by Jon Cleary
He shook his head. “No, I don’t think I am. That blonde girl this afternoon—Joan Temple. We talk about it, but we’ve decided we’re from the wrong side of the tracks to be idealists. Both our families have too much money. Oh, I know,” he said, reading the unspoken remark on her face, “money should be no barrier. But it is, when it’s all tied up the way our money is.” She looked at him, saying nothing, and after a while he nodded. “Okay, I want it both ways. Now you think I’m a hypocrite.”
“Not at all. I want it both ways, too. I’d like to be a £50,000-a-year idealist. That way, when I got to Heaven, I’d be seated with only the best. I’m an elitist idealist.”
He raised his glass to her, a Corton-Clois du Roi ‘61, ideal for elitists. “The best sort. Now where do we go after dinner? Your place or mine?”
“We go our separate ways. I’ll put you in a taxi and pay the fare and tell the driver to see you get home safely.”
“Do you have a boy-friend or a husband?” He had noticed she wore no wedding ring, but that meant nothing these days.
“Yes.” Jack would be flattered to be called a boy. “Your mother has met him. Lord Cruze.”
He laughed, full-bellied; the intimacy of the place was shattered. The head waiter looked towards them reproachfully, but Alain didn’t see him. “Really? Oh boy, can you pick ‘em!”
“Do you know him?”
“Only what I’ve read about him in Time and Newsweek. He’s the successor to Lord Beaverbrook, isn’t he?”
“He wouldn’t like that. He thinks he’s an original.”
“Is he? I mean for you?”
After a pause: “Yes.”
He had stopped laughing and was watching her. At last he said, “Why did you have dinner with me? I really thought this was going to lead to bed.”
The thought tempted her for the moment. “I don’t know. I just wanted to have dinner with a young chap.”
He was sharp, like his mother. “Lord Cruze is a bit ancient?”
It was her turn to laugh. “Not quite. He’s fifty, fifty-one—I’m not sure. You may not believe it, but men at that age are not past their prime. Righto, don’t ask,” she said, reading the unspoken remark on his face. “I’m not going to discuss what he’s like as a lover. We get on very well together.”
“But . . .”
“Well, yes. But . . .” She changed course. “I didn’t tell you before—I’ve met your mother. At Lord Cruze’s. I was quite impressed by her—she’s a formidable lady. I wanted to see what sort of son she’d raised.”
He wasn’t offended: he had become accustomed to being examined as part of his mother’s handiwork. “Are you planning to do something on her? You’ll never get anywhere near her, you know. Not for TV.”
“I’m not planning anything. I just wanted to see what was behind the First Lady of the New York press—that’s what they called her in London.”
“Do you have that ambition? To be a First Lady?” He was sharp.
She liked him enough to be honest with him. “Yes.”
“Well, good luck.” He sounded as if he felt sorry for her. “Are you impressed with my mother’s son?”
“Yes. You’re a credit to her, if that’s not too much of a put-down on you.”
He smiled; he had remarkable resilience. “No, I see what you mean. Mother is, as you say, a formidable lady. But she’s also a very good mother. It can happen, you know. Is that what you want to be eventually? A formidable lady and a good mother?”
“Did you take feminine psychology at Yale?” She paid the bill with her American Express card. She wondered if the accounts department of United Television would query why she had to take out a rich woman’s son. “I don’t know about the formidable lady bit. I think your mother has more steel in her than I have. I mean that as a compliment.”
“Maybe.” He was flattered that she thought he understood feminine psychology. He’d seen no evidence of it himself, not with the girls he had known. “There’s still time for you to develop it. The Empress didn’t always have it.”
His mother was the Empress to him, too. But Cleo made no comment.
IV
When Cleo got back to her hotel on East 39th Street there was a message that Lord Cruze had called. She looked at her watch, saw that it would be two o’clock in the morning in England, decided not to call him and went to bed. At six o’clock the phone rang.
“I rang you twice last night. Where were you?”
“Jack, I’m only half-awake. Don’t start on some sort of inquisition.”
There was a pause, then: “Sorry. But I missed you. I thought you might have called back.”
“By the time I got in, it was too late. I didn’t want to wake you.”
“Where were you then, that it was so late?”
“It was late your time, not here. I’d been out to dinner.”
“Who with?”
This is ridiculous, she thought; but kept her tongue under control. “With Alain Roux, Mrs. Roux’s son. I interviewed him.”
“What’s he like?”
Young, handsome . . . “A bit like his mother. A snob, I think.”
“Did you see her?”
“No. Do you want me to?” She didn’t know why she said that, except perhaps to put some edge to her tongue.
He caught the sarcasm. “There you go again. . . When will you be back?”
“We’re flying out tomorrow night.”
“Have dinner with me Monday night.”
“All right. But Jack—this time let’s go to a French restaurant. I’ve gone off sensible English food.”
“Just so long as you haven’t gone off Englishmen.” He laughed, but at 3,000 miles he sounded as if there was static in his throat.
V
On Sunday morning Alain told his mother that he had had dinner with Cleo. “She sent you her regards.”
“How did you meet her?”
“She interviewed me.”
“What about? Us?”
“No, the war and the demonstration.”
“She did that at dinner? For her column?”
“No, the dinner was private, just social. She did the interview yesterday afternoon for her TV programme.”
“What did you tell her?”
“The same as I’ve told you. That I’m against it.”
They were at breakfast in the small breakfast-room that looked out on to the terrace. Claudine was having her usual croissant and coffee; but Alain was eating ranch style. She saw him gorging himself on bacon and eggs and brown hash (from a supermarket freezer for the metropolitan cowboy) and it only increased her annoyance with him.
“You should have been more discreet. God knows what the British will make of such a thing. Their newspapers love to snipe at us—they’ve never forgiven us for the War of Independence. I suppose it’s the same with their television.”
“Are you afraid they’ll snipe at us Brissons?” Both of them always thought of themselves as Brissons.
“We’ve kept our name out of the papers and off television. Up till now, that is.”
He played her at her own game: “Okay, Mother, let’s not discuss it. Oh—” He took his draft notice out of his hip pocket and laid it on the table. “I got that on Friday.”
She knew at once what it was, though she had never seen one before. “Why didn’t you tell me then?”
“I wanted to think about it.” He ate a mouthful of bacon and egg, chewing on it with an abstracted expression on his face, as if he were having breakfast alone and he was wondering what he would do with this free Sunday. Then he swallowed and looked across at her. “I’m going to go.”
“Where? Canada or wherever they all go? Sweden?”
“There’s no war in Canada or Sweden.” He smiled, being patient with her. “No, I’m not going to be a draft dodger. I’m going to Vietnam, if that’s where they’re going to send me. I’ll bring you back the truth of what’s going on out there.”
She didn’t want t
he truth, not if he had to risk his life to bring it to her. “When will you be going?”
“Pretty soon. They don’t waste any time. I shan’t go back to Montana, I’ll report straight from here.” Then he pushed his plate away from him and looked directly at her. “I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing. But it would hurt you more if I did split for Canada, wouldn’t it?”
No, it would not: but she could not separate her public image from her private self. She wondered how some mothers could proudly send their sons off to war, as the Courier editorials were always obliquely suggesting. “I have friends—perhaps we could have you posted to some army post here at home—”
She was surprised at the anger in his face; but all he said was, “No, Mother. No string-pulling.”
Later, when he had gone out, she went into her bedroom, shut her door against interruption by one of the maids, and wept. It was the first time she had shed tears since his birth.
That evening she went to Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral and prayed for his safe return. She went home confident that God had listened to her. She didn’t ask much of Him, but when she did she expected service.
Alain reported with his draft, but found he was not expected to join the other draftees going to boot camp. He was being sent south to another camp to start an Intelligence course.
“How do I rate that, sir? I thought I should learn first how the army works.”
“You’ve done six months ROTC, okay?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then that oughta give you an idea how the army works.” But the captain behind the desk, battle-scarred with cynicism as much as anything else, looked up at him. “You also got an uncle, General Brisson, right? I guess he told you all you need to know, right?”
Alain knew then that strings had been pulled after all, not by his uncle but by his mother. “I’d rather go to boot camp first, sir. I did that ROTC bit when I first went to college. I dropped out—they said I’d never make officer material.”
“They don’t say anything here about making you an officer down at this course. All it says here is that’s where you gotta report. Here’s your ticket. North Carolina oughta be pretty nice this time of year. Give my regards to your uncle, if you ever see him.”
Alain didn’t blame the captain for his attitude. “I’ll do that, sir.”
He thought of calling his mother, blasting her for pulling the strings as she had done, then decided it would be a waste of time. She would tell him she didn’t want to discuss it.
In the train taking him south he looked out at the countryside, grey-green, faded red and brown, like a tinted etching, under the fall sky. A small town went by: a white church steeple, a neon sign above a tavern, tattered bunting flapping in the wind above a used car lot. A man on a horse (a horse? Alain tried to look back, but the man was already gone from view) waited at the railroad crossing like someone from another era: a messenger who had arrived too late, he thought. Oh Christ, do the messages ever get through in time? He was twenty-two years old and he was beginning to think that no one ever listened to him, least of all his mother.
He began, for the first time, to think of dying in Vietnam. Up till now the thought had not occurred to him, but now all at once he was frightened by it.
A girl stood in the aisle beside him. “Is this seat taken?”
“No.” She was no knock-out, but she was attractive and looked cheerful. “It’s all yours.”
She sat down, arranged herself as some women do, as if taking a long lease on where they’ve planted their bottoms. Then she looked at him. “I was watching you from across the aisle, I was in that window seat there. You looked lonely. Sort of sad. You’re going into the army, aren’t you?”
He looked at her with a spark of interest. “How did you know? You’re pretty perceptive.”
“I just know. I study boys your age, the ones who have to go to the war. What were you thinking about? Your folks, your girl-friend?”
“Me.” All at once she was a nuisance. “Actually, I was thinking about being killed.”
“You shouldn’t. Think about living. Jesus will take care of you.” She put her hand in the large cloth bag on her lap, then handed him a booklet. “He takes care of all of us. It’s all here, in this book.”
“Do you ride the trains looking for guys like me?” He said it facetiously.
“Yes,” she replied, seriously.
Suddenly, against his whole nature, he wanted to shout at her, be cruel to her. What made her think Jesus had all the answers? The priests at his prep school had lost him years ago; their messages had never got through. He had run away from them and now, out of kindness, he got up to run away from this busybody.
“What’s your name, miss?”
“Lola Ann Fluegler.”
“Well, Lola Ann, when I meet up with Jesus, I’ll tell Him you’re busy spreading His word. But if you should be talking to Him, ask Him why He doesn’t stop the goddam war.”
“It’s a war against Communism, against the Anti-Christ.”
Oh God, he thought, how old is she? The same age as myself, younger? What would she be like in middle age? Still riding trains, looking for young men to fight the Anti-Christ?
His anger all at once ran out of him. “I’m sorry, Lola Ann. Some day you’re going to be sadder than me.”
He went down the aisle, his legs abruptly weak, hardly holding him up against the swaying of the train. He wondered if, after all, he might be killed, if at some crossing in Vietnam the pale horseman, Death, would be waiting for him with the final message of all.
VII
He went to Vietnam three months later, in February 1970. Within a week he learned from the grunts, the men who were fighting it, that the truth was that the war could not be won. Two weeks later he was wounded, when the Jeep in which he was travelling hit a land-mine. The two men with him were killed and he sustained wounds to his knee that meant he would limp for the rest of his life. The doctors and nurses in the field hospital were surprised that he could laugh about it.
“It could have been worse,” he told them. “I was looking for a horseman with a message.”
They guessed he must have been stoned out of his mind when he went into action.
8
I
THE SIXTIES went out and the Seventies came in. Politicians, economists, philosophers, fashion designers and astrologers were asked for their opinions on the decade ahead. They were all cautious and the man in the street suffered from platitude sickness.
Over the next year Cleo became more and more well-known. If Cleo Spearfield wasn’t exactly a household name, like Bird’s Eye fish fingers or Spillers dog food, it did conjure up a face and figure for millions of television viewers. Her column was moved to a more prominent place in the Examiner and occasionally the paper featured her picture on its billboards. She was herself at last, her own woman, no longer Sylvester Spearfield’s daughter. She was still Lord Cruze’s mistress, but such a distinction was not the subject of common gossip in the households of Britain.
The fantasy of the Swinging Sixties died away, like a slowing swing in a children’s playground when everyone has grown up and moved on. A few still struggled to keep alive the euphoria: boutiques, bistros and pop bands; but it was like Paris of the Twenties, kept going for the tourists rushing to experience it before the Depression of the Thirties took root. No one expected another Depression in Britain, something like that could never happen again, but a certain exhaustion had set in. The British had been too long out of training to become marathon hedonists.
Labour went out of power to be replaced by the Tories and Mr. Heath. The latter, a bachelor, an organist and a racing yachtsman, three pursuits the voters didn’t expect from their Prime Ministers, came in with a lot of goodwill from everyone but the far Left and the old guard Right. As time went by he would find that the middle ground in politics is often where the shooting range is just right from both extremes.
Cleo and Jack Craze�
�s relationship settled into a sort of freelance marriage: there was no contract but both kept working at their alliance. Cruze continued to win events at horse shows, Cleo’s presence no longer tangling his reins; the male members of the horse set gave Cleo mental pats on her flanks and told each other she was a fine mare. She played hostess at the Cruze dinner parties, even persuading Mrs. Cromwell to experiment a little with the menus: Mrs. C. went so far as to make her raspberry flan with French pastry but that was as far as she was prepared to stray beyond national boundaries. Sometimes, in the quiet hour after such dinner parties, Cleo marvelled at her own ease amongst the company Jack had invited; hostessing, like prostitution, is a trade for which some have a talent and some don’t. She charmed ambassadors and Cabinet ministers and tycoons, if not always their wives, and held her own in the dinner table conversation; that was something she had inherited from her father, something for which she did not resent him. She and Jack went to Antibes in the summer and joined a Greek shipowner for a Mediterranean cruise on his steam yacht; she appeared on deck in a bikini and the Greek at the wheel almost ran the yacht straight into Italy, so blinded was he by lust. Jack Cruze, stomach tucked in, muscles painfully bulged, felt pride as he saw the young chaps gloating over her. He told himself his money hadn’t bought her, just made a down payment: now she loved him for himself. Though so far she hadn’t said so in so many words.
The war ground on in Vietnam: everyone seemed to know it was finished but no one knew how to stop it. Edward Kennedy, shaking the waters of Chappaquiddick from himself, began to be heard again; Irish Indians once more began circling the White House. President Nixon retreated from America, the country held at bay by a two-man wall, Haldeman and Erlichman. Americans turned to a television star for a guide to what to believe: Walter Cronkite became the American Pope.
“I’d love to have that sort of influence.” Cleo and Cruze were sitting in his study looking at a CBS clip featured in a Panorama programme on the American scene.
“Forget it.” Jack Cruze was at ease, in pyjamas, dressing gown and slippers. Cleo had begun buying his clothes for him, but Turnbull and Asser, when told for whom she was buying, had cut their labels out of their shirts and pyjamas and gowns: they knew a poor advertisement when they heard of him. “You’re too good-looking to be influential. If ever a woman is going to have that sort of influence in this country, she’s got to be the homely, motherly sort. Like they have in detergent commercials. You come on the screen and half the men in the country say, I wonder what she’s like in bed? They’re not listening to you because they want to be reassured.”
