DECEMBER 1962
NEW YORK
Not once had it occurred to her to think of him as the kind of man who would bring down a government and close off an era. But at that time – in those days – to whom had it occurred? If she had thought about it, then, of course, he was no revolutionary – he was a sybarite. She knew revolutionaries. Short men, serious men, men who marked their seriousness physically by being bald or mustachioed, or both. She knew. She’d been introduced to Lenin before she was ten years old – in much the same way the devout took their children to be blessed by the Pope. She’d been blessed by Lenin. Fat lot of good it did her.
He was heading for her now. Picking his way through this well-heeled Park Avenue party crowd, intent on her, smiling, charming, exchanging the odd word, the odder kiss, with half a dozen socialites en route to her.
‘Signora Troy!’
Always addressed her in Italian.
‘Bella, bella.’
Then he kissed her.
‘Dr Fitzpatrick. What brings you back so soon?’
He’d been over in August, or was it July?
‘The war, m’dear. The war. Had to see if the pavements of New York had cracked or its buildings crumbled.’
‘What war?’
‘Cuba.’
‘You mean October? You call that a war?’
‘Missiles piling up among the sugar cane, battleships squaring off in the Atlantic, half England in tears because the world is about to end before they’ve even lost their virginity. What would you call it?’
‘I’d call it diplomacy. I’d call it politics.’
‘Well you know what Churchill said about politics and war.’
‘War is politics by other means, and I think it was Thucydides.’
‘I meant the other way around. Politics is war by other means.’
‘No, that we call brinkmanship.’
‘Can I get you another drink?’
When he got back with her Martini, she’d make damn sure they changed the subject. She’d all but ignored Cuba. It could not scare her. The panic that had seemed to grip everyone she knew had passed her by. She’d spent her whole life trapped between the USA and the USSR. Bound to get her one day.
‘What really brings you here?’
‘Can you keep a secret?’
‘Absolutely not.’
‘Work.’
‘Work?’
‘I treated the American ambassador in Harley Street last spring. He was kind enough to recommend me to the President.’
‘Jack Kennedy’s flying in doctors from England?’
‘I’d keep it quiet. It’s hardly a vote-winner, is it?’
‘Is he that ill?’
‘Addison’s is very wearing. In that sense it’s deadly. If he wins next November don’t bank on there not being a President Johnson by 1966 or thereabouts.’
Now, that did scare her.
‘You know,’ Fitzpatrick said, ‘we took it very seriously in England.’
‘We back on Cuba?’
‘We’re sort of in the middle. I don’t just mean geographically. We none of us, none of the English, think of the Russians as bogeymen. I know some of the London Russians. Perfectly decent people.’
So did she. She’d married one.
‘I have a friend works at the embassy. Thoroughly decent chap. Matter of fact I tried telling the powers that be that the Russians are human just like you or I. I wrote to one of the rising lights of the Labour Party to say as much during the Missile Crisis. If I can talk to the Russians, why can’t they?’
She could scarcely keep the incredulity out of her voice. ‘You didn’t write to my brother-in-law?’
‘What? To Rod Troy? Good Lord, no. Rod’s not rising, he’s risen. He’s got as far as he’ll ever get while Gaitskell’s still alive. No, I wrote to Harold Wilson. He might be Prime Minister in nine or ten years’ time. Just wanted to drop the thought.’
‘Did he catch it?’
Fitzpatrick shrugged.
‘Politicians,’ he said simply.
Half an hour later she found herself on the front steps of the building watching packed cabs flash by – up and down Park Avenue. Fitzpatrick followed only minutes later, turning up his collar against the cold, looking up at the rich cobalt blue of a cloudless New York night sky.
‘Share a cab?’ she said, hoping he would dash out into the throng and find the last free cab in the city. He pointed down the street towards Grand Central.
‘I’m at the Waldorf,’ he said. ‘It’s only a short walk. Look, I’m in town for a couple of days. Why don’t you give me a call?’
‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Sure.’
He walked off down Park Avenue. She looked again for the elusive yellow cab. Then a voice behind her, calling her name.
‘Clarissa. Clarissa.’
She usually had to remind herself that this meant her. She’d added the C years ago as the simplest way of changing her name – Tosca by marriage to Troy, Larissa to Clarissa, a name she’d found on a bogus passport she’d used years ago – but it still sounded odd on anyone else’s lips.
A tall young man in a black cashmere overcoat was coming down the steps towards her. It was Norman Somestein – Feinstein or Weinstein, one of the steins – one of the London publishers she worked for from time to time.
‘Share a cab?’ he said, exactly as she had done to Fitzpatrick. ‘I’ve a room at the Ansonia.’
‘Sure. I’ll get out the other side of the park, then you can take it on to Broadway.’
Feinstein-Weinstein had better luck than she had had. He flagged down a checker cab and told the driver to take them to 72nd and Central Park West.
Seated in the back, he said, ‘I didn’t know you knew Fitzpatrick.’
‘We ain’t exactly bosom buddies . . . but he comes over from England a lot . . . and we always seem to be at the same parties. Asks me to look him up if I visit London. But I ain’t been since 1960, so I haven’t. Maybe next time.’
‘I wouldn’t if I were you,’ said Feinstein-Weinstein. ‘He’s trouble.’
‘What kind of trouble? I mean. He’s very well regarded here. Did you know he’s here to see if he can prescribe for Jack Kennedy’s problem?’
‘Which one – his bad back, his roving cock or his Addison’s disease?’
‘The last – Fitz is some kind of expert in homeopathy.’
‘I’m sure he is – but this is America. The English aren’t so tolerant.’
‘Of what?’
Feinstein-Weinstein had to think for a second. And when he spoke his tone had changed. He was spinning out something far less tangible.
‘Fitz mixes it. Mixes everything. Class and race, sex and politics, perfume and passion, you name it. He’s a mixer.’
‘So?’
‘This time he’s concocted too rich a blend. It’s volatile. It’ll blow up in his face. There’ll be blood on the streets, mark my words.’
‘Blood on the streets?’
She assumed this was just an image, nothing more. Tears before bedtime.
‘And’, he added, ‘the English can be so unforgiving of a good scandal.’
‘Y’know. I think that’s kind of why I left them.’
Two days later she phoned the Waldorf.
‘Ah,’ said Fitzpatrick, ‘I thought you’d given me up. I’m leaving for the airport in an hour.’
‘I just wanted to ask. Do you ever see my husband?’
‘Time to time – perhaps three or four occasions a year. I usually manage to contrive at least one. Freddie’s not the most sociable of beasts at the best of times.’
‘Could you give him a letter from me?’
‘Of course, but you might find the US mail quicker, or a telegramme perhaps?’
‘No – seems so impersonal – and he hates telegrammes . . . but a note you could deliver personally . . .’
‘Fine. I understand. Now why don’t you hop in a cab. We can have one last drinkie before I dash to Idlewild.’