A Family Trust

by Ward Just

  Once each weekend they would dine with McGee’s father. She knew she would never forget their first meeting, her own nervousness and the corner table at a currently fashionable restaurant. Harold McGee was a small restless man who relaxed after drinks. it would take a minimum of three drinks before dinner and wine during dinner and a liqueur after dinner before he would truly relax and tell stories. Relaxed, he was a wonderful raconteur. The first night they’d met he’d turned to Dana and said that sometimes after dinner, after the drinks and the wine and the calvados, he’d talk—indiscreetly “t have never been discreet in front of my son,” he’d said. “And now he tells me that you’re both ... close, Going together, whatever you people call it. We used to all it ‘Walking Out,’ but I suppose no one says that anymore. I am not discreet in front of my son and I don’t propose to be discreet in front of you. But I must know that none of my stones will come back to me, ever.” Dana looked at him over the candlelight and silver, noticing the wine waiter hovering in the background, and said yes in a pro forma way But Harold McGee was not satisfied. “I don’t trust the press, never have. It has to be a real promise, as if under oath.” Then he looked at his son for confirmation. McGee said, “She’s not in the press, Dad. Dana works for a book publisher.” He said, “Same thing.” The wine waiter continued to hover. Then McGee turned to her and said, “He’s serious. Better do lit.” Dana turned to him and raised her right hand. She said, “Yes he said yes and again yes.” Harold McGee laughed loudly and the waiter filled their glasses and retreated. McGee turned to his father. “That’s—” And Harold McGee roared, “I know what the hell it’s from. I did some work on that case, more’n thirty years ago.” He turned to Dana. “He thinks the only thing I understand is alimony and child support and hiring private dicks to peek into keyholes. Jesus!” She had begun to laugh and now he looked at her approvingly, eyes narrowing. He said, “‘Stately, plump Buck Mulligan—’” He faltered and she said, “‘... came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather ... ’”He finished, “‘... on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed,’” He turned to his son. “This one’s all right. Definitely trustworthy.” Then he went on to tell the story of his latest client, a melange of sexual promiscuity and financial misconduct. it was the account of a woman who had divorced one man to marry another and of her daughter by her first husband who had fallen in love with the second. The second husband now lived in the south of France with the daughter, beyond the reach of the authorities, and Harold McGee’s apparent objective was to find a way to lure him back to the United States. The husband had departed for Europe with a substantilt portion of his wife’s fortune, along with the teenager. The story in. the hands of Harold McGee was rich and ribald and Dana laughed without stopping, though it was an appalling story He stopped talking suddenly. indicating that the story was finished. Then she got it. They were both smiling privately and she leaned across the table to the older man. “Okay,” she said, “tell me the other side.” Harold McGee looked at her and nodded, chuckling. Dana leaned back, waiting. “Of course there is another side. I have never encountered a situation where there wasn’t.” Dana and McGee listened attentively as his father turned all the facts around. The truth was, the wife was not entirely sane—as the courts of the state of New York would define insanity, were they asked—and there was some evidence to show that she wanted her daughter seduced, and wanted her seduced by her second husband, the stepfather. All of which did not excuse, but it helped to explain. In any case, those facts were the responsibility of defendant’s counsel, and there were ways and means to frustrate that gentleman.

  Dana learned later that this man and his son were fascinated by contradiction and paradox. They loved to pin facts to walls, as an tentomologist would pin an insect; turn the fact this way and that, measuring its length and breadth, its weight and size—discovering in the process that it was not a fact at all but a circumstance. Harold McGee believed that there was no story so simple that its corollary could not be found and by “corollary” he meant “contradiction,” equally persuasive. In Harold McGee’s world there were no blacks and whites, only grays, and he fancied he could argue either side of any case with equal skill and authority He thought that he had three-hundred-sixty-degree vision and that was what fascinated Dana about him; she thought she did, too. Late that evening he announced quietly, “I’m a litigator. That’s what I do. I litigate. Love to litigate and lucky for me I almost never lose. That’s because I understand the other side of the story so well. I am always prepared and of course that is nine-tenths of the law, preparation. I have an instinct for both the poison and the antidote. That”—he was speaking to Dana. now, his words slurring a little but entirely amiable and cogent—“is the kiss of death for a judge but a mighty advantage for a litigator. Also,” he said, “I worry for them. That’s what they pay me to do, worry. They pay me well to worry well and I’m the best worrier in New York. I got a call the other day from a client who was upset with some aspect of her case. I was very patient over the telephone but I didn’t know what she was talking about. I listened and was very sympathetic, and then I hung up and called my associate. I had to ask my associate who was doing the warrying on this case, him or me. Turned. out he was and he said he was worrying about it two hours of every day, two hundred dollars a day worth of worry and everything was coming along fine, for me to relax, he was worrying the hell out of his case—”

  His voice had begun to wither and. grow melancholy, and at length she looked at him fondly. “You ought to be writing the memoirs, not him. I’ll get you a contract, top dollar, anytime you want.”

  Harold McGee was silent a moment. Then he said to his son, “You didn’t tell me.”

  “Just a few things on paper,” McGee said casually.

  “Huh,” he said. “What things?”

  “A, kind of diary.” McGee glanced at Dana and quickly shook his head.

  “That’s a good idea, son. That’s the best idea you’ve had in years.” He turned to Dana, very serious now. “Is he telling everything?”

  She knew she was in the middle of something, some family business, but didn’t know what it was. “It’s a very nice book,” she said.

  He continued to stare at her. He put his glass down and nodded. “I figured. He’s got quite a story He’s one of the few people who can tell it properly, but he won’t. He won’t tell it all, he thinks he owes those bastards something; why I don’t know. If the shoe was on the other foot—” He snapped his fingers and lapsed into silence.

  “No,” she said. She was trying to salvage something. The old man had touched her with his obvious concern, but her first loyalty was to McGee. “Look, please. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything, but I didn’t know—” She reached over and touched his hand. She wanted, to support McGee. “Realty it’s a fine book.”

  “You editing this book?”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  He said, “Well, that’s something.”

  She shook her head; that was harsh of him. “Honesdv—”

  “Could bet,” the older man said, “It could be, definitely. But won’t be. He knows why but he won’t say.” Harold McGee motioned for the waiter to bring them more caivados. He was looking back and forth from Dana. to his son. He said to her, “You press him, He won’t like it, but you press him anyway, He’ll be sorry if he doesn’t publish what he’s got, and he’s got quite a lot. Things that surprised even me and I don’t surprise easily. Not that this crowd would listen to any of it.”

  She was completely mystified now. At that time she’d only known McGee a month and had read the manuscript twice. She had made suggestions about its organization and he was now rewriting. “What crowd?”

  “The government,”

  “You mean the administration? Eisenhower?”

  “Any of them,” he said roughly. “They’re all the same. It’s all the same government. Some. names change, some slogans. Different emphasis, different style. But it’s the same peopl
e. Now or in November, same difference. Worked for FDR myself in the mid-thirties. Worked two years for him and then came back here. Now that was a change. But there hasn’t been one since and won’t, be for another twenty years. Government is like the New York Bar. That doesn’t change either, new fads, new fashions, new men, same policies. The center does not change. Sometimes the edges change a little.” He smiled suddenly. “I’ve been severe, and forgive me.” He lifted his glass first to her, and then to his son. “Apologies from the litigator. Who loves both wisely and too well but talks too damn much.”

  McGee had said nothing during this, had sat with his pony of calvados and his cigarette, his eyes and attention elsewhere. He had ceased to listen after his father’s first comments. These were familiar; he’d heard them many times before. He was sorry that Dana. had to be caught up in it, but she’d brought that on herself. Obviously enchanted by the old man, as they all were. His arguments were unassailable as always, except his father did not know everything. They had not had the same experience; his father had not grieved. He did not know the hard facts of the cold war, and Dana knew even less than his father. He looked up then and caught his father’s salute and grinned. He was a hell of a man wherever he was, but he thought he knew everything; and he didn’t. “Tell us,” McGee said softly “about Witsell versus Witsell,” Harold McGee laughed and drained his glass and was off, a new excursion. Witsell versus Witsell, a litigation of unusual complexity, a large bed of money contested by two small voluptuaries,. A thin layer of smarm ...

  Dana sipped her drink, listening. She loved watching them. There seemed to be no distance between them at all; they could have been brothers, the old brother and the young one. She guessed Harold McGee’s age at a few years beyond sixty; McGee was thirty-six. They seemed to understand each other completely The older man’s apology came as naturally as breathing, and was accepted the same way. There were no secrets between them, except apparently the facts of McGee’s diplomatic service. The father seemed to want the son to understand everything he understood: the way of the world. The world was a passionate place. Understand the passions and you understand the place. More difficult than it sounds, he’d said. There was no fact that could not be stood on its head, no act that did not have at least two causes and two results. He admitted he was a cynic. In this busyness, how could I be anything else? McGee had told her he loved his father—“I love him and like him both,” he’d said, “even though we all know he’s a little nuts and that makes him a pain in the ass, sometimes,” He’d always been a little nuts, even when his wife was alive, and of course they’d been separated for years when she died. That had set up an emotional chain that was not ended even now. Harold McGee had been seeing a psychiatrist for twenty years, the same psychiatrist; he said he tithed to the psychiatrist as a monk tithed to the church or an actor to Equity. His euphemism for the thrice-weekly appointments: “I’m going to see my agent.” Dana told McGee that she loved just being around them, listening to them, watching them together. They did not surprise easily, either of them. She felt that by contrast her own world was closed; there was so little light. But they traveled from different beginnings: she loved surprise, embraced it and savored it when it came. Her world had been very closed before he came into it. He’d said with a smile, My father thought you were young, too young. He called you the Very Young Miss Rising. He thought you were too young for me but that was before he met you.

  You were both new to me, she’d said.

  Well, the life we’ve led. It’s different—

  From mine, she’d said.

  From Dement, he’d replied.

  Now they were driving from the beach house to New York. It was Sunday night and the traffic was heavy She moved up close against him and put her hand inside his shirt. She closed her eyes and listened to him hum, then sing. It was the song about the million-dollar baby in the five-and-dime.

  She said, “When are you going back to Boston?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “I wish you weren’t.”

  “Next weekend. I’ll be back next weekend.”

  “That’s no good,” she said glumly.

  He said, “We’re putting a trust together, the most complicated ... What’s no good?”

  “I’m going home to see my family.”

  “Damn,” he said.

  “It would be all right if you’d come.”

  He shook his head. “Next week is going to be a monster, and I’m going to work on the manuscript, too. Though it won’t be the same without you there.”

  “Don’t forget to water the plants,” she said. “Please?”

  “Maybe I’ll stay with Harold.”

  “No,” she said. “Don’t do that. Just water the plants.”

  “Okay.”

  She said, “I love you.”

  His arm tightened around her. “I’ll come to Dement with you the next time.”

  “I love you anyway.” They were on the Fifty-ninth Street bridge, the big convertible rattling over the pavement. The city rose, twinkling and gorgeous all around them. She flung her head back, the wind catching her hair and blowing it every way. “Look at that.” She touched the manuscript in her lap. “Look at that wonderful city.”

  He smiled. “I love you too,” he said.

  2.

  My GOD he looks awful, Charles thought. He took his feet off the desk and leaned forward, peering across the room. He looks sick, puffy in the face and dark, his manner distracted. No spark to him, his grin hesitant and insincere. Not a good time for it to happen but he was one of those men, perhaps, who did not have good luck. The voice droned on: ... I believe that we have the secret for progress. We know the way to progress and I think first of all that our own record proves that we know the way ...

  Blah-blah-blah, Charles Rising said to himself. Best thing you bastards can do is keep out of our way, if it isn’t too much trouble. I’ve seen him a lot better than this, Charles Rising thought. He was a hell of a lot better in Washington a year ago but of course that was private, just forty men in a room. The thing that came through, and came through clear as a bell, was that he was trained. Trained all his life for it, he had the experience. He understood work. You could look at him and see that. He came from nothing, his people were dirt poor but he managed college and law school. Still, he was a remote man, his antecedents obscure. His career had been a solo, ever since law school. The voice said, I know what it means to be poor. I know what it means to see people who are unemployed. Charles Rising smiled. That was better, give them a little red meat, let them know who you are as opposed to the other fellow. It was smart politics, or it used to be smart. Now it was hard to tell; this was a strange war. Politicians seemed to believe that “me too” would get them elected. And that thing in the corner had as much to do with it as anything, that box. Hard to know what a fellow was really made of through the box. At the Washington reception you could watch him up close and listen, too; the surroundings were ultimate, though of course his office went where he did. Difficult to separate the man from the office. However, this one had seen hard times and his courage couldn’t be questioned. The determination was visible around his mouth and in his eyes, hidden and bright as polished stones below the heavy brows. Not a man to be pushed around, by the Reds or by anyone else; the unions or the minorities. God knows he’d proven his anti-Communist credentials a hundred times over, there were no worries on that score. He was clean. But he had an odd personality, dark without being in any way threatening. Odd thing, Charles thought, you felt a little sorry for him; felt sorry about his background and his awkwardness and evident desire to please. In Washington he’d mingled with them, publishers and their wives, a glass of tonic water in his hand, and he’d been ill at ease. Later Charles described it to Dana, who said she knew what he meant. She said there was something accidental about him; there was nothing intrinsic. Dana was biased of course, but there was a little something in what she said. Charles stood up and moved closer to the tel
evision set. Now one of the reporters was asking Kennedy a question: ... the vice-president in his campaign has said that you are naive and at times immature. He has raised the question of leadership. On this issue, why do you think people should vote for you rather than for the vice-president? Charles listened to the answer, though he was preoccupied with the man. There was a fascinating and dangerous quality to Kennedy. He was ten years younger than Charles, but they were men of the same generation.

  They were men of the twentieth century though their outlooks were opposite. Kennedy had more in common with Dana, who was twenty years younger, than he did with Charles. His lean build, his clothes, his hair; he was too young, not seasoned in any way. He carried authority but it was a strange kind of authority. He reminded Charles of a southern newspaper publisher he knew. He’d see him from time to time at the ANPA. This newspaper publisher wore English clothes; once he appeared at the Banshee Luncheon in a tweed coat with patches at the elbows, as if he couldn’t be bothered to wear a suit like the rest of them. A soft southern accent and a stiff back and teetotal, a man sought after for panels and committees, he spoke frequently on the necessity for a free press and his statements were always long, “eloquent,” and condescending ... Charles realized suddenly that he was a little afraid of Kennedy and what he might do. He was not a predictable man and his background was mysterious. The old man had had something to do with the liquor business and with the movies. Not a man to get into a quarrel with, he wouldn’t respect the rules. He wasn’t as tough as Nixon, that was the truth of it, but he was more ruthless. He flouted convention and seemed to have contempt for those who didn’t. That trait probably came from the old man, rich as Croesus, a man who’d buy the White House with no regrets. There would not be the slightest twinge of guilt, no understanding that it was not an office for sale. You fought hard but you fought fair. Ike had and so had Adlai Stevenson, give him that. There was something about Kennedy that suggested mockery and disrespect. Was that it? Charles looked at him and thought that in a way Kennedy was European. He carried with him an air of English country houses or Mediterranean beaches or some rich man’s club in Paris or London, a dozen men sitting around a table ... laughing. Women, there’d been talk in that area; not the kind of women who hung around the Waldorf at the convention, but friends; friends’ wives. Charles snorted. Maybe this Kennedy was trying to prove Marx right after all. Charles Rising did not like Easterners, particularly Easterners of that sort, rich men who sucked up to poor men. When the taxes came to pay for it all, it would be the businessman who got soaked. Those others, their money would be hidden away in places the IRS could not look. Or would not look, if Kennedy became President. It came down to privilege by birth and Charles despised it. They, that class of people, excused themselves and the very poor—and the hell with everybody else. If Kennedy didn’t like society’s rules (and he apparently didn’t, from the evidence), he’d remake them without a moment’s hesitation. And he’d remake them from the White House, Lincoln’s place.