Overdrive (12 page)

"Umm," David said, rocking fore and aft on the balls of his feet, observing the petals of his daffodil.

"Well," I said, "I took you up on your offer, so I told the publishers that Mr. Niven had sent in a telegram: 'THIS IS PROBABLY THE BEST NOVEL EVER WRITTEN ABOUT FUCKING THE QUEEN.' " I swear it's true (though his friends and fellow professionals will never believe it) that for once in his life David Niven was caught off balance, for maybe half a second, which for him is a long time. His laughter was prolonged.

I am reminded that the next day, in London, during the press conference at which my novel was presented, the very first question was put to me by, no less, the young editor of
The Economist
, Andrew Knight.

It was something.

"Mr. Buckley, would you like to sleep with the queen?"

That was certainly an icebreaker, and I drew a deep breath. I explained to the journalists that anyone who had read my novel could not possibly confuse the existing queen with the fictional character I depicted. That being said, I thought it fair to respond with more spirit to the question of my friend Andrew, and added that, respecting the fictitious queen, my biological instincts were normal, but before undertaking any such irregularity as my character Blackford Oakes undertook, I would need to consult my lawyer, given the historical fate of some of the Englishmen who had dallied with royalty. Moreover, I pointed out, finally, it was important to remember that in my story the queen was the succubus, my American CIA agent most clearly not the incubus. The effort by Beautiful Andrew (they tease him with that—Andrew looks like a freshman, modeling) to transform my book into
lese majeste
was unsuccessful, though here and there a reviewer tried to make a little—not, really, that much—of the royal seduction. Mostly the book was ignored there. But there was one character, an elderly Englishman residing during the winters in Gstaad—a Wodehousian gentleman alongside whom Colonel Blimp looks and sounds like a dead-end kid—who assiduously telephoned ahead to all social hosts during The Season to ascertain whether I had been invited, in order to be able to say, if it turned out that I had been, that he would not be attending, as he did not desire the company of anyone who would insult the Queen. I confess that I greatly enjoyed it when, without informing me, a year or so later my wife sent off anonymously to Lord Pomp the centerspread of the New York
Daily News
, in which was a large picture of the
Britannia's
deck, featuring the Queen of England and her husband greeting me and my wife at the reception she held to commemorate the declaration of American independence from Her Majesty's (I must reflect here, where Lord Pomp would not need to) great . . . great . . . great . . . greatgrandfather.

Joe, Priscilla, and I ordered, and then there was a little editorial business to discuss, including the John Simon matter. I reported on the lunch with our distinguished movie reviewer and Chilton Williamson, the author and our back-of-the-book editor. John had been most adamant about continuing to require the extra space for his reviews (they were running at about 1500 words), insisting that shorter reviews would make him just that, a "reviewer" rather than a "critic." A troublesome dilemma for an editor, on the one hand facing the possible loss of so fine a writer and critic, on the other having to attend to basic editorial architecture.

I had mulled over the problem and now pulled out of my pocket a copy of the letter I had already sent to John, which Priscilla and Joe read and pronounced the only thing to do under the circumstances:

"Dear John: I'm afraid that on the matter of extra space the magazine cannot be flexible. The reasons why are not new to you and so I shan't restate them. Nor do I need to restate the pleasure I take from your work, or the admiration I feel for it. But there must be somebody, that semianonymous authority, who decrees that the pillars outside St. Patrick's can rise no higher, or that the dimensions of a canvas designed for a particular (finite) area cannot exceed the designated size. I know how deeply you feel in the matter, and therefore can only hope that you will undertake the adjustment. If not, I understand, and will go into mourning."

John never answered; but then he didn't quit either.

We arrived at the theater just as Pat did, as ever imposing, beautiful, elegant; followed, a few minutes after we were seated, by Doria Reagan, young, slight, especially pretty in the white dress she wore. The invitation to her and Ron came about as the result of an amusing effrontery. A few months earlier, Nancy Reagan had invited me and Pat and her son and daughter-in-law and Jerry Zipkin, an old friend, to go with her to the theater to see
Sophisticated Ladies
. Everything about going to the theater with a First Lady is somehow made enormously easy—no tickets to buy, or crowds to thread through; and so as we sat waiting for the lights to go out I flicked through the pages of that day's New York
Times
culture pages and came on the full-page ad for the great
Nicholas Nickleby
. The play would run for fourteen weeks beginning on October 4, eight and a half hours of theatergoing (four before dinner, four and one-half after dinner). I poked Nancy, pointing at the
Nickleby
ad, and said, "Let's take that one in too, while we're at it!" Nancy laughed and, getting into the spirit of it, I said, "I think when we go it would be nice if you also invited Ron and Doria." More laughter. And, at dinner later (it was a matinee), I told Ron that since his mother
obviously
hadn't taken my hint seriously, he and Doria would come as my guests; and here she was.

The play began at two and would run until six; then we were to be back at seven. Pat had scouted about and been told that a handy restaurant where quick service was available was Broadway Joe's, a block and a half away. I had no idea then that it was owned by Sidney Zion, who greeted us at the door. I had first met him at an editorial lunch thrown by Victor Navasky, a founding editor of the short-lived humor magazine
Monocle
, now editor of
The Nation
(Vic peaked too early). Sidney is a gentle soul, a lawyer by training, and not
quite
responsible. He left the
Times
and co-founded
Scanlan's Monthly
, a radical mag, during the tail end of the wild period (1965-73). I remember his calling me in great indignation to tell me that
Scanlan's
printers had refused to publish the current issue because it had in it a diagram on how to make a home-grown hand grenade, or perhaps it was an atom bomb, I forget. I told Sid I could understand his abstract point, but that my natural sympathies were, really, with the printers. He never seemed to mind, no more did he mind it when I said to him, in some exasperation after a New York
Times
editorial lunch when he was arguing somebody's innocence, "Sid, the trouble with you is that you find
everybody
innocent." Well, Sidney proved not entirely innocent, that evening; he gave away our privacy, because sure enough, when we filed out, there was a newspaper photographer.

Ron arrived about five minutes late, dressed as if he had just left a ballet rehearsal, which is what he had just done.

... I remember when all
that
happened. It was Thanksgiving time, 1976, and Ron had matriculated at Yale as a freshman in September. It was arranged that the senior Reagans would come in from California, with Ron coming in from New Haven, to spend Thanksgiving with us. Thanksgiving Day (I had warned the Reagans) was traditionally reserved for my senior family, at Sharon. There the Reagans joined us, at about noon on Thanksgiving, where we would lunch with my aged mother, and brothers and sisters, at the family home. There was a wonderful scene in the patio with my senescent mother who, with her ineffable charm, was listening to a story from Nancy Reagan. The final, key words of the story Nancy was telling were, "You're not going to tell
that
to the
Reagans
/"

There was general laughter, including my mother's, at which point she turned her gentle, pretty face to Nancy, leaned toward her and whispered affectionately, "Tell me, darling, who
are
the Reagans?" Nancy's diplomacy was impeccable. I knew then she would go far.

After lunch we went to the area where traditionally we play touch football on Thanksgiving, and I asked Ron Sr. whether he would consent to referee. He looked at me most wistfully and said, "Can't I play?" I laughed and made him quarterback on my team, while my brother, the sainted junior senator from New York, acquired Ron Jr. The play was spirited, but I noticed with more than merely casual interest the extraordinary nimbleness of young Ron.

Because just before lunch, Nancy had drawn Pat aside, and Ron Sr. had taken me into another room: and each of us was told of their awful experience the night before. Their son had arrived in New York on Wednesday night to announce that
he had decided to leave Yale University and study ballet!
Such a decision is not easily received in any household. In their household, it was received with True Shock.

"Who am I to object?" the father said to me, pacing the floor of the music room. "I mean,
I
ought to know about show business, and the ballet is great stuff. But so few people make it. And pulling out of college ... In the middle of a semester . . Reagan does not
act
excited, but one can sense when he
is
excited. He was thinking out loud.

He paused. And said that he was determined that his son should finish out the semester, because that way his record at Yale would be clean—"if he comes out of it. You know, if he doesn't make it."

It was perhaps my imagination but, an hour or two later, seeing his son jump six feet into the air to grab the football had me thinking of—a ballet dancer.

The multilateral conferences on the subject of Ron continued throughout the weekend, at our home in Stamford, to which we repaired after the football. Ron Jr. meanwhile told me that most ballet students begin at fourteen, and here he was at
eighteen
, so there wasn't a moment to lose, no, not even the months of December and January. And so his career began.

Now, at the restaurant, we reminisced happily about our day and night at sea a couple of months earlier. It had been August, and Ron was on vacation, and came first to us. I own a small sloop which sleeps four, and our date was boat-centered, so that in the late afternoon the Reagans and the Buckleys set out to cross Long Island Sound and spend the night at the little harbor in Eatons Neck. The journey was not quite typical because there were seven or eight gentlemen from the Secret Service superintending our departure and, to my great amusement, four of them squatted in an open Boston Whaler, trailing us by about three hundred yards'. The wind was menacingly stiff that afternoon, and the combined knowledge of boating among the four of us was what I knew—period. So that when one of the boat's fenders (which I had, carelessly, failed to stow) slipped off the leeward deck, unwilling to lose it I announced I would come about: which I did, with my crew, or rather passengers, grabbing at lines I more or less pointed to, and more or less doing what I told them to do.

I made our way back a couple of hundred yards and brought the bow upwind, while Ron lay on the deck reaching out to scoop up the fender.

But he missed it; meaning that, in a 20-knot wind and building seas, we'd have to do the whole maneuver all over again. It was then that I thought to hail the thoroughly mobile Secret Service, who were unencumbered by sail; which I did, pointing to the fender, assuming that they would divine the message. But they did not acknowledge our signal. Ron then said brightly: "I know what'll bring 'em.
I'll
throw
myself
into the sea!" We laughed, and Doria looked just a little nervous. Finally the Secret Service zoomed up, and I communicated the message orally. They went back and fetched up the fender, while we resumed our southeasterly journey.

It was dark when we arrived, and I did not argue when the Secret Service vessel, with its weary, windswept, and probably seasick crew, volunteered to escort us in through a twisting channel I have known since 1952. It was a fine evening in the quiet little harbor, the anchor lights of a half-dozen other pleasure craft about us, the steak, wine, onions, salad, music, conversation, midnight swim. I teased Ron about that swim because seven or eight years earlier, spending a night with the Reagans at their beach house, I had announced I would swim before turning in, and Ron and his father accompanied me to the beach. But they thought me clearly mad to mingle at night with the sharks. I promised Ron that if there were sharks in the harbor tonight, I'd report them to the Secret Service, who lay a couple of boat lengths away as we slept, in that particular snugness that only a sailboat, anchored in the night, can radiate.