The Image in the Water (13 page)

‘You don't mind my using David Alcester like this?' she asked, on the way back to the hotel.

‘Provided you use him rather than let him use you. And provided he gives you the right advice.'

‘Does he?'

‘Usually not. Tonight yes.'

She kissed her husband again in the hotel foyer as they waited to go up to bed.

As in many Japanese institutions the modern lift was manned, quite unnecessarily, by a pretty girl in geisha costume. She was shocked into giggles by this public embrace of elderly Europeans.

‘You're the only person I can say it to. We're not going to win.'

Before replying Louise placed the Prime Minister's early-morning cup of tea alongside the Conservative election manifesto on his bedside table. ‘Of course we're not going to win. The odd thing is, you don't seem to care.'

‘You don't find that odd at all.'

Peter Make well sipped as his wife rejoined him in bed. But in truth she did find it odd. Newspapers were constantly asking Louise to write articles on the only woman in history to have married two prime ministers in succession. She always refused, but after two years the differences and the similarities were clear in her mind. She had never made morning tea for Simon Russell because he used to make it for her. She would not have joined in political conversation with him, except when provoked by rage, for in those days she had regarded politics as a destructive force that must be prevented from
occupying all her husband's life. Now, three years later, everything seemed quieter, less intense, less important.

Marriage, or at least marriage to Louise, encouraged Peter Makewell to clear his mind honestly on matters that would otherwise have stayed opaque.

‘I am doing my best to hold the Party together. Why? So that Labour don't get too big a majority and both your husbands can go down in history as having done a reasonable job. Particularly the first, of course.' He meant it. His respect for Simon Russell was one reason why she had married him.

‘Is that what you're going to say at the Central Office press conference this morning?'

‘Of course not.' He scrabbled for the speaking notes interleaved with the manifesto. ‘Our latest private indications from the constituencies show a marked swing away from Labour as the huge importance of the campaign issues sinks in. We are on course for a third successive election victory on Thursday week.'

‘That's interesting.' Louise was at her dressing-table now, organising her face. ‘What are those huge issues?'

‘Ask the Young Demon.'

It was a dangerous suggestion. Louise was only recently reconciled to her daughter Julia's decision.

The Young Demon was Julia's partner David Alcester. They had lived together for nearly two years. By the vagaries of politics he was now Chancellor of the Exchequer. This had seemed extraordinary to begin with, but the shape and balance of the Conservative Party had made him the only viable successor to Joan Freetown. In accordance with British political tradition the loving couple lived next door to Peter and Louise Makewell at No. 11 Downing Street. The Young
Demon, they supposed, relished the embarrassment this caused.

‘Where's he off to today?' asked Louise.

‘Scotland, I think. I thought of telling him he could stay the night at Craigarran. But I didn't.'

‘Why is he always up there? Precious few marginals. He just seems to enrage them by telling them they can't have more money than the rest of us.'

‘That's his job as Chancellor of the Exchequer. It plays splendidly here in England. That's why we're gaining ground on Tyneside and in the North West. He's on to something with his New England Movement.'

‘Politics,' said Louise, as if the word was itself a verdict.

‘You made me do all this.' The Prime Minister headed for the bathroom. She blew a kiss to his retreating back. ‘When it's over, can we eat again at that steak house?'

‘It has a lot to answer for.'

‘You've enjoyed every minute.'

‘Why the hell are you going to Scotland again? You were there for a day last week, and the week before. General elections aren't won in Scotland. And you hate the place.'

‘It's staying with a certain couple in Perthshire that I hate.'

‘Don't worry, Mummy's stopped asking us – she told me so.'

Julia's eyes followed David Alcester round the room as he quickly packed his overnight bag. Razor, pyjamas, excessively strong aftershave. He tended to gamble with timetables, and she knew he would have to be out of the house in ten minutes. He had been angry after their argument last night. Up to then they had followed what she called the Tangier rule, after the city where they had spent their first weekend together.
Under the Tangier rule Julia and David made love after an argument and did not return to the subject for a week. But last night he had slept in the dressing room and this morning he spoke without looking at her.

She noticed that he was packing all the clean shirts from the drawer, four at least. ‘When are you coming back?'

He turned to face her for the first time that morning. ‘I don't know. I'm in different cities every day between now and polling day. The Treasury work can follow me round. I've done my meetings and press conference in London. There's no need to come back here till the election's over.'

‘No need?' Julia's voice rose.

David cut in. ‘And, as things stand, nothing much to draw me back.'

Suddenly this became intolerable. She could not bear to let him drive away to Heathrow with this barrier of ice between them. She returned quickly to last night's argument. ‘You only want me to marry you because it looks good politically.'

Last night he had fiercely denied this. This morning he just looked at his watch. ‘I don't have time to go into all that now. You turned me down last night. For, I think, the fourth time. I shall not ask again. We must both think what should happen next.'

The ice was growing thicker by the second. He would leave her, perhaps for ever. The internal telephone rang. ‘Car here? Thank you. I'll be down in a minute.'

Of course she did not want to marry David. She wanted to sleep with him, even to have a baby by him. Both these things were possible nowadays without a wedding. Marriage was different, it meant a promise for life. And David was already married, to his politics. He wanted to commit bigamy. She
knew that where politics were involved David made no distinction between truth and falsehood. Would he draw a line anywhere? Was there anything in his life that was not political? She had steadily refused so far to be drawn into that cage. After all, was she not Julia, famous as the Prime Minister's daughter who had been noisy, flamboyant, a pain to her parents, Julia who danced all night with unsuitable men, Julia who was arrested for possessing cannabis, and later for demonstrating violently in Whitehall? Above all, she had been free. It had been part of that freedom to encourage David to make love to her on the sofa at home in Highgate. She had thought it was she who was making the capture. His lovemaking had improved greatly since then, but she still took the lead. Each time, momentarily after the climax, when his eyes closed and the fair hair flopped over his forehead, she felt in charge. But within minutes he was again the ringmaster. She could see the cage now; she knew exactly what was in store. It was acceptable for a rising young politician to live with a beautiful girl. It was exciting when that girl was the daughter of one prime minister and the step-daughter of another. It proved something significant about modern politics. But the show moved on, and when the next image was viewed on the screen, it must be of the same girl transformed into a sober and godly matron, on the arm of the new party leader. She would still be beautiful no doubt, but with a settled beauty compatible with tradition, the family, the Party Conference and a firm line against all forms of moral deviation. In short, the Chancellor of the Exchequer wanted to be Prime Minister, and this meant marrying his mistress.

In the light of day Julia's spirit revolted against entering the cage. But even so … David was still in the same room, but
would soon be gone. The prospect was intolerable. His voice, his mind, his body, the thrust of him in bed, his habits good and bad, all the bits of him would disappear. Yet they were now part of her life. She could not cut herself in two.

‘Come here,' she said.

‘There's no point.'

‘Come here, David. I'll think about it.'

He looked at her carefully, made a calculation, picked up his case, kissed her lightly on the cheek. ‘Think well,' he said, and was gone.

Clive Wilson was waiting in the car outside No. 11 Downing Street. David Alcester treated him as a private secretary rather than as a Member of Parliament of some standing.

‘Can you ring them in Edinburgh and tell them to cancel that first briefing session?'

‘Why's that, David? We'll be there in good time if we catch the ten o'clock shuttle.'

‘We're going somewhere else first.' Then, to the driver, ‘Do you know the Glebe Hospital in Roehampton? Past Barnes station and up Roehampton Lane.'

‘I know it, sir.'

‘Right, that's the first call'

‘Joan Freetown?'

‘Yes.'

Clive Wilson busied himself with the call to Edinburgh. He was content to be a man of exceptional usefulness and was well proven in the role. First to Peter Makewell during the Russian crisis, then as one of Roger Courtauld's campaign team, and now attached to Alcester the rising star. Having no particular ideas of his own, he found no difficulty in giving
faithful service to politicians occupying widely different philosophical positions. Each time he managed to shift his loyalty without doing himself fatal damage. He knew that he lacked the bite and the forcefulness to reach the top himself. He also lacked the gift of attracting the affection or respect of others. But, being shrewd and hardworking he traded these assets for a share of the action, for a place close to whatever was happening. That was why he was going with the Chancellor of the Exchequer to Scotland.

‘Have a look at this.' David Alcester thrust at Wilson the final text of the speech he was to make that evening in Leith Town Hall.

We have one last chance at this election to point out to the Scottish people the dangerous choice they have to make. One fact is for sure – we cannot go on as we are. We cannot any longer accept the twisted statistics by which the Scots accountants in Charlotte Square yearly justify the extraction of extravagant subsidy for Scotland from the British Exchequer. We cannot any longer allow the so-called Scottish Parliament to bog us down in endless petty arguments about what happens on which side of a border that should long ago have been relegated to the history books. Above all, we cannot continue to receive at Westminster an excessive number of Scottish MPs. Too many Scottish Members represent mountains and sheep rather than human electors. It is no longer acceptable that these invading Scots should vote on English matters at Westminster, when we English MPs cannot vote on the equivalent Scots matters. Devolution, ladies and
gentlemen, has become delirium. Cold water is needed. Either the Scots must accept fair play within the United Kingdom, a kingdom four-fifths of whose inhabitants happen to be English, or – sadly indeed but firmly – we should say that if the Scots want to rule their own affairs then they should do so plainly and openly, bearing the cost of separation, shouldering their own burden without English subsidy or special benevolence, competing with other foreigners for English investment. The choice is theirs; we ask simply that it be made quickly, and without the blather which has marked Scottish discourse at the Holyrood Parliament over these last years.

‘Good stuff,' said Clive Wilson, a hesitant note in his voice.

‘But?'

‘The audience won't like it. The Scots Tories try to dodge the main question. You're rubbing their noses in it.'

‘It is not meant for the audience in Leith Town Hall. It's meant for these people.' David waved to shoppers in Kensington High Street. ‘Even more for the North of England, the old enemies of Scotland. They've got to be woken up.'

Clive Wilson took courage.

‘Tell me, David, you've got the two main Alcester themes – against the EU and against the Scots – both running pretty well. Which is the more important to you?'

‘The Scots, of course.' Alcester paused, unused to sharing anything approaching a confidence. ‘Europe is always with us as a punch-bag. There will always be foolish decisions and bizarre speeches out of Brussels for us to grumble at. But there's a limit. Most people know that it makes no sense to ditch the
euro or leave the EU. It's settled now. But nothing is settled about Scotland. There's room for a real upheaval there.'

‘Which you want? You want the Union to disintegrate?'

‘If that meant the Tory Party could rule England for ever.' Alcester saw that he had gone too far. ‘Of course that's putting it too crudely. I've always been a Unionist. But if the price of the Union is too high? That's why I've formed the New England Movement. At least, let us show the Scots that the price of their behaviour could be too high. That way they'll behave better.'

‘That doesn't seem to be what's happening. The more we bang on about the price, the stronger these extremists in the Central Belt become. It's Labour and the moderate Nationalists who suffer.'

‘Precisely, Clive, precisely. The extremists, the Scottish Liberation people, aren't going to win any seats. But if they frighten enough people, then it's we who can gain, north and south of the border. We can show how frightening they are.'

They were crossing Hammersmith Bridge.

‘Isn't this your constituency?' asked David. But of course he must have known all the time that this was Clive's patch. It would have been quicker to get to the hospital over Putney Bridge. ‘We've got ten minutes in hand. Is there anywhere we could do a quick walkabout?'