Five Smooth Stones (87 page)

He had buried as best he could any misgivings he had about the decision made that night in Sara's room, although the burial was not complete. I suppose, he told himself, you're going to feel guilty about something or other all your life. But now, by God, if there was no other justification for his move there was the fact that it would enable him to give a gentle little brown man happiness, pressed down and running over, in his old age.

Lawrence Travis had bolstered his decision to say nothing about the possible appointment by advising that he remain silent, although, said Travis, there would probably be a leak. "There always is," he said. "It's positively spooky at times."

"How about mentioning it to Brad?" asked David.

"Certainly, certainly. That you should do. I'll write him myself."

When the expected leak came, David understood Lawrence's word "spooky." On a weekend in London, just before starting home, he went to a travel bureau to pick up his ticket for home, and found Hunter standing at the counter and with him a man David knew he had met, yet whose identity remained tantalizingly out of reach. Hunter, tucking an airline ticket into an inner coat pocket, joined him, while his companion remained at the counter.

"Where you going, man?" asked David.

"Nowhere. It's for my mother. To Paris."

David lowered his voice. "Who's the man you're with? Don't I know him?"

"Sure you do—"

He heard the man's voice then and snapped his fingers softly. "Sure. Sure. Barkeley. Christopher Barkeley. Republic Broadcasting guy."

"Right. Have a drink with us? We'll wait for you."

Barkeley came toward them in a moment, saw David, and greeted him with outstretched hand, smiling. "David Champlin."

Hunter said, "I've asked David to have a drink with us."

"By all means—"

They found a pub nearby—"I'm so damned sick of hotel bars and lounges," said Barkeley—and over drinks at a small table Barkeley said to David, "According to what is known in our circles as a 'reliable source,' your next trip away from the States will be a longer one."

David turned quickly to Hunter, half angry, but Hunter shook his head, his surprise obviously unfeigned.

"What do you mean?" David's question was guarded.

Barkeley looked at Hunter. "Have I put my foot in it? Doesn't he know?"

"Certainly he knows. But damn it, Chris, you're not supposed to know."

Barkeley sighed. "How not to make friends—"

"Nothing's settled," said David.

"You're wise to keep it quiet." Barkeley smiled, and David was struck then, as he had been years before, by the man's poise and a quality he supposed one would have to call charm, a word he didn't usually like, but in this case justified. "I wouldn't worry, Champlin," Barkeley continued. "You're pretty much an unknown—so far. It was your connection with the Boston law firm that made the item of interest. No one picked it up to use. I was interested because I remembered meeting you with so much pleasure. I'll be a prophet and say that ten years from now such small items about you will definitely be picked up."

CHAPTER 55

On this return trip to Washington his affairs continued to run as smoothly as they had the previous week, a circumstance he had not anticipated. Abner Chittock turned out to be an even easier person to deal with than Lawrence Travis had described; there had been several long talks in his office and over luncheons, and after each one David realized that another facet of his life had been exposed by the security check: his childhood, Gramp and Gram, the Prof, Pengard, Brad Willis.... They discussed his impending marriage, and he learned that Sara Kent's father and Chittock had been at college together, had practiced law at the same time in Chicago, and had frequently faced each other across the well of a courtroom. "He sneered, I glared," said Chittock. "Sometimes we reversed it, for variety."

He was given books and documents to read and told that there would be briefing sessions early in the fall and that a meeting would probably be arranged with two experts on African affairs in Geneva before he finally went into Zambana.

He had dreaded facing Brad more than anything else; it worried him through all the weeks prior to leaving England. He booked his ticket through to Boston, and was waiting in Brad's office for Brad to arrive, on the morning after landing. He should have been warmed and relieved at Brad's obvious happiness at having him back; instead he felt a sick feeling of guilt inside. Coolness or unspoken disapproval on Brad's part would have put him on the defensive; this left him helpless, and he realized as he had never done before the extent of the older man's affection for him. It wouldn't have made any difference what he had done—Brad's reaction to his return would have been as it was now.

Later, when they were drinking coffee at Brad's desk, Brad said: "Hell, brat, I'm not going to be a hypocrite and say I'm glad to see you go, give you a lot of static about 'whatever's best for you makes me happy.' I'm damned upset, selfishly upset, about it. So will everyone else be when they hear of it. Let me know when the last O.K. comes through so I can tell them."

"Did you tell Peg?"

Brad nodded. "Come what may, drinking or not, she's safe."

"How did she take it?" David shifted his eyes from Brad's face to the desk top. "Don't answer. I can tell by your face."

"I'm afraid she went pretty much overboard. I don't know exactly why. I never know, really, except that it is always something above and beyond—or below and behind—the actual incident that, on the surface, appears to be what triggered her off."

"Hell, Brad, I feel lousy about this. As though I was walking out on everyone. Like a damned dicty so-and-so who's let Oxford go to his head."

"Don't be a damned fool. By the way, vacations are already here. You going to be free to give us a hand for a while?"

"You know it."

***

There was a dinner with Brad and Peg just before he left that David wished had never happened. He was thankful that Chuck Martin and Tom Evans were both in town and that Brad included them in the invitation. At the end of the dinner he wondered if Brad had not done so purposely, because he thought it would be easier on the guest of honor. Usually, in a situation like this, Peg had sweet-talked him into coming early and cooking some special dish, even if it was only hot biscuits. This night she depended entirely on her own efforts and those of the housekeeper. She was tensely sober, as she had been the first time David met her, shying away from talk of his new work, encouraging him and Chuck and Tom to talk of days at Pengard. "This sounds more like a reunion than a goodbye affair," Brad said once, and David cried quickly, "Au revoir, for God's sake!"

They left early, Tom initiating the move on the plea of having to catch an early-morning plane to Chicago, an excuse David knew was a lie. While the others walked slowly into the hall with Brad, Peg touched his arm and drew him into the dining room. She turned and faced him, standing very quiet, unsmiling, her eyes searching his face. "Why?" she said.
"Why?"

He heard himself stammering. "Peg, I—what are you getting at?"

"I'm trying to get at you. What's inside you. What I thought was inside you—only, I was wrong. Guts."

He was too stunned to answer at first, then heard, gratefully, Tom's voice calling from the hall, and he turned away from Peg's eyes. "I—I wish you didn't feel that way, Peg. It hasn't been easy."

"No? I think it's been the easiest thing you ever did in your life, David Champlin."

Her eyes softened a little. He felt, and was sure he looked, like a favored dog who has come, tail wagging, to have its ears scratched, receiving a blow instead.

"That was rough, David," she said. "But I had to say it. We're here if you need us. Don't forget that."

"I won't," he mumbled. "Thanks." He hurried into the hall, Peg following slowly to say good night to her guests.

As they drove away in Chuck's car, Tom let out a long "Whee-eew! Is Peg like that often?"

"No," David said. "Not ever. Drunk or sober."

"Speaking of getting drunk—" said Tom.

"Chuck'll have to change clothes—"

"We can go to my room and talk and lubricate the vocal cords. Or—how about Sudsy's?"

"Hell, we'd wake the baby," snapped David. "Let's go to Tom's room," said Chuck. "I'm at the same hotel."

***

When Brad came back into the living room, Peg was coming in from the dining room carrying a tray with a bowl of ice cubes and two fresh glasses. He had known it was coming, yet had hoped he would be able to forestall it, and he wanted to wrest the tray from her violently, shake her, beat her if necessary, into some semblance of sense, make her let go of what was eating her away inside. He stood, hands clenched in his pockets, fighting himself, knowing that fighting her would be worse than useless. A protest would do more harm than good, would make the hand that poured the drink from the decanter on the coffee table more generous, yet he could not stop himself. "Peg!"

"Say when—"

"Oh, God, Peg! What's the matter?"

"I'm just going to have a couple tonight. Tomorrow, no. Just tonight."

"Peg, I know you hate to see David go. We both do. But he's on the way to great things. You wouldn't want—"

"Oh, shut up, Brad! You sound like a male PTA-er. Here, drink your drink."

He walked farther into the room slowly and took the drink, remembering what Mike Shea had said once: "Don't try to stop her, Brad. It will only make it worse. Just stand by and give her a hand when she's trying to stop."

He finished his drink standing, looking into the fireplace, and heard Peg set her empty glass down on the coffee table behind him. How long would it be this time? Days? Weeks? He supposed he'd have the stamina to go through another one; the strength had always come from somewhere, but there was a deep sadness within him. David gone, Peg—he turned quickly at her next words.

"The gutless wonder. Our brat. Our beautiful boy."

"Cut it out, Peg," he said wearily, but she did not seem to hear him.

"Zambana. That's the name of the damned place, isn't it? It gets its independence in January. I read all about it." Whiskey trickled over the ice cubes in her emptied glass, slowly, darkly, and her hand, as she poured it, was not quite steady. "De Lawd's done done it for Zambana—set His people free. And our David's going over there to help them. He's going to show them what to do with freedom." She began to laugh huskily, deep in her throat. "Our brat's going to show the Negroes in Zambana how to live as a free people, isn't he, dear? Oh, Christ!"

He took a step toward her, one hand held out, wanting to help her. "Peg, Peg, don't. I know what you're getting at—"

"Do you? Do you now?"

"I think so—for God's sake, Peg, take it easy with that whiskey—"

She held the now full glass up, looked at him through it. "Once in a lifetime, sweetheart. Just for the once-in-a-lifetime when a brat we love lets his people down—"

"He's not doing that, Peg—"

"He is, and he knows it." She rose and took his glass away from him, refilled it, and handed it back to him, then touched its rim with the rim of hers. She raised her glass, smiling. "To Sara," she said. And then, after a long moment, when she had taken the glass from her lips, "And I love her, too. That's why it's such hell, Brad. Can't you see? That's why it's such hell. People—two—turning their backs on people—millions. Drink your drink. Why don't you go to London and be best man?"

***

In the early fall David wound up his affairs in Boston and went to New York, staying at Hunter's apartment. Jedediah had written that one of his countrymen was at Columbia, and he made arrangements for some lessons in the Zambanian language. Before he left Boston he spent an evening with Suds and Rhoda. Suds was almost childlike in his delight at David's good fortune. "We'll miss you like hell, but we'll fill in the time bragging about you to our friends," he said. "And as soon as I finish my residency Rhoda and I are taking a long-delayed trip, before I start in at the clinic. We thought of Europe, leaving the offspring with my unfortunate parents. Maybe we'll see you and Sara—"

"If you make it the right time in November, why can't you be with us when we get married? It'll be in London, we decided. Hunter will be there—you could be witnesses—whatever they call them in England."

"You didn't do it for me, dad. Let me go through it alone, you did."

"Walla Walla, for gosh sake!"

Rhoda said: "Of course we can, David. We'd love it. Sara's going to need moral support."

David doubted that; Sara wouldn't need moral support if they got married in the middle of the veldt with two tigers and a lion on the sidelines crouched to spring. Suds, the same idea in mind, said: "The hell our Sara will need moral support. You don't know her as well as we do. But if you want us, David, we'll do our damnedest to make it."

In October, Sara came over to visit her father. "Now I don't mind visiting my family," she said. "Before it seemed awful. The old house gone, Father living in a modern apartment with a new wife. But now that I'm happy, it's all right Selfish beasts, we humans. We can fly to London together, David. Think of it—Christmas in Zambana. I can be with you then, don't you think? Perhaps that's when Gramp could come over."

***

When Sara telephoned him one night from her midtown hotel, after she returned from Chicago, and told him there had been a news item in the
Times
the day before about his appointment, and a gossip-column comment that day about their marriage, he said: "Lord, baby! I have to get down home, but quick. I haven't told Gramp yet, and 'Saiah Watkins takes the New York papers for the ALEC office. Gramp will die all over if he hears about it from someone else. I wasn't going until this weekend, but I'll go tomorrow now. Do some phoning for me, baby, to some people?"

"Of course. You won't be gone long, sweet?"

"Not more'n five years—"

"David!"

***

David knew the moment he saw his grandfather's face that he was too late: the news of his African appointment and his marriage had already been told to him by Isaiah or he had read it in the local Negro paper, picked up as a rewrite item from the New York papers. Surely he wasn't important enough to rate a wire-service dispatch. He was angry with himself for having postponed telling Gramp. No matter how well intentioned the planned delay had been, he shouldn't have taken a chance. Gramp must have had some damned bad hours after hearing about it—and every minute of them showed in his eyes and face as David hurried through the front door.