"I'm delighted, my boy. Completely delighted. It's a chance to break into an exciting industry, and it's not as if you have to leave behind what you learn here, whenever you do decide to return to England."
"Oh, I've made that decision, sir: the end of the year. If you're not agreeable to that, then I'm afraid the job's not for me."
"Now, did I say that? I'll take what I can get, Geoff. I'm in no position to argue. I have a stack of cables and letters from Europe a mile high on my desk. Those inquiries have got to be answered, and letter writing's not my strong suit. I'll give you the general drift of things, and you can make it right. Make it exciting. Make them want my ships. We've got the steel, the manpower, the wherewithal. All we got to do is be able to say so."
"Frankly, I think you have an enormously persuasive manner, Mr. Fain," Geoff said into the telephone. At least as persuasive as a hammerlock, he added to himself.
"Nah, it just don't come out that way on paper for me. We're agreed, then? You'll have a couple of days to find rooms nearby, and then you'll get down to it?"
"Well, sir, you'll remember that I did plan to see another race or two in the series—"
"What the hell for? You know the Yanks are going to win it. Why waste the time? I mean, Lipton's a grand old man and all, but—" He stopped himself. "Hold on. I see an angle here. That crafty old codger still hasn't said boo about whether he wants me to build a ship for him. You could work on him and—and not only that, but you could take Amanda, by God!" He sounded as if the inspiration had dropped on him like a thunderbolt.
"Amanda, sir?" Ah, yes. He should have seen it coming. Jim Fain had a daughter who was unmarried, unspoken for, and a little rough around the edges, to say the least. "Lady Seton" sounded so much more genteel than "convicted felon." Geoff cleared his throat. "You would be referring to your daughter, sir."
"Who the hell else would I be referring to?" Jim Fain said impatiently. "She thinks a lot of Sir Tom. I think if I could get him to talk to her, to make her see reason, she'd respect his advice. He's a little like my ex-partner. She adored him," he added with some bitterness.
"I see. So you think—"
"Call her. Here's the number. I've got to do something with her. She's flying completely out of control. You can charge me for the time you spend with her if you like. Her analyst does."
Geoff took down the telephone number and signed off, feeling like a pompous ass. It was hard to believe, but apparently Geoff—even Geoff—revered the baronetcy bought by his sheep farmer ancestor (for a thousand pounds) more than his new employer did. He felt like an errand boy. Worse: like a gigolo, having to escort Amanda around on retainer. Gad. There was irony here somewhere.
Nor did his ego feel any more puffed up after he dialed Amanda's number. She couldn't go. Or wouldn't. She certainly wasn't saying which. "Oh God, no, it's impossible," she said, sounding surprised that he would ask.
He became a little pushy; he was definitely becoming Americanized. It was the only language the Fains understood. "Why not, exactly?" he inquired.
"Because exactly on the seventeenth," she said dryly, "I promised to take my cousin to the Metropolitan Museum of Art."
"How old is he?"
"Twelve."
"So bring him along," Geoff replied. "Boys like boats." It had become a matter of principle now, damn it. If Fain wanted his daughter to be guided by the wisdom of a tea merchant, then damn it, Geoff would sit her down at the man's feet if he had to drag her by the hair to do it. Damn it.
"Nope, I can't do that," she decided at last. "He would be crushed." When Geoff didn't respond, she added, "But I'll tell you what. I'll bring my cousin along for the next race after that, whenever it is."
"Fine. I'll call you. Plan on it." Scowling, he hung up with the feeling that he'd failed this, his first assignment. He wondered briefly whether kidnapping was illegal in the United States, then put the thought aside. He had bigger fish to fry: rooms to line up, an automobile to lease for a longer term, tactful letters to send back home. He was confident that his father would be pleased with his decision to stay on in the land of milk and honey; his mother, on the other hand, would fear he was becoming corrupted.
Which, he decided, he was, although a more accurate term might be "seduced." There was something utterly hypnotizing about watching Americans in action. It was like watching children grow up. They had none of the self-consciousness of an older nation, no sense that there were limits to life's possibilities. He could see it in Jim Fain, with his determination to make his mark on the world's shipbuilding industry; he could see it in Amanda, with her equal and opposing determination not to let him.
Not even the war had dampened the Americans' enthusiasm. Reluctant at first to join the fray—as any young and inexperienced child would be—the Americans had managed to turn the tide, and now they were more cocky and ebullient than ever. Even now, soldiers were still returning to ticker-tape parades, in almost shocking contrast to the subdued homecomings he saw and experienced in his own, far more devastated country. There were monuments everywhere in the United States; in England there were memorials. He wondered what it would take to give the Americans pause. He wondered what it would take to check the Fains in their headlong, headstrong pursuit of success. He meant to watch for a while and see.
So he set up shop in Old Saybrook, a pretty, historical community a few miles west of the Ironworks in New London, settling on a comfortable colonial house run by Mrs. Streep, a New England widow plump as a fox sparrow, who immediately invited her unmarried niece to tea. Geoff spent twenty friendly minutes with the two ladies, then retired to his own rooms to shuffle the furniture and take down the artwork.
It was now the seventeenth, the day of the second race, which he'd been too busy even to think of going to see. As it turned out, there was little wind and the race was not completed within its time allotment. Thank God Amanda and her cousin had not come; two brats and an anticlimax was a combination too depressing to consider.
The day after that, Geoff climbed into his newly leased Hudson Super Six and drove to his first day at the office. The morning was fine, the drive pleasant, and his mood, if not ebullient, was at least expectant. This was new. This was different. He hoped that Jim Fain had taken care of such matters as work permits, but he didn't especially care. He'd almost be willing to do the job as a courtesy, just for the experience and the chance to watch.
The chance came early. When he arrived Fain was already there and in the middle of an argument with his son. The elder Fain's office was separated from the clerical help by windowed walls; apparently Fain had no secrets from anyone anywhere. He was waving his arms around in a lively display of exasperation. When he spied Geoff, he beckoned him inside.
"In case I didn't mention it, work starts at eight-thirty," said Fain.
"It is eight-thirty," answered Geoff, surprised.
"If it were my first day on the job, I'd have been here early," Fain grumbled.
"I'm ready to begin. Good morning, David."
David nodded and his father said, "You can't begin, not until we square away an office for you. Seems I'll have to evict the previous tenant," he said, glaring at his son.
"Where am I supposed to stay?" demanded David.
"You only come to New London once a week to look over the repairs to the freighter; we'll stick an extra desk in the office for you."
"Swell. Why not just put me with the stenotypists?" He marched over to a window overlooking the yard and pulled out a cigarette case, took a cigarette from it, and lit it, his back set to his father in angry rejection all the while.
Fain jerked his head in David's direction. "My son, the martyr. You'd never know he has a fabulous top-floor suite in New York with a staff of four to answer every whim." He threw up his hands. "What's the matter with you, boy? You know the shipyard ain't fancy. We double up when we have to and we don't make a federal case out of it."
"Easy for you to say. I have everything set up. I have a phone—"
"Keep the damn phone! We'll have a new one put in for Geoff. Look, I can appreciate your wanting things to run smooth, but give me a break here, David," he pleaded.
Geoff, as usual around the Fains, was neither seen nor heard. That was part of the fascination: did they do it because they'd accepted him as one of their own, or did they treat all outsiders like domestics, necessary evils to keep their world oiled and running?
David blew out a stream of smoke, then said to Geoff, "If the phone rings when I'm not there, leave it ring. Some things are personal, you know?"
Fain, relieved, slapped his son on the back. "He's something with the women, he is," he explained to Geoff with a tolerant smile. "Loves 'em and then leaves 'em; but at least he protects their identities while he's doing it. All right, boys, now let's get back to work."
Within an hour the mile-high pile of correspondence on Fain's desk had been transferred to Geoff's desk. It became immediately obvious that there was no way Geoff could respond to the inquiries, since he did not have the information necessary to do so. There were only two ways that he could acquire that information: learn the shipbuilding business from the ground up, or take copious and accurate notes from Jim Fain himself. For the present, he would be working closely with Jim Fain.
"The more you learn and the faster you learn it, the better," said Fain a little later. "For the moment you'll steer clear of the military end; there's plenty to do with the merchant vessels. You'll have access to all our records—quotes, receivables, wages. Study 'em. You'll learn a lot that way. I'll take you around to the yard foremen later. But for now let's knock off a couple of these inquiries. Here's what I want to say; you'll sort of translate it for me."
They put their heads together after that, and when Geoff was set free two hours later to grab a quick lunch, he was as bleary-brained as a young secretary on her first day of work. He'd scribbled his way through two notebooks as best as he could, leaving a trail of half-complete notes and marginalia which looked like Greek to him as he pored over them while he wolfed down a sandwich.
My God, I'll have to learn shorthand for this bloody job, he thought. He was seized with panic: everything had seemed straightforward while Fain was running through his replies—but now!
He wanted tea. He wanted his bloody tea.
****
When the shipyard whistle signaled the day's end, Geoff was still rubbing his chin over one especially cryptic batch of notes. He knew he had to stay until he cracked it; tomorrow the trail would be cold. On his desk were spread out cross-referenced files which held clues to the mystery: the necessary gauge of steel was in there somewhere, and the number of man-hours required to bend and weld it into a shape suitable for carrying cargo for a fruit company. When the phone rang he reached for it automatically, like any weary, preoccupied executive.
"Hello," he said.
"Listen, asshole, where's the ship? We need it now."
"I beg your pardon," Geoff answered, stunned. "Who is this?"
The caller hung up.
Frowning, Geoff returned the receiver to its cradle. Fains Ironworks did business with some pretty ornery people, it seemed. It wasn't even the hostility in the man's voice that bothered Geoff; it was the desperation.
Geoff wondered how Jim Fain, who prided himself on running a crackerjack shipbuilding company, could have let one of his customers get so far out on a limb. And then he remembered that he'd picked up the call on David's private line. The caller was one of David's responsibilities, and that explained a lot. David may have begun putting his nose to the grindstone, as his father so proudly pointed out, but it had only been there a few weeks. Who knows how many promises had been broken before then?
Geoff thought no more about it and returned to his hieroglyphics. An hour later he allowed himself to lean back and light up one of the fine cigars that had been pressed on him by Fain: he'd earned it. He had his feet up on his desk and was gazing absent-mindedly out at the yard, vaguely regretful that he had not taken up naval architecture at Eton instead of literature, when he saw David slip out from the shed that contained the wooden freighter whose garboard plank might or might not be rotten.
He wondered whether David had given the go-ahead to have the plank replaced, or if he'd hung tough with the yard foreman. Although Geoff had no great admiration for Fain's son, he appreciated his dilemma. A wooden ship was more wanton in her demands than the most pampered mistress. You could give her everything—your money, your time, your marriage—and still she'd want more. From you, from anyone, from everyone.
Suddenly it came to him: it was the wooden freighter that the caller needed at once. Oh, yes, now it made sense. The caller wanted his ship, but there was a long line of men the ship wanted to be with first: the carpenter, the caulker, the painter, the rigger, the engineer. She would see them all, all in good time. And when each man was done, when each man had given her everything he had, she'd only smile sweetly and say, "More." And meanwhile someone with a load of bananas rotting in a Caribbean port was tearing out his hair for wanting her.
Better to build in steel. Steel ships were men-ships, not women-ships. Steel ships had stubbly beards and strong backs and didn't care how they looked or smelled, so long as they got the job done. Steel ships would rather be worked over by ordinary laborers; they never lusted for hard-to-get craftsmen. A steel ship never tore out a man's heart and left him writhing in agony just for the fun of it, but a wooden ship might.
Geoff blew a pensive smoke ring into the air. He missed his father's wood yacht—the jezebel.
****
The next day was as satisfying as the previous day had been frustrating. Fain was right: there was a trick to seducing a buyer, and Geoff had the inbred diplomacy, natural intelligence, and enthusiasm to do just that. When he showed a draft of his first response to Fain, his employer was tickled to death.
"That's it! That's just the look I want. We've got the product, and Sir Tom was right: we need to advertise, and you're just the man for it. By God, Sir Tom was right."
Geoff found himself blushing like a schoolboy in his first term. "I'm glad you approve, sir."
"Oh, absolutely. I can see that you're the man to put together a cost proposal for us. And of course, if there's an oral presentation to be made—well, this is all right! Do you like to travel?"
It seemed to Geoff that Fain was setting the cart before the oxen, but he grinned and said, "It depends on the mode."
"Had it with the automobile, hey?" Fain remarked, alluding to Geoff's marathon driving on the night of Amanda's arrest. "And speaking of boats," he said suddenly and illogically, "tomorrow is a race day, ain't it? Don't forget Amanda."
"How could I?" asked Geoff, with only a tinge of irony.
That evening he rang her up. He found himself dialing her number with reluctance; he had no wish to be shot down twice. To his surprise, Amanda was not only civil but enthusiastic.
"Perry was beside himself with joy. It turns out he's a great fan of Sir Tom's," she explained. "It was really very nice of you to offer to bring him along," she said, in a new and meltingly soft voice.
Instantly he was on his guard. This was not the Amanda he knew. "Yes. Well. I'm surprised you didn't pounce on Sir Tom yourself."
"It seemed pushy."
"I suppose it was, a little." So. Amanda was teaching him good manners? He was liking the conversation less and less.
"Just don't tell Perry that he's gate-crashing," she cautioned. "He'd die of embarrassment. He's very sensitive."
"You're very protective of the little blighter, aren't you?"
"So what?"
"So nothing much. How shall we arrange to meet?"
"He's coming here after work and staying over. Pick us up as early as you like. We'll be ready," she said in her mistress-of-the-manor voice.
Geoff held the phone away from him and bowed stiffly to it. Then he brought it back to his ear, said, "Nothing would give me greater pleasure, Miss Fain," and hung up scowling. He was becoming an accomplished scowler—particularly around Amanda.