Edge of Eternity (92 page)

She dipped a French fry into ketchup. ‘Sure of what?’

‘That I want this to be permanent.’

She froze with the French fry halfway to her mouth, then put it back on the plate. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I want us to be together always. I want us to live together.’

‘Live together . . . how?’

‘Beep,’ he said.

‘Still here.’

He reached across the table and took her hand. ‘Would you think about maybe getting married?’

‘Oh, my God,’ she said.

‘I know it’s crazy, I know.’

‘It’s not crazy,’ she said. ‘But it’s sudden.’

‘Does that mean you want to? Get married?’

‘You’re right. We’re soulmates. I’ve never had half this much fun with a boyfriend.’

She was still not answering the question. He said slowly and distinctly: ‘I love you. Will you marry me?’

She hesitated for a long moment, then she said: ‘Hell, yes.’

*  *  *

‘Don’t even ask me,’ said Woody Dewar angrily. ‘You two are not getting married.’

He was a tall man, dressed in a tweed jacket with a button-down shirt and a tie. Dave had to work hard not to be intimidated.

Beep said: ‘How did you know?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘My creep of a brother told you,’ Beep said. ‘What a dick I was to confide in him.’

‘There’s no need for bad language.’

They were in the drawing room of the Dewars’ Victorian mansion on Gough Street in the Nob Hill district. The handsome old furniture and expensive but faded curtains reminded Dave of the house in Great Peter Street. Dave and Beep sat together on the red velvet couch, Bella was in an antique leather chair, and Woody stood in front of the carved stone fireplace.

Dave said: ‘I know it’s sudden, but I have obligations: recording in London, a tour of Australia, and more.’

‘Sudden?’ said Woody. ‘It’s totally irresponsible! The mere fact that you can make the suggestion at all, after a week of dating, proves that you’re nowhere near mature enough for marriage.’

Dave said: ‘I hate to boast, but you force me to say that I’ve been living independently from my parents for two years; in that time I’ve built up a multi-million-dollar international business, and although I’m not as rich as people imagine, I am able to keep your daughter in comfort.’

‘Beep is seventeen! And so are you. She can’t marry without my permission, and I’m not giving it. And I’m betting Lloyd and Daisy will take the same attitude to you, young Dave.’

Beep said: ‘In some states you can get married at eighteen.’

‘You’re not going anywhere like that.’

‘What are you going to do, Daddy, put me in a nunnery?’

‘Are you threatening to elope?’

‘Just pointing out that, in the end, you don’t really have the power to stop us.’

She was right. Dave had checked, at the San Francisco public library on Larkin Street. The age of majority was twenty-one, but several states allowed women to marry at eighteen without parental consent. And in Scotland the age was sixteen. In practice, it was difficult for parents to prevent the marriage of two people who were determined.

But Woody said: ‘Don’t you bet on that. This is not going to happen.’

Dave said mildly: ‘We don’t want to quarrel with you about this, but I think Beep’s just saying that yours is not the only opinion that counts here.’

He thought his words were inoffensive, and he had spoken in a courteous tone of voice, but that seemed to infuriate Woody more. ‘Get out of this house before I throw you out.’

Bella intervened for the first time. ‘Stay where you are, Dave.’

Dave had not moved. Woody had a bad leg from a war wound: he was not throwing anyone anywhere.

Bella turned to her husband. ‘Darling, twenty-one years ago you sat in this room and confronted my mother.’

‘I wasn’t seventeen, I was twenty-five.’

‘Mother accused you of causing the breaking-off of my engagement to Victor Rolandson. She was right: you were the cause of it, though at that point you and I had spent only one evening together. We had met at Dave’s mother’s party, after which you went off to invade Normandy and I didn’t see you for a year.’

Beep said: ‘One evening? What did you do to him, Mom?’

Bella looked at her daughter, hesitated, then said: ‘I blew him in a park, honey.’

Dave was astonished. Bella and Woody? It was unimaginable!

Woody protested: ‘Bella!’

‘This is no time to mince words, Woody, dear.’

Beep said: ‘On the first date? Wow, Mom! Way to go!’

Woody said: ‘For God’s sake . . .’

Bella said: ‘My darling, I’m just trying to remind you of what it was like to be young.’

‘I didn’t propose marriage right away!’

‘That’s true, you were painfully slow.’

Beep giggled and Dave smiled.

Woody said to Bella: ‘Why are you undermining me?’

‘Because you’re being just a little pompous.’ She took his hand, smiled, and said: ‘We were in love. So are they. Lucky us, lucky them.’

Woody became a little less angry. ‘So we should let them do anything they like?’

‘Certainly not. But perhaps we can compromise.’

‘I don’t see how.’

‘Suppose we tell them to ask us again in a year. In the meantime, Dave will be welcome to come and live here, in our house, whenever he can get a break from working with the group. While he’s here he can share Beep’s bed, if that’s what they want.’

‘Certainly not!’

‘They’re going to do it, either here or elsewhere. Don’t fight battles you can’t win. And don’t be a hypocrite. You slept with me before we were married, and you slept with Joanne Rouzrokh before you met me.’

Woody got up. ‘I’ll think about it,’ he said, and he walked out of the room.

Bella turned to Dave. ‘I’m not giving orders, Dave, either to you or to Beep. I’m asking you – begging you – to be patient. You’re a good man from a fine family, and I will be happy when you marry my daughter. But please wait a year.’

Dave looked at Beep. She nodded.

‘All right,’ said Dave. ‘A year.’

*  *  *

On the way out of the hostel in the morning, Jasper checked his pigeonhole. There were two letters. One was a blue airmail envelope addressed in his mother’s graceful handwriting. The other had a typed address. Before he could open them he was called. ‘Telephone for Jasper Murray!’ He stuffed both envelopes into the inside pocket of his jacket.

The caller was Mrs Salzman. ‘Good morning, Mr Murray.’

‘Hello, Blue Eyes.’

‘Are you wearing a tie, Mr Murray?’ she said.

Ties had become unfashionable, and anyway, a clerk-typist was not required to be smart. ‘No,’ he said.

‘Put one on. Herb Gould wants to see you at ten.’

‘He does? Why?’

‘There’s a vacancy for a researcher on
This Day.
I showed him your clippings.’

‘Thank you – you’re an angel!’

‘Put on a tie.’ Mrs Salzman hung up.

Jasper returned to his room and put on a clean white shirt and a sober dark tie. Then he put his jacket and topcoat back on and went to work.

At the news-stand in the lobby of the skyscraper, he bought a small box of chocolates for Mrs Salzman.

He went to the offices of
This Day
at ten minutes to ten. Fifteen minutes later, a secretary took him to Gould’s office.

‘Good to meet you,’ Gould said. ‘Thanks for coming in.’

‘I’m glad to be here.’ Jasper guessed that Gould had no memory of their conversation in the elevator.

Gould was reading the assassination edition of
The Real Thing.
‘In your résumé it says you started this newspaper.’

‘Yes.’

‘How did that come about?’

‘I was working on the official university student newspaper,
St Julian’s News
.’ Jasper’s nervousness receded as he began to talk. ‘I applied for the post of editor, but it went to the sister of the previous editor.’

‘So you did it in a fit of pique.’

Jasper grinned. ‘Partly, yes, though I felt sure I could do a better job than Valerie. So I borrowed twenty-five pounds and started a rival paper.’

‘And how did it work out?’

‘After three issues we were selling more than
St Julian’s News.
And we made a profit, whereas
St Julian’s News
was subsidized.’ This was only slightly exaggerated.
The Real Thing
had just about broken even over a year.

‘That’s a real achievement.’

‘Thank you.’

Gould held up the
New York Post
clipping of the interview with Walli. ‘How did you get this story?’

‘What had happened to Walli wasn’t a secret. It had already appeared in the German press. But in those days he was not a pop star. If I may say so . . .’

‘Go on.’

‘I believe the art of journalism is not always finding out facts. Sometimes it’s
realizing
that certain already-known facts, written up the right way, add up to a big story.’

Gould nodded agreement. ‘All right. Why do you want to switch from print to television?’

‘We know that a good photograph on the front page sells more copies than the best headline. Moving pictures are even better. No doubt there will always be a market for long in-depth newspaper articles, but for the foreseeable future most people are going to get their news from television.’

Gould smiled. ‘No argument here.’

The speaker on his desk beeped and his secretary said: ‘Mr Thomas is calling from the Washington bureau.’

‘Thanks, sweetie. Jasper, good talking to you. We’ll be in touch.’ He picked up the phone. ‘Hey, Larry, what’s up?’

Jasper left the office. The interview had gone well, but it had ended with frustrating suddenness. He wished he had had the chance to ask how soon he would hear. But he was a supplicant: no one was worried about how he felt.

He returned to the radio station. While he was at the interview, his job had been done by the secretary who regularly relieved him at lunchtime. Now he thanked her and took over. He took off his jacket, and remembered the mail in his pocket. He put on his headphones and sat at the little desk. On the radio, a sports reporter was previewing a ball game. Jasper took out his letters and opened the one with the typewritten address.

It was from the President of the United States.

It was a form letter, with his name handwritten in a box.

It read:

Greeting: You are hereby ordered for induction into the Armed Forces of the United States –

Jasper said aloud: ‘What?’

– and to report at the address below on January 20, 1966 at 7 a.m. for forwarding to an Armed Forces Induction Station.

Jasper fought down panic. This was obviously a bureaucratic foul-up. He was British: the US Army surely would not conscript foreign citizens.

But he needed to get this sorted out as soon as possible. American bureaucrats were as maddeningly incompetent as any, and equally capable of causing endless unnecessary trouble. You had to pretend to take them seriously, like a red light at a deserted crossroads.

The reporting station was just a few blocks from the radio station. When the secretary came back to relieve him for lunch, he put on his jacket and topcoat and walked out of the building.

He turned up his collar against the cold New York wind and hurried through the streets to the federal building. There he entered an army office on the third floor and found a man in a captain’s uniform sitting at a desk. The short-back-and-sides haircut looked more ridiculous than ever, now that even middle-aged men were growing their hair longer.

‘Help you?’ said the captain.

‘I’m pretty sure this letter has been sent to me in error,’ Jasper said, and he handed over the envelope.

The captain scanned it. ‘You know there’s a lottery system?’ he said. ‘The number of men liable for service is greater than the number of soldiers required, so the recruits are selected randomly.’ He handed the letter back.

Jasper smiled. ‘I don’t think I’m eligible for service, do you?’

‘And why would that be?’

Perhaps the captain had not noticed his accent. ‘I’m not an American citizen,’ Jasper said. ‘I’m British.’

‘What are you doing in the United States?’

‘I’m a journalist. I work for a radio station.’

‘And you have a work permit, I presume.’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re a resident alien.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Then you are liable to be drafted.’

‘But I’m not American!’

‘Makes no difference.’

This was becoming exasperating. The army had screwed up, Jasper was almost certain. The captain, like many petty officials, was simply unwilling to admit a mistake. ‘Are you telling me that the United States Army conscripts foreigners?’

The captain was unperturbed. ‘Conscription is based on residence, not citizenship.’

‘That can’t be right.’

The captain began to look irritated. ‘If you don’t believe me, check it out.’

‘That’s exactly what I’m going to do.’

Jasper left the building and returned to the office. The personnel department would know about this kind of thing. He would go and see Mrs Salzman.

He gave her the box of chocolates.

‘You’re sweet,’ she said. ‘Mr Gould likes you, too.’

‘What did he say?’

‘Just thanked me for sending you to him. He hasn’t made up his mind yet. But I don’t know of anyone else under consideration.’

‘That’s great news! But I have a little problem you might be able to help me with.’ He showed her the letter from the army. ‘This must be a mistake, surely?’

Mrs Salzman put her glasses on and read the letter. ‘Oh, dear,’ she said. ‘How unlucky. And just when you were getting along so well!’

Jasper could hardly believe his ears. ‘You’re not saying I’m really liable for military service?’

‘You are,’ she said sadly. ‘We’ve had this trouble before with foreign employees. The government says that if you want to live and work in the United States, you ought to help defend the country from Communist aggression.’

‘Are you telling me I’m going in the army?’

‘Not necessarily.’