The Sound of Trumpets

by John Mortimer

  The Hartscombe ballot boxes arrived first for the count in the town hall, and then the Willock bundles were stacked higher after the tellers had sorted them. The Conservative candidate had an early lead; the Labour was a distinct second, the Lib Dem third in the field; National Front, Animal Rights, Sterling Protection and Monster Raving Loony were nowhere very much. Nabbs and Penry, Sir Gregory and Willock, Velma Warrington and her team moved edgily round the hall, peering critically at the tellers, doing sums on the backs of envelopes and, in a common agony of suspense, got together in a sort of companionship, as girls in a slave market might make friends and chatter, trying not to think of the indignity of having to be sold off cheap. Only Terry stood apart, nursing a mug of tea, answering his wife shortly even when she smiled at him. He felt, as that long evening wore on, like a man who has lost everything, and he returned, again and again, to the events of the last twenty-four hours hoping to find some glimmer of consolation.

  Titmuss’s speech had jostled wars, earthquakes, famines and genocide off the front pages of the national papers; but Titmuss was now the enemy Terry could hardly bear to think about. Among Terry’s workforce the terrible words he had been made to utter seemed to have created little impression. Nabbs, it’s true, said he’d better watch out for slander actions; but Terry didn’t think of Paul as at all likely to sue for damages and comforted himself with the honourable nature of the man he had agreed to dishonour. Even Kate seemed strangely unmoved by the incident, although she did ask him, with a note of pity in her voice, if he hadn’t become a bit homophobic, as though it were a painful and probably incurable disease.

  ‘It’s not that I mind in the least about his sexuality. It’s just that the boys might be at risk.’ He lied to her and she seemed to accept it. She assumed, apparently without difficulty, the old-fashioned feminine role of the comforter, the sensible one, the supporter and tower of strength who got on with things, while her man, a bundle of fears, doubts and nervous dread, stood in the shadows holding a mug of tea he didn’t drink, afraid to look at the piles of votes in case the news might be bad.

  It was true that Terry had given up looking at the arriving ballot boxes or the growing piles of votes counted. He was re-living, as he would have to in the months and years to come, the agony of the hours since he had commented on the escape of Slippy Johnson. He had gone to his mobile as an alcoholic goes to the bottle and called Agnes again and again at home and in the shop but got no reply at either number. In a wild moment of frustration he had considered ringing Paul Fogarty at the Y.O.I., but wisely decided that was out of the question. The day before he had passed the door of the Dust Jacket and found it open. He had pushed his way in and seen, to his delight, smoke rising from her desk behind a bookcase, but when he got round it he was staring at a plump, jovial, dark-haired woman who twinkled at him in a roguish way and said, ‘Oh, jolly good! Have you come in to buy something?’

  ‘Agnes!’ Terry cried out for help. ‘Where’s Agnes?’

  ‘Not here, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Where then? Where is she?’

  ‘Gone off on holiday. Such short notice and so like her. She rang me up and said she was off to the sun somewhere and would I hold the fort. I’m her partner, you know. Jilly Bloxham, if it makes any difference.’

  ‘What sun? Where’s she gone, did she say?’

  ‘Oh, Majorca. Martinique. Mombasa. Could it be Mombasa? I’m sure she’ll send a postcard.’

  ‘I do need to know. It’s quite urgent.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll tell her you called. Soon as I hear something. I say’ – she was looking at Terry as though she had detected something wrong with him, egg on his chin perhaps, or a zip undone – ‘aren’t you one of the candidates?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oughtn’t you to be out canvassing or something?’

  ‘Not exactly, but I’ve got to go …’

  ‘Are you one of those Liberals?’

  ‘My poster’s in your window.’ Terry did his best to sound calm. ‘I’m standing for Labour.’

  ‘Oh, I say, bad luck! Agnes is frightfully Labour, of course. She always backs losers.’

  After a long day of frustration Terry called in at the Magic Magnolia for a take-away he could share with Kate as they worked the telephones in Penry’s house. The restaurant was full, and Charlie, gliding between the tables, gave Terry a knowing smile. At last the spectacled proprietor, wearing a suit instead of a white jacket, handed Terry the warm bags of seaweed, duck, sizzling beef and mixed vegetables, with fried rice and prawn crackers. He also gave him two bills. The first was for the take-away and entirely reasonable. The second was a blank bill sheet on which was scribbled ‘£500’. Terry asked what the hell that might be for, had someone given a party in his name?

  ‘Votes.’ The restaurant boss made no attempt to lower his voice.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Twelve of us in the Magnolia. We live upstairs. You been asking for our votes. I bring them for you tomorrow.’

  Disconsolate, Terry paid only one bill. The line had to be drawn somewhere.

  Midnight on polling day and the First Baron Skurfield, tieless, in his old cardigan with his shoes off, lay on the sofa in his study nursing a whisky. On an outsize television screen three pundits, Bob Pertwee, Eric Feldman and Barry Geering, the Home Secretary, a bulky and imposing man with a plummy voice, were filling in time before the Hartscombe result. Mrs Ragg, wearing bedroom slippers because of problems with her feet, squatted uneasily on the edge of the study chair, Leslie having invited her up to watch the result, sipping a small sherry. She was doing her best to follow the thoughts of the pundits.

  Eric Feldman said, ‘We’re not expecting miracles, but we’ve got a first-class candidate. If the Lib Dems are serious about defeating the Tories they might switch to Labour. But I’m not over-optimistic.’

  Barry Geering said, ‘Hartscombe’s a safe seat for us. I think Tim Willock’s home and dry.’

  The presenter said, ‘What do you think’s been the effect of Leslie Titmuss’s extraordinary intervention?’

  Bob Pertwee said, ‘Titmuss is regarded as a bit of an old dinosaur by the Party nowadays. I think the voters in Hartscombe were embarrassed by his speech, quite honestly. I very much doubt if it’ll affect the result.’

  Mrs Ragg said, ‘We are going to win, aren’t we, sir?’

  Titmuss said, ‘It depends on who you mean by “we”.’

  Mrs Ragg said, ‘Well, sir. The Conservatives.’

  Titmuss said, ‘Then I have to tell you. We are not going to win. I am going to win.’

  In Rambo’s, the disco on the river, the young clubbers danced, waved their arms, undulated trance-like as their pale faces shone and faded in the flashing lights. They downed Strongbow, parched after taking tablets, and their hands strayed over their partners as they shouted their secrets over the music. Very few of them had bothered to vote.

  In the dark, dripping silence of Hanging Wood the deer slept and badgers snuffled in the undergrowth.

  Paul Fogarty had the television on as he sat in his office and wrote his letter of resignation. He didn’t want his days in court, his libel action, his inquiry into Slippy’s escape, his further years of incarceration. He had served, he thought, his time. He wanted to get away from the rattle of keys, the clang of gates, the pervasive smell of cooking and central heating. He wanted to walk free.

  The television announced that it was now going over to Hartscombe for the result. The governor had already been to the polling booth. In spite of everything he had voted Labour.

  ‘The number of votes cast for each candidate is as follows.’ The town clerk stood in front of the microphone. The candidates were lined up, smiles plastered on their faces and cheerful rosettes fastened to their lapels. Kate held one of Terry’s hands, and he dug his nails into the other palm. He didn’t dare believe what had become clear since the ballot boxes had come in from the country areas. He heard a voice; it seemed a long way off.


  ‘Busby, Grace Caroline (Animal Rights), 407 votes. Downey, Robert Cuthbert (National Front), 250 votes. Fortescue, James Catesby (Sterling Protection), 60 votes. Flitton, Terence Robert (Labour), 18,612 votes.’ Cheers from the audience. ‘Sutch, Screaming Lord (Monster Raving Loony), 115 votes. Warrington, Velma Phyllis (Liberal Democrat), 3,060 votes.’ Cheers from the audience. ‘Willock, Timothy Manningham (Conservative), 13,105 votes.’ Cheers. ‘And I declare Terence Robert Flitton duly elected as Member of Parliament for the constituency of Hartscombe and Worsfield South.’ The cheers were prolonged. Terry Flitton had got what he wanted.

  He thanked the returning officer and the police. He held Kate’s hand up high and kissed her. He shook hands with the other candidates and spoke to the television and the radio and June from the Sentinel. He heard Penry and Nabbs congratulate each other on a surprising result. ‘I had to put a bit of work into it,’ said Nabbs, ‘among the grass roots. But I always thought we’d do it.’

  Then Terry left quickly in the direction of the Gents, but ran out of the town hall and down to the river. And there he saw a light in an upstairs window and was filled with hope.

  But when he rang Agnes’s bell the light went off immediately, and no one answered his ring, or his knocking, or his final, hopeless shout. A crowd of clubbers from Rambo’s came down the street and stared at him. He stood in the shadows, flat against the wall, and felt the pricking in his eyes and a huge emptiness.

  The black river was just across the street, but he didn’t look towards it. Instead he took a deep breath, pulled himself together and went back towards the town hall and his victory party. Contrary to all reasonable expectations he had passed over, and all the trumpets would be sounding for him on the other side.

  Part Two

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The Red Kite, drifting over the Millichip spread on another late-summer afternoon saw no drowned bodies, dressed or undressed, manacled or free, but something as alarming and as much to be avoided by right-thinking people in the area. A fleet of cars was assembled in the driveway. Indoors the chatter, rising to the ceiling like the sound of a seriously disturbed aviary, rose in volume as the drinks were poured and the canapés, handed round with paper napkins to dab the crumbs from lips and wipe sticky fingers, were consumed as blotting paper for the ever-flowing stream of alcohol.

  As the Red Kite, with a stroke of its wings, soared away into a high bank of cloud, Linda Millichip, flashing jewellery, proud of her freedom from the late Millichip, stood like a gracious but overbearing barbarian queen among her loyal subjects, who were gratefully drinking her champagne and manœuvring large Thai chicken balls into their hungry mouths.

  ‘I want you to meet our Minister. This is Andrew Poyser.’ And Linda Millichip added with a note of awe in her voice, ‘The writer.’

  ‘Minister?’ The writer was a small man wearing a tweed suit with a waistcoat. His bald head, plump cheeks and pursed lips made him look like a well-bathed, powdered and contented baby. ‘Baptist? Methodist? Seventh-day Adventist?’

  ‘Prisons,’ Terry Flitton answered, not solemnly. And then he said, ‘Excuse me,’ leaving the writer, who had opened his mouth to ask in a jocular sort of way for some further explanation, speechless. But Terry was threading his way through the crowd of Linda Millichip’s new-found friends towards the woman he had seen standing under the colourful acrylic painting of boats in a Mediterranean harbour, her head bowed over her lighter as though it were some vestal flame. She was with Jilly Bloxham, her partner in the bookshop, and when he penetrated the crowd and arrived beside her she looked up, blew out smoke and said, ‘Oh, hullo,’ as though he hadn’t missed her, longed for her, pursued her fruitlessly since the election night and his promotion to government.

  He said, ignoring Jilly and not caring what she thought, ‘I just wanted to explain.’

  ‘No explanations necessary,’ Agnes said. ‘You simply behaved like a complete shit. Let’s leave it at that, shall we?’ The extraordinary thing, to Terry, was that she said it without rancour.

  The New Labour M.P. for Hartscombe and Worsfield South was, when he took his seat, strangely overcome with nerves and excitement. As on his first day at school he looked on the other backbenchers, most of whom had been there at least a term, with mingled envy and suspicion. Nobody told him what to do or where to go, and he could be seen walking purposefully down corridors, trying hard to give the impression that he was going somewhere important. He voted the way he was told to, dreaded the displeasure of the Whips and, to his surprise, didn’t manage to feel at all powerful.

  In Hartscombe, however, it was different. Sitting in his surgery each week he could hand out reassurance to the anxious, hope to the unjustly treated and at least a patient hearing to those who complained they were having their sexuality undermined by the colouring in soft drinks or their minds disturbed by the power leaking from electric sockets. To his constituents he was wise, judicial and determinedly on their side. He would write letters to housing authorities, hospitals, schools and ministries demanding justice and attention in the peremptory tones to which he was sure a Member of Parliament was entitled, and if nothing much came of it he could tell his clients, and himself, that he had done all he could and no better could be expected under a Tory government. But as soon as his surgery was over he went in search of a past which, as he looked for it, seemed to grow in importance and deepen his sense of loss. He felt helpless, disappointed and, quite unreasonably, betrayed.

  He went to the house by the river but found it dark and empty. He called at the Dust Jacket and found Jilly Bloxham always in charge. He questioned her eagerly at first and then as a sort of hopeless duty. Although her answers were by no means direct he understood, in time, that she knew where Agnes had gone but was instructed not to tell anyone and in particular not to tell the local M.P.

  After a while he saw that her house was occupied and a strange car was parked in front of it, and he heard the sound of children. He discovered that it had been let for a year to an airline pilot who had no idea where Agnes was and paid the rent to a local solicitor. Terry called on the solicitor in question but, although he flashed all his credentials as the people’s chosen representative, the man refused to divulge his client’s address. He was almost desperate enough to ask Paul Fogarty, with impossible apologies, if he knew where Agnes was, but he soon discovered that Paul had left Skurfield not, apparently, with his career wrecked but having been offered a job, his reputation as a reforming governor having so far preceded him, running a boys’ detention centre in Australia. So, at last, Terry had become reconciled to the fact that Agnes was lost, as completely as though by death.

  What he had most men would have envied. Kate, in a year, had grown even more beautiful. She was proud of being the wife of an M.P. and, the position giving her more confidence, she was more relaxed. She treated her girlfriends at work more warmly, making it clear that Terry’s new fame hadn’t changed her in the least. She supported him, listened admiringly to his maiden speech (on the uncontroversial subject of rural post offices) and helped type out his numerous letters when they were too much for his shared secretary. She watched over him as he became a year older, less anxious, more secure, with a small part of his ambition realized and a great deal still to be achieved. They never quarrelled, but fell asleep more quickly and made love rather less often.

  It was true that at first not many days, later not many weeks went by without Terry thinking of Agnes. It was as though he had been given a glimpse of another country, unexpected, extraordinary, anarchic and sometimes beautiful, which had suddenly been withdrawn from him, its borders closed and his visits clearly unwelcome. As time passed he almost forgot why his adventure with Agnes had ended, and his memories became more enjoyable, less infected by guilt. At moments he allowed himself to feel sorry for her because she had lost him, so it seemed, for good.

  The other character who had dominated the Hartscombe by-election had also withdrawn from Terry’s life. He
avoided Rapstone Manor, and his mobile phone no longer bleated to relay Lord Titmuss’s commands. During the general election in the spring after Terry’s autumn victory Titmuss was surprisingly absent. Was he on a book tour publicizing his memoirs which, serialized in a Sunday paper, did so much to undermine the then Prime Minister’s credibility? If so, his success was extraordinary. Terry doubled his majority and was swept back to power on a great wave on which so many young Labour researchers, Party activists and think-tank secretaries joyfully surfed.

  But by that time Terry was ahead of the game. He’d been noticed in the tearoom by Eric Feldman, the Shadow Home Secretary. ‘I remember you,’ he said. ‘Never forget a face. Fullerton, isn’t it?’

  ‘Flitton.’

  ‘Fallowfield constituency?’

  ‘Hartscombe and Worsfield South.’

  ‘That’s right! Photographic memory. Something I was born with. Bloody useful! Never forgot the price of Brussels sprouts, when I was brought up in a greengrocer’s shop. And I can tell you, if you can sell Brussels sprouts you can sell policies. You’ll be standing again at the general election?’

  ‘Yes,’ Terry said. ‘I’ll be standing.’

  ‘Think you’ll win?’

  ‘I’m sure of it.’

  ‘Good. Very good. If I remember your campaign, you talked a certain amount of good common sense about prisons.’

  ‘I’m glad you thought so.’ Terry didn’t attribute anything he said about penal matters to the inspiration of Lord Titmuss.

  ‘Bit short of ideas in the Shadow Home Office team,’ Eric Feldman had to confess. ‘Some of them seem to find prison an embarrassing subject, like death. I’d welcome a bloke with strong old-fashioned views on the subject. That’s what the voters like. Good dependable iceberg lettuce and none of your fancy rocket. Would you like to join the team? No extra money and precious little gratitude. What do you say?’

  Terry said, ‘I’d be delighted to do anything I can to help.’ But in spite of this he expected a reward.