Mrs Harris, MP

by Paul Gallico

  ‘Why, yes, Ada,’ he replied, ‘that I am. And I’m mighty proud of you as well. We’ll all be proud of you.’

  The strange Ada he had glimpsed for that instant was gone, and it was his old pal, Mrs Harris, who winked at him and said, ‘Gaw! Imagine, me in Parliament telling all them muckey-mucks what I think. Come on out, ducks, and let’s ’ave a drink on it.’

  He followed her and had a glass of bubbly pressed into his hand which he drank and then another, and a third to surround and contain his sorrow, or perhaps drown the sadness at the pit of his stomach. Clutching his glass his glance happened to light upon the man Smyce, whom Sir Wilmot had mentioned, standing off from the Committee, now thinned out, and regarding Mrs Harris with a look of implacable hatred and disgust. So that was the little swine appointed to keep Ada out of Parliament! This was the moment when the free spirit that lived inside the austere and dignified shell of John Bayswater leaped upon a white battle steed, unfurled a banner, raised a trumpet to his lips and blew the charge. If Mr Blimey-Blinking Smyce was there to see that Mrs Harris didn’t get in, he, John Bayswater, was equally there to see that she did.

  That night, late, when he reached his little flat in Bayswater, he sat down and in a fine, beautifully formed, old-fashioned hand, each character almost like a steel engraving, wrote two letters.

  His first was to Joel and Henrietta Schreiber in New York and read as follows:

  Dear Sir and Madam,

  I am taking the liberty of sending you this communication on behalf of our mutual friend, Mrs Ada Harris, who is unaware that I am doing so and trust that you will not advise her of same.

  She is in great trouble for she has accepted to stand here for Parliament in the forthcoming elections and the whole thing is a plot on the part of some rotten politicians I know of, who will not be mentioned on paper, but only for your ears. If you are able to be of any assistance to her should you by any chance be thinking of coming over for a visit this time of year?

  I would not take the trouble to inform you of this were I not aware of the high regard in which you hold Ada Harris in return for all that she done for you and little Henry, who I hope is enjoying good health as well as your good selves.

  Respectfully yrs,

  John Bayswater.

  P.S. Mrs Harris is standing for the constituency of East Battersea, nominated by the Centre Party, which doesn’t stand a ghost of a chance. East Battersea is strongly Labour. It will break her heart if she is not elected. J.B.

  The second letter, to the Marquis de Chassagne, French Ambassador to the United States of America in Washington, was somewhat more difficult and Bayswater destroyed a number of false starts before he finally launched into:

  Your Excellency,

  I hope you will not consider this letter an impertinence from one who left your employ to return home only with the greatest reluctance, having met with nothing but kindness and consideration at your hands.

  It is because of this kindness that I dare take pen in hand to inform you that our mutual friend, Mrs Ada Harris, is in difficulties again, this time not of her own doing, but because of a dastardly plot in high places seeking to make use of a poor woman for their own ends.

  She has been persuaded to stand for our Parliament as the candidate of the Centre Party, which is very poorly thought of here. The purpose is to cause a division of the Labour vote in Battersea which will enable the Tory candidate to win. But, of course, you will understand such things much better than I. Though I am a Conservative myself, I don’t hold with such tactics and hence I am writing to you as a man of the world in high places for advice concerning what might be done to assist Mrs Harris to be elected. She has no idea of politics, as indeed neither have I, but she has become a woman with a mission and those of us who appreciate her worth, like your good self, would not wish to see her come to harm.

  I hope the Rolls is still performing as it should and that the man I recommended to you is looking after her in a proper manner. Should he encounter any difficulty he is at liberty to communicate with me at this address, as I have memorized every part of her and might be able to be of assistance.

  Once more begging your indulgence and trusting this finds you in the best of health and spirits.

  Yr. ob’d’nt s’v’nt,

  John Bayswater.

  P.S. I need not say to one of your calling that mum’s the word. J.B.

  After he had written, sealed, and stamped these letters, he went out and posted them, though it was after one o’clock in the morning. Not until he heard their gentle slap as they dropped into the bottom of the pillar-box did he begin to feel a little easier.

  6

  It was Sunday afternoon at No. 5, Willis Gardens – Mrs Butterfield’s turn to visit with Mrs Harris, for they went to each other’s homes on alternate weeks. The two women were surrounded by the Sunday papers as well as those of Saturday morning and evening, which contained references to the candidacy of Ada Harris, charwoman, for the Parliamentary seat of East Battersea.

  The living-room was back to normal again, except that in a jug of water on the mantel reposed the huge corsage of orchids that had adorned Mrs Harris, now slightly wilted, but nevertheless a reminder of the great jollification that had taken place there. Mrs Harris was still racing along on Cloud Nine, but Mrs Butterfield’s rotund form was encompassed by considerable melancholy as she looked down at the newspapers scattered about, with the face of her friend looking up at her from several pages and said:

  ‘I suppose you’ll give notice to everyone now.’

  Mrs Harris looked surprised. ‘Who, me? Whatever for?’

  ‘Why, you’re a celebrity,’ replied Mrs Butterfield and pointed to the press stories which certainly endorsed this view with such headlines as: ‘CHARWOMAN TO CLEAN UP HOUSE OF COMMONS. New Kind of Broom Predicted For Parliament Sweep. Ada Harris, East Battersea Charlady Nominated By Young Centrists’, and another: ‘HOUSE DUE FOR OLD-FASHIONED SCRUBBING. Mrs Mop To Stand For East Battersea. Ada Harris Unfurls Her Duster With The Strange Device, “Live And Let Live”’. A third began its story: ‘Memories of another famous charwoman of London, Mrs Alice Burns, cleaner at Claridge’s, who became Mayoress of Bermondsey, were revived with the nomination of Mrs Harris, charlady to a fashionable Eaton Square clientele which includes Lady Dant, Sir Wilmot Corrison, Mr Alexander Hero and the Countess Wyszcinska, to stand for Parliament for East Battersea. At a celebration in her home held on Thursday, Mrs Harris declared that if successful she hoped to bring about considerable economic reforms.’ Another, over a large, two-column portrait of Mrs Harris, orchids and all, placed the caption, ‘BATTERSEA’S OWN’. Just behind Mrs Harris’s shoulder a third of Mrs Butterfield could be seen in the photograph.

  Ada Harris laughed, ‘What, me give up me work? For that? They ain’t got nothing better to print. Take the lot around to United Dairies and see ’ow many packets of tea, or pounds of butter they’ll buy.’

  ‘They’ll be having you on the telly next,’ Mrs Butterfield said. But she stated it gloomily as though the word ‘gaol’ might easily be substituted for ‘telly’.

  ‘Garn!’ said Mrs Harris. ‘What would they be wanting me on the telly for? At least, not yet. Anyway, Mr Smyce said the telly wouldn’t be good for me. And besides, it costs too much money and they weren’t going to put me on.’ Then she added, almost half wistfully, ‘I’d like to be on the telly sometime. Wouldn’t you, Vi?’

  ‘Me!’ cried Mrs Butterfield, ‘I’d be terrified!’ and then, almost incongruously added, ‘I didn’t like ’im at all.’

  ‘Didn’t like ’oo?’

  ‘The little one with the face like a hape. What was ’is name, Mice?’

  ‘Oh, ’im,’ said Mrs Harris. ‘ ’E’s all right.’

  ‘Then what was ’e always butting in for when the photographers were trying to take your picture and those reporter blokes were asking questions? ’E didn’t like the fuss they was making over you one bit. And a couple of times I saw the look
s ’e give you when you weren’t noticin’ and ’e didn’t like you, either.’

  ‘Go on, Vi!’ laughed Mrs Harris. ‘ ’E can’t help the face ’e was born with. None of us can. ’E’s the brains of the show. Experience. Mr Aldershot says ’e’s the best there is in the election business.’

  Mrs Butterfield sniffed and said, ‘Well, I’m keeping my heye on ’im.’

  Mrs Harris secured a pair of shears and set herself to the satisfying labour of separating her press cuttings from the rest of the editions. Her stout friend, who had seen her through other escapades which thriller writers might entitle The Adventure of the Dior Dress, and The Case of the Missing Father, gazed at her with mingled admiration, wonder and moroseness. For weeks and months and even years, Ada Harris would be content to live a quiet, ordinary life, doing her charring from morning until night, occasionally calling upon her, Mrs Butterfield, for help during an emergency, attending an occasional flick with her, or a night at the dog track. And then, suddenly, like the butterfly bursting from the chrysalis, she would be an entirely different creature off on some wild flight and the stout Violet would no longer know where she was at.

  This caper of getting herself elected to Parliament seemed to Mrs Butterfield to be the worst of all for her bones, which were always sensitive to forthcoming doom, were simply ringing with catastrophe, the nature of which she could not foresee. She trusted none of those connected with this business upon whom she had laid eyes so far. They were not ‘their kind’. Mrs Butterfield felt that she had got as far as she had in life, by sticking to her own.

  She did not understand really what Parliament, or even the Government, was about. They never impinged upon her life in any way. She earned her living in somewhat similar manner to Mrs Harris, except that she was an itinerant cook instead of a cleaning woman, and went out to do meals for people who either could not afford, or would not stomach, a permanent cook. And since she was invariably paid in cash, she was still innocent of any relationship with the tax man. Her life was deliciously simple, peaceful and uncomplicated. She could not see why her friend wanted to be stirring things up.

  ‘What will you do in Parliament, Ada?’ she asked plaintively.

  ‘Why, pass laws I suppose, and make speeches.’

  ‘What kind of laws?’

  ‘Why, to ’elp people. Us, for instance. You and me.’

  ‘I don’t need any laws,’ Mrs Butterfield stated.

  ‘Yes, you do,’ Mrs Harris asserted. ‘What would the country be like if there weren’t any laws? I’d go to make things better for all of us ’ere in the district; them as is out of work, or can’t earn enough to keep the wolf out of the attic.’

  ‘How would you pass laws?’ Mrs Butterfield insisted.

  This one gave Mrs Harris pause, for the fact was, now that for the first time the question was put to her directly, she hadn’t the slightest notion.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she temporized. ‘I suppose you start it off by making a speech saying what ought to be done. But I’ll soon find out. It can’t be so ’ard, or a lot of mugs whose pictures I’ve seen in the papers, like the Hon. Ronald Puckle, wouldn’t be there, would they?’

  One of the things that was really sorely troubling Mrs Butterfield, in addition to her premonitions, bubbled to the surface in a wail.

  ‘Oh, Ada! You’ll get so ’igh and mighty up there with all them smart nobs and all, I’ll be losing the best friend I ever ’ad!’

  ‘What? Me lose you as a friend, Vi? Never! No matter what! You know better.’ And at that the two women fell into one another’s arms and had what they were really needing after all the excitement, suspense and novelty of the past week, a good twosome cry.

  Charlie Smyce was commiserating with Henry Chatsworth-Taylor, no longer Centre candidate for East Battersea, in the lounge-bar of ‘The King’s Gentlemen’, the pub near Party Headquarters to which the members often repaired. The agent was thoroughly browned off as a result of the events of the past week and was in a bad mood and more surly and curdled than ever. Several whiskies with a beer chaser had served to make him additionally belligerent.

  ‘We don’t lift a finger for her,’ he said. ‘Not so much as a finger. He’ll find out, Sir Wilmot will, making us all look like a lot of bloomin’ mugs, putting up his charwoman for Parliament! He must have gone out of his mind. Well, it’s time he had a lesson. Not a finger!’

  Chatsworth-Taylor, who was himself somewhat fuzzy from drinks which he had imbibed out of sympathy for Smyce, said dubiously, ‘Oughtn’t we to help her for the sake of the Party? Sir Wilmot once said that in politics Party loyalty comes before family, country and God.’

  ‘Loyalty!’ echoed Smyce bitterly. ‘Who’s loyal to whom? After all I’ve done for him in this district. What’s he done for you? Killed off your career, that’s what he’s done. I’d have taken you right up to the top! Putting you off for a deluded old scarecrow!’

  The strange thing was that Smyce really believed this. The work-horse for the political drudgery, whose job it was to plan and direct the campaign of the district nominee, arrange for meetings, distribute handbills and get out the vote, had fixed up the wholly unlikely figure of Chatsworth-Taylor as a Potential Prime Minister.

  The latter was an owlish-looking young man with an overflowing reservoir of theories acquired at Oxford University, and a social presence that went with his tennis game. Attached to Chatsworth-Taylor’s coat-tails, Smyce saw himself elevated into the higher realms of power occupied by the Wilmot Corrisons. Now, without so much as a single consultation, or ‘What do you think, Smyce?’ his man had been swept aside.

  ‘I know what Sir Wilmot is up to,’ Smyce said, which was not surprising since Philip Aldershot had told him. ‘Split the Labour vote and let the Tories in. I’m going to spoil his pudding for him. I’ll see that he loses his deposit, that’s what.’

  Chatsworth-Taylor still looked doubtful. He said, ‘But won’t that get you into trouble? Sir Wilmot must know what he’s doing.’

  Smyce looked unbecomingly cunning. ‘He’ll never find out. I wouldn’t dare let him or he’d have my scalp. There are more ways of killing a candidate than you’ll find in any book.’

  ‘But if he thinks she can win this seat?’

  Smyce hit the table so that the glasses jumped. ‘My God, don’t be a ruddy foo …’ he caught himself just in time as he realized he was addressing the man he had visualized as the future Prime Minister of England. ‘I mean, I told you before, he never expected to get the old bag elected. He’s just up to one of his tricks. You’ve had a rotten deal. Are we going to stand for it?’

  Chatsworth-Taylor said, ‘I suppose not.’ But as a gentleman there yet remained doubts. ‘Still – if Sir Wilmot says …’

  ‘Look at it this way,’ said Smyce confidentially, ‘there’s no more chance of that woman getting elected than the man in the moon. Now that we’re out of the running, who would you prefer to have the seat? Labour or Tory?’

  One of the theories with which Chatsworth-Taylor was loaded was that if the Labour Party ever managed to shed its left wing of Communists and fellow-travellers, they along with the Liberals and the Centrists would get together in a smashing coalition. He replied, ‘Labour, of course.’

  ‘There you are,’ Smyce said triumphantly. ‘That’s just who’s going to get in here in East Battersea. Just you work along with me and we’ll put a spoke in Sir Too-Clever-Corrison’s wheel.’

  For the first time Chatsworth-Taylor shared some of Smyce’s self-pity and ordered another round of drinks to drown it. After all, his political career had been wrecked and of all things by an ignorant, uneducated charwoman who, from her speech, had probably not even survived secondary school. All in all it was a bad show.

  * * *

  The services of Bayswater were not required by Sir Wilmot on Sundays, thus permitting him to take the train to town late Saturday night to enjoy the solace of his own neat, respectable little flat and look after his wife.

&
nbsp; On this particular Sunday, having cosseted her, cared for her and tinkered with her all the morning – and a good part of the afternoon – he now sat with his coat and shoes off, feet up on the table, a briar pipe loaded and fired and with much pleasure re-read and cogitated over a cablegram and a letter which he had found awaiting him on his arrival home the night before.

  The ‘wife’ who had called for his personal attention was a 1936 Rolls-Royce, his own, and practically in mint condition from the loving care he lavished upon her. She was a proper one with huge, shining headlamps and a distinctive great bonnet, from the days before the designers had gone mad and submerged these features so that, except for the radiator and emblem at the prow, you could hardly tell a Rolls from any other machine. Bayswater had acquired her at almost a gift price from the original, grateful owner for whom he had driven and she was his love.

  Now, with her safely ensconced in his garage with not a speck of dust on her visible anywhere, her engine tuned to the same perfection as when first she had emerged from the factory twenty-eight years ago, Bayswater could return to the infinite satisfaction of the two missives he had received.

  The cablegram read:

  MRS SCHREIBER AND I FLYING OVER MONDAY SEVENTH STAYING SAVOY SUGGEST CONTACT US THERE STOP HOLD THE FORT BEST JOEL SCHREIBER.

  The crested note from the Marquis said:

  My dear Bayswater,

  I deeply appreciate your letter and its evidence of concern for Mrs Harris, which is no more than my own for the welfare of this sterling person. It so happens that I will be attending the Four-Power Ambassadors’ Conference in London the week of the 7th and suggest that you come to see me when convenient, either at the Embassy or my house in Chester Square.

  Yours sincerely,

  Chassagne.

  P.S. Have you notified the Schreibers?

  C.

  7