The Image in the Water (3 page)

A loss to the nation, to the Party, to this and to that – so everyone told her and, of course, it was true. But death was not a thief, or malevolent: death was simply the stage hand who rang down the curtain on a particular act. That morning Louise felt no loss, just her own happiness.

Extract from the Budget speech of Rt Hon. Joan Freetown, Chancellor of the Exchequer:

Chancellor of the Exchequer:
I turn now to a number of secondary decisions taken in the name of good housekeeping. I propose to move the headquarters of the National Savings Bank from Glasgow to Newcastle. This is estimated to save fifteen million euros in running costs each year.'

Hon. Members
: Shame!

Mr
Hamish Sandbeg (Hamilton):
This is appalling news for Scotland. It is an act of obscene vandalism. How many Scottish jobs will be lost?

Chancellor of the Exchequer:
I have no idea [
Interruption
], of course I have no idea. It will depend on how many of the existing employees are willing to move across the border to Newcastle. The Honourable
Member should put his question to the leader of his party. If the Scottish National Party were not pressing for the break-up of the United Kingdom I might have been willing to leave this United Kingdom institution in Glasgow despite the extra labour costs imposed by the recent lamentable and destructive decision of the Scottish Parliament.

Mr
Alexander Mackie (Glasgow Cathcart):
Is the Chancellor telling us that this vindictive decision is being taken for purely political reasons?

Chancellor of the Exchequer:
It is a matter of common prudence. I cannot ignore the chance of saving fifteen million euros. But I also cannot ignore the growing disquiet among English savers at the prospect of their savings being handled in a city that might, if the SNP have their way, be separated before long from the United Kingdom. If this decision is disliked in Glasgow, its citizens know who to blame. My responsibility is to the prudent savers of the United Kingdom.

Later:

The Chancellor of the Exchequer:
… I have had to take into account the effect on the English regions of the interest rate rises imposed by the European Central Bank in Frankfurt at their meeting in March … Unless counteracting action is taken I am advised that unemployment would probably rise by 1 per cent in Cornwall, 1.5 per cent along the southern coast of England and by up to 2 per cent on both Teesside and
Tyneside. The ECB seems to have taken no account of these consequences. It will be for the Welsh and Scottish Executives to assess any similar outcome in those parts of the United Kingdom. My responsibility in this matter is for England. I am tonight laying an order under the Regional Assistance Act 2004 providing for an employment grant of twenty euros per week for employees to all employers in the regions which I have just mentioned.

Hon. Members:
Brilliant. That will show them.

Mr
John Turnbull (Leader of the Opposition):
Has the Chancellor consulted the Attorney General on the legality under European law of the measure she has just announced?

Chancellor of the Exchequer:
I am shocked that the Right Honourable Gentleman should take such a legalistic line. Those facing the sack as a result of this European decision on interest rates will note that the Labour Party is more concerned with legal niceties than with jobs. Even Lord Blair's government did not give away the right of government and Parliament in this country to fix our own expenditure and taxes. I am exercising that right today. The European Court is the place where matters of legality could in theory be tested. Should there be a challenge – I am confident there will not, but should there be a challenge – it would not come to court for several years. We would strenuously contest it – and meanwhile the grant will be paid.

Hon. Members:
Brilliant again.

Extract from political commentary by Miss Alice Thomson in the
Daily Telegraph:

Joan Freetown yesterday produced a highly political Budget. There is no harm in that. It should delight all Conservatives. She used a relatively small administrative decision on the National Savings Bank to highlight her increasing alarm at the loudmouthed vituperation of the SNP. She showed that part of the price of Scottish independence may be paid by the Scots in advance of a referendum if the SNP continue their present campaign.

Her employment subsidy for the English regions may raise greater doubts. The justification was distinctly broad brush. Conservative chancellors have usually supported, not undermined, the general policy of the EU in hacking away at state subsidies. When the Bank of England in the old days raised interest rates and some regions suffered, Conservatives would certainly have argued against compensating state aid. But, that said, the Chancellor received and deserved a loud ovation, even from Conservatives who support Roger Courtauld in the leadership battle. In contrast to the Home Secretary she has shown herself a Conservative of firm ideas and strong will.

‘So we either go on or go out,' said Joe Seebright, the editor of
Thunder,
at his daily meeting, with the air of one coining an epigram. These were the words the proprietor, Lord Spitz, had used to him on the telephone just half an hour earlier.

Joe did not repeat the further wisdom of the proprietor,
who had added, ‘The truth is, Joe, you yourself don't have a choice. You're too far in. You chose Freetown, so for you she's got to win. Me, I'm different. I'm just a goddamn South African Jew. For me
Thunder's
in the business of selling newspapers, not choosing prime ministers.' A pause had followed, while across the Atlantic Lord Spitz slurped coffee.

‘Remember the
Sun
,' he continued. ‘Murdoch changed editors four times before he finally quit. That's not my style.' Another pause. ‘One would be ample.'

‘Yes, indeed.' Seebright cultivated a monotonous tone in dealing with his proprietor. Either encouragement or dissent led to longer conversation. Anyway, he reminded himself, it was not just a matter of self-interest and survival. He genuinely believed Joan Freetown was right for Britain – brave, experienced, above all definite. Like
Thunder.
The conversation had ended there.

‘How's the form book today?'

Seebright's question went to the political editor, Robert Macdowell, who sat as usual in a corner though entitled by seniority to a seat at the table. Two years earlier Macdowell had moved from the broadsheet press to the tabloids. The rewards for his work had thus increased as its quality deteriorated. This did not make him a happy man. Occasionally he exacted small revenges – by slipping words of more than two syllables into his reports, or by prosing away in almost academic vein at meetings such as this.

‘As you know there are two stages to the count under the Hague rules of 1997. In the first stage next Thursday Conservative MPs and peers cast their votes. There Courtauld has been edging ahead. Freetown has lost the immediate advantage she gained from the Budget. She made the usual Treasury
mistake of supposing that a Budget's immediate popularity will last. Her real difficulty is that MPs know her too well'

‘They only know the silly little weaknesses,' said Seebright. ‘They don't like the bracelets and the sharp voice in the tea room. They lose the big picture.'

Macdowell did not comment, but continued, ‘By contrast, she's well established in the constituency vote of party members, which follows in a fortnight. She's worked that scene for years, endless supper clubs and annual general meetings, whereas Courtauld has never bothered.'

‘Lazy sod,' said Seebright.

‘Out there they like her toughness against Europe and the Americans, and now against the Scots. They don't want anything really done about any of that because most of them know it's difficult, but they like to hear the noise of their own resentment. She provides this.'

‘If the two votes clash? If the MPs and the constituencies produce different results?'

‘The total party membership wins. But they haven't clashed since '97. There's always been a strong deference vote, party members still believing MPs must know best. So her main worry is that the MPs will just tip against her and the membership reluctantly follow suit.'

‘We must change tack,' said Seebright unexpectedly. Even the sports team, hitherto inattentive, sat up. This could not mean switching to support Roger Courtauld. Could it mean less space on politics? They sighed wistfully. For a few seconds most of those present nourished a hope of return to the golden days of total concern for football and the sex life of TV personalities. That was how the British press had grown great. But Seebright thrust round copies of a draft leader, and hopes
fell. So it was not pulling out of politics, after all, but plunging further in. They read:

The time for genteel politeness has passed. This morning
Thunder
has to speak its mind. The leadership contest in the Tory Party, always dull, has become a bloody bore. Why? Because we've allowed the politicians to treat it as their own affair. Day after day they've drooled on about the Budget, Europe, devolution, the rest of the political agenda. Excuse us while we yawn. We're about to choose the human being with the most important say of anyone in our lives for years to come – more than the Queen, of course, more than the President of the Internet, more than the editor of
Thunder,
more than, dare we say it?, David Beckham at the head of Man United.'

‘Steady,' murmured the chief football editor.

‘Circulation down again,' agreed his assistant, but not audibly.

From tomorrow we are going to change all that. From tomorrow
Thunder
is going to present the two candidates, not as cardboard politicians mouthing speeches but as real three-dimensional human beings. We are going to dig deep into their past. We are not interested in prurient peeping. That is not our way. But we mean to show what kind of personality is going to lead the nation. So wake up, Joan. Wake up, Roger. For tomorrow we're going to wake up Britain.

There was silence. It did not seem to amount to much. Macdowell found the words. ‘Good stuff, Joe. But it all depends on the follow-up. You must have something good in the locker.'

Seebright was at his most businesslike. ‘For Joan, not difficult. She saved a crippled boy from drowning in the river at Cambridge. A bit of time ago. She was nineteen, the lad five.
Cambridge Evening News
the next day. No one's ever picked it up since.'

‘She told you?' It was not like Joan Freetown.

‘No. David Alcester came round yesterday. The young MP. He's trying to grip her campaign. He sounded a bit desperate. We've checked with the Cambridgeshire police. It's okay. That'll be in Thursday.' Today was Tuesday.

‘And Roger Courtauld?'

‘A rather different story, I'm afraid.' Seebright smirked, then handed out one print of a colour photograph, which he carefully collected and replaced in an envelope when it had done the rounds. It showed sea and in the foreground a stretch of white sand. Two young men in swimming trunks were lying side by side on the same blue and white beach towel, eyes shut, apparently asleep, thighs touching. The right hand of one clasped the left hand of the other. No one recognised the fair young man with a magazine lying beside him. Though the photograph might have been forty years old, there could be no doubt about the identification of the second youth. Roger Courtauld's shoulders had been straighter then and his cheeks less chubby, but there was no mistaking the big head, tightly curled dark hair, and slightly crowded features.

‘How does this come into it?' asked Macdowell. His
conscience began to stir, always ready to start arguments it never won.

‘It depends,' said Seebright.

‘Depends?'

‘On the way things develop.'

They were friends, that was the odd thing, though five days ago they had hardly known each other. No, that was a slight exaggeration, thought Roger Courtauld, as his campaign committee filed into his room at the top of the Home Office for the morning meeting. Most of them had known each other for a time as political acquaintances, nodding and smiling in corridors and the tea room, forming ephemeral alliances to sign a motion, influence a debate, or exchange current gossip at political dining clubs such as the Bow Group or One Nation. But this was different. After less than a week of the leadership campaign they knew each other under the skin. They were brothers at arms, or rather brothers and sister at arms, for he must never forget Sara Tunstall. Fair and flouncy, she was the most right-wing of his supporters and he still did not know what had brought her into his camp. Was it simply dislike and jealousy of Joan Freetown? Roger feared that quite a lot of his votes in the Commons would come from that unflattering source. One or two other supporters regarded themselves as jockeys who had chosen Roger Courtauld as the horse to take them to their own chosen winning post. That was certainly true of Clive Wilson, the typical ambitious backbencher. He had made himself a name in the Russian civil war by being in the right place at the right time – but not quite enough of a name to propel him into a ministerial job at the Foreign Office without the help of a patron. Roger made a mental
note that he must not neglect Wilson just because he did not like him.

But the others – Peter Struther, Raymond Gannet, both MPs, the PR man John Parrott, Simon Cresswick from the Lords – what had brought them to take the risk of identifying themselves with what, at the beginning, seemed like a losing cause? Which led, of course, back to a previous question: what had led him, Roger Courtauld, to put himself forward?

The whole contest was distinctly odd. He and Joan Freetown were colleagues in the same Cabinet. There had been no great rows between them. Each had respected the, other's frontiers; they stood on a shared government record; they were both committed to the projects of the late Russell administration. Though he had not much liked Joan's latest Budget he could not attack it because she had bounced it through Cabinet in his presence. Yet if the contest was to interest anyone they had to find something to disagree on. How otherwise were the columnists to find material and their campaign committees something to discuss? So the two rivals were forced back onto the terrain of philosophy and first principles. In their press articles, speeches and interviews they had to argue about the underlying purpose of politics.