On Green Dolphin Street by Sebastian Faulks

Author:Sebastian Faulks [Faulks, Sebastian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-8041-5362-1
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2014-09-02T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

It was a bright July morning and Mary was reading the newspaper; she sat beneath the basketball hoop in the backyard at Number 1064 with the remains of breakfast still on the table before her. The headline on the main story had the two-sentence structure she liked: “Kennedy Heads for Los Angeles, Has Chance to Win on First Ballot.”

“The upcoming Democratic Convention is generating an unusual excitement,” wrote the editorial-page columnist, a violent drunk and philanderer, according to Frank, “even among those not politically minded. It was one thing for John Kennedy to have overcome Hubert Humphrey in the Badger State, where his father could ensure that every sheriff race was well funded in his favor. It was a greater achievement to have persuaded the Protestant voters of West Virginia that his religion was of no consequence. But Los Angeles will be quite a different task for the likeable young senator from Massachusetts. Here, without Pop’s help, he must sway the union bosses and the power brokers of Chicago and the South—in the convention hall, with the big contenders still waiting their moment to enter the race. It is no exaggeration to say that America holds its breath to see if the young man can pull it off.”

Mary put the paper down beside the coffee percolator. Excitement was intense in Number 1064 as well, even among those not politically minded. Charlie had suggested she accompany him to the convention and she had agreed to go, ostensibly both to keep him company and to visit Patricia Rosewell, a friend from London, who had been fruitlessly inviting the van der Lindens out west since marrying a Californian lawyer and settling in some remote canyon five years earlier. Patricia had sounded pleased at the prospect of seeing them and talked of putting on a dinner party for them. Was there anyone they would like her to ask?

Charlie was dreading the visit to Los Angeles, but knew that he could not decline or sidestep it. He had kept the extent of his problems largely hidden from his superiors; the loyalty of colleagues such as Edward Renshaw and his own adroit handling of two potentially awkward demands from London had diverted critical scrutiny. His closeness to the Kennedy campaign, however, had been much talked of in his department and the convention was the place where he had to demonstrate it.

After sleeping through most of the flight, he emerged from the airport building on Mary’s arm and went unsteadily toward the taxi rank.

Patricia’s house was approached by a winding road flanked by hissing green grass where the sprinklers played in front of Mexican adobe façades, Gothic turrets and timbered Tudor bungalows rendered oddly homogeneous by the bland wash of sunshine in which they glowed. Patricia’s own dwelling was in the ranch style with a wooden veranda and views down to the Pacific, or at least to the turbulent haze that lay across it.

She took Mary and Charlie into the backyard and sat them beneath an orange tree, among white oleanders and strident purple bougainvillea, while she fetched iced tea.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.