Advise and Consent

by Allen Drury

  There was a clamor in the street, a stirring in the driveway, several cheerful honks on a rather loud horn, and in a clash and a clatter and a sleek red convertible with the top down the junior Senator from Iowa arrived with an air.

  “Uncle Lafe!” Pidge cried, dropping the ball and trotting across the lawn as fast as she could go to leap into his outheld arms.

  “How’s my girl?” he asked, giving her a big kiss and then promptly putting an arm around Mabel and giving her one, too. “I should say, how are my girls?”

  “I swear,” Brig said with amusement, surveying this happy scene, “from one to ninety, you get ’em all, don’t you, pal? What is this fatal charm?”

  “Good looks,” Senator Smith said modestly. “Native intelligence. Innate gentility. Animal magnetism. SEX. They all enter in. How are you, buddy? You look a little peaked.”

  “I do?” Senator Anderson said in a tone of such concerned surprise that his colleague laughed.

  “No, you don’t,” he said disarmingly. “You look fine for a man who’s holding the whole world on his shoulders like Atlas. Doesn’t he look fine, Mabel?”

  “He always looks fine to me,” Mabel said in a tone that made the Senator from Iowa look at her more closely.

  “Now, see here,” he said, tilting her chin and examining her eyes intently. “That’s no way to act on a beautiful day like this.”

  “He has fatal charm, too,” she said, gesturing toward her husband and starting to get watery again. “Oh, damn!” she added, vigorously dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. “Damn, damn!”

  “My goodness!” Lafe said with a startled laugh. “That’s strong language for you, lady. What’s been going on here, anyway?”

  “Nothing that kindly, wise old Uncle Lafe can’t put to rights, I’m sure,” Senator Anderson said. “Anyway, it’s all over now.”

  “That’s right,” Mabel said, continuing to wipe her eyes rapidly. “I was just worried, but I’m not anymore.”

  “She was just worried, boo hoo, but she, boo hoo, isn’t, boo hoo, any more,” Lafe said mockingly. “Boo hoo.”

  “Well, I can’t help it if I’m weepy,” Mabel protested, beginning to laugh, and in a second they were all laughing together, and blowing her nose vigorously and giving her eyes one last dab, she put the handkerchief away and seemed herself again.

  “That’s better,” Lafe said. “You’ve got a hell of a nerve beating your wife, Senator. I guess it’s time I came and took you away.”

  “I’ll go quietly, Senator,” Brig promised. “What did you have in mind?”

  “Women,” Lafe said fervently, and in the midst of their renewed laughter Pidge spoke up in a clear, thoughtful tone.

  “Mommy,” she said slowly, “Uncle Lafe’s funny, isn’t he?”

  “I guess that tells you,” Senator Anderson said with a chuckle, and Senator Smith looked dignified.

  “Your daughter knows entirely too much,” he said, suddenly raising her above his head, “for her age,” he concluded, depositing her in an ecstatically squealing heap in her mother’s arms. “How about Normandy Farms? I feel as though we were two-thirds of the way there already, you live so far out.”

  “Spring Valley isn’t far,” Mable objected.

  “And anyway, it’s fashionable,” her husband added. “As all get out.”

  “You wanted to live here, too, because it was near the Knoxes,” his wife reminded him, and he laughed.

  “Let’s get out of here before I start another family argument,” he suggested. “Take care of yourself, you two,” he said, kissing Mabel quickly and stooping to do the same to Pidge. “I expect I’ll go along to the office after lunch. You can tell Bob and Orrin and the President, but don’t tell anybody else.”

  “I won’t,” Mabel said. “Have a good time.”

  “We will,” he said, and for a moment his eyes held hers with some expression she could not understand, one of the many she could not, and never had been able to, understand. “Be of good cheer,” he quoted softly. “The troops are with me.”

  And he turned away toward the car as Lafe too gave her a farewell kiss. Abruptly she reached out and took his arm tightly.

  “I’m worried for him,” she said simply, like a little girl who can’t pretend. “I’m afraid of what they’ll do to him. Help him. He—he won’t let me.”

  Lafe gave her a sharp look and frowned.

  “Stop that,” he said quietly. “You’ve got yourself all worked up over nothing. We’ll take care of him. He has lots of things going for him, and not the least of them is you.”

  “I wish I could believe it,” she said in a lonely voice, and he gave her hand a quick, impatient squeeze.

  “Mabel,” he said. “Stop it. You know the pitfalls in that kind of talk, so stop it. We’re going to have a good lunch and get this thing all straightened out and he’ll be a hero again by tomorrow morning. You wait and see.” And he gave her hand another squeeze, more gently this time. “Now, relax,” he said. “Bye, Pigeon.” And he tousled Pidge’s hair and gave her a hug.

  “Hey!” Brig called from the car. “Stop smooching my women and come along. I’m hungry.”

  “Right,” Lafe said. “Just have to keep in practice, is all. Take care, gals. I’ll see you again soon.”

  And he gave them a wave, leaped in, turned on the ignition and started to back out with a dramatic roar; remembered suddenly that this was a street where children lived, slowed his pace so abruptly it almost drove his passenger into the back of the seat, and inched carefully out in a cautious crawl.

  For a time after they turned onto River Road and headed at a leisurely pace toward Normandy Farms restaurant fifteen miles out from the Capitol in the rolling green Maryland countryside filled with the sights and sounds of spring, they were silent. It was the Senator from Utah who finally spoke.

  “I wish she didn’t take things so intensely,” he said, staring out at the green fields, the white barns and fences, the Black Angus cattle dotted here and there among the trees and emerald grasses. “It makes her so vulnerable. I don’t mean to hurt her, I try to do what seems best, but lately it always seems to be winding up in tears and trouble. Maybe you have the right idea, after all. Heart whole and fancy free, and so on. Maybe you’re right.”

  “I don’t know,” his colleague said with a rather rueful grin. “I was thinking as I came through town on my way out, and do you know, it’s getting so I can’t travel ten blocks in Washington without passing three places where I’ve made love. It’s a hell of a depressing thing when a town gets all filled up with memories of your one-night stands. I think I’ll move out.”

  “Sure, sure,” Brigham Anderson said skeptically. “I can see you moving out any time before the voters of Iowa ask you to. Well, then, maybe you don’t have the right idea. Maybe you should get married, even if I’m not such a good example at the moment.”

  “You’re a good example,” Lafe said. “You’re a fine example. Sweet girl for a wife, sweet girl for a daughter. What more do you want?”

  “I don’t know,” Brig said, frowning at the gracious countryside going by. “Peace of mind and a heart at rest I guess. Is that too much to ask for?”

  “No, of course not,” Lafe said soberly. “It’s what all men ask for. Most get reconciled eventually to not finding it though. Maybe that’s your trouble. You haven’t really accepted the bargain you made.”

  “What bargain?” Senator Anderson asked, but he could see his companion meant nothing more by it than a casual comment.

  “Getting married,” Lafe said. “Settling down. Being a pillar of society. Not catting around like me all the time.”

  “Is that how you find peace of mind and a heart at rest?” Brig couldn’t resist asking, and his colleague smiled in a surprisingly bleak way.

  “No, sir,” he said. “I don’t. That’s why I still think you have the right idea and the ideal set up, not me. After all, what’s sex, when you come right down to it? Right time, right
place, right mood, right company, there’s nothing more wonderful; but how often does that ideal combination of factors come about? Not very damned often, it seems to me on the basis of rather thorough study. And I imagine that’s true even in marriage, right?”

  “After a while,” Senator Anderson said. “Except that marriage has a way of renewing itself from time to time. So if it’s so all-fired stale for you what keeps you going?”

  “Oh, you keep going through the motions,” Lafe said, “hoping. And

  after all,” he added with a sudden grin, “the motions aren’t so unpleasant.”

  Then he looked more serious. “But about you and Mabel—”

  “Yes?” Brig asked.

  “Are you sure it’s—” Lafe began and then paused in a rare moment of hesitation.

  “What?” his colleague asked. “All her fault were you going to say?”

  “How did you know what I was going to say?” Lafe asked with a smile. Brig shrugged.

  “It’s the standard thing to say in such cases, isn’t it?” he said. “And this is quite a standard case, I’m sure.”

  “Look,” Senator Smith said, skillfully navigating around a truck in the rolling, winding road as it plunged up and down through the spring-ripe hollows, “don’t get bitter, boy. Mabel’s a lovely girl and a fine, decent person. So are you. Trust wise, kindly old Uncle Lafe and don’t get to brooding about it, okay? After all, you must have had plenty of time in the Pacific to find out what you wanted, didn’t you? Unless it was dramatically different from ETO, that is. Over there, we never lacked opportunities!”

  Brig laughed in a more lighthearted way.

  “No, Daddy,” he said. “We didn’t lack opportunities in the Pacific, either.”

  “Then you surely tried what you wanted to try and did what you wanted to do and then came home and added it all up and decided you wanted to marry and settle down, didn’t you?” Lafe said. “So what makes you question the bargain now?”

  “You keep saying ‘bargain,’” Brigham Anderson said rather sharply. “What makes you think it was a bargain?”

  “Wasn’t it?” Lafe asked with some surprise. “A bargain between desire and custom, dream and reality, wish and career, sex and society? We all make bargains in some way. You have to.”

  For a moment the Senator from Utah made no reply; and then he spoke in a curious, faraway, questioning tone.

  “Do you?” he asked. “Do you really?”

  “Look, buddy,” Lafe said humorously, but even as he spoke some instinct told him he was making a mistake, that it wouldn’t be received humorously, “just what did you do in the Pacific, anyway?”

  He was aware as soon as the words were out that he had gone too far in some way he didn’t understand, because suddenly his friend wasn’t there anymore; the wall that came down between Brig and the world when he wanted it to was suddenly in place. The level dark eyes looked calmly into his when he glanced up quickly from the road, but there was no communication, only a politely attentive friendliness that gave not an inch to anyone.

  “Oh, come now,” Brig said pleasantly. “This is getting awfully dramatic for a nice spring day. Let’s talk about you for a change. I still think you ought to get married.”

  The Senator from Iowa smiled and let the moment go, even though he knew he would puzzle about it later until he understood it; and even without understanding it he knew in some instinctive way that right here in the midst of the clear golden day he had suddenly become afraid for Brigham Anderson. But as with any experienced politician none of this showed.

  “Well, do you know,” he said lightly, “this will come as a great shock to you, pal, but I’m seriously thinking about it.”

  “No!” Brig said in a much more responsive and delighted tone.

  “Yes, sir,” Lafe said, “I am. There’s this little girl from Iowa who works for the Armed Services Committee over in the House, and I met her a couple of months ago, and one thing led to another—”

  “It always does with you, doesn’t it?” Brig said with a smile.

  “Well, it did, yes,” Senator Smith said, “specifically about a month ago at my place. Well, I thought that was that, but—it turned out it wasn’t. There’ve been a couple of times since, and then last Friday night, I was quite sure I would never see her again after that. Intended not to, anyway. But do you know, the funniest thing happened? The next morning—that was the day the nomination broke—somebody on the Iowa State Society called and wanted to know if I knew of anyone to nominate to be queen of the society ball for the Cherry Blossom Festival, and before I really stopped to think I gave them her name, and last night they elected her, and now I’m supposed to crown her and be her partner at the ball, and—and, well,” he said in a rather puzzled tone, as though he couldn’t believe this was happening to him, “I’m beginning to suspect that maybe I won’t be saying good-by to her after all.”

  “You’re hooked, Senator,” Brig said. Lafe shook his head in a baffled way.

  “I’m beginning to think so,” he said. “I find I get restless when she isn’t around. I suppose that’s a sure sign.”

  It’s one of them,” Brig said. “Well, I think that’s wonderful. I expect you’ll settle down and never look at another woman, after all those thousands of bedrooms stretching out behind you into the past.”

  “I suppose,” Senator Smith said, rather glumly. “What a hell of a depressing prospect!” He grinned. “Am I ready for it, that’s the question? Maybe I need more preparation.”

  Brigham Anderson snorted.

  “Preparation, my hat,” he said. “Any more preparation and you wouldn’t be able to stagger up to the altar. Mabel will be delighted. So am I.”

  “That’s good,” Lafe said. “You’ll like her.”

  “Any girl you choose will be fine with me, son,” Senator Anderson said in a kindly tone. “Anything you want to know, just ask me.”

  “Go to hell,” said Senator Smith with dignity. “God, what a beautiful day.”

  “Yes, it is,” Brig agreed. “Do you ever get the feeling at times like this that it’s wonderful to be off alone miles away from the Senate with nobody knowing where you are or who you are or wanting you to do something for them, and all those problems and worries left behind? I certainly do.”

  “Oh, I do, too,” Lafe said quickly. “I take this thing out about once a week, all by myself, head out into the country and just ramble for a couple of hours. It does wonders. It’s a great job, United States Senator, and I wouldn’t be anything else; but sometimes being one of one hundred people out of all this great nation, with all the terrific responsibilities we have and all the terrific pressures we’re under—it gets kind of rugged, now and then. Particularly in days like these when it sometimes seems quite possible that if we fail it will all be wiped out and may never be reestablished. It isn’t easy.”

  “No,” Senator Anderson said, “it isn’t. It makes you wonder if you’re worthy of it, sometimes. Or,” he asked in a lighter tone, “am I just being too damned philosophical for words?”

  “No, indeed,” Senator Smith said amicably. “Not a bit. What are friends for, if you can’t talk to them? I feel that way sometimes, too. I think, here I am, helling around all the time—what right have I got to say I know enough to help run the country? What right have I got to uphold all these fine principles and make speeches to my high-school classes when they come here about what a great heritage they have and how noble they should be? How noble am I, for Christ’s sake? Not very. And what right have I got to set myself up to judge other men and their motives and take stands on things because I say they’re right or wrong? What’s right and what’s wrong, and what does Lover Boy Smith know about it?”

  “There, there,” Brig said with a chuckle. “Don’t let it get you down. But, of course,” he added more seriously, “you’re entirely right. It’s a problem everybody faces everywhere. Who’s perfect? Who’s to judge? But somebody’s got to, otherwise nothing would e
ver get done. About all you can do, I guess, is add up the good you do and the bad you do and strike a balance that does as much justice as possible to your own needs and the necessities of society, and then go ahead....At least,” he said with a thoughtful frown and a recurrence of mood that shadowed the bright day suddenly, “that’s what I tell myself.”

  “Well, one thing I think we can say for ourselves,” Lafe remarked, giving him an intent appraisal for just a second, “at least we have the humility to admit we aren’t perfect. And that we do judge from a real confusion of motives, sometimes, because somebody’s got to judge in order to keep the country going and we’re the ones who’ve been elected to do it, and so we do.”

  “We can have the humility to admit that to each other,” Brigham Anderson said with a sudden smile. “I’m damned if I’m going to admit it to my opponent in Utah next time.”

  “You aren’t going to have any opponent in Utah next time,” Lafe said, in one of those remarks people remember later with wonder in entirely different contexts, and his companion laughed.

  “I’d like to think I was in that solid,” he said, “but I’m afraid I’m not....It does get tough sometimes, though. You wonder if you’re being fair.”

  “Since you mention it,” Senator Smith said quickly, and Brig laughed.

  “Yes?” he said dryly.

  “I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to,” Lafe admitted with a grin, “but since you mention it—are you being fair about the nomination?”

  The senior Senator from Utah was silent for several moments before replying, and his colleague was afraid that again he had pressed too hard on some sensitive nerve; but he reflected that Brig had indeed broached the subject, so he concentrated on his driving and waited patiently for the answer. It came in a thoughtful voice.