The president watched attentively, smiling appreciatively, and sang along. He was an unspontaneous man who knew that people were constantly looking at him, and he was at pains to demonstrate that he was just what he seemed, an open and benevolent person who had nothing to hide.
The Tiger Tones’ spokesman came to the table and asked the president for his requests — any song he liked.
“You go ahead. You’re doing just fine,” the president said, which was shrewd, because a request was also a giveaway.
Steadman said, “Do you know Chuck Berry songs? How about ‘Maybelline’?”
“Sorry,” the young man said, and repeated it more loudly when he noticed Steadman’s dark glasses and the white cane propped against the table.
They sang “Up on the Roof.”
The president said, “I had Chuck Berry at the White House.”
“That’s great.”
“I could get him for you.”
Steadman was touched — not by the offer but by the spirit of it, the sense he had noticed earlier, that the president was saying not “love me” but “please need me.”
He was mouthing the words of the songs, appearing to know that everyone was looking at him and he was doing the right thing for them. He would never want to be seen doing the wrong thing, which was why his secret was engrossing to him, and it had to be a forbidden woman, for what else could have made him so pink?
The president was so much there, so willing to respond, so quick to read reactions, so present, that he had to be hiding something. Evasion and calculated secrecy were important to him, for he was both puppet and puppet master. But he searched with such close attention, charmed so completely, he took possession.
Only Steadman saw through him, and he was fascinated, as though watching a man balancing on a high wire, while the others at the table spoke to him in such a respectful way. The aged Cronkite, so courtly as he leaned forward, said, “Mr. President, forgive me for wondering, yet I can’t help…” And the president nailed the question with an even more courteous reply.
The man had something on his mind. He was always a fraction late in his responses, as if the lapse were another voice in his head, distracting him and demanding to be heard. What was he thinking about? Perhaps a matter of national importance, yet Steadman felt deeply that it was something else — an embarrassment, a source of shame and strength.
“Is that the ferry out there?”
Aware that he was being observed by Steadman — uncomfortable under his blind gaze — he seemed to be struggling for relief.
“That’s the big ferry,” Olga said.
“Might be the Uncatena,” Betsy Cronkite said.
“Crossing the Sound with a bone in its teeth,” Walter said.
Steadman said, “To Woods Hole, just to the left of the flashing light. That’s Nobska.”
The people at the table stared at him, and the president hitched his chair back on the sand to have a view of Steadman and the things that Steadman described.
“The lights to the west are the Elizabeth Islands. The scoop of darkness is Tarpaulin Cove. To the east, past Nobska, the Falmouth shore, Falmouth Harbor, Falmouth Heights, East Falmouth, Green Pond Harbor entrance, Waquoit, and Cotuit around that flung-out arm of lights.”
The president was relaxed and grateful, for scrutiny had been suspended, all eyes off him at the moment.
He said, “That’s wonderful. That’s amazing.”
Steadman then named some of the stars in the northwest sky.
“I don’t see a thing!” Olga said.
“Light pollution,” Steadman said.
Walter said, “Slade knows these waters well. I like having him on board when we take the Wyntje out.”
Steadman said to the president, “The white line just offshore is the standing wave in the chop on Middle Ground Shoal. Sort of foaming in the moonlight. Great fishing spot.”
The president, seeming to be lost in this conversation, said, “We had a real nice sail yesterday in James Taylor’s boat.”
Just then a weak blade of light crossed the president’s body, and a man looking official, perhaps someone on security detail, dressed in a dark uniform and swiping the ground with his flashlight, crept to the president’s elbow and shone the light on a piece of paper that was crumbly and insubstantial. It had to be a fax, for the way it crinkled and did not lie flat.
Now Steadman was more aware than ever of the president’s slender, almost feminine hands and long, delicate fingers, his small wrists, his tremulous touch. The fax paper rattled softly as the president read it, looking grave, all his attention on it.
“Keep me informed,” he said to the man, who nodded and slipped away.
“There’s been an accident,” he said, his self-conscious solemnity commanding the attention of the table with its drama — and all around them, on the shore-side tables of the clambake, there was a gaiety that gave this single table the look of a seance. “Princess Diana was hurt in a car crash. Her friend has been killed.”
As Steadman touched his watch face — it was a little past ten o’clock — the president was answering questions: “Paris… that very night… in the hospital… No other news.”
The president seemed to relax, not in an idle way but with great solid confidence, like a man in an important chair, at the center of things, directing operations, like a captain taking command in uncertain weather and setting a course. And because he was in control of this serious business of leading, no one questioned him or scrutinized him. He was accepted, trusted, needed — he had what he wanted.
Steadman perceived the man’s secret through the man’s relief; yet the relief was temporary and the secret was a scar on the man’s soul, an obsession that had become a wound.
“Do any of you have memories of Princess Diana?” he asked, as chairman of the table. “Some of you must have met her.”
This was brilliant — easing the pain of worrying about her injury by remembering the good days, as a whole, healthy memory of something hopeful.
Walter Cronkite said, “There was a rumor going around that she was staying with us in Edgartown and was seen sailing with me on the Wyntje, sunbathing on the deck as I steered. My goodness, how I wish that had been true.”
“She was supposed to visit the island this summer,” Styron said. “Rose said something about it.”
The president said, “She had been in touch with me. She wanted to come to the States. She was very concerned about land mines.”
Millie said, “I met her in London at a movie premiere. She was really sweet. There was no sign that anything was wrong in her marriage. She might have had a lover. I certainly would have if I had been married to that twerp Charles.”
The president smiled. “She came to the White House. She was so beautiful.”
Betsy Cronkite said, “And did you dance with her?”
“I wouldn’t have missed that for anything.”
“Let’s toast her health,” Styron said.
Millie said, “It would be so horrible if she died.”
“But if she did,” Steadman said, “my advice is, don’t die tonight.”
“I had no plans to do that, thank you very much,” Olga said.
“But if any of us did, no one would know. It wouldn’t be news,” Steadman said, realizing that his sightless eyes gave him an importance that transfixed the table. “The papers tomorrow will be full of this story.”
“So what if we did die?” Millie said.
Steadman smiled at her and leaned over. “When did Aldous Huxley die?”
No one knew. Steadman could see that the president hated to be asked a question to which he did not have the answer — and by a blind man, who was now the center of attention.