Holly Lester

by Andrew Rosenheim

  He felt a little stung by this. ‘Perhaps both. I do know what a fundraiser is and I’m sure that even the Labour party resorts to them once in a while. But who’s there? Party hacks? Union activists? Socialist estate agents – all two of them?’

  ‘Artists actually. Surely even you’ve discovered that most people in the art world are on the Left. So we’re having a do at the Whitechapel Gallery. It’s an opening for young artists. Three painters and a sculptor – sculptress, to be precise. I’m told it’s super work. Very bold. Very visual.’

  ‘Oh?’ he said, without keeping the scepticism out of his voice.

  ‘Don’t be snide. I love art that makes a statement.’

  His heart sank. ‘Political art?’

  ‘No, no. Abstract art. Conceptual art. Anything bold and provocative.’

  His heart rose only slightly. ‘Anything with a statement?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘But then why did you buy the Burgess?’ He realized he’d wanted to know this since the purchase, ‘It doesn’t state anything. It’s utterly untrendy, completely unhip. As far as political correctness goes, Burgess goes nowhere.’

  ‘Spoken like the true son of a Brigadier.’

  ‘Now, now. Even Stalin needed generals.’

  ‘With a lovely Home Counties house I expect.’ There was a combativeness in her voice that made him at once want to argue more and make peace. ‘Wiltshire way, perhaps?’ she added, gratuitously he thought.

  He opted for peace. ‘I’m afraid the Brigadier missed the property boat. Too busy moving around, never got in on the property ladder. He lives in Spain now, in the kind of house a Third Division football manager might retire to.’

  She laughed, and nestled against him as he moved his arm under her neck. ‘So what happened to all the old money?’

  ‘There wasn’t any. My father’s father was a clerk on the Great Western railway.’

  ‘Really? You sound more than a generation away from the working class.’

  ‘I’m sure you’ll take it as an insult, but so do you. Or was your father down pit?’

  ‘Hardly. As you can discover in last week’s Mail on Sunday – those bastards. My father is an Irish playwright, quite successful in Galway they say. He wrote to me last month – his first communication in thirty-two years. He left our house in Brighton for a three-month stint at the Abbey Theatre when I was seven years old, and he never came back. I haven’t seen him since.’ She almost spat her words as she spoke, and he suddenly understood that what he had been taking as a social chippiness – itself odd given her lifestyle and position – was actually a more personal resentment, which was not about class, not even about men, but about Daddy.

  They lay silently for a moment, then Billings turned and kissed her, and found himself stirring again, precisely as her mobile phone rang.

  Holly sat up suddenly. ‘I have to go.’

  ‘Why? You haven’t even answered the phone.’

  ‘It’s the service. I asked them to ring me. That way, wherever I was I’d know I had forty-five minutes to get to the gallery.’ She was up and dressing now. ‘It will take me that long to drive to the East End.’

  He also got out of bed and started to put his clothes on, though already far behind her. ‘I’m sorry to hold you up,’ he said, buttoning his shirt while she used a small compact mirror to help apply her lipstick.

  ‘Take your time. It’s me who’s in the rush. You can just close the front door when you leave. No need to come out with me – have that drink if you like.’ She picked up her handbag and swung it over one arm. ‘Sorry to leave so quickly. Are you in the gallery in the next few days?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. I’ll ring you there. Maybe we can have lunch.’ She kissed him lightly on the lips, and was gone.

  He finished dressing and made up the bed, feeling strange and left behind, much like the first occasion when his parents thought him old enough to leave alone in the house while they went away for the weekend. What he wanted instead was for the door of this bizarre borrowed flat to open, Holly to re-enter and come back to bed, and for the two of them to make love several times again. She was perky, bright, glamorous, and very sexy; also, unpredictably insecure, sometimes shy, demure, child-like. The combination was irresistible. Post-coital tristesse was the last emotion he felt; pre-coital hunger was more like it.

  A more conventional hunger now led him to explore the flat. There was a kitchen in the back, tiny but freshly equipped with a new stove, oak wall cabinets, fresh white tiles on the floor, and a fridge which held precisely one bottle of Evian water. Back in the sitting room, he briefly opened the drawers of the two tables, telling himself he wasn’t really a snoop. They were empty. In the bathroom he found a hand towel, damp from Holly, a bottle of Head and Shoulders on the ledge of the bath, aspirin in the medicine chest, and nothing else to show that anyone used the place.

  In its anonymity, the flat seemed out of a noir film set in New York, and almost spooky; he half-expected the phone to ring, as in one of the Paul Auster novels so beloved by his assistant Tara, and a disembodied voice to ask for him. What on earth was the flat for? ‘Appointments’ such as his with Holly? Possibly, but on opening a closet outside the bedroom he found a large stack of folding chairs. Masonic meetings? Slide shows for amateur explorers? He had no idea at all.

  Even stranger still was the complete absence of anything to read. No papers, no magazines, no books anywhere. Opening the door to the only room left in the flat, he entered what seemed a small study – there was a lovely mahogany bureau and an old faded armchair, perfect for reading, in the corner under a standing lamp. But the bureau was locked, and the alcove bookcases in the wall held only two flowerless vases. As he turned to go, he saw a book lying on the window sill, hidden by the curtains, which were half drawn.

  Picking it up, he found, to his surprise, a paperback copy of The Downing Street Years by Margaret Thatcher. Most of its pages were annotated in green ink, and on the endpapers there were more handwritten notes and a folded piece of A4 that fell to the floor.

  Retrieving this, he looked at a photocopy of a typed memo, headed STRICTLY PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL and dated three days earlier. He read it with increasing interest:

  TO: HL

  FROM: AT

  RE: Lessons We Can Learn From Thatcher

  1) Always deny any mistakes

  Admitting error can seem attractive, but the sheer relentlessness of the media means that even minimal concessions lead to pressure for further admissions, and the public begin to sense that more is being hidden than revealed. The first trickle becomes a flood; eventually the dyke itself is threatened. Thatcher herself changed directions countless times, but it is her assertions that she never did (‘The Lady’s not for turning’ etc.) which people remember.

  2) If our own backbenchers do not toe the line, step on their feet.

  Magnanimity is also superficially appealing, and when expressed with a mix of condescension and regret it can be a useful tool for denigrating the Opposition. But towards dissent from within our own ranks, no moderation or mercy should be shown. Thatcher’s refusal to give Julian Critchley a knighthood is just one example of her persistent inability to forgive. The reliability of such gracelessness kept those less maverick than Critchley firmly in line.

  3) The public has a long memory for disasters – never let it forget those caused by the Opposition.

  A decade after the last Labour government, Thatcher still invoked the bogeymen of trades unions and Militant Tendency. Even in 1992 the Tories could use the Winter of Discontent to electoral advantage. We have almost twenty years of Tory rule to use as fodder for political capital – enough to last until 2010.

  As we have often discussed, Thatcher is a better model for how we will act in power than either the present Tory government or any post-War Labour government of the past. This is not something we can ever say publicly, nor of course make any mention of your recent meetings with Mrs T.
I would be grateful if no copies were made of this memo.

  Billings may have been uninterested in politics, but he was not slow on the uptake. How bizarre for Labour to be talking secretly about modelling a method of governing on their major nemesis of recent decades. What would Neil Kinnock make of that, not to mention any trades union leader worth his salt? ‘No copies’ indeed – so who had made the copy Billings held in his hands? The recipient of the memo, which, from the initials and content, was clearly Harry Lester the leader himself? Or the sender? And whose ‘recent meetings’ – with whom?

  He put The Downing Street Years back on the window sill and left the flat. He took the lift downstairs and entered the foyer, still musing on the sender of the memorandum. ‘AT’ – who was that? What was the name of the man Holly had mentioned to the porter? Jacobsen, Rosenthal – something foreign, something Jewish. He stopped and looked at the occupants’ post boxes. Peters, Dunworthy, Ferguson, Kimmo. Kimmo? The name rang a small bell.

  ‘If you want to leave a message for Mr Trachtenberg sir, it’s probably best to leave it with me.’ The porter had popped out of his cubicle, and stood there, ostentatiously hoping to help.

  ‘Uh,’ said Billings eloquently, caught on the hop. If he weren’t leaving a message what was he doing poking around?

  The porter’s insistent helpfulness came to his rescue. ‘He’ll pop by tomorrow, sir. Always does on a Thursday. If it’s urgent, I’d try him at home.’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Billings. ‘I’ll ring him later.’

  The porter returned to his cubicle and Billings left, feeling he had escaped a close call with – with what? Something larger than him, that was for certain, something potentially dangerous. And something that would not have been pleased to discover that Billings, acting entirely out of character (or so he told himself), had left the building with the copy of the memorandum (STRICTLY PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL) in his jacket pocket.

  Chapter 5

  ‘Hello commissar.’ It was McBain, two days later, teasing Tara from the gallery entrance in a manner Billings admired but could not emulate. Unfathomably, Tara was always amused by his friend, and spent most of her time with him giggling. Billings came up from the lower gallery staircase.

  ‘There you are,’ boomed McBain, and he sat at the Cedars of Lebanon table while Billings made coffee in the tiny galley, brought out two steaming mugs, and sat down across from his friend. It was a quiet afternoon, which would have worried the businessman in Billings. But he decided now to take advantage of the lull, and let Tara deal with the odd browser who came in.

  McBain seemed nervous, a sufficiently rare condition in his friend to concern Billings, since McBain’s aplomb was usually unmanufactured. His friend drummed his fingers on the table and began looking at the pictures on the wall behind Billings. ‘The Tories will go,’ McBain declared, ‘I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. But if people think the Labour lot are going to be much better, they’d better think again. And they’re certainly not any nicer.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’ Billings asked.

  ‘I’ve been to a presentation on Labour and the Arts.’

  ‘Who was there?’

  ‘Most of the Shadow Cabinet, including Harry Lester and the Arts Minister Eleanor Eeley. A lot of journalists.’

  ‘Anyone from the arts?’

  ‘From the arts? This was far too serious to have anyone from the arts there. This was a meeting about Labour’s vision.’

  ‘What vision?’

  ‘Who knows? Computers, the Millennium, a Super Lottery – if it has nothing to do with the arts it was probably on the agenda.’

  ‘What was the point of all this?’

  ‘To persuade us of Labour’s intuitive sympathies towards luvvies and literature. The problem is, most of these people are puritans, so they hate the arts as much as the Tories do. The difference is that Labour wants to reform them, not just leave them to die. Anything that might really help the arts gets condemned as elitist. If it hasn’t got a pop star or a computer in it, forget about funding.’

  ‘You should write about that.’

  ‘I will, but not without consequence. I’ve already been branded an enemy of Labour.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I asked Eleanor Eeley a perfectly reasonable question about the future of the Royal Academy. But it must not have been in her script – she went red in the face and started hemming and hawing and stammering, until Trachtenberg had to come to her rescue.’

  ‘Trachtenberg? I know that name.’ He decided not to say why; with McBain, he found he usually told him everything, but in a time-released fashion that made Billings feel more discreet than he was.

  ‘It’s not one that’s going to go away – Trachtenberg will run the campaign when the Election’s called. Some people think he’ll get pushed aside when Labour’s in, but I doubt it.’

  ‘Is he an MP?’

  ‘Just. No constituency wanted him, but there was pressure from the top and now he’s got a seat in Sunderland, poor sod. There’s a joke going round that he knew so little about the North that at first he thought he’d got a Scottish constituency.’

  ‘Is he very left wing?’

  McBain scoffed. ‘Of course not. He’s the epitome of the new party; I don’t think he has any ideology at all. He loves politics for power, and power for power’s sake.’

  ‘How has he got so far? He sounds awful.’

  ‘He’s a kind of Rasputin cum super-apparatchik – he’s modernized the party’s machine almost single-handed. He’s far too arrogant to be popular, even among Labour’s chattering classes, and the tabloids could never cotton on to him – they just think he’s a smart-assed Jew, or part of one anyway. He’s also a “confirmed bachelor”, which to the Sun is even worse. Yet I don’t think he minds a bit that he’s unpopular. He’d far rather be feared than loved. And he is.’

  ‘But you don’t scare easy.’

  ‘Not usually. When I left the Conference and went back to the paper, I had a message from the Editor asking to see me. Trachtenberg had rung him twenty minutes before to complain about my “unprofessional conduct” at the meeting. Said I was unnecessarily rude to the Arts Minister – provocative, that sort of thing.’

  ‘What did you do?’ Had McBain been more aggressive than he realized? Had his Scots bluntness verged so much on the rude that it had in fact crossed the line?

  ‘I didn’t do anything wrong at all – I simply asked a question. Yet I can see even you aren’t absolutely sure. You’re thinking “did McBain somehow go over the top?” Don’t deny it, laddie – I can see it in your face. But the simple fact is, I didn’t. Tell my editor that, will you? Because in a funny way, the phone call did its job, by sowing doubt in my editor’s mind. When I come to write critically of Labour, some part of him will wonder whether I might not just have some particular axe to grind. Which means that when I do want to write something critical I’ll stop and think first. If you multiply this little incident by a hundred and fifty other relatively obscure reporters, you have a highly effective campaign of press intimidation.’

  ‘Extraordinary.’

  McBain shrugged. ‘It’s certainly not pretty to watch, I’ll give you that. But then again, that’s only Trachtenberg.’

  ‘He sounds a very nasty piece of work.’

  McBain shrugged again. ‘Any party has people to do its dirty work. It’s just that because Labour makes such a show of being “nice” their henchmen seem particularly brutal. And this seemed to me a bit of overkill.’ He was quiet for a moment, but then his face brightened. ‘I have to say, though, that your man was pretty good.’

  ‘My man?’

  ‘Yes, your girlfriend’s husband,’ McBain said with a mix of insouciance and edge which unnerved Billings. ‘Or have things not progressed along those fronts?’

  ‘If I understand what you’re talking about, then I can report that a significant transaction has taken place.’ He was thinking of the Burgess sal
e, and speaking in a self-consciously arch manner in order to get McBain off his back. But his double entendre made him grind to a halt, and slowly start to blush.

  ‘Ah,’ said McBain, interest visibly quickening.

  ‘A painting,’ said Billings hastily. ‘She bought a picture.’

  McBain looked intently at Billings. ‘You don’t fool me, mate. Not one bit.’ When Billings stammered unintelligibly McBain laughed heartily. ‘Save it for your priest. I’m not that interested.’

  ‘I’ll probably never see her again.’

  McBain shrugged. ‘Who knows? I have to say I find the whole thing a bit surprising. She barely knows you – even if she now knows you bare. How does she know you can be trusted? How does she know you aren’t friends with a tabloid hack? Like me?’

  ‘You wouldn’t,’ said Billings with false confidence. Looking at the gleeful expression on his friend’s face, he added more urgently, ‘I’m counting on you. Tell me I can count on you.’

  ‘I missed my calling. I should have been a door-stepping gossip columnist, a William Hickey de nos jours. Here you are, one minute denying everything, the next practically on your knees, begging me not to sell it to the News of the World.’

  ‘You can keep secrets,’ Billings pleaded, thinking of the only occasion when he had been forced to rely on McBain’s discretion overcoming his nose for a scoop. A stolen Francis Bacon, missing for some twelve years, had been offered to Billings, who had promptly contacted the police. McBain had kept it out of his column until an arrest had been made.

  ‘Calm down. I can keep secrets.’ McBain took a gulp from his coffee. ‘Most of the time anyway, and certainly for a friend. Though I think you ought to know that Marla’s been to see Jackie.’

  ‘Oh good.’ He was glad Marla and McBain’s wife kept in touch; Marla had always liked her.

  ‘I mean professionally – Marla’s been to see her professionally.’