High society (3 page)

THE PAGET HOUSEHOLD, DALSTON

W
hen Peter came out of the bathroom he could see from his wife’s expression that it was bad news.

‘Peter, we couldn’t have picked a worse day if we’d spent our lives planning it.’ Angela handed him the sheaf of newspapers brought by her daughter Cathy from her paper round. Cathy was aware of what her father was intending to do that day and her heart had sunk when she’d seen the front pages. Two small children — a ten-year-old and a nine-year-old — had died after taking ecstasy tablets.

Peter glanced from headline to headline. Angela had already read them all. ‘It’s clear that it was a terrible accident. These kids found big sister’s little party stash and ate it. They might have necked a bottle of cream sherry or rat bait, but it’s being spun as if the poor girl forced the bloody things down their throats. The mother, too. It’s like she’d left the children in the care of a Yardie gang.’

Cathy Paget called from the living room. The police van the sister and mum were taken away in was stoned by an angry mob. It’s on Sky every five minutes.’

The newspapers were almost unanimous in their interpretation of the tragedy. This was no accident. E killed these children. The people who took E killed them, and the people who dealt E killed them. Ecstasy was an instrument of child murder and those who apologized for it were apologists for infanticide.

Peter bit his lip. Not a good day to raise the subject of drug legalization in Parliament. The achingly cute photographs of the dead children stared at him from the front page of every paper. Innocent victims of evil drug-takers.

Cathy emerged from the living room. ‘They’re going to kill you, Dad. Every report, and I mean every single report on your speech is going to be accompanied by the photos of those kids. They’re going to say that you’re proposing a Private Member’s Bill to kill children.’

‘Thanks, darling. That makes me feel a whole lot better.’

‘She’s right, Pete,’ said Angela. ‘You don’t have to do this thing if you don’t want to.’

They went into the sitting room and watched Sky News for a while. The footage of the mob trying to get at Michelle and her mother while they were taken in for questioning was horrible to watch.

‘She’s just lost her son,’ Angela said, with tears in her eyes. ‘Oh my God, people are terrible, aren’t they?’

Every now and then the footage was punctuated with shots of Peter, the commentator reminding the viewer that the MP for Dalston North West intended that day to introduce a bill proposing the legalization of drugs.

‘Pretty poor timing,’ one anchor remarked.

‘Tasteless and insensitive would be better descriptions, I think,’ her colleague replied.

It was much the same spin on all the channels. The general feeling was that this new and terrible tragedy must surely now bring the legalizers to their senses.

‘Do you want me to drop it?’ Peter asked his wife.

‘No, of course not,’ she replied.

‘Thought not,’ said Peter. ‘Sod them. This tragedy has got nothing whatsoever to do with my bill. Nothing. Like you say, Angela, it could have been booze or cleaning fluids. How many kids have died through alcohol this week? Beaten by drunk parents, run down by drink-drivers, poisoned on fucking Alcopops? Where are their pictures? Why aren’t they on the front page?’

‘Dad. They’re going to kill you.’

THE HILTON HOTEL, BANGKOK

S
onia had finally found a television station that met with her satisfaction. There were plenty in English but they were mainly American and she had soon got bored with the unfamiliar cartoons and sitcoms and the weather reports from Arkansas. BBC News 24 had been worse: some dreary report about an English MP who wanted to legalize drugs. Sonia had smiled at that at least. Lucky for her he hadn’t managed it yet. There’d have been no free holiday in Thailand for her if he had. She’d still be stuck in Birmingham.

She had finally found a pop channel with a half-hour special on the lead-up to the Brit Awards. Tommy Hanson, the people’s pop star, was of course expected to clean up as he had done the year before. Could it really be only four years since he had emerged victorious from Pop Hero with the biggest popular majority in the show’s history? Sonia had voted for him eight times.

It was as Tommy sang to Sonia via the Asian Star Cable Network that her employers came to transact their business. Sonia was nervous but pleased to see them.

Excited.

One big, bad, mad-for-it Brummie bird.

‘I’ve never been in a Hilton Hotel before. Noice, in’t it? Didn’t know they ‘ad them in Bangkok, it’s just loik England, in’t it? Top tune, this. Tommy ‘anson, I love ‘im I do, ‘e’s dead lush. Let me be the tattoo on your thigh. Brilliant. I’ve bought loads of CDs while I’ve been here, they only cost about three American dollars each, which is two quid. Two quid for a CD! I mean, that’s mental that is, that is just stupid. I got three copies of everything so that’s Christmas sorted. Eminem, Dido, Slipknot for mates, U2 for me mum and of course loads of Tommy. I’m going to see ‘im in concert at the NEC in Birbingham next month. Have yow ever been to Birbingham, or is it just your mate in England?’

The Brummie babble stopped for a moment. The man’s briefcase was open on the coffee table. It contained only one item.

‘Jesus Chroist! I can’t swallow that! It’s loik a bag of sodding flour!’

The man explained that they would lubricate the condom with vegetable oil. Sonia wondered if it might be possible to divide the load into two lots, but the man had made his preparations and wanted to stick to them. He was anxious to be about his business.

‘Oh, screw it, all roight, that’s what I’m ‘ere for. You’re sure this thing won’t burst? I mean it’d kill me, wouldn’t it? I read that if the condom bursts yow wroithe around in agony for about foive minutes then youm dead, bang, just loik that…’

Suddenly the reality of why she was in Bangkok at all was lying on the coffee table in front of her. A sinister shiny white sausage, a pale, evil-looking slug. Swallowing it was a terrifying prospect, but Sonia reminded herself that she was no crybaby, she was a tough, up-for-anything, Brummie bird and she wasn’t going to let some drug-pushing foreigner see that she was scared.

‘Come on, then, let’s get it swallowed. Down’t blame moi if I puke. Give us one of them Courvoisiers out of the mini-bar to wash it down.’

THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, WESTMINSTER

N
o, Madam Speaker, I will not withdraw! Nor will I apologize. The terrible, terrible tragedy reported in this morning’s papers is entirely irrelevant to the issues that I have come today to put before the house. Except in this one point! It has been established that the poor older sister Michelle, whose drugs were taken by her younger sibling and friend, waited twenty minutes before calling for an ambulance. Were those twenty minutes crucial? They might have been. I don’t know but I can certainly imagine why the girl hesitated. She hesitated because she was terrified. She knew that calling an ambulance must inevitably mean her arrest and her disgrace. So this seventeen-year-old girl, faced with the appalling circumstance that her little brother and his friend were dying because of her, panicked, Madam Speaker. She panicked and in order to avoid the consequences of what had happened she attempted to remedy the situation herself, with tragic results. I suggest to you, madam, that had this girl’s pills been legal she would have called for help twenty minutes sooner than she did. What’s more, the pills would most probably not have been hidden away; they’d have been on display but out of reach, in much the way that alcohol is arranged in most homes.’

Peter Paget was sweating visibly, but he was in control, nervous certainly, but in control. And hugely exhilarated. This was his moment, the moment for which he had been waiting all of his life. Fifteen years of rejection and petty frustration might just be about to blossom into glorious and celebrated political maturity. Peter Paget had gone into politics in order to improve people’s lives, and he had of course very quickly discovered that this was not generally considered to be the business of government. But today, on this one day, on his day, he was going to make a difference.

‘And in answer to my Right Honourable colleague’s question, no, I do not consider drug use a trivial thing. I can assure you that I have better things to do than waste this house’s time with trivia. But I feel bound to add that nor do I think it a trivial thing that the vast majority of police time in my constituency is consumed m either pursuing drug users or dealing with the consequences of drug use — theft, prostitution and gun law! It is a matter of simple fact that a vast proportion of the young people in this country take drugs. That does not make them all drug addicts, but it does make them all criminals! Yes, Madam Speaker, criminals! Along with the numerous prosperous, law-abiding people who smoked marijuana at university and still take it occasionally at dinner parties! Class B? Class C? Class X, Y and Z! It doesn’t matter: they are still all outside the law! As are the young professionals who snort cocaine as a weekend treat. And prominent celebrities…pop stars such as Tommy Hanson…‘ Peter waved a newspaper above his head. ‘…who only last week was once more on the front pages of the tabloids openly discussing his thousand-pound-a-day habits and his efforts to kick them! Along with the members of this house…Yes, Madam Speaker, the members of this house! Those who took drugs in their youth and who continue to take them nowV

The pandemonium that had been ringing around the debating chamber redoubled. Peter faced them down. It was David and Goliath, a great throng of baying, screeching school bullies against one small brave voice of honest reason. Peter knew that never again in his life would he do anything as significant as what he was doing at this moment. His hour had come.

‘No, Madam Speaker, I will not withdraw! There are over six hundred and fifty members of this house, all adults, mostly born in the fifties and the sixties, educated in the seventies, the eighties and the nineties, educated at British universities which, like the rest of the country, are awash with drugs. It is absurd to pretend that none of us here today has experienced illegal drugs, impossible to imagine that there is no member of this ancient body who might not still indulge in such a thing. I will not withdraw!’

The stern-looking woman in the Chair enquired whether the Right Honourable Member for Dalston North West had anything to confess himself. Peter was, of course, ready for this. He had rehearsed it with Angela playing the role of speaker. He rose up to take the challenge between his teeth like a lion bringing down an antelope.

‘Yes, Madam Speaker, I am perfectly happy to inform this house under parliamentary privilege that as a student I occasionally smoked a marijuana cigarette, or ‘joint’. I no longer indulge in the habit, but I most certainly did at one time and I have many friends who continue to do so, and who do so on occasion at my housed Peter’s confession took his audience by surprise, quietening them momentarily. Allowing one’s premises to be used for the purpose of drug-taking was, after all, illegal. Peter was admitting to a criminal offence.

‘I would, however, be loath to make such a confession outside of this house, for I should not wish to inconvenience the police by putting them to the trouble of interviewing me, which would certainly be their duty under the current law. Although, as we all know, the police have scarcely the energy or the resources to carry out such a duty…No, madam, I am not trying to be funny. You will know when I am trying to be funny by the simple fact that people will be laughing…’

This was cheek indeed from a lowly backbencher, but Peter was on fire. What was more, the joke actually played rather well and would later be much reported. Could it be that he was making progress?

‘I am attempting to point out that, under British law, pretty much the entire population of this country has been criminalized. We are all either criminals ourselves or associates of criminals or relatives of criminals. We buy CDs produced by criminals, we see films that star criminals, watch award shows compered by criminals! Our stocks and shares are brokered by criminals, our roads are swept by criminals, our children are taught by criminals. Can we not admit it? Are we not a mature enough society to face the clear and obvious truth? We must admit it. Our future way of life depends on it. For this vast nation of — how shall I put it? — social criminals is linked arterially to a corrosive, cancerous core of real criminals. Murderers. Pimps. Gangsters.

Gunmen. Lethally unscrupulous backroom chemists! We are all connected to these people because there is no legal way for an otherwise law-abiding population to get high, which it is clearly intent upon doing. The law is effectively the number-one sponsor of organized crime!’

Once more there was pandemonium in the house. The opposition waved their order papers and the government front bench sat stony-faced. It was, after all, one of their own backbenchers who was delivering this inflammatory heresy. They hated Peter Paget, had hated him for years. But now he had become dangerous; not happy with merely opposing their mild decriminalization policy, he was now calling for legalized anarchy. They feared he would bring discredit upon the whole party, perhaps cost them the next election. The Prime Minister turned and glared at Peter with a silent steely gaze while the house descended into uproar.

‘You may try to shout me down, but I will be heard, and I will tell you this. An officer in my constituency was killed in a Yardie gang shooting last week. I attended his funeral. I watched as the dead man’s coffin, bearing the union flag, passed by his weeping family. That same flag, Madam Speaker, flies above this house! And above every government building. It is the symbol of our law. And yet it was this law that killed the brave officer I saw buried last week!’

Now the front bench were no longer stony-faced. The Prime Minister’s visage was a mask of grim fury; the Home Secretary waved his arms like a new boy. The Speaker felt moved to warn Peter that it was no part of his duty as an MP to insult the flag to which he had sworn allegiance, but Peter would not be warned: he felt inspired. What was more, he knew he was right. And he knew that they knew he was right. That was what was making them so angry. The only thing that stood between the government of Great Britain and the stone-cold logical truth of his argument was that his was a truth that so far nobody in any position of responsibility had been allowed to acknowledge. Well, Peter Paget would do that for them, and he would make them listen.

‘No, madam, I am not trying to score cheap points! If you think that I would invoke the memory of a recently dead hero merely in order to decorate my argument, then I am afraid that it is I who must protest to you. I am stating the simple fact that an officer in my constituency was shot dead while pursuing a criminal whose income is derived solely from supplying cocaine to otherwise entirely law-abiding people. If those people were able to get their cocaine at the off licence, properly licensed, taxed and restricted to adults, then the man who killed that officer would have to find some other means of making a living and there would be one less police widow! And it is not only the police who walk in fear in our increasingly violent society! We all do! In some communities people count each day a lucky one if their homes are not broken into and their persons not assaulted by depraved junkies desperate to finance their terrible craving. We all know that the vast majority of muggings and burglaries are drug-fuelled! Why should we have to suffer for other people’s addictions? Let me ask you this, let me put the unashamedly selfish argument for legalization: would you honestly care if the number of addicts in this country doubled, even trebled, if it meant that your home was no longer in danger of being broken into and your children were free from the fear of being mugged for their pocket money and mobile phones?’

For a moment the uproar died. This was an interesting point.

‘As a matter of fact, I’m not at all convinced that the number of addicts would rise dramatically anyway. Experiments in Holland suggest that they would not, but I put it to you again, even if they did would you really care as long as they were properly housed, properly looked after and above all not stealing your VCR?’