Edge of Eternity (101 page)

Several people in the audience immediately held up signs. Walli saw ‘K
ISS
M
E
, B
OBBY
!’ and ‘B
OBBY IS
G
ROOVY
’. Beep now drew a rolled-up sheet of paper from her pants leg, and she and Walli held it up. It read simply: ‘T
RAITOR
’.

Bobby began to speak, referring to a small pack of file cards he took from his inside pocket. ‘Let me begin with an apology,’ he said. ‘I was involved in many of the early decisions on Vietnam, decisions which set us on our present path.’

Beep yelled out: ‘Too damn right!’ and the people around her laughed.

Bobby went on in his flat Boston accent. ‘I am willing to bear my share of the responsibility. But past error is no excuse for its own perpetuation. Tragedy is a tool for the living to gain wisdom. “All men make mistakes,” said the ancient Greek Sophocles. “But a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs the evil. The only sin is pride.”’

The audience liked that, and applauded. As they did so, Bobby looked down at his notes, and Walli saw that he was making a theatrical mistake. This should be a two-way exchange. The crowd wanted their star to look at them and acknowledge their praise. Bobby seemed embarrassed by them. This kind of political rally did not come easily to him, Walli realized.

Bobby continued on the subject of Vietnam but, despite the initial success of his opening confession, he did not do well. He was tentative, he stammered, and he repeated himself. He stood still, looking wooden, seeming reluctant to move his body or gesture with his hands.

A few opponents in the hall heckled him, but Walli and Beep did not join in. There was no need. Bobby was killing himself without assistance.

During a quiet moment, a baby cried. Out of the corner of his eye, Walli saw a woman get up and move towards the exit. Bobby stopped in mid-sentence and said: ‘Please don’t leave, mam!’

The audience tittered. The woman turned in the aisle and looked at Bobby up on the stage.

He said: ‘I’m used to the sound of babies crying.’

They laughed at that: everyone knew he had ten children.

‘Besides,’ he added, ‘if you go, the newspapers will say that I ruthlessly threw a mother and baby out of the hall.’

They cheered at that: many young people hated the press for its biased coverage of demonstrations.

The woman smiled and returned to her seat.

Bobby looked down at his notes. For a moment he had come across as a warm human being. At that point he might have turned the crowd. But he would lose them again by returning to his prepared speech. Walli thought he had missed his opportunity.

Then Bobby seemed to realize the same thing. He looked up again and said: ‘I’m cold in here. Are you cold?’

They roared their agreement.

‘Clap,’ he said. ‘Come on, that’ll warm us up.’ He began to clap his hands, and the audience did the same, laughing.

After a minute he stopped and said: ‘I feel better now. Do you?’ And they shouted their assent again.

‘I want to talk about decency,’ he said. He was back to his speech, but now he was not referring to his notes. ‘Some people think that long hair is indecent, and bare feet, and smooching in the park. I’ll tell you what I think.’ He raised his voice. ‘Poverty is indecent!’ The crowd shouted approval. ‘Illiteracy is indecent!’ They applauded again. ‘And I say, right here in California, that it is indecent for a man to work in the fields with his back and his hands without ever having hope of sending his son to college.’

No one in the room could doubt that Bobby believed what he was saying. He had put away his file cards. He became passionate, waving his arms, pointing, banging the lectern with a fist; and the listeners responded to the strength of his emotion, acclaiming every fervent phrase. Walli looked at their faces and recognized the expressions he saw when he himself was up on stage: young men and women staring in rapture, eyes wide, mouths open, faces shining with adoration.

No one ever looked at Gene McCarthy that way.

At some point, Walli realized, he and Beep had quietly dropped their ‘T
RAITOR
’ banner to the floor.

Bobby was speaking about poverty. ‘In the Mississippi Delta I have seen children with distended stomachs and facial sores from starvation.’ He raised his voice. ‘I don’t think that’s acceptable!

‘Indians living on their bare and meagre reservations have so little hope for the future that the greatest cause of death among teenagers is suicide. I believe we can do better!

‘The people of the black ghettoes listen to ever greater promises of equality and justice as they sit in the same decaying schools and huddle in the same filthy rooms warding off the rats. I am convinced that America can do better than that!’

He was building up to the climax, Walli saw. ‘I come here today to ask for your help over the next few months,’ Bobby said. ‘If you, too, believe that poverty is indecent, give me your support.’

They yelled that they would.

‘If you, too, think it is unacceptable that children starve in our country, work for my campaign.’

They hurrahed again.

‘Do you believe, as I do, that America can do better?’

They roared their agreement.

‘Then join me – and America
will
do better!’

He stepped back from the lectern, and the crowd went wild.

Walli looked at Beep. He could tell that she felt the way he did. ‘He’s going to win, isn’t he?’ said Walli.

‘Yes,’ said Beep. ‘He’s going all the way to the White House.’

*  *  *

Bobby’s ten-day tour took him to thirteen states. At the end of the last day, he and his entourage boarded a plane in Phoenix to fly to New York. By then George Jakes was sure Bobby was going to be President.

The public response had been overwhelming. Thousands mobbed Bobby at airports. They crowded the streets to watch his motorcade go by, Bobby always standing on the back seat of a convertible, with George and others sitting on the floor holding his legs so that the people could not pull him out of the car. Gangs of children ran alongside shouting ‘Bobby!’ Whenever the car stopped, people flung themselves at him. They ripped off his cufflinks and his tie pins and the buttons on his suits.

On the plane, Bobby sat down and emptied his pockets. Out came a snowstorm of paper like confetti. George picked up some of the scraps from the carpet. They were notes, dozens of them, neatly written and carefully folded small and thrust into Bobby’s pockets. They begged him to attend college graduations or visit sick children in city hospitals, and they told him that prayers were being said for him in suburban homes, and candles lit in country churches.

Bobby took off his suit coat and rolled up his sleeves, as was his habit. That was when George noticed his arms. Bobby had hairy forearms, but that was not what struck George. His hands were swollen and his skin was webbed with angry red scratches. It happened when the crowds were touching him, George realized. They did not want to injure him, but they adored him so much that they drew blood.

The people had found the hero they needed – but Bobby, too, had found himself. That was why George and the other aides called it the Free at Last tour. Bobby had struck a style that was all his own. He had a new version of the Kennedy charisma. His brother had been charming but contained, self-possessed, private – the right manner for 1963. Bobby was more open. At his best, he gave the audience the feeling that he was laying bare his own soul, confessing himself to be a flawed human being who wanted to do the right thing but was not always certain what it was. The catchphrase of 1968 was: ‘Let it all hang out.’ Bobby felt comfortable doing that, and they loved him for it.

Half the people on the plane flying back to New York were newsmen. For ten days they had been photographing and filming the ecstatic crowds, and filing reports on how the new, reborn Bobby Kennedy was winning voters’ hearts. The power brokers of the Democratic party might not like Bobby’s youthful liberalism, but they would not be able to ignore the phenomenon of his popularity. How could they blandly select Lyndon Johnson to run a second time when the American people were clamouring for Bobby? And if they ran an alternative pro-war candidate – Vice-President Hubert Humphrey, say, or Senator Muskie – he would take votes from Johnson without denting Bobby’s support. George did not see how Bobby could fail to get the nomination.

And Bobby would beat the Republican. It would almost certainly be ‘Tricky’ Dick Nixon, a has-been who had been beaten by a Kennedy once already.

The road to the White House seemed clear of obstacles.

As the plane approached John F. Kennedy airport in New York, George wondered what Bobby’s opponents would do to try to stop him. President Johnson had been scheduled to make a national television broadcast this evening while the plane was in the air. George looked forward to finding out what Johnson had said. He could not think of anything that would make a difference.

‘It must be quite something,’ one of the journalists said to Bobby, ‘to land at an airport named for your brother.’

It was an unkind, intrusive question from a reporter hoping to spark an intemperate response that would make a story. But Bobby was used to this. All he said was: ‘I wish it was still called Idlewild.’

The plane taxied to the gate. Before the seat belt sign was switched off, a familiar figure came on board and ran down the aisle to Bobby. It was the New York State chairman of the Democratic party. Before he reached Bobby he shouted: ‘The President is not going to run! The President is not going to run!’

Bobby said: ‘Say that again.’

‘The President is not going to run!’

‘You must be kidding.’

George was stunned. Lyndon Johnson, who hated the Kennedys, had realized that he could not win the Democratic nomination, doubtless for all the reasons that had occurred to George. But he hoped that another pro-war Democrat could beat Bobby. Johnson had figured, then, that the only way he could sabotage Bobby’s run for the presidency was to withdraw from the race himself.

And now all bets were off.

42

Dave Williams knew that his sister was up to something.

He was making the pilot of
Dave Williams and Friends
, his own television show. When first it was proposed, he had taken the idea lightly: it seemed a superfluous augmentation of the tidal wave of Plum Nellie’s success. Now the group had split and Dave needed the show. It was the beginning of his solo career. It had to be good.

The producer had suggested inviting Dave’s movie-star sister to appear as a guest. Evie was hotter than ever. Her latest film, a comedy about a snobby girl who hired a black lawyer, was a huge hit.

Evie proposed to sing a duet with her co-star in the movie, Percy Marquand. The producer, Charlie Lacklow, loved the idea but worried about the choice of song. Charlie was a small, belligerent man with a grating voice. ‘It has to be a comedy song,’ he said. ‘They can’t sing “True Love” or “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”.’

‘Easier said than done,’ said Dave. ‘Most duets are romantic.’

Charlie had shaken his head. ‘Forget it. This is television. We can’t even hint at sex between a white woman and a black man.’

‘They could sing “Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better”. That’s comic.’

‘No. People will think it’s a comment on civil rights.’

Charlie Lacklow was smart, but Dave did not like him. Nobody did. He was a bad-tempered bully, and his occasional attempts to be ingratiatingly nice only made it worse.

Dave tried: ‘How about “Mockingbird”?’

Charlie thought for a minute. ‘If that mockingbird don’t sing, he’s gonna buy me a diamond ring,’ he sang. He reverted to speech. ‘I guess we can get away with that.’

‘Sure we can,’ Dave said. ‘The original recording was by a brother-and-sister duo, Inez and Charlie Foxx. No one thought it suggested incest.’

‘Okay.’

Dave discussed the sensitivities of the American television audience with Evie, and explained the choice of song, and she agreed – except that she had a gleam in her eye that Dave knew too well. It meant trouble. It was how she had looked just before the school production of
Hamlet
, when she had played Ophelia in the nude.

They also discussed his break-up with Beep. ‘Everybody reacts as if it was just a typical teenage romance that didn’t last,’ Dave complained. ‘But I stopped having teenage romances long before I stopped being a teenager, and I never much liked screwing around. I was serious about Beep. I wanted kids.’

‘You grew up faster than Beep,’ Evie said. ‘And I grew up faster than Hank Remington. Hank has settled down with Anna Murray – I hear he doesn’t screw around any more. Maybe Beep will do the same.’

‘And it will be too late for me, just as it was for you,’ Dave said bitterly.

Now the orchestra was tuning up, Evie was in make-up and Percy was putting on his costume. Meanwhile, the director, Tony Peterson, asked Dave to record his introduction.

The show was in colour, and Dave was dressed in a burgundy velvet suit. He looked into the camera, imagined Beep walking back into his life with her arms reaching out to embrace him, and smiled warmly. ‘Now, fans, a special kick. We have both stars of the hit movie
My Client and I
: Percy Marquand, and my very own sister, Evie Williams!’ He clapped his hands. The studio was quiet, but the sound of an audience applauding would be dubbed on to the soundtrack before the show was broadcast.

‘I love the smile, Dave,’ said Tony. ‘Do it again.’

Dave did it three times, and Tony pronounced himself satisfied.

At that point Charlie came in with a grey-suited man in his forties. Dave saw immediately that Charlie was in obsequious mode. ‘Dave, I want you to meet our sponsor,’ he said. ‘This is Albert Wharton, the top man at National Soap and one of the leading businessmen in America. He’s flown here all the way from Cleveland, Ohio, to meet you, isn’t that great of him?’

‘It sure is,’ said Dave. People flew halfway around the world to see him every time he did a concert, but he always acted pleased.