To play the king fu-2

by Michael Dobbs

  'There's someone else?' There was a catch in his throat, he had clearly never considered the possibility. 'Since when?'

  She looked up from the mess on the table with eyes which were now defiant and steady, no longer trying to evade. This had been coming for so long, she couldn't hide from it anymore. 'Since two years after we got married, David, there has been someone else. A succession of "someone clses". You never had it in you to satisfy me – I never blamed you for that, really I didn't, it was just the luck of the draw. What I bitterly resent is that you never even tried. I was never that important to you, not as a woman. I have never been more than a housekeeper, a laundress, your twenty-four-hour skivvy, an object to parade around the dinner circuit. Someone to give you respectability at Court. Even the children were only for show.'

  'Not true.' But there was no real passion in his protest, any more than there had been passion in their marriage. She had always known they were sexually incompatible; he seemed all too willing to pour his physical drive into his job while at first she had contented herself with the social cachet his work at the Palace brought them. But not for long. In truth she couldn't even be sure who the father of her second child was, while if he had doubts on the matter he didn't seem to care. He had 'done his duty', as he once put it, and that had been an end of it. Even now as she poured scorn on him as a cuckold she couldn't get him to respond. There should be self-righteous rage somewhere, surely, wasn't that what his blessed code of chivalry called for? But he seemed so empty, hollow inside. Their marriage had been nothing but a rat's maze within which both led unrelated lives, meeting only as if by accident before passing on their separate ways. Now she was leaping for the exit. 'Fiona, can't we-' 'No, David. We can't.'

  The telephone had started ringing in its insistent, irresistible manner, summoning him to his duty, a task to which he had dedicated his life and to which he was now asked to surrender his marriage. We've had some great times, haven't we, he wanted to argue, but he could only remember times which were good rather than great and those were long, long ago. She had always come a distant second, not consciously but now, in their new mood of truth, undeniably. He looked at Fiona through watery eyes which expressed sorrow and begged forgiveness; there was no spite. But there was fear. Marriage had been like a great sheet anchor in strong emotional seas, preventing him from being tossed about by tempestuous winds and blown in directions which were reckless and lacking in restraint. Wedlock. It had worked precisely because it had been form without substance, like the repetitive chanting of psalms that had been forced on him during his miserable school years at Ampleforth. Marriage had been a burden but, for him, a necessary one, a distraction, a diversion. Self-denial, but also self-protection. And now the anchor chains were being cut.

  Fiona sat motionless across a table littered with toast and fragments of eggshell and bone china, the household clutter and crumbs which represented the total sum of their life together. The telephone still demanded him. Without a further word he rose to answer it.

  'Come in, Tim, and close the door.'

  Urquhart was sitting in the Cabinet Room, alone except for the new arrival, occupying the only chair around the coffin-shaped table which had arms. Before him was a simple leather folder and a telephone. The rest of the table stood bare.

  'Not exactly luxurious, is it? But I'm beginning to like it.' Urquhart chuckled.

  Tim Stamper looked around, surprised to discover no one else present. He was – or had been until half an hour ago when Urquhart had exchanged the commission of Chief Whip for that of Prime Minister – the other man's loyal deputy. The role of Chief Whip is mysterious, that of his deputy invisible, but together they had combined into a force of incalculable influence, since the Whips Office is the base from where discipline within the parliamentary party is maintained through a judicious mixture of team spirit, arm twisting and outright thuggery. Stamper had ideal qualities for the job – a lean, pinched face with protruding nose and dark eyes of exceptional brightness which served to give him the appearance of a ferret, and a capacity for rummaging about in the dark corners of his colleagues' private lives to uncover their personal and political weaknesses. It was a job of vulnerabilities, guarding one's own while exploiting others'. He had long been Urquhart's protege; fifteen years younger, a former estate agent from Essex, it was an attraction of opposites. Urquhart was sophisticated, elegant, academic, highly polished; Stamper was none of these and wore off-the-peg suits from British Home Stores. Yet what they shared was perhaps more important – ambition, an arrogance that for one was intellectual and for the other instinctive, and an understanding of power. The combination had proved stunningly effective in plotting Urquhart's path to the premiership. Stamper's turn would come, that had been the implicit promise to the younger man. Now he was here to collect.

  'Prime Minister.' He offered a theatrical bow of respect. 'Prime Minister,' Stamper repeated, practising a different intonation as if trying to sell him the freehold. He had a familiar, almost camp manner which hid the steel beneath, and the two colleagues began to laugh in a fashion which managed to be both mocking and conspiratorial, like two burglars after a successful night out. Stamper was careful to ensure he stopped laughing first; it wouldn't do to outmock a Prime Minister. They had shared so much over recent months but he was aware that Prime Ministers have a tendency to hold back from their colleagues, even their fellow conspirators, and Urquhart didn't continue laughing for long. 'Tim, I wanted to see you entirely a deux.'

  'Probably means I'm due to get a bollocking. What've I done, anyway?' His tone was light, yet Urquhart noticed the anxious downward cast at the corner of Stamper's mouth and discovered he was enjoying the feeling of mastery implied by his colleague's discomfort. 'Sit down, Tim. Opposite me.'

  Stamper took the chair and looked across at his old friend. The sight confirmed just how much their relationship had changed. Urquhart sat before a large oil portrait of Robert Walpole, the first modern and arguably greatest Prime Minister who had watched for two centuries over the deliberations in this room of the mighty and mendacious, the woeful and miserably weak. Urquhart was his successor, elevated by his peers, anointed by his Monarch and now installed. The telephone beside him could summon statesmen to their fate or command the country to war. It was a power shared with no other man in the realm; indeed, he was no longer just a man but, for better or worse, was now the stuff of history. Whether in that history he would rate a footnote or an entire chapter only time would tell.

  Urquhart sensed the swirling emotions of the other man. 'Different, isn't it, Tim? And we shall never be able to turn back the clock. It didn't hit me until a moment ago, not while I was at the Palace, not with the media at the front door here, not even when I walked inside. It all seemed like a great theatre piece and I'd simply been assigned one of the roles. Yet as I stepped across the threshold every worker in Downing Street was assembled in the hallway, from the highest civil servant in the land to the cleaners and telephonists, perhaps two hundred of them. They greeted me with such enthusiasm that I almost expected bouquets to be thrown. The exhilaration of applause,' he sighed. 'It was beginning to go to my head, until I remembered that scarcely an hour beforehand they'd gone through the same routine with my predecessor as he drove off to oblivion. That lot'll probably applaud at their own funerals.' He moistened his thin lips, as was his habit when reflecting. 'Then they brought me here, to the Cabinet Room, and left me on my own. It was completely silent, as though I'd fallen into a time capsule. Everything in order, meticulous, except for the Prime Minister's chair which had been drawn back. For me! It was only when I touched it, ran my finger across its back, realized no one was going to shout at me if I sat down, that finally it dawned on me. It isn't just another chair or another job, but the only one of its kind. You know I'm not by nature a humble man yet, dammit, for a moment it got to me.' There was a moment of prolonged silence, before his palm smacked down on the table. 'But don't worry. I've recovered!'

 
Urquhart laughed that conspiratorial laugh once more, while Stamper could only manage a tight smile as he waited for the reminiscing to stop and for his fate to be pronounced.

  'To business, Tim. There's much to be done and I shall want you, as always, right by my side.' Stamper's smile broadened. 'You're going to be my Party Chairman.'

  The smile rapidly disappeared. Stamper couldn't hide his confusion and disappointment.

  'Don't worry, we'll find you some ministerial sinecure to get you a seat around the Cabinet table – Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster or some such nonsense. But for the moment I want your mittens firmly on the Party machine.'

  Stamper's jaw was working furiously, trying to marshal his arguments. 'But it's been scarcely six months since the last election, and a long haul before the next one. Three, maybe four years. Counting paper clips and sorting out squabbles amongst local constituency chairmen is scarcely my strong suit, Francis. You should know that after what we've been through together.' It was an appeal to their old friendship.

  'Think it through, Tim. We've a parliamentary majority of twenty-two and a party that's been torn apart by the recent leadership battle. And we are just about to get a beating from a swine of a recession. We're no better than even in the opinion polls and our majority won't last three or four years. We'll be shot to pieces at every by-election we face and we've only to lose fewer than a dozen seats before this Government is dead. Unless, that is, you can guarantee me no by-elections, that you've found some magic means of ensuring none of our esteemed colleagues will be caught canvassing in a brothel, misappropriating church funds or simply succumbing to senility and excessive old age?' 'Doesn't sound like a lot of fun for a Party Chairman, either.'

  'Tim, the next couple of years are going to be hell, and we probably don't have a sufficient majority to survive long enough for us to get through the recession. If it's painful for the Party Chairman it'll be bloody agony for the Prime Minister.'

  Stamper was silent, unconvinced, unsure what to say. His excitement and dreams of a few moments before had suddenly frayed.

  'Our futures can be measured almost in moments,' Urquhart continued. 'We'll get a small boost in popularity because of my honeymoon period while people give me the benefit of their doubt. That will last no longer than March.' 'You're very precise about that.' 'Indeed I am. For in March there has to be a Budget. It'll be a bastard. We let everything rip in the markets to get us through the last election campaign and the day of judgement for that little lot is just around the corner. We borrowed off Peter to buy off Paul, now we have to go back to pick the pockets of them both. They're not going to care for it.' He paused, blinking rapidly as he ordered his thoughts. 'That's not all. We'll take a beating from Brunei.' 'What?'

  'The Sultan of that tiny oil-infested state is a great Anglophile and one of the world's most substantial holders of sterling. A loyal friend. Unfortunately not only does he know what a mess we're in but he's also got his own problems. So he's going to unload some of his sterling – at least three billion worth sloshing around the markets like orphans in search of a home. That'll crucify the currency and stretch the recession on for probably another year. For old time's sake he says he'll sell only as and when we suggest. So long as it's before the next Budget.' Stamper found difficulty in swallowing, his mouth had run dry.

  Urquhart began to laugh but without the slightest hint of humour. 'And there's more, Tim, there's more! To top it all the Attorney General's office has quietly let it be known that the trial of Sir Jasper Harrod will begin immediately after Easter. Which is March the twenty-fourth, to save you looking it up. What do you know of Sir Jasper?'

  'Only what most people know, I guess. Self-made mega-millionaire, chairman of the country's biggest computer-leasing operation. Does a lot of work with Government departments and local authorities, and has got himself accused of paying substantial backhanders all over the place to keep hold of his contracts. Big into charities, I seem to remember, which is why he got his "K".'

  'He got his knighthood, Tim, because he was one of the party's biggest contributors. Loyally and discreetly over many years.' 'So what's the problem?'

  'Having come to our aid whenever we asked for it, he now expects us to come equally loyally to his. To pull a few strings with the Director of Public Prosecutions. Which of course we can't, but he refuses to understand that.' 'There's more, I know there's more…' 'And he insists that if the case comes to trial he will have to reveal his substantial party donations.' 'So?' 'Which were paid all in cash. Delivered in suitcases.' 'Oh, shit.'

  'Enough of it to give us all acute haemorrhoids. He not only gave to the central Party but supported the constituency election campaigns of almost every member of the Cabinet.'

  'Don't tell me. All spent on things which weren't reported as election expenses.'

  'In my case everything was recorded religiously and will bear full public scrutiny. In other cases…' He arched an eyebrow. 'I'm told the Trade Secretary, later this afternoon to reinforce our glorious backbenches, used the money to pay off a troublesome mistress who was threatening to release certain compromising letters. It was made over to her, and Harrod still has the cancelled cheque.'

  Stamper pushed his chair back from the table until it was balancing on its rear legs, as if trying to distance himself from such absurdity. 'Christ, Francis, we've got all this crap about to hit us at a hundred miles an hour and you want me to be Party Chairman? If it's all the same to you, I'd rather seek asylum in Libya. By Easter, you say? It'll take more than a bloody resurrection to save anybody caught in the middle of that lot.'

  His waved his arms forlornly, drained of energy and resistance, but Urquhart was straining forward in great earnest, tension stiffening his body.

  'By Easter. Precisely. Which means we have to move before then, Tim. Use the honeymoon period, beat up the Opposition, get in ahead of the recession and get a majority which will last until all the flak has been left well behind us.' Stamper's voice was breathless. 'An election, you mean?'

  'By the middle of March. Which gives us exactly fourteen weeks, only ten weeks before I have to announce it, and in that time I want you as Party Chairman getting the election machine as tight as it can be. There are plans to be made, money to be raised, opponents to be embarrassed. And all without anyone having the slightest idea what we're about to spring on them.'

  Stamper's chair rocked back with a clatter as he endeavoured to recover his wits. 'Bloody Party Chairman.'

  'Don't worry. It's only for fourteen weeks. If all goes well you can have the pick of any Government department you want. And if not… Well, neither of us will have to worry about a political job ever again.'

  'This is truly appalling.' Elizabeth Urquhart screwed up her nose with considerable violence as she surveyed the room. It had been several days since the Collingridges removed the last of their personal effects from the small apartment above 10 Downing Street reserved for the use of Prime Ministers, and the sitting room now had the ambience of a three star hotel. It lacked any individual character, that had already been transported in the packing cases, and what was left was in good order but carried the aesthetic touch of a British Rail waiting room. 'Simply revolting. It won't do,' she repeated, gazing at the wallpaper, where she half expected to find the faded impressions of a row of flying china ducks. She was momentarily distracted as she passed by a long wall mirror, surreptitiously checking the conspicuous red tint her hairdresser had applied earlier in the week as she had wailed for the final leadership ballot. A celebratory highlight, the stylist had called it, but no one could any longer mistake it for a natural hue and it had left her constantly fiddling with the colour balance on the remote control, wondering whether it was time to change the television or her hair salon.

  'What extraordinary people they must have been,' she muttered, brushing some imagined speck of dust from the front of her Chanel suit while her husband's House of Commons secretary, who was accompanying her on the tour of inspection, bur
ied herself in her notebook. She thought she rather liked the Collingridges; she was more definite in her views of Elizabeth Urquhart, whose cold eyes gave her a predatory look and whose constant diets to fend off the advance of cellulite around her expensively clad body seemed to leave her in a state of unremitting impatience, at least with other women, particularly those younger than herself.

  'Find out how we get rid of all this and see what the budget is for refurbishment,' Mrs Urquhart snapped as she led the way briskly down the short corridor leading to the dark entrails of the apartment, fingertips tapping in rebuke the flesh beneath her chin as she walked. She gave a squawk of alarm as she passed a door on her left, behind which she discovered a tiny galley kitchen with a stainless-steel sink, red and black plastic floor tiles and no microwave. Her gloom was complete by the time she had inspected the claustrophobic dining room with the atmosphere of a locked coffin and a view directly onto a grubby attic and roof. She was back in the sitting room, seated in one of the armchairs covered in printed roses the size of elephants' feet and shaking her head in disappointment, when there came a knock from the entrance hall.

  'Come in!' she commanded forlornly, remembering that the front door didn't even have a lock on it – for security reasons she had been told, but more for the convenience of civil servants as they came to and fro bearing papers and dispatches, she suspected. 'And they call this home,' she wailed, burying her head theatrically in her hands.

  She brightened as she looked up to examine her visitor. He was in his late thirties, lean with razor-cropped hair.

  'Mrs Urquhart. I'm Inspector Robert Insall, Special Branch,' he-announced in a thick London accent. 'I've been in charge of your husband's protection detail during the leadership election and now they've been mug enough to make me responsible for security here in Downing Street.' He had a grin and natural charm to which Elizabeth Urquhart warmed, and a build she couldn't help but admire. 'I'm sure we shall be in safe hands, Inspector.'