Mrs Harris, MP

by Paul Gallico

  Mrs Butterfield did not even know whereof she spake when she had ventured that her friend had become a celebrity now. Super, super celebrity was more like it and one of those fantastic, overnight rises to fame in which the victim is almost devoured alive by the hordes.

  The Schreibers, the Marquis and Bayswater watched the phenomenon with awe, mingled, as far as the Ambassador was concerned, with considerable apprehension. His son-in-law had gone a bit further than he would himself have dared. The Schreibers were feeling frustrated that they had succeeded in planting Mrs Harris on only one of their television shows, not realizing that it had more than done the trick. Bayswater was wishing that the Marquis, if he was at the bottom of this, had been slightly less astringent in his remarks about his friend’s qualifications. For a confirmed bachelor, Bayswater had suddenly acquired some very tender spots on his hide where Mrs Harris was concerned and he did not wish her hurt, or even bruised in any way. He feared that the reference to her illiteracy might be wounding.

  He need not have worried for, on the contrary, Mrs Harris took it almost as a compliment that, in spite of her lack of schooling, she was about to be placed upon the same footing and at the same starting point as all of Britain’s political geniuses of modern times.

  Less delighted with the sudden and astonishing turn of events was Sir Wilmot Corrison, now beginning to convalesce from the vindictive virus that had attacked him. In spite of doctor’s orders that he was to have complete rest and refrain from any of his usual activities, his sick-room was violently penetrated by the hubbub created by the candidacy of Mrs Harris and the dastardly attack upon her from across the Channel.

  He was able to get on the telephone to Charles Smyce and demanded to know what was going on and why his orders to conduct no more of a campaign than would see the Labour vote split had been disobeyed.

  ‘I can’t say, sir,’ Smyce replied. ‘I thought you were doing it.’

  ‘Me doing it?’ cried Sir Wilmot indignantly. ‘I’ve been lying here at death’s door! You had your orders.’

  ‘Well, I figured it must have been you sent your chauffeur around ringing doorbells every night, him and a lot of his pals.’

  ‘My chauffeur? Are you out of your mind?’

  ‘Fellow by the name of Bayswater. They’re mucking up the Conservative vote.’

  ‘Well, stop it!’ Sir Wilmot commanded.

  ‘What can I do?’ said Charlie Smyce. ‘He’s your chauffeur.’

  Sir Wilmot was so bewildered by this bit of intelligence that he overlooked the impertinence of his henchman and said, ‘What are these TV appearances? I told you to keep her off television.’

  ‘Not my doing, sir.’

  ‘I suppose,’ said Sir Wilmot, ‘that’s my chauffeur too.’

  ‘No, sir,’ said Smyce. ‘But I made inquiries. It’s some American fellow who’s behind it all. Came over here and had her invited on to that programme. Nothing we could do to keep her off. He owns the show.’

  ‘An American?’ cried Sir Wilmot. ‘Who? What’s his name? What’s he meddling for?’

  ‘I couldn’t say, sir. Some television big-wig. Name of Schreiber.’

  ‘See here, Smyce, I don’t care what or who, all this has got to stop.’

  Mr Smyce was unable to keep the satisfaction out of his voice. ‘Sorry, sir, but I’m afraid it’s got out of hand. I hardly ever see the person any more. She’s that taken up.’

  Sir Wilmot replaced the receiver just as the nurse came into the room, took one look and scolded, ‘Why, whatever have you been doing, Sir Wilmot? Look at your colour! And you’re all clammy and cold.’

  He was indeed, for out of his talk with his agent had grown a most unhappy sensation of forces unknown suddenly arrayed against him: his own chauffeur, an American fellow he had never heard of and finally this strange attack in the French newspaper that was almost too pat and exquisitely timed to be coincidental. He was filled with a sense of impending and unavoidable catastrophe.

  As familiar, now, as was the face and figure of Mrs Harris, her slogan of ‘Live and Let Live’ was on everyone’s lips and her philosophy seemed suddenly to hold out hope, not only for East and West Battersea, and the neighbouring constituencies of Clapham, Tooting, Balham, Wandsworth and Bermondsey as well, but the entire world which was badly in need of some kind of headache powder even though it might turn out to be a placebo. Almost everyone was aware that these things would not work, but it was lovely to dream. Overnight Mrs Harris became the candidate from Utopia.

  She blithely put forward such simple syllogisms as: ‘Communists are dirty and unwashed; the Aldermaston Ban-the-Bomb marchers are unwashed, grimy and filthy; therefore Ban-the-Bombers are Communists.’ And the next day it would be on everyone’s lips.

  Few, of course, really believed such naïve oversimplifications, but they fell soothingly upon the ear and by and large did seem to cover, for instance, much of the trash that came oozing out from under flat stones on Aldermaston Weekend, to centre their forces on Britain’s ruin.

  Any other woman would have collapsed under the routine now enforced upon Mrs Harris and the pressures that were being applied to win even a few minutes of her time and presence. But to a genuine London char, inured to beginning her labours at seven o’clock in the morning and continuing on for thirteen consecutive hours on a round of cleaning, scrubbing, polishing, mopping, dusting, dishwashing, moving furniture about, crawling under beds, climbing up ladders to get at corners in the ceiling, this was practically a holiday. Besides which, for all of her frail appearance, Mrs Harris was constructed of alternating layers of steel and leather.

  And so the various campaigns approached their ends as election day drew nigh, and in East Batter-sea, in particular, Mrs Harris’s ground to its foregone conclusion.

  Three days before the people of Britain flocked to the polls to make known their sovereign will, the Marquis de Chassagne, about to resume his post in Washington, received an unsigned cable from Paris which sent shudders down his spine. It said merely:

  SHALL YOU BE NEEDING ANOTHER DOSE MON

  BEAUPERE?

  To which he replied, equally unsigned:

  HEAVENS NO NOT UNLESS WE ARE PREPARED FOR WAR.

  Election day came and went and at its end there was no question but that the Centre candidate, Mrs Ada Harris, had scored the most smashing victory in the annals of local politics. Her majority was overwhelming.

  * * *

  Another of the astonishing results in the election emerged from the Cotswold constituency of Fairford Cross where, for the first time in the memory of man, the Labour candidate, Bill Badger, was returned by a majority of sixteen hundred votes.

  Local pundits explained that the voters, disgruntled with both the Conservative candidate who was unpopular as well as the Centre nominee, who had managed to drop a number of bricks during the campaign, suddenly remembered that Badger, nicknamed Uncle Bill, had been known to them and loved by all since their own childhood. From his chemist’s shop, he had dispensed liquorice balls with every prescription he filled for young runners of errands, free medical advice, free samples of soaps and nostrums, free advice to the love-lorn, bandaging of minor cuts and removal of cinders from eyes. With a rush of belated and nostalgic affection they had voted him into office.

  From the society columns of The Times and the Daily Telegraph the day after the election:

  ‘Sir Wilmot and Lady Corrison have left in their yacht Idris II for an extended cruise in southern waters. No letters will be forwarded.’

  Passengers leaving by BOAC jet liner, Flight No. 103 at 22.10 hours from London to New York, included Lord and Lady Rede, the Maharanee of Jawalpur, atomic scientist Vladimir Vulk and Mr and Mrs Joel Schreiber of Intercontinental Television.

  The celebration at Centre Party Headquarters of East Battersea, of the election to Parliament of their candidate, Mrs Ada Harris, was the longest and the greatest in its history. Not there to congratulate the winner were Messrs Charles Smyce a
nd Chatsworth-Taylor, Sir Wilmot Corrison and Mr Philip Aldershot. Present in full regalia were some eighteen Rolls-Royce chauffeurs, as well as practically everybody else in the district. Even Mrs Butterfield for the first time in her life surrendered to euphoria.

  And strange to say the one person who was not entirely happy now that he had succeeded and who was forced to cover a deep-down apprehension that he was unable to identify, was John Bayswater.

  11

  And as quickly and swiftly as Ada Harris had streaked across the political firmament, as rapidly did she vanish from the scene, indeed, greatly resembling the meteor itself which is seen as a brilliant flash of fire in the night sky, until upon entering the earth’s atmosphere the spark dies away and vanishes.

  Mrs Harris was still a two-day wonder, following upon her election with newspaper interviews, photographs and television appearances. Britain had thrown the challenge of those foreigners from across the Channel back into their teeth and provided a lesson in democracy by electing a sturdy but uneducated charwoman to a seat in the House of Commons. But thereafter she was dropped. The story was over.

  To have been a continuing celebrity in the public eye over a period and then suddenly to vanish from the press is a good deal like having a chair pulled out from under one. One lands on one’s bottom with a solid thump, more surprised and indignant than hurt. It was well that Mrs Harris had the twelve days between the election results and the convening of Parliament to get her bearings again.

  The swiftness of her disappearance from the limelight had left her not so much piqued as confused. Vanity had never been a part of her problems and no one who had been as avid a reader of the sensational press as Ada Harris in her lifetime could fail to be aware of its fickleness. Her confusion consisted of not knowing what to do. For since the moment that events had taken over and her campaign hit flood-tide, everything had been done for her: appointments accepted, schedules made out, details attended to and transportation provided.

  But this had all been the volunteer staff who, now that their mission had been accomplished and the celebration was over, melted away, leaving Centre Party Headquarters in Battersea bare, its gloomy corridors echoing hollowly to her footsteps and the only offices in operation being those of the permanent secretary and Charlie Smyce. The latter was not about, having treated himself to a holiday to recuperate from the nerve strain of the debacle.

  Mrs Harris would have wished to consult Philip Aldershot as to her next moves, but this gentleman was likewise strangely unavailable.

  At that time Mrs Harris, of course, had no inkling of the plot that had failed and the sulphurous smoke that was still boiling up out of the cauldron in certain places. With Sir Wilmot having fled ignominiously into limbo, Aldershot was left to bear the brunt of the fury of Hugh Coates and whatever trouble he would be able to cook up in his thirst for vengeance. Thus he did not want to see his new fellow Member of Parliament, come anywhere near her, or even hear about her. The anticlimax of it all might well have shattered a person of greater nerve and courage than Mrs Harris.

  ‘What am I supposed to do?’ she asked of the secretary of the East Battersea Centre Association who at that time was a twenty-two-year-old, underpaid, shorthand typist who was just able to say, ‘East Battersea Centre Association’ on the telephone line, but if the conversation continued much further or questions were asked found herself floundering.

  ‘I don’t know, I’m sure,’ she replied. ‘No one’s told me anything. I think you just sort of go.’ A flicker of light momentarily passed over otherwise unilluminated features when she said, ‘They ought to know who you are after all that fuss.’

  ‘But where do I go?’ Mrs Harris asked.

  ‘I wouldn’t know that,’ said the secretary. ‘Mr Smyce is away. He knows all those things. Parliament, I guess.’

  Mrs Harris said, ‘Clever girl! I suppose it’s just that. Well, we’ll ’ave a bash.’ And she went away.

  But the lightness of her words belied her feelings which were filled with the beginnings of foreboding. She did not like wandering about in the dark. She wished her friend the Marquis de Chassagne were there, for he might have advised her and had he been in London she would not have hesitated to ask. None of her current clients, with the exception of the vanished Sir Wilmot, was connected with politics, or Government, and so there was no help to be looked for from that quarter.

  Indeed, even these in the following days were becoming ex-clients. They were proud to have had so famous a charlady as Mrs Harris in their employ, but as she came to each of them in turn, they said in one way or another, ‘Of course, you won’t be wanting to work for us any longer now that you’re a Member of Parliament. But I wonder whether you know anyone you could recommend? I don’t know how we shall get along without you.’

  One of them, the Countess Wyszcinska, who being a foreigner naturally kept more up to date on current affairs in the country of her adoption than the British themselves, added, ‘I understand Parliament is opening on the 23rd. That’s still a week away. Would it be awful if I asked you to stay with me until then? I’m closing the flat and going to America for a few months.’

  Mrs Harris was more than delighted to oblige. It was still a link between the old life she had lived and the one upon which she was about to embark.

  The hours and days would not stand still; Ada Harris found them unreeling even more swiftly than any film in a cinema. The day of the 23rd arrived and thereafter she found herself caught up in all of the ceremonial majesty of British government tradition; not to mention the red tape which tangles the newcomer.

  For when she presented herself at the entrance to the House of Commons that was swallowing up its members, old and new, a blue uniformed guardian inquired: ‘Now where would you be wanting to go, Madam?’

  ‘To me seat,’ replied Mrs Harris. ‘I’ve been elected.’

  And at this point she discovered that it was almost less complicated to win a seat than to gain entrance to occupy it.

  ‘’Ave you your election certificate with you?’

  ‘Wot’s that? I’m in. Don’t you read the pypers?’

  ‘That may be, ma’am, but you don’t get by ’ere without proper documents.’

  ‘Where do I get them? Nobody’s told me.’

  ‘Clerk of the Crown. ’Is office is in the House of Lords. Bit late, aren’t you? Could you stand aside, please, and let the others through.’

  It was another long search for the proper entrance and another tussle with a uniform whose inhabitant was cast from the same mould: ‘Who would you be looking for, ma’am?’

  ‘The Clerk of the Crown, wherever ’e is …’

  The guardian recognized the speech and the breed. ‘Whatever would you be wanting to see the Clerk of the Crown for, ducks?’

  Mrs Harris’s temper was beginning to fray around the edges. ‘To ask for me vaccination certificate, you big clot. I’m Ada Harris, elected to Parliament from Battersea and I wants me pypers that says so.’

  ‘’Ullo, ’ullo,’ said the guardian, suddenly awakening. ‘So you are. I’ve seen yer pitchers in the papers. ’Ere, you’d never find ’im in all this maze. I’ll just go along with you and show you where.’

  He put another man to the door and with more confidence she trotted along at his side. He remained there while the Clerk of the Crown looking through a vast sheaf of papers found the attested writ from the Returning Officer of Battersea, smiled and issued her certificate of election.

  ‘Now you just ’and that to the chap at the door of Commons and don’t take any lip from ’im,’ the guardian said. ‘I’m sorry I was rude, ma’am, and good luck to you.’

  There wasn’t any lip from the first policeman now that she had proper identification and thereafter she had been swept up into the current, swimming alongside the others, doing as they did and becoming for the first time in her life a participant instead of merely a spectator of ancient pageantry.

  Yet what seemed to be miles of the s
hadowy corridors of Westminster Palace with hundreds of rooms opening off from them, innumerable staircases, the musty smell of age, the bustle, the noise, the shuffling of feet, the greetings and congratulations exchanged between old friends and veteran members who had been returned, was already beginning to instil her with new apprehension.

  The impressive mahogany panelled chamber where the house met, only sixty-eight feet long, and not sufficiently large to seat all of its members at one time, filled her with awe. History and all of the tremendous things that had happened there hung thickly about the place. Would she ever be able to find her way around? It was all so different from what she had expected or imagined.

  She was thrilled to her core and deeply moved when the House of Commons was summoned into the House of Lords for their traditional, once-only joint meeting there for the State Opening of Parliament to listen to the Queen deliver her speech from the throne.

  She felt an exaltation that was almost religious and was swept away by the invocations and sonorous ritual and all the pomp and glitter of Heralds and Pursuivants, archbishops, bishops and judges in their gorgeous robes, the sparkle of diamonds from the tiaras of exquisitely gowned peeresses, the uniforms and glittering medals of the diplomatic corps. And there was she in the very midst of it all. She could not resist one, small, understandable moment of triumph in the reflection: Whoever would have thought to find Ada Harris of Battersea, scrubber of floors and emptier of ashtrays, a part of such a magnificent gathering?

  When in a blaze of glorious light the Queen was revealed on the throne she appeared so small and delicate, almost lost beneath the weight of the crown, the ceremonial garments and the long, flowing velvet train as she looked down so bravely upon the glittering multitude of peers in their ermines, resplendent dignitaries in uniforms, high officials in wigs and robes, that Mrs Harris was moved to tears. And during that preliminary rustle-into-silence of the twin houses waiting for Her Majesty to speak she could not contain a cry – ‘Lor’ love yer! Ain’t she the most beautiful fing yer ever laid yer eyes on?’