Read The Image in the Water Online
Authors: Douglas Hurd
Jim Scrowl wore his only suit, as befitted a call on a Lutheran pastor. Coffee and sweet cakes were served. But the conversation soon ran dry, as Friedrich had predicted.
âBut I never saw him again.'
âYou never spoke after that afternoon?'
âNever. He sent me a Christmas card that year and I responded with a New Year greeting from my college.'
âDo you have his Christmas card?'
âCertainly. I found it as preparation for this discussion. I will show it to you now.'
Scrowl took the card, examined it, and at once put it in his folder of papers. Friedrich made to expostulate, but refrained. He did not know the correct procedures in the literary world. He would have liked to keep the card, but if it would help Roger Courtauld by giving it to this journalist, it seemed a small gift in a good cause.
âYou are sure you have never seen or heard from Roger Courtauld since?' Scrowl knew from his glance at the Christmas card that it amounted to nothing. Disappointment made his tone abrupt.
âQuite sure.' Why was this man now talking more like a police officer than a biographer?
The conversation petered out. Professional life had given Scrowl a weakish bladder. Time was short, and he did not want to have to stop on the road back to Berlin. He visited Vogl's lavatory before leaving, then thanked Frau Vogl for the coffee, climbed rather awkwardly into his car and was on his way. Suddenly he was in a hurry. He needed a confidential landline to Seebright as soon as possible.
Joe Seebright did not trust Robert Macdowell, knowing him
to be lukewarm in the Freetown cause. But he needed his help on a crucial question.
Thunder
had only one thunderbolt against Courtauld. If the crucial vote of Conservative MPs was on Thursday afternoon, was the thunderbolt best launched that morning, or one or even two days earlier?
âThat depends on what you have.'
They were alone in Joe Seebright's editorial cubicle high above Canary Wharf. Seebright hesitated before replying. But he had been particularly specific and reassuring to Lord Spitz on the telephone that morning. There was no point in pulling punches now. And in any case he was proud of the coup which he planned.
He busied himself for a minute at a side table. âCome and have a look.'
On a piece of cardboard he had assembled what Macdowell at once saw was a plan for the front page of
Thunder.
At the left was the photograph, which he had already seen, of Roger and Friedrich side by side on Mothecombe beach. In the centre was the inner page of a Christmas card dated 1986 from Exeter University. Below the ordinary seasonal greetings Roger Courtauld had written: â
With all good wishes. I enjoyed our day together and I hope everything goes well with you. Roger Courtauld
.'
On the right was another photograph of Friedrich Vogl, this time alone. Once again he was on a beach, wearing swimming trunks, but this time crouched on his heels and holding out his arms in welcome, a broad smile of invitation on his face.
As portrayed in that setting the implication of that smile could not be mistaken. Macdowell was amazed. âThen he did see Roger again?'
Seebright laughed, delighted that even a seasoned journalist should jump to that conclusion. âNot exactly.' Again he hesitated, but his pleasure at his own cleverness overcame his caution. He showed Macdowell the original of the second photograph. Cut out from the version displayed on the cardboard was a buxom blonde woman holding a small boy and girl. The happy laughing family group was complete.
âHis wife and children?'
âI suppose so. The photograph hung with dozens of others in his lavatory.'
Macdowell gathered round him the tatters of his professional reputation. âThat is utterly wrong and unacceptable. You are creating an insinuation which we know is false.'
âWe know no such thing.' Seebright was still reckless. âAnyway consider what we might have done. You see that in the right-hand picture the German haunches are thicker and the German hair thinner. It was taken several years after the first one. We could easily touch out these differences as if the two pictures had been taken on the same day. We could even strip off these absurd bumbags and show Fritz as God made him. That would remove any doubt. But I, too, have my scruples. It's better if the facts are left to speak for themselves.'
âThe facts,' said Macdowell bitterly, and nothing more. He had to think of his family and his bank balance, the two being closely connected. He resigned that night, but without fuss. The severance terms were not bad, and he did not have to take his children away from their private schools.
Roger told Hélène, his staff at the Home Office, his constituents, journalists and himself that he enjoyed the work. Certainly this had been true in the first year or two at the Home Office. Was it still true? Yes, of course, there could be no doubt about it. He still approached a locked red box full of government work with the zeal of an archaeologist about to force open a sealed tomb. He still relished the canter through each day of meetings. He enjoyed the fierce battles across the floor of the House of Commons or the Cabinet table, each of which revealed something new about the character of those with whom he dealt, and possibly also about himself. Lately, perhaps, had there been some slight cooling of enthusiasm? Yet that surely could not be true, given that so far from dropping off the ladder he was now trying to reach its topmost rung.
In these days Roger found it useful to stick as closely as possible to his usual daily routine. He did not want those around him to regard the leadership contest as extraordinary. He felt
that if he changed the structure of his day he would be increasing his own stake on the board. He did not want to do this. When Upchurch had offered to hold back or send junior ministers to attend to less urgent matters of Home Office business until the contest was over he had demurred. âNo, fill the boxes in the usual way. I'll get through them somehow.'
Upchurch had not entirely obeyed. Even so Roger had had to invoke his one o'clock rule two or three times, by which he closed the red boxes of work one hour after midnight, shutting any unread papers out of sight and mind.
On Tuesday, 23 March, Roger left his bed in South Eaton Place at six thirty as usual, and performed ten minutes of bends and stretches on the rug in his dressing room. He put on his clothes to the accompaniment of the seven o'clock news, softly tuned so as not to disturb Hélène next door. The routine was exact; even the exercises admitted no variety, having been prescribed ten years earlier at a time of backache now happily vanished. By seven twenty he was eating half a grapefruit in the dining room. During this process, none of which required thought, his energy gathered for the day. That energy met its first and one of its fiercest challenges in the spread of newspapers across the breakfast table. Here a change had been forced upon him. For the last fortnight all the national papers had been brought early from the Home Office, not just his usual diet of the
Mail
and the
Telegraph.
Though it often made for a fraught breakfast this addition saved time later when his campaign committee met to review tactics.
So there, half hidden beneath the
Telegraph,
was
Thunder,
and the blow that Roger Courtauld had more than half expected ever since the letter from Joe Seebright. Sarah Tunstall and Simon Cresswick, the two optimists on his
group, had been sure that Seebright was bluffing and that nothing more would happen. The others had been silent. John Parrott, the PR man who knew the press best, had suggested that they try to get in touch with Friedrich Vogl to warn him of what was afoot. Roger had vetoed this on the grounds that any such approach, if it became known, would smell of an attempted cover-up. More deeply, he did not want to disinter that afternoon in Mothecombe. His own memory contained nothing more than he had revealed to the group; his meeting with young Vogl had happened exactly as he had told them. Those hours had receded from his mind like most past events, until jerked to the front by Seebright. A small silly fraction of his life had fallen into the hands of his enemies. The less it was thought and spoken of the better.
But this would hardly do. Here they were again, a few distant agreeable hours made slimy by the malice of a newspaper. Seebright had followed exactly the plan for his front page revealed to Macdowell: side by side the Mothecombe photograph, the signed Christmas card, and Friedrich alone beckoning his vanished family. He had devised one extra flourish. The thick black headline across the top, MY FRIEND FRITZ, was connected by a pink noose, which dangled down the page until it lassoed the signature at the foot of the Christmas card ROGER COURTAULD.
The leader overleaf addressed any readers for whom the subtleties of the front page might have been excessive.
Thunder
promised to bring you the truth behind the premiership contest. Go to other papers for the political promises. At
Thunder
that kind of stuff goes down the drain before you even pull the plug. No, we at
Thunder
want to show you the two
characters.
We are tolerant, we respect the rights of private life. But we respect even more the right of the British people to see their leaders straight and clear. You are entitled to know how they've behaved in the past. Isn't that the only way of judging how they'll behave in the future?
Last week we showed you Joan Freetown at Cambridge. Roger Courtauld studied at Exeter University. Nothing wrong with that. He got a good degree. But his life wasn't all study. Not by any means. Our front page tells another story â young Roger holding hands on a Devon beach. Nothing wrong with that either â even though it's a young man he's fondling. Our front page gives proof that this relationship continued. It wasn't a one-day canoodle. At
Thunder
we know who the other man is. We shan't give you his name today. We can tell you that he's German. But there are facts we can't yet know, questions Roger Courtauld has refused to answer. What exactly was the relationship? How far did it go? How long did it last? Have there been other gay chapters in the Home Secretary's life? In short, what the hell went on?
These are fair questions. They are necessary. We don't enjoy digging around in people's lives. There should be no need. One e-mail from the Home Office could settle the whole matter. We promise to print whatever we get.
Over to you, Roger.
For half a minute Roger felt sick. He sat back in his chair. He had been hit on the head. The working of his mind was
blocked. Then, groping for the coffee pot, he took a decision. He would quit the leadership contest. The price of entry was too high. He filled the cup and reopened the decision. A modern politician in Britain did not act by instinct. He was tied to friends, and in this case to family. He had to listen before acting if his actions were to be any good. Roger put the question into neutral. He had half a day before he need decide. He would deliberately work at other subjects until he was supplied with the necessary advice. He would add his own views, allow to stew for an hour or so, and serve up a decision.
But from one important quarter advice would only come if requested. There were no staff in South Eaton Place at breakfast time. Roger brought back to the boil the portable kettle from which he had brewed coffee. He created a cup of China tea, added a slice of lemon, then a croissant on a plate, folded
Thunder
carefully, and carried the combination upstairs on a tray. As usual Hélène feigned sleep. Roger drew the curtain, let in the grey-white characterless London light and left her. The only novelty was the paper on the tray. Hélène would need a little time to digest this.
Roger sometimes wondered why Hélène had married him thirty years ago. There was no mystery as to why he had fallen for her â beautiful, intelligent, educated, the daughter of a Frenchman who combined the roles of count, farmer and merchant. The family owned a large fortified farmhouse on a hill above smiling fields, and one of the most profitable Armagnac businesses in Gascony. He had spent a fortnight on holiday nearby with friends, who had taken him over to lunch with the de Landelisse family. The lunch, while delicious, was light and there was no Armagnac from the estate, because tennis
was to follow. The count was paired with his estate manager against Roger and Hélène, the countess and other guests watching in the heavy shade of pollarded plane trees. As was proper the count won. In the days that followed there was more tennis, then dinner in a restaurant, then tennis again. Roger, though then only thirty, was plump. He sweated and a small bald patch became more obvious as each game progressed. But he was good-looking in a genial English way, and he let her father win. On the last day of his holiday he picked small ripe figs for her from the tree by the swimming-pool. Side by side on deck-chairs they watched the sun set. Below them a pair of buzzards mewed over a valley yellow and brown with ripening sunflowers. Roger took her hand. âIt is absurd,' he said. They always spoke in English. âBut I am certain, and I cannot know what you think unless I ask. Will you marry me, Hélène?'
There was a silence. Gently she withdrew her hand. âOf course it is absurd. Two weeks is far too short. But I will come to London to see you. Then we can decide.'
A few weeks later she came, in theory for a course on Cézanne at the Tate. They made love efficiently in his tiny bachelor flat, conveniently close to the Palace of Westminster. He told her about his constituency and the difficulty of opposing the new Labour Government. She listened in silence and he thought he had made a tactical error. But when he proposed again, three days later, she accepted.
âWhy did you accept me?' he had asked later.
âFirst reason, you are a nice man, Second reason, I needed to escape.'
From what? From another suitor? From those smiling French fields? He never found out. He had to be content with
that explanation, and it sufficed. Their marriage set quickly into a pattern that hardly altered. Hélène took the minimum necessary interest in politics. She insisted on small matters of respect, appearances and protocol because she knew he neglected them. She went with him to the rented cottage in Northamptonshire. She wore good but not too good clothes at the Mayor's ball and the High Sheriff's cocktail party. She developed a genuine interest in the Daventry art gallery. More important, after a long reluctance she provided Roger with a daughter, then two sons. Beyond that, she led her own life, enjoying London to the full, mostly in a world of artists and writers, French and English, into which she did not expect him to follow. Ignorant, mocking people, seeing them usually apart, supposed that each of the Courtaulds ran their own love affairs. In fact, both were faithful, since for neither was physical love particularly important. Hélène looked after the girl's education at the Lyceé in London; Roger organised the boys at a prep school in Berkshire. They remained fond of each other and shared a bedroom, but in practice there were not many subjects on which they needed to talk. Money might have been one, but Hélène was an only child, the count enjoyed a smattering of political conversation, which Roger provided, and the Armagnac continued to thrive.