The Lost Child of Philomena Lee (Original Edition)

by Sixsmith, Martin

‘Nick, I want you to meet Michael Hess,’ Ron said. ‘He’s our newest recruit and he’s Irish, so I guess you’ll be seeing a lot of him in here.’

  They all smiled, and Ron ordered a bottle of champagne. Mike liked him: he had a sharp brain and a sharp tongue and he was undoubtedly a coming man in Republican ranks. He was less than ten years older than Mike. His neat brown moustache, spectacles and tight waves of dark hair made him look like a cross between Groucho Marx and Henry Kissinger, and his grumpy gravitas impressed senior senators and even the president himself. Kaufman took Mike by the arm and showed him the black and white photos on the walls of every Republican president and most of the party’s leading senators from the thirty years the Monocle had been in existence. Tom Hofeller stayed at the table, flicking through briefing documents and newspaper cuttings. Mike found him hard to pin down. He appeared younger than Kaufman, with a full soft-looking face and hooded eyes that seemed gentle if you were on his side of the aisle or cruel if you were an opponent. He was one of those committed party operatives who eschewed small talk and seemed to spend every breath discussing party affairs. It was Tom who raised the business of the Indiana redistricting.

  ‘OK, listen, guys. Mike needs to hit the ground running and the main thing on our plate right now is Indiana. Mike, I don’t expect you to know about the case – in fact, I sure as hell hope you don’t, because we’ve been trying to keep the thing quiet – but it could be big for us. The problem is our guys who control the state legislature have been a little too darn smart and it looks like they’ve got caught with their pecker in someone’s pocket, as LBJ used to say.’

  Mike smiled at the image.

  ‘What’s the case about?’

  ‘Well, I know as much about redistricting as the next guy, but this one’s a can of worms,’ Tom said. ‘When you come in Monday you need to hook up with our general counsel, Roger Allan Moore – he’s our top legal guy. Reagan rates him and the VP thinks the sun shines out of him. Roger will fill you in, but we need to act pretty quick to stop this getting out of hand.’

  Mike’s first full day at the Republican National Committee was spent sorting out keys and passes and accreditation for the Senate and the White House. He was fingerprinted by the Secret Service and had his photo taken a dozen times. He left a message with Roger Allan Moore’s secretary to fix an appointment, but no reply had come through by the time he left in the evening.

  The following day had seemed to be going the same way. He’d spent the morning visiting with the Republican leaders in the Senate and the House when suddenly the office was thrown into turmoil. Reports on CNN, the newly opened television news channel, were talking about some disturbance outside the Hilton Hotel, where the president had been making a speech to the Construction Trades Council. By 2.30 p.m. it had become clear that CNN had been covering the president’s speech and their cameras had filmed him leaving the building. The footage showed Reagan smiling and waving, then jerking forward with a grimace before policemen and Secret Service agents rushed up to grab him and bundle him into his limo. Every time the images were repeated, the hysteria in the office calmed momentarily as people turned to watch, shaking heads and wincing as Reagan fell.

  For the rest of the afternoon business was suspended and Mike found himself at a loss. The news wires reported that the president had been wounded by a bullet from a would-be assassin and rushed to George Washington University Hospital; three other people in his entourage had also been hit. Dallas and JFK were in everyone’s mind. Mike’s thoughts sped back to the time he had spent in the ER room of GWH and he felt his stomach contract: the awful, protracted death of David Carlin and now the imminent danger to the president folded into a single, sickening nightmare. By mid-afternoon, Mike had heard that a policeman and a Secret Service agent had been wounded and that the White House press secretary James Brady was hovering between life and death with a bullet in his brain. Washington was in a state of febrile uncertainty.

  Things began to settle down only when the networks carried news that the president was conscious and apparently in good spirits. NBC reported that his first words to a worried Nancy were, ‘Honey, I forgot to duck,’ and an ER nurse who asked him if he was OK said she heard him whisper, ‘All in all, I’d rather be in Philadelphia.’ The jokes were feeble, but they brought tears of relief to Mike’s eyes. Sitting in his office, staring out at the dome of the Capitol, he was lost in thought, wondering how the fate of a man he had long despised should now affect him so deeply, when the door opened and a tall, elegant figure slipped in.

  ‘Ahm, hello.’ The voice was patrician, refined New England. ‘Roger Allan Moore. So sorry about all of this.’ He gestured vaguely to the television set in the corner. ‘Not the best way to welcome you to the RNC, I suspect.’

  Mike was taken aback. Amidst the panic, Moore exuded an unruffled serenity that was almost breathtaking.

  ‘So, first things first,’ he was saying. ‘I’ve spoken with the surgeon and Ron’s out of danger. The bullet was a ricochet – hit the limo, then caught him under the left arm. Didn’t explode – thank the Lord – but made a mess of his left lung and stopped an inch from his heart.’

  Mike listened in amazement to what he was hearing. Moore was pacing across the carpet, six foot four, gaunt and slim, with a craggy face and protruding ears under coiffured grey hair. He looked around fifty, the picture of an English gentleman in his tweed suit, size-four-teen Oxfords and woollen socks, with a briar pipe that never seemed to leave his hand.

  ‘Yes. Thank God,’ Mike offered. ‘Thank God the president is safe. I’m Michael Hess, by the way.’

  Roger Allan Moore stooped and shook the proffered hand.

  ‘Yes, indeed you are. Welcome. I would have come earlier, but I was caught in the constitutional wrangle. I’m sure you know all there is to know about the presidential succession protocol – I just wish Al Haig did! I had to tell him that in fact he is not in charge despite what he’s been saying all over the networks. The slight drawback is that it’s a little uncertain who actually is.’ He chuckled and looked skywards. ‘Ah well, it’ll be sorted out in an hour or so when Bush gets back from Andrews.’

  For Mike, the sudden sense of being so close to the epicentre of events shaping the nation’s future was exhilarating. Six months ago he had been a constitutional lawyer with no prospect of a particularly distinguished future, and now he was discussing the fate of presidents with people who had responsibilities for the constitution and the exercise of power.

  ‘I know you must be busy, Roger,’ Mike said deferentially. ‘Why don’t we put a date in the diary for when all this calms down?’

  But Moore waved his hand.

  ‘My dear fellow, there’s no need to stand on ceremony. Do please pop into my office whenever you like. Mark Braden and I always have a couple of whiskies to help the day go down – or at least I do, and he sips something or other. Come and join us tomorrow, will you?’

  The feeling of being accepted into a world he had thought was beyond his reach swept over Mike with a gratifying warmth.

  He felt absurdly nervous as he walked down the corridor the following evening. Roger was finishing some paperwork when he walked in, but he motioned for Mike to help himself to a drink. A few minutes later Mark Braden appeared. The RNC’s deputy chief counsel was younger than Moore, sharply dressed, with a broad, friendly face and neatly trimmed beard.

  ‘So you’re the third musketeer, are you?’ he said. ‘We’ve been awaiting your arrival. The party’s been chasing us to get on top of this redistricting strategy – they think it could make or break the next elections – and we’ve been needing a extra pair of hands. Things’ll go quiet for a while with all the fuss over the president, but it looks like he’s on the mend. Shame about Jim Brady, though – permanent brain damage is what they’re saying.’

  Moore had finished off his pile of papers and joined them with a whisky glass in one hand and a lit pipe in the other.

  ‘Ahm yes, gentlemen
. No rest for the wicked as my old mother used to say. Now I want to fill Michael in on the Indiana debacle and also explain the revenge we’re plotting over the California districting.’

  Sitting in the comfortable surroundings of the general counsel’s office, sipping his single malt whisky, Mike savoured the sensation of having arrived. He listened to the talk of constitutional law and gerrymandering, the looming political confrontations and the Republican Party’s battle plan, and he felt himself aching to be a part of it. He was being drawn into the mindset of the place in the same way a new foot soldier submerges his identity in the needs of his regiment: he may disagree with the army’s goals, but he devotes himself to attaining them. From his first days at the RNC, Mike was fascinated with the intellectual challenge of fighting its electoral battles and determined to do what he could to entrench the Republicans in power.

  A couple of setbacks arising from an infection and a bout of fever meant Ronald Reagan did not return to the Oval Office until the end of April 1981. He was given a standing ovation by the White House staff and sent a message of thanks to the party’s officials for the way they had coped during his absence. At their evening meeting Roger Allan Moore read out the president’s letter.

  ‘I am so proud of the way you carried on,’ it read. ‘I don’t think this city has ever seen such a team. I want to thank all of you for all you’ve done and for all your good wishes. I don’t have the words to express my pride in all of you.’

  Mike felt a lump in his throat and a surge of affection for the men who were now his co-workers, potentially his future friends.

  The RNC’s spring ball followed a couple of weeks later, and the atmosphere was one of relieved celebration: the narrowly avoided tragedy had left the Republicans shaken but doubly determined to push ahead with the political changes they had promised as well as the new conservatism on social questions. Mike took Susan to the party and introduced her to his colleagues. As they glided together across the dance floor, she scrutinized his face with concern.

  ‘This is all wonderful, Mike, and your colleagues seem like . . . nice people. But I’m still a little, you know, uneasy about you working here. Do you really feel like this is where you belong?’

  Mike laughed and squeezed her waist.

  ‘I know what you mean. These are lovely guys, but they’re pillars of a community we don’t belong to – Ivy League, married, kids, and most of them born to a life of ease. You know, Roger owns an apartment in DC, a farm in Charlestown and a house on Beacon Hill that has twelve fireplaces!’

  Susan frowned. ‘Well, that’s fine and dandy – let them be rich, that’s their concern – but what about the gay thing, Mike? There’s no way you can be open about that.’

  Mike made a little flapping motion with an exaggeratedly limp wrist.

  ‘Darling, I’ve no idea what you mean.’

  But Susan was serious. ‘The media would go to town on you, Mike: TOP OFFICIAL IN HOMOPHOBIC PARTY IS GAY. You know what they’d make of it.’

  Mike gripped her tight and executed a neat swirl.

  ‘Well, that’s what I depend on you for, now isn’t it?’

  Susan laughed and dropped the subject.

  ‘On a pleasanter note – I hope – how’s the love life?’ she asked. ‘Still seeing that male model, you lucky thing? Or did you cast him aside like all the others?’

  ‘Oh, you know,’ he said. ‘I’m still looking for Mr Goodbar, but having a bit of fun in the meantime.’

  Mike suddenly didn’t feel like talking about his love life. When the band struck up a tango, he pulled himself up to his full height and struck a theatrical pose. ‘Madam,’ he growled, ‘shall we?’

  Two weeks after the RNC’s collective sigh of relief for the return of the president, the US Centers for Disease Control issued a report on five gay men in Los Angeles who were suffering from a rare form of pneumonia. The strain seemed resistant to antibiotics and the men’s condition was not responding to any treatment. On 4 June a summary of the report was included in the White House’s daily briefing pack because the National Institutes of Health were worried the disease was infectious and they were unable to trace how it was being passed on. The item was listed so far down the president’s agenda that the meeting finished before he got to it.

  TWO

  1981

  Pete Nilsson had seen the guy on the Metro as he rode to work each morning. After a few days he had taken to waiting on the platform and letting trains go by until the striking dark-haired man showed up. They had been introduced at a reception on Capitol Hill and he was sure the guy recognized him, but he refused to return Pete’s glances and Pete was beginning to lose hope.

  Pete was twenty-eight, tall and blond from his Swedish ancestry. He had been in a relationship for the past five years, but it had broken up a few months ago and he was missing the comfort of a steady partner. He was a nester by nature, and all the freedom of being single, all the opportunities for brief exhilaration and casual sex, could not make up for going home to an empty house in the evenings. He had come close to speaking to the man on the train a few times – one morning he had appeared with a lump of shaving cream behind his ear and Pete had had to struggle not to scoop it up with his finger – but he was put off by the man’s distant attitude and apparent lack of interest.

  As Washington baked in the first hot days of summer Mike threw himself into his work and put his personal life on hold. He met people at parties, got chatting, sometimes swapped details, but no real friends were made: he may have been lonely, but he didn’t have time to notice it. In one of the gay bars on a Monday night after work he’d struck up a conversation with a local couple who’d invited him to their house-warming party the following weekend. They’d given Mike their address and he’d stuffed it in his pocket.

  The following Sunday he was going through his wardrobe when the scribbled note fell from a pair of jeans. It was a Georgetown address, very classy. What the hell, he thought. He spent a long time choosing his clothes – he was feeling nervous and excited about the party and nothing seemed quite right – so it was already half past midnight by the time he settled on an outfit.

  The couple giving the party were old friends of Pete Nilsson, and as Mike was hurling shirts around his bedroom Pete was wrapping a house-warming gift he’d chosen that afternoon. A week earlier he had broken his ankle in a volleyball game and was hobbling with a cast on his leg, but he’d decided to go anyway and arrived at one in the morning to find the house overflowing with people, music and noise.

  His hosts made a fuss of him and installed him with a drink on a sofa in the living room. He couldn’t help wondering what the neighbours must be thinking of their new arrivals: half-naked men were coming and going from the bedrooms in a constant stream, and groups were shouting and yelling in the backyard. Pete was enjoying the party and the attention he was getting because of his leg, but his mood was deflated when he recognized his former long-term lover among the revellers.

  Patrice was a Frenchman, a little older than Pete, and they had met in Aix-en-Provence when Pete was studying there after university. Patrice was from an aristocratic French family and his mannerisms and way of dressing were decidedly effeminate – looking at him now, Pete was amazed that he could ever have loved such an effete guy. But Patrice was edging his way through the room towards him and waving cheerily.

  ‘Peter,’ he called out, ‘I want you to meet my fiancée!’ With a flourish he introduced an attractive young American woman. Pete hardly knew what to say. Patrice was kissing her and she seemed happy, but Pete was taken aback. The guy already had a green card so it wasn’t as if he needed to get married, and the thought of him in bed with a woman made Pete want to laugh out loud. He managed to congratulate the two of them and was about to say he needed to leave when the guy from the train walked in through the front door.

  The following morning the Reagan White House got its first chance to tackle a problem that was destined to haunt it. The report fro
m the Centers for Disease Control which the president had failed to read in the Oval Office had been passed instead to one of his domestic policy advisers. Gerry Hauer was a smart young law graduate from a tough area of Ohio. He had fought hard to get where he was and was keen to make an impression in the new administration, so he scanned the document in front of him to see if he could justify taking it back to the president. He made a disapproving face when he realized the new disease was largely confined to gay men – Hauer was about to be named chairman of the President’s Working Group on the Family so he was on the lookout for material about degeneracy and perversion – but in the end he decided there was nothing to it and slid the report into his out tray.

  Mike spent his morning at the office feeling strangely excited. He was meeting Pete Nilsson for dinner.

  Mike had recognized Pete as soon as he’d walked into the party – handsome, svelte, muscular body. It’s that guy from the train who always looks at me. The guy had beckoned to him. Mike had spotted the cast on his leg and the empty glass in his hand, and had fixed them both a drink. He’d held out a hand for the guy to shake, but to Mike’s surprise and amusement Pete had raised an eyebrow and cocked his head to one side with a half-smile, ignoring the proffered handshake.

  ‘You know, you’re pretty rude. We were introduced at the reception on the Hill, but ever since then you’ve just looked straight through me.’ To his own amazement, Mike had blushed. So that was where he’d recognized the guy from.

  ‘Ah. You’re the train guy.’ He’d smiled.

  ‘The train guy!’ Pete had exclaimed with mock outrage. ‘Is that all I am to you? The train guy . . .’ He’d shaken his head in disbelief and knocked back some of his drink. Mike had studied his profile for a moment, then proffered something not far from an apology.

  ‘I thought you were someone else. Someone who stole a boyfriend from me back in the day. But’ – his voice had lowered – ‘now I can see it wasn’t you. I can see you are someone very different – someone very different indeed.’