To play the king fu-2

by Michael Dobbs

  'In private. As I must, if my advice to my Government is to be of any use.'

  'There are some types of advice the Government can do without. We are elected to run this country, after all.'

  'Mr Urquhart!' The blue eyes were ablaze with indignation, his hands white as they gripped the arm of his chair. 'May I remind you that you have not been elected as Prime Minister, not by the people. You have no mandate. Until the next election you are no better than a constitutional caretaker. Meanwhile I am the Monarch with the right accorded by tradition and all the constitutional law books ever damn well written to be consulted by you and to offer advice.' 'In private.'

  'There is no constitutional duty on me to lie publicly to save the Government's skin.' 'You must help with the editors.' 'Why?'

  'Because…' Because if he didn't, Urquhart would be stranded and done to death by a dribble of by-elections. 'Because you cannot be seen to dispute matters of policy with the Government.'

  'I will not repudiate my own beliefs. It would be offensive to me not only as a Monarch, but as a man. And you have no damned right to ask!'

  'In your capacity as Monarch you have no right to personal beliefs, not on politically sensitive matters.'

  'You deny me my rights as a man? As a father? How can you look your children in the eye-'

  'On such matters you are not a man, you are a constitutional tool…' 'A rubber stamp for your folly? Never!'

  '… who must support the duly elected Government on all matters in public'

  'Then I suggest, Mr Urquhart, that you go get yourself elected, by the people. Tell them you have no care for their future. Tell them that you are content to see the Scots drift away in discontent and despair. That you don't find it obscene for thousands of Englishmen to have no concept of home other than a cardboard box in some pestilential urban underpass. That large swathes of our inner cities are no-go areas for either police or social workers. Tell them you don't give a damn about anything except trying to line the pockets of your own supporters. Tell them all that, get yourself elected, and then you come back here and issue me with your orders. But until then, I will not lie for you!'

  The King was on his feet, propelled upwards more by the energy of his uncontrollable rage than any conscious desire to finish the audience. But Urquhart knew there was no point in continuing. The King was unshakable, he would not agree to bend, not, at least, until after Urquhart had won an election in his own right as Prime Minister. And as Urquhart strode slowly out of the room, he knew the King's intransigence had torn to shreds any chance of holding that early election, and winning.

  The telephone rang in the private apartments of Kensington Palace. It was past eight o'clock in the evening and Landless hadn't expected to find the Princess at home. Her husband was away in Birkenhead opening a gas terminal and he thought she would either be with him or out on the town celebrating her freedom, but she answered the phone herself.

  'Good evening. Your Royal Highness. I'm delighted to find you in.'

  'Benjamin, this is a pleasant surprise.' She sounded reserved, slightly distracted, as though she was holding something back. 'I'm recuperating from the rigours of a day spent with two thousand members of the Women's Institute. You can't imagine how tired one gets after shaking all those hands and listening to all that sincerity. I'm in the middle of a massage.' 'Then I apologize for disturbing you, but I have some good news.'

  He had spent the afternoon pondering how she might react to the furore caused by the speech she had passed to him as the first fruit of their new arrangement. Her intention had been to illustrate the integrity and deep concerns of the private King; she'd less than half an idea it would be published and no idea of the storm it would cause. There might even be an inquiry. Had she now taken fright?

  'I just wanted you to know that the newspapers tomorrow will be overflowing with articles in praise of the King. It's remarkable, done him a huge amount of good. And all because we handled matters the right way. You've done a fine job.'

  She stretched out on the massage table in search of a glass of champagne. 'Great team, eh, Benjamin?'

  'Yes, Ma'am. A great team.' She was still standing off; had he ruined it already? 'And I've been thinking, doing some recalculation. You know, now I've had the chance to meet you and see how capably you handle yourself, I think the value of your help is going to be even greater than I originally thought. Another fifty thousand pounds. How does that sound?' 'Benjamin, you serious? Sounds brillig.'

  He winced at the garble of slang, the cultural product of an endless diet of gossip columns, fashion magazines and adult comics. He'd left school at fifteen and had fought his way through life burdened with all his uncut edges, his rough tongue and even rougher accent. It had given him a sense of self-esteem yet it was a brutal road, not one he had wanted for his three daughters who had found their own paths littered with the finest in educational opportunities. As he listened to the Princess he could neither understand nor abide those who, having been born with every advantage, proceeded to disgrace them. Still, he knew he had found his woman. He chuckled amiably down the phone.

  After she replaced the receiver she took another sip from her glass. She wondered if she were getting herself in too deep. She had long ago learned that there was no such thing as a free lunch for any member of the Royal Firm, let alone a free fifty thousand pounds. There were strings to everything, and she suspected that Ben Landless would pull hard. 'You're tensing up, Ma'am.'

  She rolled over, the towel slipping from her body as she examined her newly tightened breasts.

  'Forget the shoulder muscles, Brent. Time to take care of the inner woman.'

  Lieutenant Brentwood Albery-Hunt, a six foot three Guards Officer on secondment to the Palace as the Princess's personal equerry, gave a sharp salute and stood to attention as his own towel fell to the floor and the Princess cast a critical eye over him in mock inspection. He knew from past form that she was a demanding Colonel of the regiment, and that night-duty under her supervision would be arduous.

  December: Christmas Week

  'It can't be done, Francis.'

  I don't appoint Ministers to tell me things can't be done, Urquhart raged inside. But the Chancellor of the Exchequer was insistent, and Urquhart knew he was right.

  They were huddled in the corner of a reception room at party headquarters where the good and the great of the party had gathered to save money and time by celebrating Christmas and bidding farewell to a long-serving official. The pay of such officials was appalling, their working conditions usually pitiable and they were expected to show independence neither of mind nor manner. In return they expected, after the passage of many years, recognition, in the form either of an invitation to a Buckingham Palace Garden Party, a modest mention in the Honours List, or a farewell reception at which busy Ministers gathered to drink sweet German wine and nibble cocktail sausages while the retiring and frequently unrecognizable servant was feted. But Urquhart had been pleased to attend this function, for an elderly but ebullient tea lady named Mrs Stagg. No one else was sufficiently senior to remember how long she had been there. Her tea was poisonous and her coffee indistinguishable from her tea, but her sense of fun had cut through the pomposity which so frequently befogs politicians and her bustling presence in a room usually managed to defuse even the most sombre of occasions. Urquhart had fallen for her when, as an aspiring MP more than thirty years ago, he had watched transfixed as she had spotted a button loose on Ted Heath's jacket and had insisted on stripping the bachelor party leader to his shirt sleeves while she repaired the damage on the spot. Urquhart was aware that this was her third attempt at retirement but, at the age of seventy-two, it seemed likely to be her very last and he had looked forward to the escape from official business. But it was not to last.

  'It simply cannot be done' the Chancellor repeated. 'Christmas has scarcely happened in the shops and the recession is going to be here earlier than we expected. We can massage the statistics a bit, explai
n them away for a month or two as rogues, but we won't be able to massage away the school leavers who'll be flooding into the workforce at Easter. Most of them are going to go straight from the classroom to the dole queue, and there's sod all you or I can do about it.'

  The four men standing with heads bowed in their huddle drew closer together, as if to protect a great secret. Urquhart had asked the Chancellor what he thought of the chances of putting off the impact of recession for a month or two, squeezing out a little more time. But the Treasury Minister only confirmed what he already knew. Stamper was next to speak, very briefly. There was no use in making a feast of bad news. 'Four points, Francis.' 'In front?'

  'Behind. This aggravation with the King has shot our lead to hell. Four points and moving in the wrong direction.'

  Urquhart ran his tongue along thin lips. 'And what of you, Algy? What bucketful of sorrows do you bring to drench me?'

  As Urquhart turned to the Party Treasurer they had to huddle still closer, for the financier was scarcely more than five feet tall and listening to him in a room full of the buzz of conversation was an effort. Unlike the Chancellor and Stamper, he'd not been told of the plans for an early election, but he was no fool. When a Treasurer is asked how a party living on an overdraft might raise ten million pounds in a hurry, he knows that mischief is afoot. His well-lunched face was flushed as he craned his neck to look at the others.

  'Can't be done. So soon after an election, immediately after Christmas and just about to go into recession… I couldn't raise ten million pounds this year, let alone this month. Let's be realistic, why would anyone want to lend that sort of money to a party with a slim majority about to get slimmer.' 'What do you mean?' Urquhart demanded.

  'Sorry, Francis,' Stamper explained. 'The message must be waiting on your desk. Freddie Bancroft died this morning.'

  Urquhart contemplated the news about one of his backbenchers from the shires. It was not entirely unexpected. Bancroft had been a political corpse for many years, and it was time the rest of him caught up. 'That's a pity, what's his majority?' Urquhart had to struggle to provide any form of punctuation or pause between the two thoughts. They were all too aware of his concern, how the lurid headlines of a by-election campaign had a habit of creating a new national mood, usually at the Government's expense as their candidate was put to ritual slaughter. 'Not enough.' 'Bollocks.' 'We'll lose it. And the longer we delay the worse it will be.'

  'The first by-election with me as Prime Minister. Not a great advertisement, eh? I was rather hoping I'd be riding the bandwagon, not being shoved under its wheels.'

  Their deliberations were interrupted by a sallow-faced youth in much-creased suit and crooked tie, whose reluctance to invade what was clearly a very private confabulation had been overcome by the Liebfraumilch and a bet made with one of the lissom secretaries, who had wagered her bed against his bashfulness. 'Excuse me, I've just joined the party's research department. Can I have your autographs?' He thrust a piece of paper and grubby pen into their midst.

  The others waited for Urquhart to move, to instruct that the youth be keelhauled for impudence and dismissed for ill-judgement. But Urquhart smiled, welcoming the interruption. 'You see, Tim, somebody wants me!' He scribbled on the paper. 'And what are your ambitions, young man?' 'I want to be Chancellor, Mr Urquhart.' 'No vacancy!' the Chancellor insisted. 'Yet…' the Prime Minister warned. 'Try Brunei,' Stamper added, in less frivolous tones.

  There was more merriment as the piece of paper did its round, but as the banter died away and the youth retreated in the direction of a deeply blushing secretary, Urquhart found himself staring into the humourless, uncompromising eyes of Stamper. Unlike the others they both knew how important was an early election. If recession and overdraft were the brush of the noose around their necks, then the news of the by-election had come as the sound of the trapdoor-bolt beginning its final slide. There had to be a way out, or else. 'Merry Christmas, Tim?'

  Stamper's words sighed with the edge of perpetual Arctic night. 'Not this year, Francis. It can't be done. You must recognize the fact. Not now, not after the King. It simply cannot be done.'

  PART TWO

  New Year

  Buckingham Palace 31 December

  My dearest Son,

  Today I begin my first full year as the King, and I am filled with foreboding.

  Last night I had a dream. I was in a room, all white, in soft focus as things sometimes are in dreams, a hospital I think. I was standing beside a bath, white like everything else, in which two nurses were bathing my father, old and wasted, as he was before he died. They were treating him with such tenderness and care, floating him in the warm water, he was at peace, and so was I. I felt a calm, a serenity I have riot felt for many months.

  Then there appeared another nurse. She was carrying a bundle. A baby. You! Wrapped in a white shawl. But even as I reached so eagerly for you the nurse, and the two others attending my father, were gone. I held on to you but without support my father was no longer floating but suddenly submerged in the bath, water washing over his face, his eyes closed. I reached for him with one arm, but you began to fall. To help him, save him, I had to allow you to fall. I could not save you both. I had not a moment longer to decide, he was drowning, you were falling from my arms… Then I awoke.

  It is all too clear to me. The Royal Family is intended to symbolize the continuity between the past and the future; I no longer think this possible. A King can cling to the past, the traditions, the decay. Or choose to reach out for the future, with all its uncertainties, its dangers, and its hopes. We must choose.

  I am at a crossroads, both as a man and as a Monarch. I know I am well loved, but I take no pleasure in the fact. When that popularity is claimed in part at the expense of the Prime Minister, it can bring neither any good. Mr Urquhart is a man of great resolution and, I believe, little scruple. He lays exclusive claim to the future – perhaps any Prime Minister would – but he does so with an unstinting lack of reserve. Yet if I can have no part in building that future, either as man or Monarch, then I have no manhood, no soul, nothing.

  I shall not seek confrontation, because in the end I will lose. But I will not become merely a silent cipher for an unscrupulous and unwise Government. Watch carefully how this great dispute develops. And learn, for your own time will come. Your devoted, Father.

  ***

  It was supposed to be a masked ball to welcome in the New Year, but Stamper had refused to cooperate. For the first time in his political career people had begun to recognize him, to make all those fawning motions which suggested he was important and to blame only themselves if they became bored talking to him. He was damned if he were going to wrap it all up behind some ludicrous headgear just to please his hostess. Lady Susan 'Deccy' Kassar was the wife of the governing chairman of the BBC. He spent his year trying to ensure that the Corporation's increasingly meagre budget eked out sufficiently to cover his commitments, while she spent it planning how to destroy half his salary in one go at her renowned and monumental New Year's Eve bash. The extravagance of the hospitality was matched by that of the guest list, compiled on computer over the course of the year to ensure none but the most powerful and notorious were included. It was said to be insufficient simply to be a spy master or bank robber in order to gain inclusion, you had to be caught and very publicly identified as such, preferably by the BBC. Stamper had been included only after a second recount. 'Deccy' – named after the decollete for which she had been justifiably famed ever since passing from her teens to the first of three husbands – had decided the invitation was a mistake as soon as she saw Stamper arrive in nothing more elaborate than a dinner jacket. She had a passion for masked balls, which hid her eyes and enabled her to be on constant lookout for still more glittering victims while concentrating the guests' attention undistractedly upon her neckline. She didn't care for mutineers at her parties, particularly ones who greased their hair. Deliberately and as publicly as possible she had mistaken Stamper
for a television soap star who had recently emerged from a drying-out clinic, while privately vowing not to invite him next year unless he was by then at least Home Secretary. She was soon off in search of more cooperative prey, fluttering her mask aggressively to carve a passage through the crowd.

  It was shortly before midnight when Stamper spied the ample figure of Bryan Brynford-Jones holding forth from within the folds of a Laughing Cavalier's uniform, and passed in front of him. 'Tim! Great to see you!' 'Hello, BBJ. Didn't see you there.'

  'This is one for the Diary. Chairman of the Party come disguised as a human being.' 'Should be worth at least a mention on the front page.'

  'Not unless you leak the information, old chap. Sorry, forgot. Leaks not the favourite vocabulary in Government circles at the moment.'

  The other guests enjoyed the banter, although Stamper had the distinct feeling he'd come off second best. It was not a sensation he relished. He drew the editor to one side.

  'Talking of leaks, old friend, tell me. Who was the bastard who leaked the King's speech? Always wondered.'

  'And wonder you shall. You know I couldn't possibly reveal journalistic sources.' Brynford-Jones chuckled mischievously, but there was a nervous corner to his smile.

  'Yes, of course. But our informal inquiry ran into the sand, bound to over Christmas, never had a chance. This would be just between friends. Very close friends, remember. Who was it?' 'Never! Trade secret, you know.' 'I'm very good with trade secrets. Or had you forgotten?'

  The editor looked perplexed. 'Look, Tim, I'll support you in every way I can, you know that. But sources… They're the crown jewels. Journalistic integrity, and all that.'

  Stamper's dark eyes burned bright. The pupils were small, almost unnaturally so, which gave Brynford-Jones the impression they were carving at him.