On Green Dolphin Street by Sebastian Faulks Read Free Book Online Page B

something the “woman of today can wear at
any
time.” Mary liked it because it looked the kind of thing that Audrey Hepburn might have worn.
    She arranged to meet Frank at the new British Embassy building on Massachusetts Avenue. Within a week of the van der Lindens’ arrival in Washington, Mary had been identified as a wife who should be used as much as possible. Despite a little shyness, her buoyant character and essential good manners were viewed as assets; there was a tradition at the Embassy that if someone was unmarried or his wife was indisposed he could call on the wife of a junior to be his hostess at a function, and Mary had, rather against her will, been used in this way. Most of the British diplomats subscribed to what was known, after the Washington columnist who had invented it, as the Joe Alsop Amendment, which stated that with eight people at dinner there could be no bores present; with ten there could be half a bore; with twelve a whole bore could be absorbed;with fourteen, a bore and a half, and so on. Half-bores, in Alsop’s definition, were dull but very powerful men or vacuous but very beautiful women.
    The new building was a functional rectangle of concrete, steel and glass in which the need for Civil Service gradings, competitive views and relative office sizes had prevailed over aesthetic design. It was being slowly inhabited, corridor by right-angled corridor, as diplomats temporarily housed about the city in borrowed buildings, hotels and office blocks moved in their maps, papers and Rolodex address finders. Mary waited downstairs in the glass-fronted lobby, chatting to the receptionist. Showing Frank around was a chore she felt she could have done without, and if Charlie was anxious to help him for some reason, she did not see why he could not have spared the time himself. She felt less than diplomatic—reserved, unwilling—when Frank crossed the floor, taking off a wide-brimmed felt hat and holding out his hand.
    “I can give you a tour here to begin with,” she said. “Then you’d better explain to me more exactly what you want.”
    “Sure,” he said. “You understand that this is entirely off the record.”
    “Yes. The Head of Information’s been in touch. He’s joining us upstairs.”
    As they went across to the elevator, Mary said, “By the way, how’s your hand?”
    “Oh, it’s fine. It healed well.” He showed her a closed scar that ran down and disappeared beneath the cuff of his shirt. He flipped open a notebook he took from the pocket of his raincoat. “All right if I take notes?”
    “As long as—”
    “Sure. Background only.”
    They started at the top of the building, where the canteen would open in due course. The Head of Information, enthusiastic about meeting a new journalist, was waiting for them.
    “You lead on, Mary.” He smiled. “I’ll just open a few doors, literal and metaphorical.”
    There were one or two people already in their new offices to whom shewas able to introduce Frank as they slowly descended through the building. Once they had been assured that they would not be quoted, most of them seemed happy to be distracted from their work and to answer his questions. He asked them what they thought of Eisenhower’s presidency and who they thought the next president would be; he wanted to know what they made of Washington, how it compared with other postings and how they spent their evenings.
    When they reached the ground floor, Frank said, “Do I get to see inside the Ambassador’s residence?”
    “Yes,” said the Head of Information, “I’m going to hand you over to the Ambassador’s secretary.”
    The Ambassador was in New York, but they were allowed to look round the residence, a mock-Queen Anne building next door to the Embassy with towering brick chimneys, mansard windows and creeper-clad walls at the rear.
    “Charlie calls it Greyfriars,” said Mary as they walked over in the surprising warmth of early spring. “He thinks it