The Final Cut fu-3

by Michael Dobbs

  'Take a bit of strimming, too, I've no doubt.' Bollingbroke had decided to join what was evidently a glorious new summer sport.

  'Thank you, Arthur. A strimmer as well, Max. The whole bally production line we have created to keep the green spaces of our gracious city shorn and shaven – disrupted! Put out of gear. Ground to a halt. For your statue.'

  'Hardly my statue,' Stanbrook was mumbling, but already there was another player on the field.

  'Chief Secretary, what would be the cost of a small mower and strimmer, their storage and transportation from said storage about fifty times a year, plus an allowance for all the chaos to the maintenance schedule which is likely to ensue?' He made it sound as if the centre of London was sure to grind to a halt.

  'I'd say another ten thousand,' a youngish man with lips which operated like a goldfish pronounced. 'Minimum.' 'So that's ten, and ten, and twenty. Makes another forty thousand pounds, Max.' 'I'll tell the Society.'

  'Not just forty thousand pounds, Max. That's forty thousand pounds a year. We'll have to ensure that a fund is available to generate that sort of money for at least ten years, otherwise the taxpayer will end up footing the bill. We couldn't have that.'

  'Not when I'm just about to announce a freeze on nurses' pay,' the Health Secretary insisted jovially.

  'And where's the Chancellor of the Exchequer? His Prime Minister wants him. Ah, Jim, don't be bashful.'

  The Chancellor was thrust by many willing hands from seclusion at the rear of the assembly amidst a chorus of laughter.

  'Chancellor. A fund sufficient to generate forty thousand pounds a year for a minimum of ten years. How much are we talking about?'

  Jim Barfield, a rotund Pickwickian figure with a shock of hair which made him look as though his brains had exploded, scratched his waistcoat and sucked his lower lip. 'Not used to thousands. Throw a few noughts on the end and I'd have no trouble but…' He scratched once more. 'Let's say a quarter of a million. Just between friends.'

  'Mr Stanbrook, has the Society got a quarter of a million pounds? In addition to the eighty for casting said statue?'

  Stanbrook, not knowing whether to laugh along with the rest, to fall to his knees and kiss the grass or to crawl away in humiliation, simply hung his head. 'No graven images!' a voice from the west flank of Whitehall insisted. The others applauded. 'Then it is with much regret…'

  He had no need to finish. The Cabinet to a man, even Stanbrook, applauded as if on the green trimmed sward of Westminster they had been watching one of the finest conjuring tricks of the decade. Which, perhaps, they had.

  He felt good. He had shown he was still the greatest actor of the age, it had been as important to remind himself as to remind the others. His view had been salvaged, the past exorcized. Now to exorcize the future. Claire ran into him as she was scurrying out of the House of Commons Library. She was clutching papers and he had to reach out to prevent her from toppling. 'Hi, stranger.'

  'Hello to you.' The voice was soft, the old chemistry still at work. Reluctantly Makepeace withdrew his supporting arm and let her go. 'Running errands for the boss?' he enquired, indicating the papers and regretting it immediately. Urquhart had already come too much between them.

  'Would it seem silly if I suggested I'd missed you? I've thought about you a lot.'

  'I'm sure that's true,' he retorted, hurt male pride adding a sharper edge than he'd intended. 'I suppose coming from an acolyte of Urquhart I should take such attention as a compliment.'

  She searched for his eyes but they remained elusive, darting along the corridor, falling at his feet, unwilling to allow her to inspect the wounds she had inflicted on him. He was acting more like a secret and bashful lover than when they'd shared something to be secretive about.

  'I'd like to think that we could still be friends,' she offered, and marvelled immediately at her own hypocrisy. She meant it; she retained a strong sense of affection and respect for him, a man with whom she had shared so much. Yet she was also the woman who was trying to bring him to his knees. For the first time she began to be aware of how far she had moved, had strayed perhaps, from her own image of herself. She'd become two people, political animal as well as woman, in two worlds, one black, the other white, and the dark world where she stood in the shadow of Francis Urquhart was tugging her away from her roots and those she had loved.

  'Claire, there are only two sides in this place right now. Those who stand with him, and those who don't. There's no room in the middle anymore.'

  A colleague passed by and they both stood in embarrassed silence as though their past secrets had been betrayed to the evening press.

  'I've not sold out' she began again, anxious to reassure herself as much as him.

  Disdain sharpened his eye. 'Spare me that sweet talk about means and ends, Claire. Like curdled milk, I'll only swallow it once. With him, there is but one end. Francis Urquhart. And any means will do. Face up to it. You've sold out.'

  'I wasn't born to all this like you, Tom. I've had to fight and scratch for every little thing I've achieved in this place. I've taken all the jibes, the patronizing, the gropers, the men who preach equality yet only practise it when they go a Dutch treat for dinner. Perhaps you can afford to, but no way am I going to pack up and walk away at the first sign of trouble.' 'I haven't walked away. Not from my principles.'

  'Great. You preach, and in the meantime Big Mac wrappers will inherit the Earth. We both have our ideals, Tom. Difference between us is that I'm prepared to do something about them, to take the knocks in pursuing them, not simply sit on the sidelines and jeer.' 'I'm not sitting on the sidelines.' 'You ran off the bloody pitch!'

  'There are some games I simply don't want to play.' His tone implied that in politics, at least, she was nothing more than a tart.

  'You know, Tom Makepeace, you were a better man in bed. At least there you knew what the hell to do.' She didn't mean it, was covering up for her own pain, but she'd always had a tendency to a phrase too far and this one tore across their respect like a nail across silk.

  She knew she'd cut him and watched miserably as a bestockinged messenger handed Makepeace an envelope bearing a familiar crest. As he wrenched it open and read she began to frame an apology but when his eyes came up once more, inflamed no longer with wounded pride but unadulterated contempt, something told her it was already too late.

  'Those who stand with him, Claire. And those who don't.'

  He turned on his heel and strode away from the ruins of their friendship.

  10 Downing Street Dear Thomas, I am replying to your recent letter. I have nothing to add to the reply I gave in the House last week, or to the policy adopted by successive Governments that security considerations prevent such matters being discussed in detail. Yours sincerely, Francis It had been couched in terms intended to offend. His name had been typed, not handwritten; the dismissal of his request was as abrupt as was possible for an experienced parliamentarian to devise. Perhaps he should be grateful, at least, that the letter had dispensed with the hypocrisy of the traditional endearment between party colleagues which suggested that the author might be 'Yours ever'. As Makepeace entered the Chamber, the letter protruding like a week-old newspaper from his clenched hand, he trembled with a sense of his own inadequacy. There was a time, only days gone by, when a word from him would have had the System producing documents and reports by the red box load; now he couldn't raise more than a passing insult.

  Claire, too, had made a fool of him – not simply because he'd said things in a clumsy manner he'd not intended, but because he hadn't realized how much of his affections she continued to command, in spite of Maria. He should know better, have more control, yet she'd left him feeling like a schoolboy.

  If he was flushed with frustration as he sat down to listen to the debate on the European Union Directive (Harmonization of Staff Emoluments), within moments his resentment had soared like a hawk over Saudi skies. The House was packed, the Prime Minister in his seat with Bollingbroke at
the Dispatch Box, holding forth on matters diplomatique with the restraint and forbearance of a bricklayer approaching payday.

  'Emoluments!' he pronounced with vernacular relish. 'Wish I 'ad some of them there Emoluments. It says in this Sunday newspaper' – he waved a copy high above his head – 'that apparently one of the Commissioners took a personal interpreter with him on a ten-day visit he made recently to Japan. By some oversight, 'owever, the young lady turned out to be qualified only in Icelandic and Russian.' He shrugged as though confronted with a problem of insurmountable complexity. 'Well, I dunno, they probably all sound the same and I'm sure she had her uses. But it's a bit much when they come back and start asking for more.' Mixed shouts of encouragement and objection were issuing from all sides when, in a stage whisper which everyone in the Chamber (with the exception of the scribe from Hansard) had no trouble in hearing, he added: 'Wonder if I could get it on expenses?'

  The debate was rapidly turning into music hall, much to the annoyance of several members of the Opposition who attempted to intervene, but Bollingbroke, as though standing defiant watch from the cliffs of Dover, refused to give way.

  'And for what purpose are we being asked to pay the good burghers of Brussels more, Mr Speaker?' he demanded, waving down several who wanted to offer an answer. 'I'll tell you. One of their latest plans is to issue a standard history of Europe which can be used in all our schools. Sort of… give our kids a common perspective. Bring them together.'

  Several members of the Opposition Front Bench were nodding their heads in approval. They should have known better.

  'A visionary epistle. Apparently, the Germans never invaded Poland, the Italians never retreated, the French never surrendered and we never won the war.'

  Pandemonium had erupted in every comer of the Chamber, the noise being so great that it was impossible to tell who was shouting in support and who in condemnation of the Foreign Secretary. But Makepeace had sprung to his feet, the flush on his face indicating beyond doubt the depths of his outrage. Bollingbroke, always willing to plumb such depths, gave way.

  'In all my years in this House I have never heard such an ill-tempered and bellicose performance by a Foreign Secretary,' Makepeace began. 'When all the rest of Europe is looking for a common way forward, he seems intent on acting like an obstinate child. And his Prime Minister, who likes to pretend he is a statesman, sits beside him and cheers him on…'

  Makepeace had become confused with his targets. In the seat beside Bollingbroke, Urquhart was chatting with Claire, who was leaning down from her guard post in the row behind to whisper something in his ear. From where Makepeace stood, it looked almost like an affectionate nuzzle. His sense of personal betrayal grew.

  'When the rest of Europe is as one, for God's sake shouldn't we be joining with them rather than scratching over old wars?'

  'In my Dad's day they called that appeasement,' Bollingbroke shouted, but did not attempt to reclaim the floor; he was enjoying the sight of Makepeace being wound tight like a spring.

  'This Government is picking foreign quarrels for the sole purpose of covering its failures at home. It has lost all moral authority to continue in office…'

  Nearby, Annita Burke was nodding her head in approval, urging him on, while several others around her were also trying to listen, their heads inclined in sympathy rather than joining the general commotion. Through it all, Bollingbroke could be heard scoffing: 'So he's found morality since he was kicked out of office, has he? Convenient.'

  'As the bishops themselves have recently said in General Synod, this country needs a change in direction and a new sense of moral leadership – a leadership which this Government and this Prime Minister doesn't even attempt to provide.'

  That was enough for Bollingbroke, who sprang to his feet and started thumping the Dispatch Box. 'What have you achieved compared with Francis Urquhart?' he was shouting. 'Compared with him you're like a pork-scratching on a pig farm. Francis Urquhart has brought prosperity to this country, peace to Cyprus…'

  The mention of Cyprus arrived like a slap across the face to Makepeace. It seemed to have galvanized Urquhart, too, who was tugging at the sleeve of his Foreign Secretary. Bollingbroke, startled at this unusual intervention from his Prime Minister, subsided into his seat, his place at the Dispatch Box taken by Urquhart. The House fell to silence, fascinated to catch the next turn of the carousel.

  Urquhart cleared his throat. 'I hate to interrupt my Right Honourable Friend – I was rather enjoying his contribution – but all this talk about morality, and bishops. So muddled and misleading. You know, Mr Speaker, I find it extraordinary that those who spend so much time warning about the dire consequences of wrong-doing in the afterlife are often so silent about it in this life. Turn the other cheek, they suggest.' He sighed. 'But if that's the self-appointed role adopted by the bishops, that cannot be the role for Government – at least not my Government. Our job is not to forgive those who have done wrong. Our job is to protect those who haven't.'

  If Makepeace had thrown down the gauntlet of morality, Urquhart seemed intent on retrieving it and using it as an offensive weapon.

  'Don't misunderstand me, I have a high regard for the contribution made to the success of my Government by the Right Honourable Gentleman while he was a member of it…' He offered a slow smile soaked in derision. 'Although I don't recall sitting round the Cabinet table hearing him expound on how we were making such a mess of things. Not until I sacked him. But loss of office can have such a distorting effect on a man's perspective and memory.' The gauntlet struck again. Slap!

  'I don't doubt the sincerity of his personal values, but I do find them odd. Odd when he says we must do this or that, simply because the bishops say so. Even more extraordinary that we should follow this or that course of action because the rest of Europe says so. Where's the morality in that? In secondhand opinions which follow the herd like dogs follow a dust cart?' Slap.

  'Morality is about deciding for yourself what's right. Then doing something about it. Let me have around me men of action, not moralizers with empty words. I've nothing but scorn for those' – Urquhart's eyes lashed in the direction of his former colleague – 'who sit back and carp at the efforts of others. Who descend from their high moral vantage points after the battle is over and tell the wounded and dying how they got it wrong…'

  Makepeace tried not to flinch, but inside he hurt. Claire's taunt still echoed in his ears – sitting on the sidelines, she'd accused – and now this. They were out to humble him, together. He looked around him as the blows rained down. Those he regarded as supporters were shifting uncomfortably in their places while Annita's expression urged him on – do something! He rose to his feet, asking for the floor.

  'No, no,' Urquhart slapped him down. 'I've heard enough theology from him to last me a good long while.'

  Makepeace held his ground, demanding to be heard, his clenched hand raised – it still gripped Urquhart's letter – while Urquhart loyalists were jeering, shouting at him to resume his place. Slap, slap, slap! Makepeace stood alone, defying the blows, but was he simply to stand there – doing nothing, as Urquhart had taunted – allowing himself to be gouged and mauled? Annita's eyes brimmed with sorrow as his own brimmed with the injustice of it all.

  'Since he lost office,' Urquhart was saying, 'his attitude has become so critical, so negative, so personally embittered and destructive that I sometimes wonder what he's doing in the same great party as me.'

  SLAP!

  So there it was. The public challenge. He had no choice but to respond. All around him those with whom he had discussed and conspired were examining him, wondering whether he was up to the duel. Makepeace against Urquhart. He knew that if he ducked the challenge at this moment it would be all but impossible to persuade some of the conspirators to join with him at a later time. Yet it was too soon, too early, he wasn't fully prepared. Don't be too impatient, emotional, Annita had warned… but even eagles must fly with the wind. And if he played the politi
cian then he had also been born a man, and that man was hurting inside, his cheeks smarting, his thoughts misted by a dark and deepening fury which demanded satisfaction.

  Satisfaction. For the humiliations delivered publicly on the floor of the House. Satisfaction for the insults delivered more privately in the letter in his hand. Satisfaction for denying Maria and her father. And for stealing away Claire. Satisfaction for it all. Now!

  From his position on the benches three rows up, Makepeace stepped sideways into the gangway. Was he running away? The prospect brought the House to instant and observant silence. He stepped down towards the floor of the great Chamber, to the red lines drawn on the carpet which separated Government side from opponents by the measure of two swords, the boundary between friend and unremitting foe. Then he stepped across. Not a heart beat anywhere, not a sound to be heard, a Chamber so packed with emotion yet as though frozen. They watched as Makepeace mounted the steps through the benches of Opposition, one, two, three rows, and took a vacant seat.

  The House exhaled with a single breath as life returned and tumult was restored. They had witnessed a slice of parliamentary life so rare it would fill their chronicles and be retold to grandchildren around the fire. Makepeace had crossed the floor, abandoned his party, torn up the rule book and declared war on Urquhart, to the last breath.

  Yet as he looked across the Chamber to the benches from which he had fought for so many years, Makepeace thought he saw the shadow of a faint, fugitive smile cross Francis Urquhart's lips. The eye of an inhospitable Levantine sun stared down upon the Cypriot capital, baking the narrow streets of the central city like bricks in a kiln. Hugh Martin was relieved to reach the air-conditioned sanctuary of the Power House, a former electricity generating station which had been turned with considerable imagination into one of the old quarter's most exclusive restaurants. Works of fine contemporary art competed with menus and wine lists for the attention of the well-heeled clientele, one of whom, Dino Nicolaides, was editor of the Cyprus Weekly and intent on conducting an in-depth interview with his guest. For that purpose he had commandeered the seclusion of the table by the door which led to the rear courtyard.