Edge of Eternity (23 page)

He was silent for a few moments, but George knew that he was not supposed to speak.

‘Let me tell you the whole truth about Stanley Levison,’ King went on at last, and George felt he was about to hear a sermon. ‘Stanley is good at making money. This embarrasses him. He feels he should spend his life helping others. So, when he was young, he became . . . entranced. Yes, that’s the word. He was entranced by the ideals of Communism. Although he never joined, he used his remarkable talents to help the Communist Party of the US in various ways. Soon he saw how wrong he was, broke the association, and gave his support to the cause of freedom and equality for the Negro. And so he became my friend.’

George waited until he was sure King had finished, then he said: ‘I’m deeply sorry to hear this, Reverend. If Levison has been a financial advisor to the Communist Party, he is forever tainted.’

‘But he has changed.’

‘I believe you, but others will not. By continuing a relationship with Levison you will be giving ammunition to our enemies.’

‘So be it,’ said King.

George was flabbergasted. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Moral rules must be obeyed when it doesn’t suit us. Otherwise, why would we need rules?’

‘But if you balance—’

‘We don’t balance,’ King said. ‘Stanley did wrong to help the Communists. He has repented and is making amends. I’m a preacher in the service of the Lord. I must forgive as Jesus does and welcome Stanley with open arms. Joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons. I myself am too often in need of God’s grace to refuse mercy to another.’

‘But the cost—’

‘I’m a Christian pastor, George. The doctrine of forgiveness goes deep into my soul, deeper even than freedom and justice. I could not go back on it for any prize.’

George realized his mission was doomed. King was completely sincere. There was no prospect of changing his mind.

George stood up. ‘Thank you for taking the time to explain your point of view. I appreciate it, and so does the Attorney General.’

‘God bless you,’ said King.

George and Verena left the office and walked outside. Without speaking, they got into Verena’s car. ‘I’ll drop you at your hotel,’ she said.

George nodded. He was thinking about King’s words. He did not want to talk.

They drove in silence until she pulled up at the hotel entrance. Then she said: ‘Well?’

He said: ‘King made me ashamed of myself.’

*  *  *

‘That’s what preachers do,’ said his mother. ‘It’s their job. It’s good for you.’ She poured a glass of milk for George and gave him a slice of cake. He did not want either.

He had told her the whole thing, sitting in her kitchen. ‘He was so strong,’ George said. ‘Once he knew what was right, he was going to do it, no matter what.’

‘Don’t set him up too high,’ Jacky said. ‘No one’s an angel – especially if he’s a man.’ It was late afternoon, and she was still wearing her work clothes, a plain black dress and flat shoes.

‘I know that. But there was I, trying to persuade him to break with a loyal friend for cynical political reasons, and he just talked about right and wrong.’

‘How was Verena?’

‘I wish you could have seen her, in that coat with a black fur collar.’

‘Did you take her out?’

‘We had dinner.’ He had not kissed her goodnight.

Out of the blue, Jacky said: ‘I like that Maria Summers.’

George was startled. ‘How do you know her?’

‘She belongs to the club.’ Jacky was supervisor of the coloured staff at the University Women’s Club. ‘It doesn’t have many black members, so of course we talk. She mentioned she worked at the White House, I told her about you, and we realized you two already know each other. She has a nice family.’

George was amused. ‘How do you know
that
?’

‘She brought her parents in for lunch. Her father’s a big lawyer in Chicago. He knows Mayor Daley there.’ Daley was a big Kennedy supporter.

‘You know more about her than I do!’

‘Women listen. Men talk.’

‘I like Maria, too.’

‘Good.’ Jacky frowned, remembering the original topic of conversation. ‘What did Bobby Kennedy say when you got back from Atlanta?’

‘He’s going to okay the wiretap on Levison. That means the FBI will be listening to some of Dr King’s phone calls.’

‘How much does that matter? Everything King does is intended to be publicized.’

‘They may find out, in advance, what King is going to do next. If they do, they’ll tip off the segregationists, who will be able to plan ahead, and may find ways to undermine what King does.’

‘It’s bad, but it’s not the end of the world.’

‘I could tip King off about the wiretap. Tell Verena to warn King to be careful what he says on the phone to Levison.’

‘You’d be betraying the trust of your work colleagues.’

‘That’s what bothers me.’

‘In fact, you’d probably have to resign.’

‘Exactly. Because I’d feel a traitor.’

‘Besides, they might find out about the tip-off, and when they looked around for the culprit they’d see one black face in the room – yours.’

‘Maybe I should do it anyway, if it’s the right thing.’

‘If you leave, George, there’s
no
black face in Bobby Kennedy’s inner circle.’

‘I knew you’d say I should shut up and stay.’

‘It’s hard, but yes, I think you should.’

‘So do I,’ said George.

12

‘You live in an amazing house,’ Beep Dewar said to Dave Williams.

Dave was thirteen years old; he had lived here as long as he could remember; and he had never really noticed the house. He looked up at the brick façade of the garden front, with its regular rows of Georgian windows. ‘Amazing?’ he said.

‘It’s so old.’

‘It’s eighteenth-century, I think. So it’s only about two hundred years old.’

‘Only!’ She laughed. ‘In San Francisco, nothing is two hundred years old!’

The house was in Great Peter Street, London, a couple of minutes’ walk from Parliament. Most of the houses in the neighbourhood were eighteenth-century, and Dave knew vaguely that they had been built for Members of Parliament and peers who had to attend the House of Commons and the House of Lords. Dave’s father, Lloyd Williams, was an MP.

‘Do you smoke cigarettes?’ said Beep, taking out a packet.

‘Only when I get the chance.’

She gave him one and they both lit up.

Ursula Dewar, known as Beep, was also thirteen, but she seemed older than Dave. She wore nifty American clothes, tight sweaters and narrow jeans and boots. She claimed she could drive. She said British radio was square: only three stations, none playing rock and roll – and they went off the air at midnight! When she caught Dave staring at the small bumps her breasts made in the front of her black turtleneck, she was not even embarrassed; she just smiled. But she never quite gave him an opportunity to kiss her.

She would not be the first girl he had kissed. He would have liked to let her know that, just in case she thought he was inexperienced. She would be the third, counting Linda Robertson, whom he did count even though she had not actually kissed him back. The point was, he knew what to do.

But he had not managed it with Beep; not yet.

He had come close. He had discreetly put his arm around her shoulders in the back of his father’s Humber Hawk, but she had turned her face away and looked out at the lamplit streets. She did not giggle when tickled. They had jived to the Dansette record player in the bedroom of his fifteen-year-old sister, Evie; but Beep had declined to slow-dance when Dave put on Elvis singing ‘Are You Lonesome Tonight?’.

Still, he lived in hope. Sadly, this was not the moment, standing in the small garden on a winter afternoon, Beep hugging herself to keep warm, both of them stiffly dressed in their best clothes. They were off to a formal family occasion. But there would be a party later. Beep had a quarter-bottle of vodka in her handbag to spike the soft drinks they would be given while their parents hypocritically glugged whisky and gin. And then anything might happen. He stared at her pink lips closing around the filter tip of her Chesterfield, and imagined yearningly what it would be like.

His mother’s American accent called from the house: ‘Get in here, you kids – we’re leaving!’ They dropped their cigarettes into the flower bed and went inside.

The two families were assembling in the hall. Dave’s grandmother, Eth Leckwith, was to be ‘introduced’ to the House of Lords. This meant she would become a baroness, be addressed as Lady Leckwith, and sit as a Labour peer in the upper chamber of Parliament. Dave’s parents, Lloyd and Daisy, were waiting, with Evie, and a young family friend, Jasper Murray. The Dewars, wartime friends, were here too. Woody Dewar was a photographer on a one-year assignment in London, and had brought his wife, Bella, and their children, Cameron and Beep. All Americans seemed fascinated by the pantomime of British public life, so the Dewars were joining in the celebration. They formed a large group as they left the house and headed for Parliament Square.

Walking through the misty London streets, Beep transferred her attention from Dave to Jasper Murray. He was eighteen and a Viking, tall and broad with blond hair. He wore a heavy tweed jacket. Dave longed to be so grown-up and masculine, and to have Beep look up at him with that expression of admiration and desire.

Dave treated Jasper like an older brother, and asked his advice. He had confessed to Jasper that he adored Beep and could not figure out how to win her heart. ‘Keep trying,’ Jasper had said. ‘Sometimes sheer persistence works.’

Dave could hear their conversation. ‘So you’re Dave’s cousin?’ Beep said to Jasper as they crossed Parliament Square.

‘Not really,’ Jasper replied. ‘We’re no relation.’

‘So how come you live here rent-free and everything?’

‘My mother was at school with Dave’s mother in Buffalo. That’s where they met your father. Since then they’ve all been friends.’

There was more to it than that, Dave knew. Jasper’s mother, Eva, had been a refugee from Nazi Germany and Dave’s mother, Daisy, had taken her in, with characteristic generosity. But Jasper preferred to underplay the extent to which his family was indebted to the Williamses.

Beep said: ‘What are you studying?’

‘French and German. I’m at St Julian’s, which is one of the larger colleges of London University. But mostly I write for the student newspaper. I’m going to be a journalist.’

Dave was envious. He would never learn French or go to university. He was bottom of the class at everything. His father despaired.

Beep said to Jasper: ‘Where are your parents?’

‘Germany. They move around the world with the army. My father’s a colonel.’

‘A colonel!’ said Beep admiringly.

Dave’s sister, Evie, muttered in his ear: ‘Little tart, what does she think she’s doing? First she flutters her eyelashes at you, then she flirts with a man five years older!’

Dave made no comment. He knew that his sister had a massive crush on Jasper. He could have taunted her, but he refrained. He liked Evie and, besides, it was better to save up stuff like this and use it next time she was mean to him.

‘Don’t you have to be born an aristocrat?’ Beep was saying.

‘Even in the oldest families there has to be a first one,’ Jasper said. ‘But nowadays we have Life Peers, who don’t pass the title to their heirs. Mrs Leckwith will be a Life Peer.’

‘Will we have to curtsey to her?’

Jasper laughed. ‘No, idiot.’

‘Will the Queen be there for the ceremony?’

‘No.’

‘How disappointing!’

Evie whispered: ‘Stupid bitch.’

They went into the Palace of Westminster by the Lords’ Entrance. They were greeted by a man in court dress, including knee breeches and silk stockings. Dave heard his grandmother say in her lilting Welsh accent: ‘Obsolete uniforms are a sure sign of an institution in need of reform.’

Dave and Evie had been coming to the Parliament building all their lives, but it was a new experience for the Dewars, and they marvelled. Beep forgot to be charmingly dizzy and said: ‘Every surface is decorated! Floor tiles, patterned carpets, wallpaper, wood panelling, stained glass, and carved stone!’

Jasper looked at her with more interest. ‘It’s typical Victorian Gothic.’

‘Oh, really?’

Dave was beginning to get irritated with the way Jasper was impressing Beep.

The party split, most of them following an usher up several flights to a gallery overlooking the debating chamber. Ethel’s friends were already there. Beep sat next to Jasper, but Dave managed to sit on the other side of her, and Evie slid in beside him. Dave had often visited the House of Commons, at the other end of the same palace, but this was more ornate, and had red leather benches instead of green.

After a long wait there was a stir of activity below and his grandmother came in, walking in line with four other people, all dressed in funny hats and extremely silly robes with fur trimmings. Beep said: ‘This is amazing!’ but Dave and Evie giggled.

The procession stopped in front of a throne, and Grandmam knelt down, not without difficulty – she was sixty-eight. There was a lot of passing round of scrolls that had to be read aloud. Dave’s mother, Daisy, was explaining the ceremony in a low voice to Beep’s parents, tall Woody and plump Bella, but Dave tuned her out. It was all bollocks really.

After a while Ethel and two of her escorts went and sat on one of the benches. Then followed the funniest part of all.

They sat down, then immediately stood up again. They took off their hats and bowed. They sat down and put their hats back on again. Then they went through the whole thing again, looking for all the world like three marionettes on strings: stand up, hats off, bow, sit down, hats on. By this time Dave and Evie were helpless with suppressed laughter. Then they did it a third time. Dave heard his sister splutter: ‘Stop, please stop!’ which made him giggle even more. Daisy directed a stern blue-eyed glare at them, but she was too full of fun herself not to see the funny side, and in the end she grinned too.