By The Sea, Book Four: The Heirs (8 page)

"The distractions," Seton explained, "are
constant. There is the ongoing investigation into my wife's death,
questions about her victimization in a recent jewel theft—"

Mavis winced and pulled the visor down
further over her face. Did he have to be so blessed forthcoming?
That was no one else's business.

"—and of course, questions about the
terrible accident in which she has been proved to be involved. None
of these questions will end soon," he said wearily, "and of course
they should not, since the issues involved are great. In my own
life there had been, up until last week, only one issue: whether
the
Shadow
campaign would be successful in its attempt to
win the right to defend the world's most sought-after trophy. But
my life is not my own any longer," he added, and Mavis thought she
saw pained surprise in his face, as though, seeing the avidly
curious crowd before him, he was realizing it for the first
time.

"I will now entertain questions from the
press, and then, after today, I shall have no further comment."

Mavis was impressed. Questions from the
press! They'd tear him apart. How naive, she wondered, can one man
be?

There was a wild scramble among the
reporters to be recognized. With a look of grim determination Seton
acknowledged a short, slightly built reporter who was notorious for
his aggressive questions.

"Alan," the reporter began, "isn't it true
that your campaign was on its last legs financially? And that now
would be an opportune time to withdraw in any event?"

For a moment Seton looked blank; if he had
been warned to expect the question, he showed no sign of it. "It
never occurred to me," he answered, "to withdraw for financial
reasons. If I'd run completely out of money—which I did not—I'd
simply expand the syndicate—which I saw no need to." He shifted his
attention to another hand. "Yes?"

"What will happen to
Shadow
? Will you
sell it?"

"I honestly haven't got that far," Seton
admitted. "Obviously
Shadow
will be withdrawn from the
competition. But whether she'll be stored until the next time, or
be sold ... I don't know," he said tiredly.

"Mr. Seton," a girl reporter whose pretty
face was bursting with teeth asked, "the talk is that your wife
resisted your all-out effort to defend the Cup. Do you see an irony
in the fact that now, at least, she's got her way?"

"No."

"Sir," came a twangy New England voice, "I
write for the
Marblehead Sentinel.
I'm not a sportswriter,
but I am keen on the sport. Now it seems t' me that comin' from
English gentry as I understand you do, you can't have the same
spirit
behind your effort, the same sense of patriotism, if
you don't mind my sayin' so, that might carry you over the rough
spots such as now. Or do you see it different?" he asked
amiably.

It would be hard to take offense at the New
Englander, so typical in his distrust of things English. No doubt
his ancestors had helped dump the tea into Boston Harbor. Seton
smiled and said, "I think my credentials are pretty good, as a
matter of fact. My grandfather, right off the boat from England,
fell in love with a beautiful American and a beautiful country. He
married her, ran a shipyard on the Connecticut shore, took over
another one here in Newport for a while, had children, and put down
roots. For decades he supported the America's Cup Races—and he
didn't root for Sir Thomas Lipton and England even when a lot of
Americans were doing it," Seton added with a grin. "Good
enough?"

"Well, sir, it'll have to do." Clearly the
New Englander thought the jury was still out on Alan's
patriotism.

"Alan, Alan ... thank you. Around the
waterfront, naturally, people are saying that you're afraid to
continue taking on the formidable Dennis Conner head to head in the
July Trials. Would you care to comment?"

A slow, ironic smile flickered over Seton's
handsome face, and he answered blandly, "Dennis, Tom, John—they
all
scare the hell out of me." He let the laughter linger
and then he said, "The Preliminary Trials in June are traditionally
a period of shaking down between contenders. They're not only
inconclusive, but maybe, well, just maybe all the cards aren't on
the table yet. New sails, shifting the ballast around, possibly
just getting braver and going for the throat at the starting
line—any one of those can be a factor. It's early days yet;
everyone has a chance to look formidable come August."

Mavis thought he was looking more relaxed,
more comfortable. But it didn't last.

"Mr. Seton, getting back to the question of
finances," a reporter began in a friendly, confidential voice,
"it's no secret, of course, that your wife came from a wealthy
family—"

"My wife's money is held in trust and has
nothing to do with me," Seton answered abruptly, anticipating the
rest of the question.

Mavis recognized the slimy little worm who
posed the next query; he wrote for the yellowest journal of all.
Iggy, as he was appropriately named, had pursued Mavis relentlessly
through the first years of her marriage, reasoning that when a
twenty-six-year-old heiress of great wealth marries a
fifty-nine-year-old entrepreneur of even greater wealth, there must
be lewd play somewhere. Unfortunately for him, Mavis never
wandered—never even thought of straying—from her obstinate but
interesting husband, and contented marriages make dull copy.

Iggy, who knew absolutely nothing about
sailing but everything about Cindy's set, said in an insinuating,
district attorney voice,
"Isn't
it a fact that in the
handbag Mrs. Seton left behind there were found an impressive
variety of uppers—just about every imaginable amphetamine, in fact?
Wasn't there also a vial of white powder? Is there any reason for
us to believe that these drugs were available exclusively to Mrs.
Seton?"

Don't answer him,
Mavis pleaded
silently. It was a variation of the old, "Do you beat your wife
every day?" question. There was no safe answer.

"What are you getting at?" Seton asked
bluntly, as a dark, angry look settled on his brow.

"Well, just this: Where there's smoke
there's usually fire. Virtually every sport—the venerable Olympics
included—has been tainted by otherwise proud athletes stooping to
drugs to win the game."

Iggy had the floor. No one had ever asked
about drugs at an America's Cup press conference before, but he
didn't know that, and so probably he was chalking up the stunned
silence to his bold eloquence. "My question, Captain, is: can you
guarantee that your crew—who, after all, lived under the same roof
as your wife in the usual communal arrangement—can you guarantee
that your crew does not use drugs of any kind?" His voice was
filled with sudden, righteous indignation.

Alan Seton stared at Iggy for a long, long
moment. People exchanged glances. Iggy looked defiant but
increasingly uncomfortable. Finally, in a low voice Seton said, "I
want to be scrupulously correct in answering your question. One of
my crew, the bow man, gouged his shin jibing the spinnaker last
week. A row of stitches was necessary, and he was prescribed a mild
painkiller. We've had our share of injuries in the last year; we've
had our share of prescriptions. As for your implication—"

Seton's tanned, handsome face flushed an
even darker shade and he made a move to stand up, but his navigator
Mat Belisma gave a little lurch of his own, obviously preparing to
restrain Seton if necessary.

"Right," Seton muttered, and aloud he said,
"As for your implication, I think it stinks, mister. You'd like to
know where those kids get their energy and stamina? On
Shadow
the sandwiches are an inch thick with meat and the
coolers are loaded with apples, Milky Ways, and cookies. Our diet
is absolutely American, a combination of protein and junk food. The
only difference is, since the crewmen are built like brick
shi—built so solidly," he corrected himself, "they eat three times
as much as the average American. They work three times as hard as
most, including me, and they're three times more disciplined than
most. Including me. Why do they do it? Ask them. Just don't insult
them asking
how
they do it. They're motivated in ways you
could never understand."

Applause. The room rippled, then swelled
with it. It wasn't for the put-down of Iggy, although there was
some of that; and it wasn't for the all-American crew, although
there was some of that too. It was for Alan Seton, who symbolized
to many in the room the finest kind of America's Cup skipper: a man
of integrity who cared intensely about his crew and—it was corny to
say so out loud, and that was why they were applauding—cared about
the tradition of the America's Cup itself. There was absolutely
nothing to be gained financially from his quest. He was not a sail
maker or a yacht designer who could look forward to a flood of new
business if he succeeded. Nor was he even an exceedingly wealthy
and thrill-seeking elitist. He had added to the very respectable
but not blinding fortune he'd inherited by speculating in
California real estate, and he'd been spending it hand over fist in
an effort to defend the America's Cup for the United States. Lots
of people in the audience thought that he was crazy, but the
dreamers, the eternally questing, they understood. And
applauded.

Grudgingly, Mavis was applauding too,
because his effort really had been heroic. Her personal feeling
about Alan Seton was that he had a mountainous ego and the
inevitable fatal flaw: he lacked the necessary cynicism to rise
above the pressures of the media, the hangers-on, the social scene.
Out on the water he was a marvel. He had the sure, quick instincts
and inspired brilliance necessary to fight and win what is
essentially a punishing duel between two yachts. But ashore ... a
fish out of water.

The next question was the obvious one. "What
will you do now?"

Seton, a little shaken by the demonstration,
looked even younger than his thirty years. He smiled a slightly
lopsided smile and said, "Gee, I dunno. Become an astronaut?"

There was general laughter and he said, "One
last question."

It came from a widely known and respected
television journalist who was himself a keen sailor. "Alan, do you
think the Americans have a snowball's chance in hell against the
Australian winged keel?" he asked somberly.

"Yes," Seton answered with an ambiguous
smile. Then he stood up, said, "Thank you very much," turned, and
walked quickly away from the podium toward a rear exit. For a few
seconds the press, caught off guard, remained where it was. Then it
split as if by design into two groups: the first took off for
Seton, hounds after the hare. The second raced to report their
stories, convinced there was nothing more to be had from Seton.

So that's that,
Mavis thought as she
slipped out with the second wave. Really, it was drearily like a
presidential primary campaign. One misstep and you were out, never
mind how good you were. Destiny had stuck her foot out in front of
Alan Seton, and he had tripped and fallen on his aristocratic nose.
The great-grandson of a British peer. Well, well.

A hulking bulldozer of a reporter was
elbowing his way furiously through the crowd, and his upper arm
shoved into Mavis's left breast.

"Watch
where you're going, you fool!"
she snapped, enraged.

His eyes widened. "Lady, lady—take it easy.
I'm sorry," he exclaimed, and kept moving, with a fellow reporter
bringing up the rear. "I'm not, really," he said in a stage whisper
to his buddy. "She had great tits."

Mavis Moran didn't believe in blushing, but
that was exactly what she was doing now. Not because of the uncouth
remark; but because in one of those well-formed breasts she had
discovered, a week earlier, a lump. Not a big lump; no need to
panic; it was most likely only a cyst. She'd had them before. But
it was still ... a lump. She would wait until after her period and
then if it hadn't gone away, she'd see about ... the lump. Part of
her wanted to race immediately to her gynecologist. The other part
of her despised her fearfulness.

Her fear at that moment was not of death or
of pain, because she was only thirty-two, and she was stoic. No,
her dread was much more irrational than that: she feared
mutilation. The thought that some future bulldozer might bump into
a prosthesis instead of her warm, real flesh filled Mavis Moran, an
heiress who could probably pay for a new wing on Sloan-Kettering,
with horror. And fury. It seemed impossible to her that despite her
intelligence and wealth, there were situations which she could not
control. Mavis was scrupulous about diet and nutrition, exercised
religiously, kept abreast of trends in life extension. So why the
lump
?

Heredity, she supposed. That was where the
cyst, if it was a cyst, came from, and where her Irish fatalism
came from. She had a sudden, vivid memory of her grandmother, Tess
Moran, a woman who was a great beauty in her day, a woman of
indomitable will and daunting intelligence—and a woman felled with
a limp that Mavis knew was from a gunshot wound. Was her
grandmother bothered by the fact that she could not carry herself
with the same poise as other great beauties of her era? Not that
anyone could see.

Mavis was thrown back to a beautiful summer
evening at Beau Rêve, her grandmother's estate. She was six or
seven, playing on a big granite boulder on the edge of the lawn
that legend had it was hurled from the sea in the great storm of
1815. Mavis slipped and fell, scraping her leg and hitting her knee
hard enough that she limped, crying, to her grandmother, who was
seated on the veranda with Doctor Whitman, her oldest friend,
having tea. Doctor Whitman looked Mavis over and pronounced her
well enough to have ice cream for dessert. The two grownups
exchanged sudden, sad smiles, Mavis remembered, and her grandmother
said, "It's been nearly ten years, and still I miss her, Henry.
Beau Rêve seems so empty without her."