‘What are you going to do, Daddy, put me in a nunnery?’
‘Are you threatening to elope?’
‘Just pointing out that, in the end, you don’t really have the power to stop us.’
She was right. Dave had checked, at the San Francisco public library on Larkin Street. The age of majority was twenty-one, but several states allowed women to marry at eighteen without parental consent. And in Scotland the age was sixteen. In practice, it was difficult for parents to prevent the marriage of two people who were determined.
But Woody said: ‘Don’t you bet on that. This is not going to happen.’
Dave said mildly: ‘We don’t want to quarrel with you about this, but I think Beep’s just saying that yours is not the only opinion that counts here.’
He thought his words were inoffensive, and he had spoken in a courteous tone of voice, but that seemed to infuriate Woody more. ‘Get out of this house before I throw you out.’
Bella intervened for the first time. ‘Stay where you are, Dave.’
Dave had not moved. Woody had a bad leg from a war wound: he was not throwing anyone anywhere.
Bella turned to her husband. ‘Darling, twenty-one years ago you sat in this room and confronted my mother.’
‘I wasn’t seventeen, I was twenty-five.’
‘Mother accused you of causing the breaking-off of my engagement to Victor Rolandson. She was right: you were the cause of it, though at that point you and I had spent only one evening together. We had met at Dave’s mother’s party, after which you went off to invade Normandy and I didn’t see you for a year.’
Beep said: ‘One evening? What did you do to him, Mom?’
Bella looked at her daughter, hesitated, then said: ‘I blew him in a park, honey.’
Dave was astonished. Bella and Woody? It was unimaginable!
Woody protested: ‘Bella!’
‘This is no time to mince words, Woody, dear.’
Beep said: ‘On the first date? Wow, Mom! Way to go!’
Woody said: ‘For God’s sake . . .’
Bella said: ‘My darling, I’m just trying to remind you of what it was like to be young.’
‘I didn’t propose marriage right away!’
‘That’s true, you were painfully slow.’
Beep giggled and Dave smiled.
Woody said to Bella: ‘Why are you undermining me?’
‘Because you’re being just a little pompous.’ She took his hand, smiled, and said: ‘We were in love. So are they. Lucky us, lucky them.’
Woody became a little less angry. ‘So we should let them do anything they like?’
‘Certainly not. But perhaps we can compromise.’
‘I don’t see how.’
‘Suppose we tell them to ask us again in a year. In the meantime, Dave will be welcome to come and live here, in our house, whenever he can get a break from working with the group. While he’s here he can share Beep’s bed, if that’s what they want.’
‘Certainly not!’
‘They’re going to do it, either here or elsewhere. Don’t fight battles you can’t win. And don’t be a hypocrite. You slept with me before we were married, and you slept with Joanne Rouzrokh before you met me.’
Woody got up. ‘I’ll think about it,’ he said, and he walked out of the room.
Bella turned to Dave. ‘I’m not giving orders, Dave, either to you or to Beep. I’m asking you – begging you – to be patient. You’re a good man from a fine family, and I will be happy when you marry my daughter. But please wait a year.’
Dave looked at Beep. She nodded.
‘All right,’ said Dave. ‘A year.’
*
On the way out of the hostel in the morning, Jasper checked his pigeonhole. There were two letters. One was a blue airmail envelope addressed in his mother’s graceful handwriting. The other had a typed address. Before he could open them he was called. ‘Telephone for Jasper Murray!’ He stuffed both envelopes into the inside pocket of his jacket.
The caller was Mrs Salzman. ‘Good morning, Mr Murray.’
‘Hello, Blue Eyes.’
‘Are you wearing a tie, Mr Murray?’ she said.
Ties had become unfashionable, and anyway, a clerk-typist was not required to be smart. ‘No,’ he said.
‘Put one on. Herb Gould wants to see you at ten.’
‘He does? Why?’
‘There’s a vacancy for a researcher on This Day. I showed him your clippings.’
‘Thank you – you’re an angel!’
‘Put on a tie.’ Mrs Salzman hung up.
Jasper returned to his room and put on a clean white shirt and a sober dark tie. Then he put his jacket and topcoat back on and went to work.
At the news-stand in the lobby of the skyscraper, he bought a small box of chocolates for Mrs Salzman.
He went to the offices of This Day at ten minutes to ten. Fifteen minutes later, a secretary took him to Gould’s office.
‘Good to meet you,’ Gould said. ‘Thanks for coming in.’
‘I’m glad to be here.’ Jasper guessed that Gould had no memory of their conversation in the elevator.
Gould was reading the assassination edition of The Real Thing. ‘In your résumé it says you started this newspaper.’
‘Yes.’
‘How did that come about?’
‘I was working on the official university student newspaper, St Julian’s News.’ Jasper’s nervousness receded as he began to talk. ‘I applied for the post of editor, but it went to the sister of the previous editor.’
‘So you did it in a fit of pique.’
Jasper grinned. ‘Partly, yes, though I felt sure I could do a better job than Valerie. So I borrowed twenty-five pounds and started a rival paper.’
‘And how did it work out?’
‘After three issues we were selling more than St Julian’s News. And we made a profit, whereas St Julian’s News was subsidized.’ This was only slightly exaggerated. The Real Thing had just about broken even over a year.
‘That’s a real achievement.’
‘Thank you.’
Gould held up the New York Post clipping of the interview with Walli. ‘How did you get this story?’
‘What had happened to Walli wasn’t a secret. It had already appeared in the German press. But in those days he was not a pop star. If I may say so . . .’
‘Go on.’
‘I believe the art of journalism is not always finding out facts. Sometimes it’s realizing that certain already-known facts, written up the right way, add up to a big story.’
Gould nodded agreement. ‘All right. Why do you want to switch from print to television?’
‘We know that a good photograph on the front page sells more copies than the best headline. Moving pictures are even better. No doubt there will always be a market for long in-depth newspaper articles, but for the foreseeable future most people are going to get their news from television.’
Gould smiled. ‘No argument here.’
The speaker on his desk beeped and his secretary said: ‘Mr Thomas is calling from the Washington bureau.’
‘Thanks, sweetie. Jasper, good talking to you. We’ll be in touch.’ He picked up the phone. ‘Hey, Larry, what’s up?’
Jasper left the office. The interview had gone well, but it had ended with frustrating suddenness. He wished he had had the chance to ask how soon he would hear. But he was a supplicant: no one was worried about how he felt.
He returned to the radio station. While he was at the interview, his job had been done by the secretary who regularly relieved him at lunchtime. Now he thanked her and took over. He took off his jacket, and remembered the mail in his pocket. He put on his headphones and sat at the little desk. On the radio, a sports reporter was previewing a ball game. Jasper took out his letters and opened the one with the typewritten address.
It was from the President of the United States.
It was a form letter, with his name handwritten in a box.
It read: