“Your father’s here in England, though, at the moment?” Gini said. “Someone pointed him out to me at that dinner at the Savoy.”
“Yes. He’s here. He was coming over anyway for that birthday party of mine—if that ever happens, which looks increasingly unlikely. He had some business to attend to as well, so he decided to come earlier. He’s staying with us. I’m afraid that hasn’t eased the situation. He and Lise have never gotten along.”
He paused. “Maybe you’ll get to meet him if Lise is well enough and the party takes place. I’d like you to meet him. He’s an extraordinary man.”
He looked away as he said this. He rested his gaze somewhere in the middle distance, and Gini felt that he no longer saw his surroundings, but was watching his own past. He settled back in his chair. A few minutes of silence passed. Then, as if sensing her gaze on his face, he turned back to look at her.
“You know how old I was when I first realized my father had my life all mapped out in advance?” He sighed. “Eight years old. Can you imagine that? It was my birthday. My mother bought a train set—it was the year before she died. My father’s idea of a present for an eight-year-old was more unusual. You know what it was?” He gave her a half-smile. “It was a clock.”
“A clock?”.
“Oh, valuable, of course.” He shrugged. “Longcase. Antique. A historic piece. Said to have belonged to Thomas Jefferson. It had a seven-day system. All these levers and pulleys and weights. Every Sunday, my father and I, we wound it up. Our special ceremony. My father liked ceremonies. Rituals. I guess he still does.”
His tone sharpened. “You won’t find this story in the clippings—for what it’s worth, I kept it to myself. You know why he gave me a clock? To teach me about time. He wanted me to watch it go past, be able to measure it in the movements of cogs and pendulums and weights and counterweights. The day he gave it to me, he said: Forty years from now, John, you will be the president of your country. …Then he said children couldn’t imagine forty years. It was too huge. So every time I wound the clock, I had to remember. Forty years is two thousand and eighty weeks….”
He paused once more, still staring off into the middle distance, as if he were back in the memory and had forgotten her presence.
“It sounds like an awfully long time put that way,” Gini said, still watching him carefully, “two thousand and eighty weeks.”
“It isn’t.” He jerked back to look at her. “We’re in the two thousand and seventy-ninth right now. It’s my forty-eighth birthday next week.” His smile tightened. “I’m behind schedule. As my father has already pointed out.”
His tone had now dipped toward bitterness. Gini was silent, unwilling to break this sudden confessional mood. When he said no more, she risked a quiet prompt.
“But you plan on catching up? That’s what people say….”
“Maybe. I know I could. My father wants it.” He paused and then turned to look at her.
“Would it surprise you if I said I had abandoned it all—all those plans, all those ambitions? I almost did. Four years ago, when my son was ill. I decided then. That’s why I resigned from the Senate. There were other contributing factors—the state of my marriage for one—but that wasn’t the main reason. The night my son nearly died, the night his illness reached its crisis—I spent that night, alone, by his hospital bed.” He gave a weary half-smile. “I prayed, of course, though I have very little faith left. I looked at myself, my past life. In the end, around three in the morning, I made a deal with God.”
He gave a shrug. “It’s the kind of thing one does, perhaps, in those circumstances. It seemed right at the time. When I looked back at my life, there was a great deal I despised, and very little I liked. So I made my deal. Make my son better, and I’ll give it all up. All the power and the glory and the hypocrisy and the unrest…” He paused. “God was obliging. He fulfilled his side of the bargain. My son recovered. I resigned from the Senate later that week.” He glanced at her. “You won’t find that story in the clippings either. It’s true, nevertheless.”
He had told her this in a strained, almost harsh way, so his tone was at odds with the actions he described. Looking at him, Gini came near to pitying him. She said gently, “But then, you must feel—if you really made that promise—you’re a Catholic born and bred—you must feel it’s still binding, surely?”
“Perhaps. I look at it rather differently now.” The reply was curt; he hesitated, then said in a quieter tone, “I can’t let superstition rule my life—and that’s what it is now, my religion. It’s superstition. I told you, I have no faith. I have to think of my father. He’s devoted half his life to his ambitions for me. He’s old now, he can’t have many years left to live. I’d like to give him one last gift.” A brief smile crossed his face. “And then, I’m not without abilities. In many ways I miss my former life. I miss the drive of politics. I miss having one clear goal ahead of me. After all, I lived with that goal, that one aim, for most of my life.”
“So you will return to politics, then? You haven’t abandoned your presidential hopes?”
“No. I haven’t abandoned them. Nor has my father, of course.”
“Do you have a timetable?”
Hawthorne smiled. “Sure. A realistic one. A flexible one. You can’t tie it down to forty years, or two thousand and eighty weeks. It depends on Lise’s condition, partly. It depends on the present incumbent and his performance, just a few little considerations of that kind …”
He rose in a sudden and agitated way, betraying a restlessness he had not exhibited before. He began to walk back and forth in the room. Gini watched him silently. He stopped, and swung around suddenly to look at her.
“I have tried,” he said. “God knows I have tried to alter my life. But the agenda was set. Do you see? Even before I was born. The inexorable rise of my family. It was never enough for me simply to be a senator. My grandfather was a senator. My father was a senator. I had to do more than that. Without that one goal ahead of me my life seems aimless, empty. Can you understand that? I’ve lived with that aimlessness for four years now and I’ve had enough. After all, what other consolations do I have other than my sons? Take the ambition away, and there’s nothing left.”
He broke off angrily. Gini had begun to speak, but he cut her off.
“I know what you’re going to say. Fame? That’s meaningless without power. Money? I was born with more money than any one human being could possibly want. I’ve already told you, I have no faith. So what’s left? And don’t mention my marriage. You’re not as easy to deceive as either Mary or Sam. I’m sure it hasn’t escaped your notice. My marriage is dead. It’s been dead for at least nine of the ten years it’s lasted.”
He stopped abruptly. His voice had risen, and the silence after he stopped speaking was intense. Gini could feel the room reverberate with the unsayable and the unsaid. Hawthorne’s eyes now rested on her face.
After a moment, she said quietly, “That’s not what you implied earlier this evening.”
“I know that. As you no doubt noticed, I was very careful in what I said. I told you one lie, and only one. I said that I loved my wife. I do not love Lise, and I have never loved her. As a matter of fact, I loathe her.”
There was another silence. His gaze was now intent. Gini looked at him uncertainly. The real Hawthorne, she felt, was suddenly very close, perhaps one question away. She bent her head and inched back the sleeve of her blouse so she could just see the face of her watch. It was nine-thirty. Pascal was an hour and a half late. She felt uneasy at that, and a little afraid, but she pushed that fear aside. She looked up at Hawthorne again, and she could see the tension and the pain in his face.
“You want me to go?” he asked abruptly. “Perhaps I should go.”
“You said you had something you wanted to say to me.” Gini hesitated. “Was it about your marriage? About Lise?”
“Indirectly, yes.” He gave a quick defensive gesture of the hand. “Except that I shoul
dn’t discuss Lise. It’s wrong of me….” He glanced at her. “I couldn’t say this in front of your father or Mary, but those rumors you heard about me, they did concern other women, infidelities on my part, yes?”
“Yes. They did.”
The direct reply seemed to please him. He gave a wry smile.
“Then that’s what I wanted to discuss with you. The other women in my life. I thought I might tell you the truth.”
“Why should you tell me of all people?”
“Why you? Well, partly because for all your denials, you’ve been hunting me down, and so I thought, why not let her in, why not open the gates? Also”—he paused, and frowned—“I like you.”
“Is that true?”
“Yes. It is.” He began to move away. “I liked you the first time I met you, aged thirteen, with your little friend who wanted to flirt and couldn’t quite manage it—you remember that? I liked you when I met you again at Mary’s. There’s no point in explaining liking. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn’t. Maybe I don’t like you or trust you and you just happen to be here at the right moment—who knows?”
He had moved across to a side table, where there was a bottle of scotch and some glasses. He picked up the bottle and began to unscrew its cap.
“May I? Will you join me?” He was smiling, then the smile disappeared. He stood absolutely still, and Gini realized he was listening. She looked around the silent room, then she also heard the sound—footsteps passing outside in the street.
Hawthorne’s expression was now alert. He still held the whisky bottle. “Is this apartment safe?”
“Safe?”
“Is it wired?”
“I’m not sure.” She hesitated. “It might be, yes.”
He gave a sigh, a long, slow exhaling of breath. “You know, I don’t give a damn,” he said in an odd, defiant way. “I don’t give a damn anymore one way or another. Here.”
He handed her the glass of whisky. His hand brushed hers as he passed it across. Hawthorne gave no indication of noticing this. He moved back to the chair opposite her and sat down. He gave her a long and considering look. Again Gini felt that pulse of tension and unease.
“You remember what I said in that speech at the Savoy?” Hawthorne said. “About accountability, about a public man’s private life?”
“Yes. I do. You said if such a man had nothing to hide, he had nothing to fear.”
“Exactly. By that rule, if my claims earlier this evening about my marriage were true, I’d have no reason to fear McMullen, yes? At best, he could start rumors, gossip. I could probably live with that. Neither he, nor you, nor anyone else would be able to supply proof.” He gave her a cool glance. “Unfortunately, as I guess you’ve realized, it’s not that straightforward. There have been other women, infidelities on my part. If you tried hard enough, and long enough, you’d find out about them eventually. Well, I’ll save you the effort. I’ll explain them myself.”
He leaned back in his chair. He gave her a long and considering look. “You’re young. You may not understand. Nevertheless, I’ll tell you. This is the way it began. …”
Chapter 31
IT WAS SIX-THIRTY WHEN Pascal pulled away from Mary’s house. He looked back once, to see Gini and Mary standing in the doorway, and he knew that if he hesitated, he would change his mind and storm back. Gini had made it angrily clear that she did not want him present, so he accelerated away fast, before he had time to waver. He gunned the bike through the dark, wet streets and squares of Kensington, not caring what direction he took. Then, realizing he was riding too fast, and dangerously, he pulled into a side street and slammed on the brakes.
He had an hour and a half to kill. He walked up Kensington Church Street, impervious to other passersby, and to the lighted windows of the shops, until in a side street he saw a wine bar that advertised coffee as well as drinks. The place was half empty. He sat down in a booth at the back and ordered a triple espresso. Someone had left a copy of the late edition of the Standard on the seat beside him. He opened the pages, flicked them; the print seemed without meaning. He closed the paper, folded it in half, and stared into space.
He thought of Gini, and the argument they had had before leaving for Mary’s. He replayed it in his mind: its half-truths and evasions, its suppressed resentments. There had been a moment—and they had both been aware of it—when the same unspoken panic had been felt by them both. There had been a moment when they had realized that something they both prized was now threatened. It had happened very swiftly, that sudden loss of confidence. One minute Pascal had remained obstinately convinced that the next question, the next sentence, could bridge the gap between them that he could sense was opening up—and the next minute he had seen he was wrong. The next question, the next answer, made it worse: It deepened the divide. That had frightened Pascal very much.
He had been there before, in that hinterland; he had spent much of his marriage trapped in that place. He knew that Gini had been there too, in the past: Her succession of brief past affairs told him that, even if she scarcely spoke of it herself. He had, he realized now, been incautiously content in the days since Venice, and so had Gini perhaps. They had allowed themselves to inhabit a wonderful new region of amity and trust unsullied by argument or quarrels, and he knew that it dismayed them both, to see how swiftly that amity could be impaired. Suddenly they were both back in the ordinary petty world, where two lovers did not agree, and where disagreements burgeoned with ugly speed into the shabbiness of hostility and resentment and distrust.
I will not let that happen, Pascal thought, not to us. And so he sat there in the café for an hour, seeing nothing and no one, planning what he should say and do when he rejoined Gini, and how—somehow—he would rescue them both. Quarrels were to be expected, he told himself; all lovers quarreled and fought and disagreed. There could be purpose and egality in quarrels: They were nothing to fear, provided they did not undermine the fundamental commitment. This thought heartened him. He ordered more coffee, lit a cigarette, watched the hands of the clock on the wall move slowly toward seven forty-five. He would leave then, for Mary’s house. Suddenly he was impatient to leave, could not wait to leave, to see Gini, to talk to her, to make everything between them clear again, and good.
The hands of the clock, though, seemed to move unnaturally slowly. Frustrated, impatient, he picked up the newspaper again in an effort to distract himself, and then he saw it, a tiny item on the back page, in the Stop Press. It was headed Accident Outside Oxford. Pascal glanced at it, froze, read it once, then read it again.
He swore under his breath, tossed some money on the table, picked up the paper, and hurried out to the street. It had begun to rain again, heavily. He ran back to his motorbike, mounted it, and accelerated south.
He turned into Kensington High Street. Mary’s house was a few blocks off this main road, to the west. There was heavy traffic still, although the rush hour was over. Pascal began to weave in and out of other vehicles. It was urgent now to speak to Gini. He had almost forgotten about her father, and his presence at Mary’s house: All he could think of was seeing Gini, and telling her this news.
All along the street, every set of traffic lights hit red as he approached. Pascal swore, and muttered to himself under his breath. There were further lights, up ahead, and they were still green. He checked his side mirror, saw a large black Ford behind him, some twenty yards back. He increased his speed and pulled out past a delivery truck on his left. He was now in the fast lane with the Ford behind him. The lights ahead were still green, still green—and then he realized: The Ford had picked up speed and was now right on his rear wheel. The lights ahead were amber. He had a second to decide as he reached the intersection and they went red: brake or continue?
He thought for one tiny instant of a boulevard in Paris. The Ford behind was too close to allow him to brake. He increased his speed; he had just enough time, he judged, to shoot the light. Then he realized: Neither the delivery truck nor
the Ford was braking. They were still with him, on his tail and to his side, as he started across the intersection. He felt the air move as the truck skimmed alongside him. Its driver did not signal or slow. The truck cut in on him, fast, and without warning, swerving right across his front wheel.
As the bike skidded and he started to lose control, the Ford switched its headlights to full beam. In that long, slow second of dazzle, Pascal watched the bike tilt. He watched the wet, glassy surface of the road rise up to meet him. There was a grinding of metal, a screech of rubber. His spine juddered against tarmac; he felt himself start to slide, skid, twenty feet down the road, thirty. The velocity and the pain still had a hypnotic slowness. He was not unconscious. He could see with a timeless and brilliant clarity that this was a dual-action maneuver. The truck, having hit the bike, was now speeding away, and the black Ford was heading straight at him. He was lying in the middle of the street. The Ford had all the time in the world, and all the space in the world, to make its hit.
“I don’t know what story, exactly, McMullen fed your newspaper about my personal life,” Hawthorne was saying, “but I do know one thing for sure—he will have concocted the story with Lise’s help, and she will have lied to him. Even if she weren’t ill, unable to distinguish between truth and falsehood anymore, Lise would still lie where our marriage is concerned. She has never accepted the truth. Every fact has to be adjusted, so she is the innocent, the injured party….” He shrugged. “I won’t get involved in that contest. There is blame on my side, I admit that.”