Far Afield

XI

75 XI When I called Trevor to apprise him of my meeting with Stanley (for in returning home with Wilkie I felt duty-bound to at least mention that I’d met his brother), he was pleased. “A master move,” he said sagely. “Keep the enemy off balance. Unorthodox tactics. The secret to any successful sortie.” He didn’t bother to inquire why I had chosen to go to Stanley’s or what we had talked about, nor did I elaborate on either. Instead, he used my presence to run through the docket of his most recent thoughts, including that day’s press coverage, the fluctuations in interest rates at the national bank, and the upcoming weather patterns to election day. Despite their common gloomy outlook, especially the newspaper coverage, he exuded optimism. “I’m going to have to call off our meeting tonight,” he said abruptly at the end of our conversation, his voice blasting through the phone receiver that I had become accustomed to holding several inches from my ear. “Minor health disturbance. Nothing to be troubled about. I’ll send Wilkie around for you tomorrow at eight. Can’t wait to see what you’ve cooked up.” Per usual, he banged down the phone without warning. I was now left with the sense of immediate relief, as well as the dwindling remainder of the afternoon. In a long moment of debate, I again considered filling a knapsack with beer and a blanket and taking myself out of the silly president-making business to sleep and dream on the sticky pink sand for a few hours. But as before, I 76 Far Afield knew that if I were to divert my attention to other things, even if for a short time, I would not address my work at all that day. This matter at hand was much like taking apart an unfamiliar piece of machinery; the more you disassembled, the more responsibility you accrued for finishing the overall task. On an impulse, and for the added need to be held to my duties, I phoned Stanley. It occurred to me that I had left his house with no clear understanding of what was required of me, other than that I was being employed to fix the results of a democratic presidential election. Now I wanted to clarify matters before too much might be expected of me, as well as get some instructive words from the slightly more coherent brother. But the phone rang for upwards of a minute—I allowed for the squalor of five children to drown it out—and no one responded. He was probably out pricing royal titles, I thought bitterly, or lining up the sale of his home and the purchase of a new one. With no better alternative in sight, I then went to the lobby to pilfer the day’s newspapers. Making off with copies of each daily (as well as several of the pastries and chocolate cookies that had been put out for afternoon tea), I took them up to my room and went through them at length, though surprisingly they contained little election coverage. While I again noted that the Morning Gleaner was disagreeable toward Trevor and the News Review was charitably ignorant, most of the pages today were given over to accident photos, real estate ads, and optimistic religious canards. Then I remembered that yesterday was Sunday and that the slow tide of things here was probably drifting even more tediously than usual. However, it was while reading the brief Morning Gleaner story (“CANDIDATES SUPPORT POULTRY CRACKDOWN”), that I suddenly wondered if I shouldn’t phone up the reporter (again R. S. Bando) and introduce myself to head off any further negative reporting. Though as a journalist, I’d always despised those who operated this way, it seemed that as a campaign advisor this was precisely the sort of rank work I should be engaged in. Mulling this over, I felt another of my principles of professional behavior slipping away. Scott Brown 77 I was scanning the newspaper for its telephone number when simultaneously the phone buzzed and a heavy knocking erupted at the door. I picked up the phone first and heard the low tones of the desk clerk who’d reported me to the police, and whom I now assumed was calling about the stolen croissants. “You have a visitor on his way up,” he...