Read Online Dragonholder by Todd McCaffrey - Free Book Online

hurt,” she said. Then Wright threw the empty cup at her face.
    This time Alec and I were on our feet before Mum could say anything. It didn’t matter who did something like that — it was too much. It was Alec who told Dad he had better leave.
    Not long after that, Wright moved out. In August, two years after coming back from her first trip to Ireland, Anne filed for divorce and flew down to Tijuana.
    Â 
Divorce in 1970
    D ivorce in 1970 was still considered uncommon and uncouth. Having accepted the inevitable and acted upon it, Anne was further unsettled when Peggy Isbell asked her to leave the huge house in Sea Cliff, when the school year was over.
    Wright suggested that Anne move down to Princeton, New Jersey, where the school system was known to be good. He was an alumnus of Princeton University.
    That didn’t happen. Irish eyes were smiling. The Irish
Taoiseach
or Prime Minister, Charles Haughey, had just passed in 1969 a bill making resident artists and writers exempt from Irish taxes.
    Harry Harrison, a science fiction writer who had just had one of his books made into the film
Soylent Green
, took residence in Ireland and was happy to extol its virtues. At the time the price of food, clothing, and housing were half the U.S. price.
    Anne checked her finances. She couldn’t make it — even with the contract for The White Dragon from Ballantine and the steady trickle of royalties from her three books. She was just about a book contract short. Magically, Betty Ballantine realized that Ballantine Books would be happy to publish a collection of recipes from science fiction authors — and would Anne be willing to edit such a book? Anne, who loved to cook and had a large supply of her own recipes was thrilled — and
Cooking out of this World
was born.
    Â 
So in August 1970, divorced, Anne
    S o in August 1970, divorced, Anne handed over the post of Secretary-Treasurer to Roger Zelazny, and packed to leave her home of five years and her country of birth. Todd and Gigi were coming with her: Alec, who was starting college, would remain behind.
    Because of the lengthy (and expensive) six-month quarantine period, it was decided that none of the family pets would come to Ireland.
    Ever since our original three cats in Wilmington, we’d had an orange marmalade born and
     raised at home. The current one was not the best representation — we name him Maxwell
     Smart (because he wasn’t). Alec took him to Stony Brook. Unfortunately, Maxwell, lacking in
     brains, did not recognize his good fortune and escaped, never to be seen again (I think his
     defection broke Alec’s heart).

    Alec Johnson
    Wright took the two cats, Tasso and Silky Blackington, and the family’s French poodle, Angelo.
    Labor Day weekend is the traditional time for a Worldcon, but in 1970 — as with every fourth year — the Worldcon was held outside North America, this time in Heidelberg. However, whenever the Worldcon is outside North America, a secondary convention — the North American Science Fiction Convention or NASFic — is held. In this case, the NASFic was held in Toronto. Anne was invited as co-Guest-Of-Honor with Isaac Asimov. Happily, the convention paid her way to Toronto. And it was cheaper to go to Ireland by way of Toronto.

    Anne and Isaac — “Never trust a tenor!”
    It certainly was more heartening. Isaac Asimov and Anne had a great time trading “insults” to
     the delight of the con-goers, singing duets, and generally having a marvelous time.
    Â 
Anne’s arrival in Ireland
    A nne’s arrival in Ireland did not begin auspiciously. Gigi got terribly sick — maybe with food poisoning — and Anne’s arm was ruined from lugging her IBM Selectric typewriter and three other pieces of hand luggage through the airport to the airplane. The plane was supposed to stop in Shannon and fly on to Dublin. But Dublin was socked in with fog, and Shannon