and to curious landlubbers and armchair sailors
hanging around the docks, as fascinated by the sport as any
hanger-on at a thoroughbred racetrack.

But there was something quintessentially
American about
this
pre-race scene: it was bigger, noisier,
more free-spirited, more democratic than any in the British Isles.
Not that the little man failed to show up to cheer his King aboard
the royal yacht
Britannia
whenever possible. But there were
one hell of a lot more people in the New York area available to
come along and cheer.

Aboard the elegant
Victoria
there was
a lively crowd gathered around Sir Tom. He liked to boast that
informality prevailed on his yachts. Despite the fact that he'd
entertained nearly every crown head of Europe at one time or
another, he considered himself plain Tom Lipton who put on no airs
and graces when he put on a yachtsman's cap.

Geoff made his way through the crush to pay
his compliments to Lipton, automatically scanning the crowd for
faces he knew. It seemed inconceivable to him that some Fain or
other would not somehow get between him and the day's plans to view
the races. In fact, a message from Jim Fain had been left for him
at the Plaza during the previous day. Geoff had not returned the
call when he got back to his rooms. Nor did he really begin to feel
comfortable until the
Victoria
was well on her way to the
starting line to view the day's races.

A little before the start of the race
between
Resolute
and
Shamrock IV,
Lipton caught up
with Geoff again.

"Well, son, what do you think?
Shamrock
number four is twenty-five feet shorter than number
three and forty-two tons lighter, and her designer himself calls
her an 'ugly duckling'; and yet somehow I feel that number four may
just do."

"She carries a wicked area of sail, sir,
much more than
Resolute,
it seems," Geoff remarked, mentally
comparing the two yachts. "How substantial is the penalty for
that?"

"Also wicked," said Lipton with a chuckle.
"But we don't care; we've decided to go for all-out speed. What we
need now is an all-out breeze of wind." He looked around the dull
sky without much hope, and then his eye returned to his latest
darling. "Doesn't my Ugly Duckling look grand?" he asked fondly.
"Who would believe she was laid up for six years at City Island
waiting for a war to end and people's thoughts to return to more
pleasurable pursuits?"

"I seem to remember the
Shamrock
was
en route across the Atlantic for the 1914 challenge when she
learned war had been declared," said Geoff.

"Aye, and you'll never guess where she
learned it from: the crew picked up the news by wireless from a
German cruiser! I can't help thinking that
Shamrock IV
is
destined to have a special place in history because of that." He
shook his head rather sadly. "So far as I am concerned, that Auld
Mug is the most elusive piece of metal in all the world. Will I
ever lift it? I wish I knew."

"You have the best wishes of all of England,
and of a great many in the United States as well," Geoff answered
with feeling.

"And for that I feel tremendously honored.
When I arrived here just after the war, you know, I was given the
greatest reception of my life. I always say that you have to live
in America as I have done to appreciate the people here. I think
the Americans understand my great love and respect for them and are
returning the kindness."

A huge steamer in the spectator fleet was
crossing paths just then with the
Victoria
and, as if on
cue, let out half a dozen great blasts of its steam whistle in
salute to Sir Tom; its upper and lower decks, thronged with
American passengers, cheered wildly for him. It was hard to believe
that Lipton was not the American defender, so plainly adored was
he.

Before he left Geoff, Lipton winked and
said, "You'll take my advice, then?"

Puzzled, and embarrassed to appear
inattentive, Geoff said, "Which advice was that, sir?"

"Take the job. It'll do you a world of good.
I got my first here when I was fifteen and had only thirty
shillings in my pocket, and I've never regretted it."

He rejoined some of his other guests to
watch the start of the race, leaving Geoff to wonder whether a
grand conspiracy was not underway to draw him into the web of Fain
family life.

At noon the gun went off, and it soon became
apparent that in the light breeze, the American boat was the more
weatherly of the two yachts. July 15 did not seem destined to go
into the win column of Lipton's log. But then an extraordinary
event happened: the normally efficient and flawless performance by
an American crew dissolved into sloppiness after a heavy
thundershower passed over the yachts. A halyard was ordered to be
slackened on
Resolute,
but its bitter end had not been
secured.

The halyard ran up the mast, the sail fell
down the mast, and
Resolute,
although leading at the time,
was forced to withdraw. The luck of the Irish was with Sir Tom; he
had his first victory of the series—his first victory in twenty-one
years of challenges. The cheering was thunderous, and though Lipton
offered immediately to resail the race, neither the New York Yacht
Club nor anyone else on either side of the Atlantic would consider
it. He was that well loved for his sportsmanship.

One down for the old man, and two to go.

"I'm delighted, my boy. Completely
delighted. It's a chance to break into an exciting industry, and
it's not as if you have to leave behind what you learn here,
whenever you do decide to return to England."

"Oh, I've made that decision, sir: the end
of the year. If you're not agreeable to that, then I'm afraid the
job's not for me."

"Now, did I say that? I'll take what I can
get, Geoff. I'm in no position to argue. I have a stack of cables
and letters from Europe a mile high on my desk. Those inquiries
have got to be answered, and letter writing's not my strong suit.
I'll give you the general drift of things, and you can make it
right. Make it exciting. Make them want my ships. We've got the
steel, the manpower, the wherewithal. All we got to do is be able
to say so."