Paths of Glory (33 page)

She had driven him down to Southampton, and once he had reluctantly left her to board the ship, she’d remained on the dockside until it had sailed out of the harbor and become a small speck on the horizon.

Mr. and Mrs. Mallory had spent their promised break in Venice, which turned out to be something of a contrast from the last visit George had made to that city, because on this occasion he booked a suite at the Cipriani Hotel.

“Can we afford it?” Ruth had asked as she looked out of the window of the lagoon-side suite her father usually occupied.

“Probably not,” George replied. “But I’ve decided to spend a hundred of the thousand pounds I’m going to earn in America on what I intend to be an unforgettable holiday.”

“The last time you went to Venice, George, it
was
unforgettable,” Ruth reminded him.

The newlyweds, as most of the other guests assumed they were, because they came down so late for breakfast, were always holding hands and never stopped looking in each other’s eyes, did everything except climb St. Mark’s Tower—inside or out. After such a long time apart, the few days really did feel like a honeymoon, as they got to know each other again. By the time the Orient Express pulled into Victoria Station a week later, the last thing George wanted to do was leave Ruth again and sail away to the States.

If his bank statement hadn’t been among the unopened post on their arrival back at The Holt, he might even have considered canceling the lecture tour and staying at home.

There was one other letter George hadn’t anticipated, and he wondered if he ought to accept the flattering invitation, given the circumstances. He’d see how the tour went before he made that decision.

George’s overwhelming first impression of New York as the ship came into harbor was the sheer size of its buildings. He’d read about skyscrapers, even seen photographs of them in the new glossy magazines, but to see them standing cheek by jowl was beyond his imagination. The tallest building in London would have appeared as a pygmy among this tribe of giants.

George leaned over the ship’s railing and looked down at the dock, where a boisterous crowd were smiling and waving as they waited for their loved ones and friends to disembark. He would have searched among the throng for a new friend, had he had the slightest idea what Lee Keedick looked like. Then he spotted a tall, elegant man in a long black coat holding up a placard that read
MALLORY
.

Once George had stepped off the ship, a suitcase in each hand, he made his way toward the impressive figure. When he was a stride away, he pointed to the board and said, “That’s me.”

That’s when George saw him for the first time. A short, plump man who would never have made it to base camp stepped forward to greet him. Mr. Keedick was wearing a beige suit and an open-necked yellow shirt with a silver cross dangling from a chain around his neck. It was the first time George had ever seen a man wearing jewelry. Keedick must have stood a shade over five feet, but only because his crocodile-skin shoes had higher heels than those Ruth usually wore.

“I’m Lee Keedick,” he announced, after removing the stub of an unlit cigar from his mouth. “You must be George. Is it OK to call you George?”

“I think you just did,” said George, giving him a warm smile.

“This is Harry,” said Keedick, pointing to the tall man. “He’ll be your chauffeur while you’re in the States.” Harry touched the rim of his hat with the forefinger of his right hand, then opened the back door of what George had thought was a small omnibus.

“Somethin’ wrong?” asked Keedick, as George remained on the sidewalk.

“No,” said George as he stepped inside. “It’s just that this is the biggest car I’ve ever seen.”

“It’s the latest Caddie,” Lee told him.

George thought a caddie was someone who carried a golfer’s clubs, but then recalled George Bernard Shaw once telling him, “England and America are two nations divided by a common language.”

“It’s the finest darn car in America,” added Keedick, as Harry pulled away from the curb to join the morning traffic.

“Are we picking up anyone else on the way?” asked George.

“I just love your English sense of humor,” said Keedick. “Nope, this is all yours. You gotta understand, George, it’s important for people to think you’re a big shot. You gotta keep up appearances, or you’ll never get anywhere in this town.”

“Does that mean the bookings for my lectures are going well?” asked George nervously.

“They’re just swell for the opening at the Broadhurst Theater tomorrow night.” Keedick paused to light his cigar. “And if you get a good write-up in
The New York Times
, we’ll do just fine for the rest of the tour. If it’s a rave, we’ll sell out every night.”

George wanted to ask him what “rave” meant, but satisfied himself with looking up at the skyscrapers as the car inched its way through the traffic.

“That’s the Woolworth Building,” said Keedick, winding down the window. “It’s seven hundred and ninety-two feet tall. The tallest building in the world. But they’re planning one that will be over a thousand feet.”

“That’s just about how much I missed it by,” said George as the limousine came to a halt outside the Waldorf Hotel.

A bellboy rushed forward to open the car door, with the manager following close behind. He smiled the moment he saw Keedick step out onto the sidewalk.

“Hi, Bill,” said Keedick. “This is George Mallory, the guy who conquered Everest.”

“Well, not quite,” said George. “In fact—”

“Don’t bother with the facts, George,” said Keedick. “No one else in New York does.”

“Congratulations, sir,” said the manager, thrusting out his hand. George had never shaken hands with a hotel manager before. “In your honor,” he continued, “we’ve put you in the Presidential Suite, on the seventeenth floor. Please follow me,” he added as they walked across the foyer.

“May I ask where the fire escape is?” asked George, before they’d reached the elevator.

“Over there, sir,” said the manager, pointing to the other side of the lobby, a puzzled look appearing on his face.

“The seventeenth floor, you say?”

“Yes,” confirmed the manager, looking even more puzzled.

“I’ll see you up there,” said George.

“Don’t they have elevators in English hotels?” the manager asked Keedick as George strode across the lobby and through a door marked
Fire Escape
. “Or is he mad?”

“No,” replied Keedick. “He’s English.”

The elevator whisked both men up to the seventeenth floor. The manager was even more surprised when George appeared in the corridor only a few minutes later, and didn’t seem to be out of breath.

The manager unlocked the door to the Presidential Suite, and stood aside to allow his guest to enter the room. George’s immediate reaction was that there must have been some mistake. The suite was larger than the tennis court at The Holt.

“Did you think I was bringing my wife and children with me?” he asked.

“No,” said Keedick, laughing, “it’s all yours. Don’t forget, the press may want to interview you, and it’s important that they think this is how they treat you back in England.”

“But can we afford it?”

“Don’t even think about it,” said Keedick. “It all comes out of expenses.”

“How nice to hear from you, Geoffrey,” said Ruth when she recognized the familiar voice on the other end of the line. “It’s been far too long.”

“And I’m the one to blame,” said Geoffrey Young. “It’s just that since I took up my new post at Imperial College, I don’t get out of town much during term-time.”

“Well, I’m afraid George isn’t at home at the moment. He’s in America on a lecture tour.”

“Yes, I know,” said Young. “He dropped me a line last week to say he was looking for a job, and that if anything came up I should let him know. Well, a position has arisen in Cambridge that just might be ideal for him, but I thought I’d run it past you first.”

“That’s very thoughtful of you, Geoffrey. Shall we try and meet up when I’m next in London?”

“No, no,” said Young, “I can always pop down to Godalming.”

“When did you have in mind?”

“Would next Thursday suit you?”

“Of course. Will you be able to stay for the night?”

“Thank you, I’d like that, if it’s not inconvenient.”

“If you were able to stay for a month, Geoffrey, it wouldn’t be inconvenient.”

George couldn’t sleep on his first night in New York, and the time difference wasn’t to blame, because the five-day Atlantic crossing had taken care of that. It was just that he’d never spent a night in a city before where the traffic never came to a halt and police and ambulance sirens screamed incessantly. It reminded him of being back on the Western Front.

He finally gave up, climbed out of bed, and sat at a large desk by the window overlooking Central Park. He went over his lecture once again, then checked all the large glass slides. He was delighted to find that none of them had been broken during the voyage from England.

George was becoming more and more apprehensive about what Keedick kept referring to as “opening night.” He tried not to think of the consequences of it being a flop, another of Keedick’s words, even though the agent kept assuring him that there were only a few seats left unsold, and all that mattered now was what the
New York Times
thought of the lecture. On balance, George decided he preferred mountains. They didn’t give a damn what the
New York Times
thought of them.

He crept back into bed a couple of hours later, and eventually fell asleep at around four o’clock.

Ruth sat in her chair by the window enjoying George’s first letter from America. She laughed when she read about the Caddie and the Presidential Suite with its central heating, aware that George would have been quite content to pitch a tent on the roof, but she doubted if that was an option at the Waldorf. When she turned the page, she frowned for the first time. It worried her that George felt that so much rested on the opening night. He ended his letter by promising to write and let her know how the lecture had been received just as soon as he returned to the hotel later that evening. How Ruth wished she could have read the review in
The New York Times
before George saw it.

There was a knock on the door, and George answered it to find a smiling Lee Keedick standing in the corridor. He was dressed in his usual open-necked shirt, but this time it was green, while his suit was a shade of light blue that would have been more appropriate if worn by a blade in Cambridge. The chain around his neck had turned from silver to gold, and the shoes from crocodile to white patent leather. George smiled. Lee Keedick would have made George Finch look elegant.

“How are you feelin’, old buddy?” asked Keedick as he stepped into the room.

“Apprehensive,” admitted George.

“No need to,” said Lee. “They’re gonna love you.”

An interesting observation, George thought, considering Keedick had only known him for a few hours and had never heard him speak in public. But then he was beginning to realize that Lee Keedick had a set of stock phrases whoever his client was.

Outside the hotel, Harry was standing by the car. He opened the back door, and George jumped in, feeling far more nervous than he ever did before a demanding climb. He didn’t speak on the journey to the theater, and was grateful that Keedick remained silent, even if he did fill the car with cigar smoke.

As they drew up outside the Broadhurst Theater, George saw the poster advertising his lecture. He burst out laughing.

BOOK NOW!
G
EORGE
M
ALLORY
The man who conquered Everest single-handed
Next week: Jack Benny

He smiled at the photograph of a young man playing a violin, pleased that he would be followed by a musician.

George stepped out onto the sidewalk, his legs trembling and his heart beating as if he was a few feet from the summit. Keedick led his client down a side alley to the stage door, where a waiting assistant accompanied them up a stone staircase to a door with a silver star on it. Keedick told George before he left that he’d see him before he went on stage. George sat alone in the cold, slightly musty dressing room lit by several naked light bulbs surrounding a large mirror. He went over his speech one last time. For the first time in his life, he wanted to turn back before he’d reached the top.

There was a tap on the door. “Fifteen minutes, Mr. Mallory,” said a voice.

George took a deep breath, and a few moments later Keedick walked in. “Let’s get this show on the road, pal,” he said. He led George back down the stone steps, along a brick corridor, and into the wings at the side of the stage, leaving him with the words, “Good luck, buddy. I’ll be in the front row, cheering you on.”

George paced up and down, becoming more nervous by the minute. Although he could hear loud chattering coming from the other side of the curtain, he had no idea how many people were in the audience. Had Keedick exaggerated when he said there were only a few unsold tickets?

At five minutes to eight, a man dressed in a white tuxedo appeared at George’s side and said, “Hi, I’m Vince, the compère. I’ll be introducing you. Is there some special way of pronouncing Mallory?”

This was a question George had never been asked before. “No,” he replied.

George looked around for someone, anyone, to talk to while he waited nervously for the curtain to rise. He would even have been happy to see Keedick. He realized for the first time how Raleigh must have felt just before he had his head chopped off. And then suddenly, without any warning, the curtain rose and the compère marched out onto the stage, tapped the microphone, and announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, it’s my pleasure to present to you for your entertainment this evening George Mallory, the man who conquered Everest.”

At least he didn’t add “single-handed,” thought George as he walked onto the stage feeling desperately in need of oxygen. But he quickly recovered when he was greeted by warm applause.

George began his lecture hesitantly, partly because he couldn’t see the audience, who must have been out there somewhere, but while several spotlights were trained on him it was impossible to see beyond the front row. However, it took only a few minutes for him to become accustomed to the strange experience of being treated like an actor rather than a lecturer. He was encouraged by intermittent bursts of applause, and even the occasional roar of laughter. After a bumpy start, he battled on for nearly an hour. It wasn’t until he called for questions, and the lights went up, that he saw just how many people he had been addressing.