He held them in his hands. He had them laughing. His timing could have been learned from stand-up comics. He generated excitement, belief, purpose; and I, in my inconspicuous end-of-row seat, swelled with a mixture of amazement, understanding and finally pride that my parent was publicly delivering the goods.
“I’m here for you,” he said. “Come to my office across the square. Tell me your concerns, tell me what’s troubling you here in Hoopwestern. Tell me who to see, who to listen to. Tell me your history... and I’ll tell you your future. If you elect me I’ll work for you, I’ll take your wishes to Westminster, I’ll be your voice where it matters. I’ll light a bulb or two in the House of Commons...”
Laughter drowned him. The lightbulb factory fueled the town’s economy, and he wanted the lightbulb votes.
To do good one needed power, he said. Lightbulbs were so much wire and glass without power. In humans, power came from inside, not delivered and metered. Power gave light and warmth. “If you give me power, I’ll light your lamps.”
My father’s own electricity galvanized the crowd. They shouted questions, he shouted answers. He was serious where it mattered and funny everywhere else. He had horror for genocide and sympathy for cats. He dodged cornering demands and promised never to put his name to anything whose consequences he didn’t understand.
“Legislation,” he said jokingly, “often achieves exactly what it is designed to avoid. We all know it. We moan about the results. I promise not to jump into emotional deep ends on your behalf. I beg the brains and common sense of Hoopwesterners to foresee disaster and warn me. I’ll raise your voices in whispers, not shouts, because shouts annoy but whispers go around persuasively and travel sweetly to the heart of things, and lead to sensible action.”
Whether they understood him or not, they loved him.
The most dedicated hecklers of the evening proved not to be the Paul Bethune opposition supporters, several of whom had bought tickets to the dinner and who had afterwards formed an aggressive bunch on the flip-up chairs, but my father’s presumed political allies (but in fact personal enemies) Orinda Nagle- and Leonard Kitchens.
Both of them demanded firm commitments to policies they both approved. Both shouted and pointed fingers. My father answered with unfailing good humor and stuck to the party’s overall stated position: he needed also to keep the die-hard backbone votes safely in his bag.
Orinda was professional enough to see she was out-gunned, but she didn’t give up trying. Mr. A. L. Wyvern narrowed his eyes and sank his ears down into his collar. Mr. A. L. Wyvern’s influence over Dennis and Orinda waned before my eyes.
My father paid tribute to Dennis Nagle. Orinda, far from placated, said that no way could an inexperienced novice like George Juliard replace her husband, however Hollywood-handsome he might be, however manly his hairy chest, however witty, quick-tongued, charismatic. None of that made up for political know-how.
Someone at the back of the hall booed. There was general laughter, a nervous release of the tension Orinda had begun to build up. The impetus swung back to my father, who sincerely thanked Orinda for her years of service to the party cause and deftly led an appreciation to her by clapping in her direction and encouraging everyone else to copy him. The clapping grew. The crowd gave generous but unaffectionate acclaim.
Orinda, to her impotent fury, was silenced and defeated by this vote of thanks. Leonard Kitchens bounced to his feet to defend her, but was shouted down. Leonard’s mustache quivered with frustration, his thick glasses flashing in the light as he swung from side to side like a wounded bull. His cozy wife looked as if she would deliver the coup de grace when she got him home.
My father courteously admired Leonard for his faithfulness and told him and everyone that if elected he would aim always for Dennis Nagle’s high and honest standard. Nothing less was worthy of the people of Hoopwestern.
He had them cheering. He exhorted them again to talk to him personally and the crowd stood and surged forward around the seats to take him at his word.
Dearest Polly chatted happily with the Bigwigs and beckoned me up onto the platform, and Mr. Bigwig, regarding the clamorous excited throng, told me that my father already had all the skills that would propel him into high office. “All he needs is luck — and to keep out of trouble,” he said.
“Trouble like Paul Bethune,” Polly said, nodding.
“What trouble?” asked Bigwig.
“Oh, dear!” Polly looked flustered. “George forbids us to attack Paul Bethune’s character. George says negative campaigning can rebound on you. Paul Bethune has a mistress with an illegitimate daughter by him, which he’s tried hard to hush up, and George won’t attack him for it.”
Mrs. Bigwig looked at me assessingly. “I suppose there’s no shadow over your birth, is there, young Ben?”
Polly assured her vehemently. “No, of course not,” and I wondered if my father, all those years ago, could possibly have reckoned that my legitimacy would one day be important to him. After what I’d learned of him that day I saw that anything was possible, but in fact I stayed as convinced as I’d always been that his marriage to my mother had been an act of natural characteristic honor. I still believed, as I always had, that he would never shirk responsibility for his actions. I knew my birth had been a mistake and, as I’d often said, I had no quarrel at all with the quality of life he’d given me since.
It was indeed midnight by the time most of the crowd left to go home. Mr. and Mrs. Bigwig had long gone, with chauffeur and bodyguard in attendance. Polly yawned with well-earned fatigue. Orinda and Mr. A. L. Wyvern were nowhere to be seen and Mrs. Leonard Kitchens had hauled her Leonard away with the rough edge of her energetic tongue.
I waited for my father to the end, not only because I had no key to get into my bedroom above the campaign headquarters but also because he would need someone to unwind with after the cheers had died away. Even at not quite eighteen I knew that triumph needed human company afterwards. I’d gone back to an empty room in Mrs. Wells’s house after three (infrequent) wins in steeplechases and had had no one to bounce around the place with, no one to hug and yell with, no one to share the uncontainable joy. That night my father needed me. A wife would have been better, but he certainly would need someone. So I stayed.
He put his arm around my shoulders.
“God,” he said.
“You’ll be prime minister,” I told him. “Mr. Bigwig fears it.”
He looked at me vaguely, his eyes shining. “Why should he or anyone fear it?”
“They always kill Caesar. You said so.”
“What?”
“You were brilliant.”
“I can do without your sarcasm, Ben.”
“No, seriously, Father...”
“Dad.”
“Dad...” I was tongue-tied. I couldn’t talk to him as Dad. Dads were people who drove you to school and threw snowballs and ticked you off for coming home late. Dads didn’t send you a ticket to ski school in a Christmas card. Dads didn’t send an impersonal fax to a hotel saying “well done” when one won a teenage downhill ski race. Dads were there to watch. Fathers weren’t.
Remnants of the meeting came up with shining faces to add congratulations. He took his arm off my shoulder and shook their hands, friendly and positive to all; and I had a vision of them going around for the next four weeks saying “Juliard, a very good man, just what we need... Vote Juliard, couldn’t do better.” The ripple from that night would reach the Hoopwestern boundaries and eddy along its roads.