Edge of Eternity (40 page)

‘So this will be used against American troops if we invade Cuba.’

‘Yes. And it’s designed to carry a nuclear warhead.’

‘Oh, shit,’ said George.

‘That’s probably what President Kennedy is going to say,’ said Claud.

18

The radio was on in the kitchen of the house in Great Peter Street on Friday evening. All over the world, people were keeping their radios on, listening fearfully for newsflashes.

It was a big kitchen, with a long scrubbed-pine table in the centre. Jasper Murray was making toast and reading the newspapers. Lloyd and Daisy Williams got all the London papers and several continental ones as well. Lloyd’s main interest as a Member of Parliament was foreign affairs, and had been ever since he fought in the Spanish Civil War. Jasper was scanning the pages for some reason to hope.

Tomorrow, Saturday, there would be a protest march in London, if London was still standing in the morning. Jasper would be there as a reporter for
St Julian’s News
, the student paper. Jasper did not really like doing news reports: he preferred features, longer, more reflective pieces, in which the writing could be a little more fancy. He hoped one day to work in magazines, or maybe even television.

But first he wanted to be editor of
St Julian’s News.
The post came with a small salary and a sabbatical year off studies. It was much coveted, as it practically guaranteed the student a good job in journalism after graduation. Jasper had applied but had been defeated by Sam Cakebread. The Cakebread name was famous in British journalism: Sam’s father was assistant editor of
The Times
and his uncle was a much-loved radio commentator. He had a younger sister at St Julian’s College who had interned with
Vogue
magazine. Jasper suspected that it was Sam’s name, not his ability, which had won him the job.

But ability was never enough in Britain. Jasper’s grandfather had been a general, and his father had been on course for a similar career, until he made the mistake of marrying a Jewish girl, and in consequence had never been promoted above the rank of colonel. The British establishment never forgave people who broke their rules. Jasper had heard it was different in the United States.

Evie Williams was in the kitchen with Jasper, sitting at the table, making a placard that read:
HANDS OFF CUBA
.

Evie no longer had a schoolgirl crush on Jasper. He was relieved. She was sixteen now, and beautiful in a pale, ethereal way; but she was too solemn and intense for his taste. Anyone who dated her would have to share her passionate commitment to a wide range of campaigns against cruelty and injustice, from apartheid in South Africa to experiments on animals. Jasper had no commitment to anything and, anyway, he preferred girls like the impish Beep Dewar, who, even at the age of thirteen, had put her tongue in his mouth and rubbed herself against his erection.

As Jasper watched, Evie inscribed, inside the ‘o’ of ‘
OFF
’, the four-branched symbol of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Jasper said: ‘So your slogan supports two idealistic causes for the price of one!’

‘There’s nothing idealistic about it,’ she said sharply. ‘If war breaks out tonight, do you know what the first target of Soviet nuclear bombs will be? Britain. That’s because we have nuclear weapons, which they need to eliminate before they attack the United States. They won’t be bombing Norway, or Portugal, or any country that has the sense to stay out of the nuclear competition. Anyone who thinks logically about the defence of our country knows that nuclear weapons don’t protect us – they put us in danger.’

Jasper had not intended his remark to be taken seriously, but Evie took everything seriously.

Evie’s fourteen-year-old brother, Dave, was also at the table, making miniature Cuban flags. He had used a stencil to paint the stripes on to sheets of heavy paper, and now he was attaching the sheets to small sticks of plywood with a borrowed staple gun. Jasper resented Dave’s privileged life, with wealthy, easy-going parents, but he worked hard to be friendly. ‘How many are you making?’ he asked.

Dave said: ‘Three hundred and sixty.’

‘Not a random number, presumably.’

‘If we don’t all get killed by bombs tonight, I’m going to sell them at the demonstration tomorrow for sixpence each. Three hundred and sixty sixpences are one hundred and eighty shillings, or nine pounds, which is the price of the guitar amplifier I want to buy.’

Dave had a nose for business. Jasper remembered his soft drinks stall at the school play staffed by teenage boys who worked at top speed because Dave was paying them a commission. But Dave did badly at his lessons, coming at or near the bottom of the class in all academic subjects. It drove his father wild, for in other respects Dave seemed bright. Lloyd accused Dave of laziness, but Jasper thought it was more complicated. Dave had trouble making sense of anything written down. His own writing was dire, full of spelling mistakes and even reversed letters. It reminded Jasper of his best friend at school, who had been incapable of singing the school song, and found it hard to hear the difference between his one-note drone and the melody the other boys were singing. Likewise, Dave had to make an effort of concentration to see the difference between the letters ‘d’ and ‘b’. He longed to fulfil the expectations of his high-achieving parents, but always fell short.

As he stapled his sixpenny flags together, his mind evidently wandered, for apropos of nothing he said: ‘Your mother and mine can’t have had much in common when they first met.’

‘No,’ said Jasper. ‘Daisy Peshkov was the child of a Russian-American gangster. Eva Rothmann was a doctor’s daughter from a middle-class Jewish family in Berlin, sent to America to escape the Nazis. Your mother took my mother in.’

Evie, who had been named after Eva, said: ‘My mother just has a big heart.’

Jasper said half to himself: ‘I wish someone would send me to America.’

‘Why don’t you just go?’ said Evie. ‘You could tell them to leave the Cuban people alone.’

Jasper did not care a damn about the Cubans. ‘I can’t afford it.’ Even living rent-free he was too broke to buy a ticket to the United States.

At that moment the woman with the big heart walked into the room. Daisy Williams at forty-six was still attractive, with big blue eyes and fair curls: when she was young she must have been irresistible, Jasper thought. Tonight she was dressed modestly, in a mid-blue skirt with matching jacket and no jewellery; hiding her wealth, Jasper thought sardonically, the better to play the part of a politician’s wife. Her figure was still trim, though not as slim as it used to be. Picturing her naked, he thought she would be better in bed than her daughter, Evie. Daisy would be like Beep, ready for anything. He was surprised to catch himself in such a fantasy about someone his mother’s age. It was a good thing women could not read men’s minds.

‘What a nice picture,’ she said fondly. ‘Three kids working quietly.’ She still had a distinctive American accent, though its edges had been worn smooth by her living in London for a quarter of a century. She looked with surprise at Dave’s flags. ‘You don’t often take an interest in world affairs.’

‘I’m going to sell them for sixpence each.’

‘I might have guessed your efforts had nothing to do with world peace.’

‘I leave world peace to Evie.’

Evie said with spirit: ‘Someone has to worry about it. We could all be dead before this march begins, you know – just because Americans are such hypocrites.’

Jasper looked at Daisy, but she was not offended. She was used to her daughter’s abrasive ethical pronouncements. Mildly, she said: ‘I guess Americans have been badly scared by the missiles in Cuba.’

‘Then they should imagine how other people feel, and take their missiles out of Turkey.’

‘I think you’re right, and it was a mistake for President Kennedy to put them there. All the same, there’s a difference. Here in Europe we’re used to having missiles pointed at us – on both sides of the Iron Curtain. But when Khrushchev secretly sent missiles to Cuba, he made a shocking change in the status quo.’

‘Justice is justice.’

‘And practical politics is something else. But look how history repeats itself. My son is like my father, always alert for an opportunity to make a few bucks, even on the brink of World War Three. My daughter is like my Bolshevik Uncle Grigori, determined to change the world.’

Evie looked up. ‘If he was a Bolshevik, he did change the world.’

‘But was it for the better?’

Lloyd came in. Like his coal-mining ancestors, he was short in stature with broad shoulders. Something about the way he walked reminded Jasper that he had once been a champion boxer. He was dressed with old-fashioned flair, in a black suit with a faint herringbone stripe, a crisp white linen handkerchief in his breast pocket. The two parents were obviously going to a political event. ‘I’m ready if you are, my darling,’ he said to Daisy.

Evie said: ‘What’s your meeting about?’

‘Cuba,’ said her father. ‘What else?’ He noticed her placard. ‘I see you’ve already made up your mind about the issue.’

‘It’s not complicated, is it?’ she said. ‘The Cuban people should be allowed to choose their own destiny – isn’t that a basic democratic principle?’

Jasper saw a row looming. In this family, half the rows were about politics. Bored by Evie’s idealism, he interrupted. ‘Hank Remington is going to sing “Poison Rain” in Trafalgar Square tomorrow.’ Remington, an Irish boy whose real name was Harry Riley, was leader of a pop group called the Kords. The song was about nuclear fallout.

‘He’s wonderful,’ said Evie. ‘So clear-thinking.’ Hank was one of her heroes.

‘He came to see me,’ said Lloyd.

Evie immediately changed her tone. ‘You didn’t tell me!’

‘It happened only today.’

‘What did you think of him?’

‘He’s a genuine working-class genius.’

‘What did he want?’

‘He wanted me to stand up in the House of Commons and denounce President Kennedy as a warmonger.’

‘So you should!’

‘And what happens if Labour wins the next general election? Suppose I become Foreign Secretary? I might have to go to the White House and ask the President’s support for something the Labour government wants to do, perhaps a resolution in the United Nations against racial discrimination in South Africa. Kennedy might remember how I insulted him, and tell me to drop dead.’

Evie said: ‘You should do it anyway.’

‘Calling someone a warmonger usually doesn’t help. If I thought it would resolve the current crisis, I would do it. But it’s a card you can play only once, and I prefer to save it for a winning hand.’

Jasper reflected that Lloyd was a pragmatic politician. He approved.

Evie did not. ‘I believe that people should stand up and tell the truth,’ she said.

Lloyd smiled. ‘I’m proud to have such a daughter,’ he said. ‘I hope you will hold on to that belief all your life. But now I must go and explain the crisis to my supporters in the East End.’

Daisy said: ‘Bye, kids. See you later.’

They went out.

Evie said: ‘Who won that argument?’

Your father did, Jasper thought, hands down; but he did not say so.

*  *  *

George returned to downtown Washington in a state of high anxiety. Everyone had been working on the assumption that an invasion of Cuba was bound to succeed. The Frogs changed everything. US troops would now face battlefield nuclear weapons. Perhaps the Americans would still prevail, but the war would be harder and would cost more lives, and the result was no longer a foregone conclusion.

He got out of his taxi at the White House and stopped by the press office. Maria was at her desk. He was happy to see that she looked much better than she had three days earlier. ‘I’m fine, thank you,’ she said in answer to George’s enquiry. A small weight of worry lifted from his heart, leaving the larger still heavy on him. She was recovering physically, but he did not know what spiritual damage was being caused by her secret love affair.

He was not able to ask her more intimate questions because she had company. With her was a young black man in a tweed jacket. ‘Meet Leopold Montgomery,’ she said. ‘He’s with Reuters. He came by to pick up a press release.’

‘Call me Lee,’ the man said.

George said: ‘I guess there aren’t many coloured reporters covering Washington.’

‘I’m the only one,’ Lee said.

Maria said: ‘George Jakes works with Bobby Kennedy.’

Lee suddenly became more interested. ‘What’s he like?’

‘It’s a great job,’ George said, avoiding the question. ‘Mainly I advise on civil rights. We take legal action against Southern states that prevent Negroes voting.’

‘But we need a new civil rights act.’

‘Say that, brother.’ George turned to Maria. ‘I can’t stay. I’m glad you’re feeling better.’

Lee said: ‘I’ll walk with you, if you’re going over to Justice.’

George avoided the company of newsmen, but he felt a camaraderie with Lee, who was trying to make it in white Washington just as George was, so he said: ‘Okay.’

Maria said: ‘Thanks for dropping by, Lee. Please call me if you need any clarification on that release.’

‘Sure will,’ he said.

George and Lee left the building and went along Pennsylvania Avenue. George said: ‘What’s in your press release?’

‘Although the ships have turned around, the Soviets are still constructing missile launch sites in Cuba, and they’re doing it at top speed.’

George thought of the aerial reconnaissance photographs he had just seen. He was tempted to tell Lee about them. He would have liked to give a scoop to a young black reporter. However, it would have been a breach of security, and he resisted the impulse. ‘I guess that’s so,’ he said noncommittally.

Lee said: ‘The administration seems to be doing nothing.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The quarantine is clearly ineffective, and the President isn’t doing anything else.’

George was stung. He was part of the administration, albeit a small part, and he felt unjustly accused. ‘In his television speech on Monday, the President said the quarantine was just the beginning.’