She would spend the night in a local hotel, then reinstate herself on the Britannia when it arrived in the harbor the following day. So she had settled on this somewhat less than majestic entrance via aeroplane and automobile. The sea had become quite treacherous, however, by the time she reached Los Angeles, and the same storms that had brought six California rivers to flood level would almost certainly have played havoc with her undependable tummy. Her original plan had been to arrive in San Francisco on board the Britannia-an operation that would have entailed the pleasant prospect of sailing under the Golden Gate Bridge. This tatty commercial district could well be the equivalent of Ruislip or Wapping or one of those horrid little suburbs in the vicinity of Gatwick Airport.
She could only hope that they had not yet arrived in the city proper. Philip saw the face she made and leaned forward to study the curious hieroglyphic. There were words on it, rendered in white stones: SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO-THE INDUSTRIAL CITY. To her left loomed a treeless hillside, so unnaturally green that it might have been Irish. The motorcade veered onto a larger highway-a freeway, she supposed-and soon they were plunging headlong into the rain past lurid motels and posters of nightmare proportions. Since leaving the Reagans’ ranch she’d felt a mild case of the sniffles coming on, and she was dashed if she’d let it get the best of her.
She returned his faint smile, then searched in her handbag for a tissue. I know, said Philip, reading her mind, but they expect it to clear today. As her limousine pulled away from the concrete labyrinth of the airport, she peered out the window at the driving rain and issued a small sigh over the general beastliness of the weather. SHE WAS FIFTY-SEVEN YEARS OLD WHEN SHE SAW SAN Francisco for the first time.
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