“And
I’m glad I took the wrong path,” said Su Ling, “because I couldn’t love you
any more
. But I’d have willingly given up my life if it
would have meant saving Luke’s.”
“I
suspect that would be true of most parents,” said Nat, looking at his wife,
“and you could certainly include your mother, who sacrificed everything for
you, and doesn’t deserve to have been treated so cruelly.”
“Don’t
worry about my mother,” said Su Ling, snapping out of her maudlin mood. “I went
to see her yesterday only to find the shop packed with dirty old men bringing
in their even dirtier laundry, secretly hoping that she’s running a massage
parlor upstairs.”
Nat
burst out laughing. “And to think we kept it secret for all those years. I
would certainly never have believed that the day would come when I would be
able to laugh about it.”
“She
says if you become governor, she’s going to open a string of shops right across
the state. Her advertising slogan will be “we wash your dirty linen in
public.”“
“I
always knew that there was some overriding reason I still needed to be
governor,” said Nat as he rose from the table.
“And
who has the privilege of your company today?” asked Su Ling.
“The
good folk of New Canaan,” said Nat.
“So
when will you be home?”
“Just
after midnight would be my guess.”
“Wake
me,” she said.
“Hi,
Lucy,” said Jimmy as he strolled into her father’s office. “Is the great man
free?”
“Yes,
he is,” said Lucy as she rose from her chair.
Jimmy
glanced back as she slipped out of the room. Was it his imagination or had she
been crying?
Fletcher
didn’t speak until she’d closed the door. “Good morning, Jimmy,” he said as he
pushed the paper to one side, leaving the photograph of Rebecca staring up at
him.
“Do
you think they’ll arrest her?” asked Jimmy.
Fletcher
glanced back down at the photograph of Rebecca. “I don’t think they’ve been
left with much choice, but if I were sitting on a jury I would acquit, because
I found her story totally credible.”
“Yes,
but then you know what Elliot was capable of. A jury doesn’t.”
“But
I can hear him saying,
If
you won’t do it, then I’ll
have to kill yon, and don’t think I wouldn’t.”
“I
wonder if you would have remained at Alexander
Dupont
and Bell if Elliot hadn’t joined the firm.”
“One
of those twists of fate,” said Fletcher, as if his mind were on something else.
“So what have you got lined up for me?”
“We’re
going to spend the day in Madison.”
“Is
Madison worth a whole day?” asked Fletcher, “when it’s such a solid Republican
district?”
“
Which is precisely why I’m getting it out of the way while there’s
still a few weeks to go,” said Jimmy, “though ironically their votes have never
influenced the outcome of the election.
”
“A
vote’s a vote,” said Fletcher.
“Not
in this particular case,” said Jimmy, “because while the rest of the state now
votes electronically, Madison remains the single exception. They are among the
last districts in the country
who
still prefer to mark
their ballots with a pencil.”
“But
that doesn’t stop their votes from being valid,” insisted Fletcher.
“True,
but in the past those votes have proved irrelevant, because they don’t begin
the count until the morning after the election, when the overall result has
already been declared. It’s a bit of a farce, but one of those traditions that
the good burgers of Madison are unwilling to sacrifice on the altar of modern
technology.”
“And
you still want me to spend a whole day there?”
“Yes,
because if the majority were less than five thousand, suddenly Madison would
become the most important town in the state.”
“Do
you think it could be that close while Bush still has a record lead in the
polls?”
“Still
is the operative word, because Clinton’s chipping away at that lead every day,
so who knows who’ll end up in the White House, or in the governor’s mansion for
that matter?”
Fletcher
didn’t comment.
“You
seem a little preoccupied this morning,” said Jimmy.
“Anything
else on your mind that you want to discuss with me?”
“It
looks as if Nat’s going to win by a mile,” said Julia from behind the morning
paper.
“A
British prime minister once said that “a week’s a long time in politics,” and
we’ve still got several more of them left before the first vote is cast,” Tom
reminded his wife.
“If
Nat becomes governor, you’ll miss all the excitement. After all you two have
been through, returning to Fairchild’s may turn out to be something of an
anticlimax.”
“The
truth is that I lost any interest in banking the day Russell’s was taken over.”
“But
you’re about to become chairman of the biggest bank in the state.”
“Not
if Nat wins the election, I won’t,” said Tom.
Julia
pushed the paper aside. “I’m not sure I understand.”
“Nat
has asked me to be his chief of staff if he becomes governor.”
“Then
who will take over as chairman of the bank?”
“You,
of course,” said Tom. “Everyone knows you’d be the best person for the job.”
“But
Fairchild’s would never appoint a woman as chairman, they’re far too
traditional.”
“We’re
living in the last decade of the twentieth century, Julia, and thanks to you,
nearly half our customers are women. And as for the board, not to mention the
staff, in my absence most of them think you already are the chairman.”
“But
if Nat were to lose,
hell quite rightly expect
to
return to Fairchild’s as chairman, with you as his deputy, in which case the
question becomes somewhat academic.”
“I
wouldn’t be so sure of that,” said Tom, “don’t forget that Jimmy
Overman
, Connecticut’s senior senator, has already
announced that he’ll not be running for reelection next year, in which case Nat
would be the obvious choice to replace him. Whichever one of them becomes
governor, I feel sure the other will be going to Washington as the state’s
senator.” He paused, “I suspect it will only be a matter of time before Nat and
Fletcher run against each other for president.”
“Do
you believe I can do the job?” asked Julia quietly.
“No,”
said Tom, “you have to be born in America before you can run for president.”
“I
didn’t mean president, you idiot, but chairman of Fairchild’s.”
“I
knew that the day we met,” said Tom. “My only fear was that you wouldn’t
consider I was good enough to be your husband.”
“Oh,
men are so slow on the uptake,” said Julia. “I made up my mind that I was going
to marry you the night we met at Su Ling and Nat’s dinner party.” Tom’s mouth
opened and then closed.
“How
different my life would have been if the other Julia Kirk-bridge had come to
the same conclusion,” she added.
“Not
to mention mine,” said Tom.
fletcher
stared down at
the cheering crowd and waved enthusiastically back at them. He had made seven
speeches in Madison that day-on street corners, in market places, outside a
library ... but even he had been surprised by his reception at the final
meeting in the town hall that night.
COME
and HEAR THE WINNER was printed in bold red and blue letters on a massive
banner that stretched from one side of the stage to the other. Fletcher had
smiled when the local chairman told him that Paul
Holbourn
,
the independent mayor of Madison, had left the banner in place after Nat had
spoken at the town hall earlier that week.
Holbourn
had been the mayor for fourteen years, and didn’t keep getting reelected
because he squandered the taxpayers’ money.
When
Fletcher sat down at the end of his speech, he could feel the adrenaline
pumping through his body, and the standing ovation that followed was not the
usual stage-managed affair, where a bunch of well-placed party hacks leap up
the moment the candidate has delivered his last line. On this occasion, the
public were on their feet at the same time as the hacks. He only wished Annie
could have been there to witness it.
When
the chairman held up Fletcher’s hand and shouted into the microphone, “Ladies
and gentlemen, I give you the next governor of Connecticut,” Fletcher believed
it for the first time.
Clinton
was neck and neck with Bush in the national polls and Perot’s independent
candidacy was further chipping away at the Republican’s support.
It
was creating a domino effect for Fletcher. He only hoped that four weeks was
enough time to make up the four-point deficit in the polls.
It
was another half hour before the hall was cleared, and by then Fletcher had
shaken every proffered hand. A satisfied chairman accompanied him back to the
parking lot.
“You
don’t have a driver?” he said, sounding a little surprised.
“Lucy
took the night off to see My Cousin
Vinny
, Annie’s
attending some charity meeting, Jimmy’s chairing a fund-raiser, and as it was
less than fifty miles, I felt I could just about manage that by myself,”
explained Fletcher as he jumped behind the wheel.
He
drove away from the town hall on a high, and began to relax for the first time
that day. But he’d only driven a few hundred yards before his thoughts returned
to Lucy, as they had done whenever he was alone. He faced a considerable
dilemma.
Should he should
tell Annie that their
daughter was pregnant?
Nat
was having a private dinner with four local industrialists that night. Between
them they were in a position to make a significant contribution to the campaign
coffers, so he didn’t hurry them.
During
the evening they had left him no doubt what they expected from a Republican
governor, and although they didn’t always go along with some of Nat’s more
liberal ideas, a Democrat wasn’t moving into the governor’s mansion if they had
anything to do with it.
It
was well past midnight when Ed Chambers of Chambers Foods suggested that
perhaps the candidate should be allowed to go home and get a good night’s
sleep.
Nat
couldn’t remember in when he’d last had one of those.
This
was the usual cue for Tom to stand up, agree with who- were ever had made the
suggestion, and then go off in search of Nat’s was coat. Nat would then look as
if he were being dragged
away,
shaking hands with his
hosts before telling them that he couldn’t hope to win the election without
their support. Flattering though the sentiment might sound, on this occasion it
also had the merit of being true.
All
four men accompanied Nat back to his car, and as Tom drove down the long
winding drive from Ed
Chambers’s
home, Nat tuned in
to the late news. Fletcher’s speech to the citizens of Madison was the fourth
item, and the local reporter was highlighting some of the points he’d made
about neighborhood watch schemes, an idea Nat had been promoting for months.
Nat began to grumble about such blatant plagiarism until Tom reminded him that
he’d also stolen some of Fletcher’s innovations on education reform.
Nat
switched off the news when the weather forecaster returned to warn them about
patchy ice on the roads.
Within
minutes Nat had fallen asleep, a trick Tom had often wished he could emulate,
because the moment Nat woke, he was always backfiring on all cylinders. Tom was
also looking forward to a decent night’s sleep. They didn’t have any official
function before ten the following morning, when they would attend the first of
seven religious services, ending the day with evensong at St. Joseph’s
Cathedral.
He
knew that Fletcher Davenport would be covering roughly the same circuit in
another part of the state. By the end of the campaign, there wouldn’t be a
religious gathering where they hadn’t knelt down, taken off their shoes, or
covered their heads in order to prove that they were both God-fearing citizens.
Even if it wasn’t necessarily their own particular God being revered, they had
at least demonstrated willingness to stand, sit and kneel in His presence.
Tom
decided not to switch on the one o’clock news, as he could see no purpose in
waking Nat only to hear a regurgitation of what they had listened to thirty
minutes before.
They
both missed the news flash.
An
ambulance was on the scene within minutes, and the first thing the paramedics
did was to call in the fire department. The driver was pinned against the
steering wheel, they reported, and there was no way of prying open his door
without the use of an acetylene torch. They would have to work quickly if they
hoped to get the injured man out of the wreck alive.
It
wasn’t until the police had checked the license plate on their computer back at
headquarters that they realized who it was trapped behind the wheel. As they
felt it was unlikely that the senator had been drinking, they assumed he must
have fallen asleep.