Sing Like You Know the Words (34 page)

Later in the night, David
dreamed that he was standing in a queue at a shop or market. Some
people were being served but his turn never came. The same people
kept appearing again in front of him, though he didn´t see how they
could have got there. His impressions of the first dream faded a
little.

But when he awoke he was
thinking again about the girl, his angel. He had to talk to someone
about her. It was a problem he had to bring to a resolution,
somehow.

***

It had not been so much of a
surprise when David finally announced that he was stepping down as
chairman and chief executive of Cromwell Industries for the second
time. He´d turned the company around once more. The business was
stable and growing, and the top job had become more about dealing
with shareholders and the Board of Directors than what David
thought of as running the business. Now it really was time for the
professional managers to take over.

Matthew was invited to Cromwell
to hear the news. David was proud of the plant and enjoyed showing
Matthew round from time to time. Afterwards, they retired to the
boardroom, just the two of them and a bottle of whisky that David
opened to toast the occasion. Really it was Foster´s boardroom
still: David had not altered the office accommodation since that
time, and somehow there were just as many pen pushers filling the
space as there had been in Foster´s day. Each drained a small glass
to honour the business and then David declared that he was giving
Matthew an exclusive story. The Examiner could be the first to know
that he was quitting. But it was what he told Matthew next, about
what he planned to do in the future, that was surprising. He was
stepping down from the business, he said, because he intended to
devote time to politics.

So far as Matthew could
remember, David had never shown the slightest interest in party
politics

-I’ve been a party member since
1993.

Matthew frowned

-That´s two years then. And
which party? Don’t look at me like that. I don´t know of many
millionaire industrialists who vote socialist.

-You might hear of a few more in
future. Times are changing.

-I suppose you know what you are
talking about. Next you’ll be telling me the Sun is going to back
Labour. I wouldn’t know whether to cheer or organize a wake.

David laughed.

-Don’t worry it won’t come to
that. As for me, I’m only just a millionaire, and having a little
money changes you less than you might think. You know that I have
only ever been interested in money for what I could do with it. I´d
hope you´d be above that petty prejudice Matt. That nonsense about
the rich man and the camel passing through the eye of a needle.

-I’m sure it suits the rich for
the poor to imagine that there is some kind of virtue in their
poverty. I don´t buy that. I just think that maybe ordinary people
should have their own kind to speak for them.

-But the way they speak. It lets
the public school crowd who still rule us run rings round the poor
buggers every time they open their mouths.

-There are a lot of working
people without much formal education who have good brains.

-True, but unfortunately the
other working people don’t believe that anymore. The media treat
working class politicians and union men as figures of fun and the
voters laugh along. All those hilarious lower class vowels and that
twisted grammar. Who cares if they can think? The presumption of
holding a public office when they´re no better than us. You and I
see ordinary people are laughing at themselves, mocking the idea
that their own kind might have opinions might be worth hearing. So
much for democracy. Working people don´t have the belief of their
parents that they deserve to be treated better than cattle. They
find their parents embarrassing as well. What they want is not to
be working people any more. I´m am good at making people believe if
nothing else. Maybe I can get some of that old belief back.

It didn´t sound convincing to
Matthew.

-You told me that politics was
over in nineteen eighty two. Remember what we said: voting Thatcher
in once was a mistake, but no one knew what she stood for. Voting
her in twice showed that the world was changed and greed was the
winner.

-How old were we then Matt? Do
you feel you need to stand by every important sounding phrase you
ever spoke? I remember I also said that the Labour leaders were
more to blame than Thatcher. You were the one who blamed the
people; as if they had let you down personally. Anyway, you were
the one who was sure in ninety two that Labour would win.

-And you said it wouldn’t
happen. So what’s changed?

-Leadership, in a word. Maybe
Kinnock was a good man: bright enough, could see what needed to be
done. Kept the party together, stood up to the dilettante tendency.
Everyone was going to vote Labour, until they didn’t. He just
wasn’t electable: balding, red hair, Welsh; and when he spoke, you
had the impression that he meant what he said. He was a good
speaker, but he sounded impassioned, and he tried to say too much,
which meant that he could sound clumsy. The modern English don´t
trust a man like that. They’ll think him a socialist, or that he
has some principles at least, however smooth he tries to sound.

-What kind of person will they
vote for?

-Someone who looks like an
American president, with a solid jaw and a firm handshake. I don’t
mean a real president mind; I mean a Hollywood version of a
president. We’ve all seen too many movies. And now reality has to
try to match our illusions. A leader like that can safely say that
he believes in socialism, or the free market, or anything else. The
people like to hear his firm declarations of belief, and no one
takes them seriously. The public words are only understood as
something he has to say to get his own party behind him on his way
to power. And the commentators all describe it in those terms. As
well he should be tall, or at least look tall when he’s on
television, and dress like he works in a merchant bank.

-Why a banker?

-Now bankers are admired. They
make more money than anyone else and they clearly don’t give a shit
about other people. Also, so far as anyone can see, they are paid
lots for doing nothing. It’s an aspirational thing – a banker is
what women want to marry or see their son become, and men believe
they would most like to be if they can´t win the lottery or play
professional football – that’s how low we’ve sunk. Bankers are seen
as smart and unscrupulous, and that makes people think they are fit
to govern.

David paused, shrugged his
shoulders.

-It´s nothing to do with
reality. I´ve met enough bankers; unscrupulous, yes; but smart?
Anyway that’s how it is. We admire men who want power, who can
pretend to be everyone’s friend, and get their own way without
anyone seeing it coming. And there won’t be discussion in the new
politics. Everything has to be staged, like in a film. The media
reduce the narrative of politics to a few key scenes, and it´s all
one take so don´t run any risks. Dramatic impact is what matters.
If you want to know what has changed and why we shall win next
time, it’s because we have understood these lessons and now we have
the kind of leader who looks and talks the part. And after him, the
party will need someone like him to carry the work on.

Matthew was astounded.

-You sound as if you have it all
worked out. But if that´s what you think of Blair and his friends,
why do you want to be any part of the circus? That I don’t
understand.

Of course you understand. It’s
what I was meant to do. It’s a duty, almost. You think it would be
better to leave the real merchant bankers and their idiot sons to
rule us; the same people who´ve been running the show for the last
few decades for their own benefit? Look where it’s got us. I´ve
been trying to help a few hundred people by keeping a factory open.
Don’t you think I had to wade through enough shit just to achieve
that much? But I see now that it was no good. You have to make the
change right across the board.

Now Matthew understood. Destiny
again. His friend was prepared to wear a mask and play to the
gallery if it meant that he was the one at the centre of things,
because that was what his fate decreed. David had that strange look
and that enthusiastic tone in his voice, like something religious.
Further discussion would be pointless. He tried to imagine David
among politicians, at a party conference, crowded into a hall in
some out of date seaside town pretending to share solidarity and
tradition.

-You don´t even know the words
to the song I expect.

-What song?

-The People´s Flag. You´ll have
to sing it at conference.

-I´ll just hum along like I
suppose everyone does.

So it was the people’s party for
David, but being David, he wasn’t thinking about spending his time
fund raising or canvassing for others, maybe hoping for a seat on
the council one day. Westminster was only the start of his
ambition. It wasn´t long before he was asking Matthew for advice
about his plans to take office. The house at Oakland Ridge was
again filled with guests of an evening.

-Parliament is a place where
people go to lose their sense of direction, Matthew warned him.

-If that´s true Matthew, then
it’s a good thing I’ve always got you around to be my moral
compass

-I’m serious

-So am I. Don’t worry about it
Matt; you´ll keep your precious integrity intact, even if it means
you doing nothing useful with your life. Can’t get involved in
business because it´s corrupting; can’t get involved in politics
because it’s dirty. I just hope, when you look back, that staying
true to your ideas will be a sufficient consolation for all the
things you only could have done.

-Maybe I’m temperamentally
inclined to do nothing. At least looking back I shall be horribly
smug and self-satisfied. But I don´t know why you call me an
idealist.

-You’re the worst kind Matt, a
cynical idealist. You see the world for what it is, but you won´t
risk getting your hands dirty to change it. But let´s not talk any
more about that or you’ll get angry. We know that politics is a
dirty business full of compromise and fudge. People who start off
good lose themselves in the maze of it. If you go there, you need
to somehow hold on to yourself and keep in mind why you started off
into it. But you know me: I’m a fairly straightforward guy. If
something is wrong, I’m the first to say it. I might make some bad
calls down the line, but I can live with getting something wrong
for the right reasons. The main thing is for me to stay grounded,
and for that I depend on friends and family. Good friends like you,
Matt.

With all the ambition and energy
that David possessed, his first difficulty was still to find a
constituency prepared to adopt him as a candidate. He was in too
much of a hurry to waste time growing a new network of
relationships through years of local activism, or even to earn his
stripes by managing someone else’s campaign. In any case he had
imagined that, given his prominence in the area as a local
benefactor and provider of employment, he would only need to
announce his availability in order to be presented with a choice of
seats. As it turned out, his first enquiries and applications were
sidestepped or declined, always with politeness and often with a
request for endorsements or donations.

David had not anticipated the
level of resentment that his emergence might raise in the council
bosses and local party bigwigs, many of whom had their own
expectations. Having worked their ways up through the ranks, these
men (they were all men) regarded parliamentary seats that might
fall vacant as their entitlement, by law of succession.

Fortunately for him, there were
interests working in his favour besides his own persistence. It
must have been clear to some invisible senior persons that David
and others like him, comparative outsiders, could be useful to
them. Perhaps the outsiders could represent a more inclusive vision
of what they all still referred to as socialism; but in any case it
was clear that they would not owe allegiance to the machinery of
the existing local parties. They would be more responsive to the
central command.

Soon after coming to the
attention of these persons, David was able to secure an interview
for a constituency which would fall vacant at the next election. It
was not too far from home and it was considered winnable

However before his name would be
put forward officially, he needed to persuade the chairman of the
local party to accept his nomination. Matthew knew the chairman.
The man was a grizzled old trade unionist and, at heart, an
unreconstructed Marxist. He told David that he thought the chairman
would rather lose the seat to another party than give it up to a
moderate. He said that David would be lucky if the man even agreed
to meet him. Even so, a meeting was arranged.

-Afterwards David reported to
Matthew

-It went well. I think we can do
business.

-But he’s more old left than
Kierhardie

-Well you know, I wrote him a
long letter before the meeting, explaining why I was coming late to
the party, how I’d been involved in student politics and with some
Trotskyist groups – he liked the word “Trotskyist” I think: kept
using it himself. I explained that after that time I´d been
disillusioned for a while. I had devoted myself to giving practical
help for the working class, creating jobs, but in my heart, I
always yearned to rekindle my political engagement. And now finally
I can see how I might do it.

-What absolute bollocks.

-Do you think so? Who do you
think is going to check a story like that? It’s only a means to an
end. And it came to me very easily: I think there is some truth to
it, after all. Perhaps that is the internal history of my political
journey.