laugh, but not the policemen. Behind the cab, traffic had now built up in a noisy log jam.
‘Get going!’ the cab driver was ordered by one of the policemen, who came down to the kerb to bang on the top of the cab with his night stick.
‘Hey, don’t damage the cab!’ the driver yelled at him. The air was raucous with car horns blaring, drivers leaning out to shout insults at the cab driver, who turned to say to Steve, ‘Got to go, mister. D’you wanna pay me and get out, or can we drive on now?’
Leaning back, Steve gestured. ‘OK, let’s go.’ After all, it happened all the time, people were always throwing themselves under subway trains, although God knew why they would want so violent and painful a death, but there was nothing in it for him. It wouldn’t rate more than a para in any newspaper, and, anyway, regular news wasn’t his scene. He had always specialized; politics was all he had ever been interested in because, like Catherine Gowrie, he had been bred to it.
All his life, his parents had been active in neighbourhood politics: his mother was on a whole raft of committees, the local PT Association, Mother’s Union, raising money for charities, and his father, a New England academic, had campaigned for his local congressman most of his adult lifetime, a stalwart Republican and boyhood friend at school of Eddie Ramsey’s eldest son. Fred Colbourne had even thought of standing for Congress, himself, until a mild heart attack in his mid-fifties put paid to that idea. His doctor had warned that although he might live another twenty years if he was sensible and took care of himself, he would be asking for trouble if he didn’t slow down. He certainly wouldn’t be fit to cope with the tensions and strain of a political career.
‘Well, that’s the end of the road for me, but one day I’d like to see you in Congress, son,’ he had told Steve wistfully, on his first day back home from hospital, resting on a daybed by a window downstairs in their three-bedroomed white frame Norman Rockwell look-alike house above Chesapeake Bay, Easton, a few miles from the Ramsey family home.
Steve had laughed, grimaced, shaken his head. ‘I’m no politician, Dad. I’ve seen too much of them too close. Call me fussy, but I don’t want to get my hands that dirty.’
His father had bristled. ‘That isn’t fair, Steve. I know plenty of decent politicians. OK, there’s some corruption, there always is in government, but there are plenty of honest men in Washington.’
‘Like the wonderful guys who didn’t come to visit you in hospital?’ Steve knew none of the politicians his father had done so much to help over the years had shown up to see him after his heart attack, and that that had hurt his father, even though he had never said a word about them.
‘They’re busy men. And they probably felt it was a time for family only, and didn’t want to intrude. They’re my friends, Steve, I know them better than you do!’
Steve had heard Fred Colbourne’s voice rasp with distress and anger, and too late remembered his mother sternly warning him not to upset his father. Quickly, he said, ‘I know they’re your friends, and some of them are decent guys. And somebody has to do the job, like somebody has to take out the garbage. We have to be governed, but it isn’t ever going to be me, Dad. Sorry to disappoint you, but keeping an eye on what they get up to is more my style.’
From his teens Steve had been out on the hoof, stuffing campaign messages into letter boxes, selling party newspapers, acting as a steward at local meetings, listening in on late-night drinking sessions where his father and various other local party bigwigs talked more freely than they ever would in public. He was disillusioned before he was twenty, and nothing he had seen since had changed his view of politicians.
His father had looked at him reproachfully, rather than angrily. ‘I’ve never got my hands dirty, Steve.’
‘No, of
‘Get going!’ the cab driver was ordered by one of the policemen, who came down to the kerb to bang on the top of the cab with his night stick.
‘Hey, don’t damage the cab!’ the driver yelled at him. The air was raucous with car horns blaring, drivers leaning out to shout insults at the cab driver, who turned to say to Steve, ‘Got to go, mister. D’you wanna pay me and get out, or can we drive on now?’
Leaning back, Steve gestured. ‘OK, let’s go.’ After all, it happened all the time, people were always throwing themselves under subway trains, although God knew why they would want so violent and painful a death, but there was nothing in it for him. It wouldn’t rate more than a para in any newspaper, and, anyway, regular news wasn’t his scene. He had always specialized; politics was all he had ever been interested in because, like Catherine Gowrie, he had been bred to it.
All his life, his parents had been active in neighbourhood politics: his mother was on a whole raft of committees, the local PT Association, Mother’s Union, raising money for charities, and his father, a New England academic, had campaigned for his local congressman most of his adult lifetime, a stalwart Republican and boyhood friend at school of Eddie Ramsey’s eldest son. Fred Colbourne had even thought of standing for Congress, himself, until a mild heart attack in his mid-fifties put paid to that idea. His doctor had warned that although he might live another twenty years if he was sensible and took care of himself, he would be asking for trouble if he didn’t slow down. He certainly wouldn’t be fit to cope with the tensions and strain of a political career.
‘Well, that’s the end of the road for me, but one day I’d like to see you in Congress, son,’ he had told Steve wistfully, on his first day back home from hospital, resting on a daybed by a window downstairs in their three-bedroomed white frame Norman Rockwell look-alike house above Chesapeake Bay, Easton, a few miles from the Ramsey family home.
Steve had laughed, grimaced, shaken his head. ‘I’m no politician, Dad. I’ve seen too much of them too close. Call me fussy, but I don’t want to get my hands that dirty.’
His father had bristled. ‘That isn’t fair, Steve. I know plenty of decent politicians. OK, there’s some corruption, there always is in government, but there are plenty of honest men in Washington.’
‘Like the wonderful guys who didn’t come to visit you in hospital?’ Steve knew none of the politicians his father had done so much to help over the years had shown up to see him after his heart attack, and that that had hurt his father, even though he had never said a word about them.
‘They’re busy men. And they probably felt it was a time for family only, and didn’t want to intrude. They’re my friends, Steve, I know them better than you do!’
Steve had heard Fred Colbourne’s voice rasp with distress and anger, and too late remembered his mother sternly warning him not to upset his father. Quickly, he said, ‘I know they’re your friends, and some of them are decent guys. And somebody has to do the job, like somebody has to take out the garbage. We have to be governed, but it isn’t ever going to be me, Dad. Sorry to disappoint you, but keeping an eye on what they get up to is more my style.’
From his teens Steve had been out on the hoof, stuffing campaign messages into letter boxes, selling party newspapers, acting as a steward at local meetings, listening in on late-night drinking sessions where his father and various other local party bigwigs talked more freely than they ever would in public. He was disillusioned before he was twenty, and nothing he had seen since had changed his view of politicians.
His father had looked at him reproachfully, rather than angrily. ‘I’ve never got my hands dirty, Steve.’
‘No, of
Similar Books
