Page 128 of Edge of Eternity (The Century 3)

"And practical politics is something else. But look how history repeats itself. My son is like my father, always alert for an opportunity to make a few bucks, even on the brink of World War Three. My daughter is like my Bolshevik uncle Grigori, determined to change the world."

Evie looked up. "If he was a Bolshevik, he did change the world."

"But was it for the better?"

Lloyd came in. Like his coal-mining ancestors, he was short in stature with broad shoulders. Something about the way he walked reminded Jasper that he had once been a champion boxer. He was dressed with old-fashioned flair, in a black suit with a faint herringbone stripe, a crisp white linen handkerchief in his breast pocket. The two parents were obviously going to a political event. "I'm ready if you are, my darling," he said to Daisy.

Evie said: "What's your meeting about?"

"Cuba," said her father. "What else?" He noticed her placard. "I see you've already made up your mind about the issue."

"It's not complicated, is it?" she said. "The Cuban people should be allowed to choose their own destiny--isn't that a basic democratic principle?"

Jasper saw a row looming. In this family, half the rows were about politics. Bored by Evie's idealism, he interrupted. "Hank Remington is going to sing 'Poison Rain' in Trafalgar Square tomorrow." Remington, an Irish boy whose real name was Harry Riley, was leader of a pop group called the Kords. The song was about nuclear fallout.

"He's wonderful," said Evie. "So clear thinking." Hank was one of her heroes.

"He came to see me," said Lloyd.

Evie immediately changed her tone. "You didn't tell me!"

"It happened only today."

"What did you think of him?"

"He's a genuine working-class genius."

"What did he want?"

"He wanted me to stand up in the House of Commons and denounce President Kennedy as a warmonger."

"So you should!"

"And what happens if Labour wins the next general election? Suppose I become foreign secretary. I might have to go to the White House and ask the president's support for something the Labour government wants to do, perhaps a resolution in the United Nations against racial discrimination in South Africa. Kennedy might remember how I insulted him, and tell me to drop dead."

Evie said: "You should do it anyway."

"Calling someone a warmonger usually doesn't help. If I thought it would resolve the current crisis, I would do it. But it's a card you can play only once, and I prefer to save it for a winning hand."

Jasper reflected that Lloyd was a pragmatic politician. He approved.

Evie did not. "I believe that people should stand up and tell the truth," she said.

Lloyd smiled. "I'm proud to have such a daughter," he said. "I hope you will hold on to that belief all your life. But now I must go and explain the crisis to my supporters in the East End."

Daisy said: "Bye, kids. See you later."

They went out.

Evie said: "Who won that argument?"

Your father did, Jasper thought, hands down; but he did not say so.

*

George returned to downtown Washington in a state of high anxiety. Everyone had been working on the assumption that an invasion of Cuba was bound to succeed. The Frogs changed everything. U.S. troops would now face battlefield nuclear weapons. Perhaps the Americans would still prevail, but the war would be harder and would cost more lives, and the result was no longer a foregone conclusion.

He got out of his taxi at the White House and stopped by the press office. Maria was at her desk. He was happy to see that she looked much better than she had three days earlier. "I'm fine, thank you," she said in answer to George's query. A small weight of worry lifted from his heart, leaving the larger still heavy on him. She was recovering physically, but he did not know what spiritual damage was being caused by her secret love affair.

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