The Image in the Water (2 page)

Peter Makewell liked the lilt of the anthem. He knew nothing of music, but this was a pleasant goodbye tune of which Simon Russell would have approved. Indeed, had probably selected, for Simon had been meticulous, leaving nothing to chance – except, of course, the timing of his death, something outwith the control of even the most painstaking policy unit. Peter Makewell felt that mixture of satisfaction and sadness with which men in their seventies react to the death of younger friends. To this was added a small element of resentment. Simon Russell had failed to spot a gap in the constitutional arrangements of Britain, as a result of which Peter Makewell was for the moment not only Foreign Secretary but acting Prime Minister, a position he had not sought and actively disliked.

The rules of the Conservative Party, endorsed in 1997 under William Hague, provided that an election for the
leadership should be triggered either by the resignation of the party leader or as a result of a vote of no confidence by Conservative Members of Parliament. Strangely, indeed arrogantly, there was no mention in the rules of one rather frequent trigger of vacancy, to wit death. It took time to organise a party election, but the country could not wait to have a prime minister. So the ancient wheels of the constitution, which all the experts had banished to the backroom, were produced. The magic circle had operated. The grandees had been consulted on behalf of the monarch. They had worked with traditional speed and secrecy. The Queen had invited Makewell to form a government, it being understood that he would stand down as soon as a new leader was elected under the Hague rules. The grandees had rightly assumed that Makewell would not want to stand in that contest. He therefore found himself temporary Prime Minister because everyone knew that in the long term it was a job he did not want.

Nor was this affectation. Simon Russell, whom he had much respected, had once passed on to him what he had described as the most closely guarded secret of the premiership, that it was not really hard work. The Prime Minister did not face each day the compulsory grind of departmental business. The fixed duties of the office by no means filled the week. Except at times of national crisis there were many hours for the Prime Minister to dispose of as he or she wished. Of course, prime ministers themselves always disputed this. They were likely to be persons of great energy. Not since Baldwin resigned in 1937 had Britain had a really lazy prime minister, though Callaghan had tried. The other had filled the time by constant and often unnecessary intervention in the affairs of departments, then complained of overwork. Prime-ministerial
time, Russell had argued, should be better employed in leisurely strategic thought, touring the country to gain firsthand impressions, and consulting wise opinion from outside politics. Makewell had listened, but taken small notice, not least because Russell, during his four years at No. 10, had shown no sign of acting on his own prescription.

Now Makewell was enduring his own experience. An avalanche of information daily overwhelmed him. He knew in theory that he had been lucky, in that the one crisis Russell had left behind, the Russian civil war, had been quickly settled by negotiation. The British peacekeeping troops would be coming home from St Petersburg next month. But even without a crisis Britain seemed impossibly hard to govern. The Scottish Nationalists, feeling robust on a diet of bad history and a high oil price, were pressing again for a referendum on independence. His own party was indignant against the Scots, and also now against the European Central Bank, which had just raised interest rates for the second month running. But he seemed to have no time for these problems of political management. Makewell had never served as a minister in either the Treasury or the Home Office. Now these two great departments, both prolific in problems, daily dumped their mysteries on his desk. Neither of the two responsible ministers, Roger Courtauld and Joan Freetown, nor indeed his own staff at No. 10, seemed to realise how ignorant he was, and it was now too late either to confess or to learn. The details of stop-and-search legislation or the modalities of the withholding tax would always lie beyond his grasp. Once upstairs in his study, soon after his arrival, he had ventured to interrupt a long presentation on a forthcoming Bill: ‘Surely these are matters of detail which could be settled elsewhere.'

‘As you wish, Prime Minister,' the senior Treasury official had replied, and continued his presentation as if nothing had been said.

Makewell, knowing that, though intellectually limited, he was neither lazy nor stupid, supposed that there must be a way through this thicket. He must abandon dignity and ask for help, either from his main private secretary, Patrick Vaughan, or from his press secretary Artemis Palmer, both inherited from Russell. Could it really be true that Simon Russell had slept with Artemis? Russell's wife Louise seemed to Peter Makewell exactly what a prime minister's wife should be, beautiful, loyal, unpolitical. He could not imagine what spasm of desire or despair might have driven Simon to desert her for the skimpy embraces of his press secretary. But he acknowledged that he himself, long a faithful husband now a sober widower, found it hard to judge stories about the sex life of others. His happiest hours now were snatched at his old desk in the Foreign Office, surrounded by the much loved green and gold wallpaper, coping with the relative simplicities of the Cyprus question or the admission of Balkan states to the European Union.

But he was misusing time. The anthem was moving towards its climax. This was an opportunity to ask advice, not from God, who for Peter Makewell was real enough but dwelt in the Perthshire hills and on Sunday in the Episcopalian Church at Blairgowrie, no, from Simon Russell, who was clearly present with them in Westminster Abbey and able to read minds even more skilfully now than during his life. As so often before Makewell put the problem as clearly as he could to his former leader.

There was no uncertainty about the timing of the election
of the new Conservative leader. Martin Redburn, chairman of the 1922 Committee of Conservative backbenchers, was in effect their group leader. He had the job of fixing the date, and had chosen Thursday, 25 March, for the first stage. Nor was there much doubt about the two likely candidates – Roger Courtauld and Joan Freetown. The problem for Makewell as acting Prime Minister was different. Joan Freetown had told him yesterday that she intended to produce a special Budget on 20 March. She had talked in his study as if this was a decision for her alone, although they both knew that his assent and that of the Cabinet were needed.

‘The economy needs stimulating. The country and the Party need encouragement. I have carefully worked out proposals to achieve this. It's all ready. The case for a March Budget is overwhelming.'

She had closed her folder with something approaching a bang. The bracelets on her wrists had clacked vigorously in applause. She had not mentioned the immense impetus a popular Budget would give to her leadership campaign. She had chosen a date five days before MPs would vote on the new leader. She had dared the caretaker Prime Minister to object.

And he had not objected. Nor had he assented. He had muttered, in a way he now admitted was feeble, about wider considerations, about the need to reflect and consult.

‘A decision is needed within forty-eight hours,' she had said, closing the interview.

The pros and cons were obvious enough. No point in spelling them out to Simon Russell, who in his present situation somewhere above the altar would see it all clearly. Neither of them, in their hearts, would want Joan Freetown to lead the Party and become Prime Minister. But that was not
quite the point. Without actually slipping to his knees he asked Simon Russell for advice.

Joan Freetown had no ear for music, and did not believe in God. She had mixed views about the Church of England. She found its priests and bishops tedious. In her experience few of them had even an elementary understanding of economics, though their ignorance did not deter them from frequent utterance on the subject. But she saw the point of churches, of establishment, and of pulpits if properly used.

Today, however, she was not thinking about these things. She was thinking for the last time about Simon Russell. Her worry was that he had never worried. More than once she had tried to reach him with her concern about the economy, about Europe, about the growing depredations of the Scots. He had always been courteous, but she had felt she never reached him. He had managed the government well, but she could not understand someone for whom that was the main purpose of a political career. She had never detected in him any driving idea. At first she had thought he was simply disguising his hostility to her own ideas, but latterly she judged that at the level of ideas he was genuinely empty.

Now she would be up against the same difficulty, only worse. She supposed, though he had not yet said so, that Roger Courtauld would be her opponent for the leadership. Here again was a man without ideas. At least Simon Russell had had an educated mind, and indeed a natural authority in taking decisions which she respected. Roger Courtauld had
none of that. He was shrewd, but that was the only thing to be said for him.

She did not relish the forthcoming contest. She knew that she lacked what Roger Courtauld possessed, the knack of slapping shoulders, exchanging jokes, attracting personal loyalty. She would need help. Not with the Budget: she would spend that afternoon working alone on her proposals, confident that Peter Makewell would let her present them. She must find someone to help her with the in-fighting and the public relations. Her eyes strayed eastward and, like Julia Russell, she fastened on David Alcester, in the pew to the right towards the high altar. Tactically quick, a good grasp of economics, young, ruthless, but not more than was needed, she thought. She allowed her eyes to rest for a moment on the long fair hair, the strong profile, the well-cut suit. Of course he was still a boy. He needed someone to recommend a good barber and would need careful guidance. The blue tie was a mistake. She persuaded herself that it was only his political gifts which attracted her.

By her side her husband Guy was on his knees. He prayed for the soul of Simon Russell, but he did not seriously doubt its well-being. If anyone deserved the approval of his Maker as well as of his country it was the last Prime Minister. But principally he prayed for his own wife, whom he loved. He prayed that she might fail in her ambition to succeed Simon Russell. Partly he was selfish, because he was praying for the safety of his marriage. But he was also praying for his wife's happiness, and for his country's well-being.

It was odd, so odd that she could tell it to no one, but that day in the Abbey Louise felt content. Indeed, with the exception of the day of his cremation, she had felt content through the weeks since she had found Simon calm and finally at rest in Joan Freetown's spare bedroom. Contentment might not have been odd had she disliked her husband or wanted him to die. On the contrary she had deeply loved Simon Russell and passionately wanted him to live. But after his first heart-attack last summer she had prepared herself for the second, supposing that when it came it would be fatal. He had died quickly and she hoped without more than a few seconds of pain. He had died before his powers began to crumble, while he was still doing well the job which he enjoyed. That evening in the Cotswolds he had known that his wife was comfortable by the fire downstairs and that his daughter was on her way through the winter evening to see him.

Louise had felt a moment of desolation in the newly built raw, red brick crematorium on Highgate Hill when Simon's body in the impersonal coffin slid through the curtain into the fire. Her own body for a few seconds had seemed torn apart at the knowledge that she would never again quarrel with Simon, organise a week or a holiday with Simon, buy a shirt for Simon, sip morning tea with him in bed, see him patiently waiting for her at the foot of the stairs. But that pain had passed quickly and was replaced by this miraculous crop of memories, which she was still bringing to harvest. Sometimes nowadays she had to force herself away from memories. She made herself go and sculpt in the studio in Wandsworth, which Simon had hardly ever visited. She entertained Julia's
friends, whom Simon had never met. She even toyed with the idea of selling the house in Highgate and living somewhere where Simon had never set foot. She knew that he had valued her independent spirit and would have approved of all these acts of recovery through separation.

But today in the Abbey, when the nation was remembering its prime minister, she might indulge herself in memories of the man she had married. Politics had been there all the time. At first she had resented this bitterly. During the first years of marriage she had fought against each evening destroyed by a late vote, each weekend conference, each dull dinner made worse by speeches. Latterly she had continued to fight, but more as a matter of habit than in hope of victory. She no longer expected to drive politics out of Simon's life or even to loosen its grip. Indeed, in these later years she had dreaded the task of living with him once his political career had ended. She could not imagine how either of them would fill the void.

Was the close of the anthem too calm, even sentimental? But that was how she felt that morning. All was well, particularly with her. No one else in the congregation, not even Julia, shared with her the particular heap of small recollections that added up to a sound marriage. When she met him Simon had been short of money. Little habits from that time had stayed with him. He turned off lights when they left a room. He kept the tawdry razors issued by airlines and soap from hotel rooms. He entered a running total on the stub of their joint cheque book, source of many misunderstandings. She had tried to tease him out of some of these habits, and now was glad that she had failed. Hide-and-seek with Julia and her friends in the Highgate garden, the tie she had bought him each year for the Party Conference, a slope of olives in
Tuscany, the exercises he did in the bedroom each morning, walking together through the first sparkle of autumn frost on the lawns at Chequers – this jumble of unrelated snapshots was hers alone. It was useless to explain marriage to the young, for they thought of it only in terms of sex and children. Sex they had without marriage, and often nowadays children too. But they missed the point. Sleeping together and bringing up children were not great matters in themselves. They helped, along with a mass of other events, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to create a familiarity between two human beings that went beyond anything else in life. Familiarity, that was a feeble word. Comradeship, alliance, teamwork, harmony, oneness – none of these was quite right either, but Louise knew exactly what she meant. Now death had parted her from Simon. They had always known that death, and death alone, had that right.