The Final Cut fu-3

by Michael Dobbs

  The Colonel nodded and reached forward as though to help Nicolaou rise. Elpida waved him away.

  'No, thank you, Colonel. If he can, I would like my father to walk back to his fellow Cypriots without leaning on a British arm.'

  'I do feel stronger somehow,' her father acknowledged.

  'Why do you think I have been kicking you so hard, Baba7.' she asked, kissing him gently. 'You always become so stubborn when you get angry.'

  As she helped her father down from the truck she turned to St Aubyn. 'I did mean what I said, Colonel. That you will always be welcome in my house. As a friend.'

  It was twilight. The candles flickered, the gentle song of a Cypriot schoolgirl quavered on the evening air as the final colours of purple and fire stretched out along the horizon like fingers drawing on the curtain of night. Leaning heavily on the arm of his daughter, the President of Cyprus turned his back on the British and walked the fifty yards to rejoin his countrymen. The new glass and front door had arrived that morning. A tax demand, too, along with an invitation to arrange a meeting with a VAT inspector. 'Vangelis'' was ready to resume business and already the wolves were circling, drawing nearer.

  He felt hounded in every direction he looked. On television he had watched the scenes of Makepeace rejoicing outside the magistrates' court, raising his hands high above his head as though still manacled, receiving the same sign back from the spilling crowd and accepting their adulation and fervent endorsement. The victor. An Englishman who, so far as Passolides knew, had never set foot in Cyprus was now treated as his homeland's saviour. Honour built on the sacrifices of others. Sacrifices, thought Passolides, like his own.

  The screen showed scenes of rejoicing from the island itself, too, as old men, gnarled and bent double like ancient olive trees, danced with young girls and waved rifles and flasks like some scene out of Zorba in celebration of the defection and deliverance of Nicolaou.

  Everywhere he saw the happiness of others, but Passolides had no part in the joy. These should have been his victories, his accomplishments, yet once again as throughout his life he had found himself excluded.

  And the crown-encrusted envelopes of officialdom sat on the table before him. They were pursuing him, the agents of British imperialism, as they had done all those years ago, into his every hiding place, leaving him no sanctuary.

  Inside he writhed like a worm cleft by a spade, a dew of despair settled upon his eyes, his mind blanked by bitterness. With a great cry of despair he lashed out, throwing the bottle from which he was drinking at the Satan's eye of a television screen. The bottle bounced off, hit the new window. Something cracked. But Vangelis didn't care any more. Urquhart had watched those same newscasts as Passolides, his sense of despair equally profound. He had watched the clasped hands of Makepeace rise above his head, then fall, and rise, and fall again. To Urquhart it was as though Makepeace were clutching the haft of a dagger and he could feel the assassin's blade striking time and again into his own body. In Makepeace's triumph lay his own doom. It was late; he had summoned Corder. 'Still here?' 'Thought you might need some company.'

  'Kind. You're a good man, Corder. Good man.' A pause. 'I've got something for you.'

  Corder listened attentively, studying the Prime Minister all the while. Urquhart's stiff expression belonged in an abattoir, his voice strangely monotone, his reflexes mechanical. A man changed, or changing, struggling to hide the despair.

  When Urquhart had finished, Corder could find only one word. 'Why?' He had never questioned an instruction before.

  Urquhart's voice was no louder than a hoarse whisper, he seemed almost to choke on every word. 'I have just given the order for the convoy in Cyprus to surrender; I have no option. To accept defeat is offensive to every bone in my body. It will kill me, Corder, they will flay me alive and demand my head on a pike. Somehow I must fight on, in any way I can.' 'But why this way?'

  'Please, don't ask me, Corder; I'm not even sure myself. Perhaps because it is all I have left.' The impact was catastrophic, utterly irresistible. Yet, like a dam which had held back the rising flood waters until it could no longer resist, the first visible cracks took some hours to appear. The news of the final humiliation, the announcement that St Aubyn's men had set aside their weapons in order to engage in 'unconditional discussions' with the Cypriots, came too late for the morning newspapers, and the TV images of the surrender shot through night lenses that appeared on breakfast news were too grainy and indistinct for full impact. Nevertheless, the rumblings of internal collapse were everywhere to be heard.

  The noise emanating from the Member of Parliament for Milton Keynes resembled not so much a rumble as a drum being repeatedly struck like a call to arms, unable as he was any longer to confine beneath the straining buttons of his waistcoat all the righteousness which had been building since his hopes of preferment at the last reshuffle had been dashed. 'Tom has been a colleague and friend of mine for many years,' he pronounced from the back seat of the radio car parked in his driveway. 'Both Tom and I have served our party faithfully and I have enormous respect for Tom.' He clung to the name like a lifebelt in stormy seas, as though by continued repetition he might convince others of what he had only just convinced himself. 'The March is due to pass through my constituency later today and I very much hope to be marching with it.'

  The battle for the Blessing of Makepeace had begun.

  'The party does not belong to Francis Urquhart nor to any one man. I believe Mr Urquhart should announce his intention to step down immediately after this election. My choice for his replacement will be Tom Makepeace.'

  'And if the Prime Minister does not make such an announcement?' the interviewer asked from the London studio. 'Frankly, I don't think he's got any choice.'

  From party headquarters came reports of a flood tide of telephone calls from activists demanding resignation – whether of the Prime Minister or the Member for Milton Keynes, the reports did not make clear. In any event a press release was issued in immediate denial, but when journalists tried to check the story they couldn't get through. The switchboard was jammed.

  And from Cyprus came news of Nicolaou's formal resignation and the first pronouncement of his successor, Christodoulou, the former Vice President who owned the BMW concession on the island. 'We shall not rest,' he told a tumultuous press conference, speaking into a bouquet of microphones, 'until the blood shed by our fathers has been honoured and all soil on this island has been returned to Cypriot control.' Even many journalists started applauding. 'And while I believe that we should pursue every avenue of peace with our Turkish Cypriot neighbours, I cannot sign the proposed peace treaty as it stands. A more fair division of the offshore oil resources is vital, and I shall be contacting President Nures immediately to seek further discussions.' Standing beside him was Elpida, strained but seraphic, who nodded encouragement before reading out a statement of support issued by her father from his hospital bed.

  Throughout the day the cracks in the dam grew wider, support draining away, the trickles of defiance becoming great bursting geysers of rebellion that were sweeping Francis Urquhart into oblivion.

  By the following morning the mood approached hysteria. The van bringing the early editions of the newspapers into Downing Street had a loose hubcap; the noise echoed from the walls of the narrow street like the rattle of a cart over cobbles on its way to the Tyburn scaffold. Since elements of both main parties and any number of pressure groups now claimed Makepeace as their spiritual leader, the outcome of the election was utter confusion; party lines were crumbling into the chaos of a civil war battlefield, and amongst the tattered ranks roamed packs of reporters trying to find a yet more injurious example of defection from the colours of Francis Urquhart. A telephone poll indicated that less than ten per cent of voters wanted Urquhart to remain as Prime Minister; as the accompanying editorial claimed, they must all have been supporters of the Opposition. Attempts were being made to contact sufficient Government election candidates to discover who i
n their opinion should be their next leader; the answer was overwhelming. Makepeace – if he would have it. But Makepeace was unmoved, saying nothing as his march wound its way towards the outskirts of Milton Keynes, growing by the thousand with every passing hour.

  It seemed that with every passing minute the mob at the gate grew in size. Words that in the morning could be attributed only to anonymous but highly placed sources within the Government party by afternoon were having definitive names attached to them; backbenchers, under pressure from small majorities and small-minded wives, rushed to join the execution squad before they were placed against the wall themselves. Ministers were said to be in constant contact and cabal, to be in open rebellion. It was reported that at least two covens of Ministers would be gathering around the dining tables of London that evening to discuss the removal of the Prime Minister – not if, but when and how. The reports were so prolific that the venues had to be changed at the last minute.

  And across the front page of Jasper Mackintosh's new journal, the Clarion, was the most extraordinary allegation of all. Against photographs of sick and weary British soldiers, some of whom were on stretchers recovering from dehydration and heat exhaustion, stood the headline: 'F.U. PLANNED GERM WAR.'

  'It was feared last night that the Prime Minister planned to use chemical and biological weapons against the Cypriots before he was forced to surrender. The alarming condition of the British soldiers involved in the fiasco has led to allegations that they were contaminated by their own bio-weapons which Francis Urquhart himself had ordered to be carried secretly on the convoy. "Such orders would make Urquhart a war criminal, guilty of the most serious breaches of the Human Rights Convention," a peace spokesman said…'

  Mackintosh was on his yacht in St Katharine's Dock, the fashionable waterhole which nestles beside the looming columns of Tower Bridge, when the phone call came.

  'Why do you print it when you know it's not true?' The voice was hoarse, with a slight Scottish lowland taint, as happened when he was on the point of exhaustion.

  'Truth, Francis? A strange new suit for you to be wearing.'

  'Why do you print it?' Urquhart demanded once more.

  'Because it does you damage. Hurts you. That's why.' From behind Mackintosh came the sound of an exploding cork and the tinkle of young female laughter. 'I thought we had an understanding.'

  'Sure. You would poke sticks in my eye for as long as you could. Then it would be my turn. You're through, Francis. There's nothing more you can threaten me with, no taxation changes, no monopoly references. Because one week from today they're going to hang you in front of every polling station in the country. And I'll host the celebrations.' 'Is there nothing we can…' But already the line was dead. Late that evening he called them in, one by one. His Cabinet. The Praetorian Guard whose bodies would litter the steps of the Capitol before they would allow any enemy to draw within striking distance of Caesar. In theory, at least.

  Claire had counselled against calling them in separately, but he had been firm. They were agitated, like sheep, if one scattered the rest would surely follow. Herd them, isolate them, stare them down, allow them to find no strength in numbers; on their own he might cow them into support before they melted away into the mob. But at his core he knew they weren't up to it; they would fail him.

  He sat in the Cabinet Room, in the chair reserved for the Prime Minister, the only one with arms. Three phones beside him. The rest of the table was bare, stripped of blotters and any other sign of Ministerial rank, covered only with a sad brown felt cloth. He wanted his Ministers to have no hiding place, no trappings of office, nothing behind which to hide. He needed to know. Outside it was drizzling.

  He had intended to start with Bollingbroke but the Foreign Secretary was returning from a Council of Ministers meeting in Brussels and there was a delay somewhere along the way. Instead he got Whittington – how he wished it had been Whittington's wife; then, at least, he would have found some solid response. There was a knock at the door and Claire brought him in. He seemed reluctant.

  'Come in, Terry,' Urquhart encouraged quietly. 'It's my scaffold you're stepping on, not your own.'

  The Minister sat opposite, dabbed at his mouth nervously with a handkerchief which then slipped surreptitiously to his temple, wiping away the dew that was beginning to rise.

  'Terry, let me get straight to the point. Do I have your continued support as Prime Minister?'

  'You will always have my personal support, Prime Minister.' A whimpering smile appeared on his damp lips, then as quickly evaporated. 'But I can't see how we can win, you know, with…' 'With me?' 'With circumstances as they are.' He was bleating, even sounding like a sheep. 'Will you make a public statement of your support for me?' The dew at Whittington's temples had turned into an unmistakable nervous damp. 'It's so very difficult out there' he muttered, waving a rubber wrist. 'I would hate to see you defeated, Francis. As an old friend, I must tell you. I don't think you can win. Perhaps, perhaps… you should consider announcing your resignation. You know, protect your unbeaten record?'

  It sounded pre-prepared, second hand. A ditty passed through Urquhart's mind, about something borrowed, something blue. 'And what does your wife think?'

  'She feels exactly the same' Whittington added, too hurriedly. He'd given the game away.

  Urquhart leaned forward. 'A statement of clear support from my Cabinet would help give a slightly less striking impression of a sinking ship.'

  Whittington's lips moved in agitation but he said nothing, merely flapping his arms about. He was already swimming.

  'Then will you at least give me until this weekend to decide? Before you say anything publicly?'

  Whittington's head nodded, falling forward, hiding his eyes. They were stinging, he wasn't sure whether from the sweat or because he was on the verge of crying.

  With a flick of his wrist Urquhart dismissed him. Claire already had the door open. It was raining harder now. Maxwell Stanbrook came in next. 'So, Max?'

  'First, Francis, I want to tell you how grateful I am for everything you have done. For me. The party. For the country. I mean that, most sincerely.' 'So you'll support me? Publicly?'

  Stanbrook shook his head. 'Game's up, old dear. Sorry. You cannot win.' 'I made you, Max.'

  'I know. And so I'll go down with you, too. I'm honest enough to recognize that. Which is why you should recognize that I'm being honest about your situation.' 'There is nothing to be done?'

  'Get out on the best terms available, Francis. Which is to announce your resignation now, before the election. Give the rest of us half a chance. And keep your unbeaten record into the bargain. "Undefeated at any election he fought," that's what the history books will record. Not a bad epitaph.'

  Protecting his unbeaten record. The same formula used by Whittington. An interesting coincidence, if it were.

  'Will you issue a statement of support on my behalf?'

  'If that's what you want. But in my opinion it will do you no good.'

  It hurt. He'd had hopes of Stanbrook. Deep within he felt a shaking, of foundations crumbling, of new fissures beginning to appear below the water line.

  'Thank you at least for being so honest. Please, give me until this weekend. Say nothing until then?'

  'You have my word on it. And my hand on it, Francis.'

  Melodramatically Stanbrook marched around to Urquhart's side of the table and offered his hand. At close quarters Urquhart could see the lack of sleep which bruised his eyes. At least it hadn't been easy for him.

  Catchpole, the next, was in tears. He blubbed copiously, scarcely capable of coherent expression throughout the interview. 'What, in your view, should I do, Colin?' 'Protect…' – blub – 'protect…' – cough.

  'I think what you're trying to say is that I should resign now in order to protect my unbeaten record and place in the history books. Is that right?'

  Catchpole nodded. Coincidence be damned. They'd been rehearsing, the whole wretched lot of them.
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br />   Except for Riddington. The Defence Secretary strode in, but declined to sit, instead standing stiffly at the end of the Cabinet table near the door. His double breast was buttoned, on parade.

  'I have sat too long at your table, Prime Minister. In recent days at meetings of COBRA I have watched you abuse your position of trust for entirely political ends, putting the lives of British soldiers at risk for your own personal glorification and salvation.' 'You never mentioned this before.'

  'You never asked me before. You never consulted anyone. You only bullied.'

  True enough. And Urquhart had expected no less from Riddington, who had refused to support him at the final gathering of COBRA, insisting with the others that St Aubyn's men be allowed to bring an end to their misery.

  Urquhart seemed to smile, parting his lips as though being offered a final cigarette. 'So who will defend, if not Defence?' 'I beg your pardon?'

  'I was merely musing. I suppose a public statement of support for me is out of the question?'

  There was a whimsical tone in Urquhart's voice as though he found humour in his situation. Riddington offered an expression of bad oysters and did not reply.

  'I have one last thing to ask,' the Prime Minister continued. 'You have sat at my Cabinet table for more than eight years. In return, I ask you for two days. By Saturday I shall announce my intentions. In the meantime, if you cannot support me, I'd be grateful if you could at least refrain from making public attacks. Leave me a little dignity. Leave the party a few pieces for someone else to pick up.'

  Riddington had on his most obstinate Dunkirk expression, but acquiesced. He gave a perfunctory nod, then turned on his heel and left.

  For a long moment a complete stillness enveloped the Cabinet Room. Urquhart did not stir, did not appear to breathe. Claire, who had been sitting discreetly in a comer by the door, wondered if he had gone into a trance, so deeply did he seem to have retreated within himself. A tiny pulse on the side of his temple seemed the only sign of life, beating away the seconds until… Until. There was no avoiding it. Even he knew it. Then he returned from wherever he had been, and was with her once again.