To play the king fu-2

by Michael Dobbs

  'Accepted. Voters appreciate clear choices, Tim, it helps them concentrate. I am presenting them with a choice which is practically transparent. The King may be a rare orchid to my common cabbage, but when the buggers start starving, they'll grab for the cabbage every time.' 'Enough cabbage to give the King chronic wind.' 'My dear Tim, you might say that. On such matters I couldn't possibly comment.'

  The King was also seated before his television screen, where he had remained silently watching events since the televising of Prime Minister's Question Time had begun. He had left instructions not to be disturbed but eventually his Private Secretary could restrain his sense of uncase no longer. He knocked and entered with a deferential bow.

  'Sir, my apologies, but you must know that we are being inundated with calls from the media, wanting some reaction, some guidance as to your feelings about events in the House of Commons. They will not take silence as an answer, and without a press officer…'

  The King seemed not to have noticed the intrusion, staring fixedly at the screen, unblinking, his body taut, the veins at his temple a vivid blue against the parchment skin of his skull. He looked ashen – not with anger, the Private Secretary was well used to the flashes of fire which sparked from the King. The stillness suggested more a man on a different plane, driven deep within himself, the strain indicating that the search to find equilibrium had proved futile.

  The Private Secretary stood motionless, watching the other man's agony, embarrassed at his intrusion yet not knowing how to dismiss himself.

  Eventually the King spoke, in a whisper, but not to the Secretary. 'It is no use, David.' The voice was parched and hoarse. 'It cannot be. They will no more let a King be a man than they would any man be King. It cannot be done – you know that, don't you, old friend…?'

  Then there was silence. The King had not moved, still staring, unseeing, at the screen. The Private Secretary waited for several seemingly endless seconds and then left, pulling the door gently behind him as if he were closing the lid on a coffin.

  Sally rushed across to the House of Commons as soon as she received the summons. She had been in the middle of a pitch to a potential new client, one of the country's leading manufacturers of processed beans, but he had been most understanding, impressed even, and had assured her of the business. With contacts like that he seemed uninterested in further credentials.

  A secretary was waiting for her at St Stephen's entrance to escort her like a VIP past the long queues of visitors and through the security gates, rushing her past several hundred years of history. It was her first time; one day, she promised herself, she would be back and take a calmer look at the glories of Old England, when she had the patience to queue for several hours with all the rest. But for the moment she preferred the preferential treatment.

  They showed her straight into his office. He was on the phone, pacing around the room in his shirtsleeves, trailing the cord of the telephone behind him, animated, issuing orders.

  'Yes, Bryan, I am well and my wife is well. Thank you very much, now shut up and listen. This is important. You will be receiving details of a new poll tomorrow afternoon. A telephone poll following the panic in the markets. It will be a startling one. It will show the Government in a ten-point lead over the Opposition, and my personal lead over McKillin having doubled.' He listened for a moment. 'Of course it's bloody front-page news, why on earth do you think I'm giving it to you? That front-page poll will be supported by an editorial inside your newspaper, something along the lines of "Mortgages and the Monarchy". It will blame the problem with sterling and international confidence four-square on the King and his flawed personality, and those opportunistic politicians who have sought to encourage him in what you will conclude are his grave errors of judgement for seeking to take on the elected Government. Are you listening?'

  There was a mild squawking on the end of the phone and Urquhart rolled his eyes in impatience.

  'You are to suggest that their unprincipled support for the King has shattered the Opposition and ruined the credibility of McKillin, and even more seriously has cast the country into a constitutional mess which is causing deep economic anguish. Reluctantly you will call for a thoroughgoing review of the Monarchy – restricting its powers, its influence, its size, its income. Take it all down carefully. Yes, I've got time…' He paused. 'Now we come to the important bit, Bryan. Pay great attention. Your editorial will finish by concluding that so much economic, political and constitutional uncertainty has been created that it requires an immediate solution. No time for extended debates, parliamentary commissions of inquiry – not while every shareholder and mortgage-payer in the country is swinging on the hook. The matter needs to be dealt with decisively. Once and for all, in the national interest. You are to suggest that the only established means of deciding who governs Britain is to hold an election. Do you understand? An election.' He looked across at Sally and winked.

  'My dear Bryan, of course this is something of a shock, that's why I'm giving you the opportunity to prepare. But just between the two of us, until tomorrow. No running down to the bookies to put a couple of quid on an early election, now. Another of our little secrets, eh? You call me, only me, Bryan, day or night, if you have any questions. OK? Bye.'

  He turned with an expectant expression towards Sally. She offered back a serious, hard look, almost a scowl.

  'So who's supposed to be producing this magical overnight poll of yours, Francis?' 'Why, you are, my dear. You are.'

  Her bug eyes sank back into their sockets as if trying to hide. It was after midnight and she had been sitting in front of the computer terminal ever since the last of her staff had departed for the night and left her on her own. She needed space to think.

  Preparing a questionnaire had been simple. Nothing fancy or out of the ordinary. And she had on the shelf any number of computer disks with their random digit dialling facilities which would give a spin to the sample and so to the results, to drive the survey upmarket or downmarket, give added weight to council-house tenants or the substantial leafy glades of suburbia, question only company directors or the unemployed. The trouble was she had no idea how much the sample needed to be leant on to get the desired result -Urquhart was clearly ahead, but by how much? By however much, it would be more after The Times had sounded off. There was so much unease and anxiety around, it was a perfect time to hotwire the bandwagon.

  She wandered around her scruffy premises. The overheads were kept low, all the flash was up front in the reception area, all the quality poured into the strategy and the thinking. The mechanical side was low life. She walked alongside rows of open booths, covered in cloth for sound-proofing, where tomorrow the motley collection of part-time staff would gather to sit in front of their individual computer screens, phoning the randomly chosen telephone numbers thrown out by the mainframe, mindlessly reading out the required questions and equally mindlessly tapping in the answers. They would not suspect. They were junkies in torn jeans, off-duty New Zealand nurses worrying about missed periods, failed businessmen who had suffered from the mistakes of others and fresh-faced students eagerly waiting to make their own. All that mattered was they were vaguely computer-literate and could turn up at two hours' notice. They had no means of knowing what was happening to the information they gathered, and wouldn't care. She paced along the carpet worn with time and well trodden with gum, examining the polystyrene tiles missing from the corner where the gutter had blocked and backed up, running a finger along the open metal shelves overflowing with computer manuals and telephone directories, and dispatch dockets cast around like sweet wrappers on a windy day. Little natural light penetrated in here to expose the workings of the opinion-research industry. She told clients it was for security, in reality it was simply because the place was a dump. A pot plant had struggled and withered and eventually died, and now doubled as an ashtray. This was her empire.

  It had its advantages, this air-conditioned, computerized, paperless empire. A few years ago she would
have needed to shift a ton of paper to do what she had been asked to do; now she had to lift no more than a couple of fingers, tap a few keys – the right keys, mind you – and there you had it. Your result. Urquhart's result. But there was the rub. He had been uncompromisingly specific about the figures he wanted, had already given them to Brynford-Jones. No matter how much she toyed with the specs or put a wobble into the weighting of the sample, what was required was more than a little spin. She would have to end up doing what she had never done before, and fiddle the result. Take two figures, one Government, the other Opposition, and work backwards. Not so much massaging as beating them to pulp. If she were found out she would never work again, might even be put away for criminal deception. To lie, to cheat, to steal the opinions of ordinary men and women and abuse them. For Francis Urquhart. Is that what her dreams were all about? She gazed once more around the room, its walls painted black to disguise the cracks, its mustiness which even the lavatory deodorizers couldn't disguise, its tired-out percolators and second-hand furniture, its corners which overflowed with plastic cups and discarded cigarette packets, its fire alarm system, brick-red amidst the gloom, a relic of the 1970s, which probably wouldn't work even if tossed into Vesuvius. She picked up the pot plant, plucked off its withered leaves, swept away the stub ends, tidied it as if it were an old and rather disreputable friend, then she dropped the whole thing, container and all, into the nearest waste bin. This was her empire. And it was not enough.

  The lack of sleep showed in Sally's eyes, and she had hidden them behind spectacles with a slight tint, which only served to emphasize the fullness of her mouth and the exceptional animation of her nose. As she walked in through the doorway of Downing Street one of the doormen nudged a colleague; they had heard talk of her, of course, but this was the first time she had appeared during daylight. And Elizabeth Urquhart was at home, too. They smiled at her encouragingly, both wishing they could find some excuse to frisk her for weapons.

  He was in the Cabinet Room. It was different from the last occasion they had been here, in the dark, with nothing but the distant glow of street lamps and the tips of their fingers and tongues to guide them. He still sat in his special chair, but this time a civil servant drew back a chair on the opposite side of the table for her. It felt as though she were a million miles away from him. 'Good afternoon, Miss Quine.'

  'Prime Minister.' She nodded coyly while the civil servant made herself scarce.

  He waved his arms a little awkwardly. 'Excuse the, er… working formality. A busy day.'

  'Your poll, Francis.' She opened her briefcase and extracted a single sheet of paper which she thrust across the table. He had to stretch to retrieve it. He studied it briefly.

  'Of course, I know these are the figures I asked for. But where are the real figures, Sally?'

  'You're holding them, Francis. Ludicrous, isn't it? You didn't have to get me to cheat and fiddle. Ten points ahead, just as you asked. You're home and dry.'

  His eyelids blinked rapidly as he took the information in. A smile began, like the fingers of a new dawn creeping across his face. He started nodding in pleasure, as if he had known all along. 'I could have kept my virginity after all.'

  He looked up from the piece of paper, a crease across his brow. She was making a point of sorts but damned if he could figure out what. Over a set of figures, one poll amongst the thousands? Selective statistics, the sort of thing Government departments did by instinct? He took out a colourful handkerchief and wiped his nose with meticulous, almost exaggerated care. He wanted to celebrate yet she seemed intent on puncturing his euphoria. That, and the distance between them across the table, would make the next bit easier. 'How are those new clients I sent you?'

  She raised her eyebrows in surprise; it seemed such a tangent. 'Fine. Really fine. Thanks.'

  'I'm the one who should be grateful, Sally. There will be more in the future… clients, that is. I want to go on helping.' He was looking at the figures again, not at her. He was evidently uncomfortable, unsnapping his watch strap and massaging his wrist, easing his collar as if he felt claustrophobic. Claustrophobic? When she was the only other person in the room?

  'What is it, Francis?' She pronounced his name in a more nasal manner than usual; less attractive, he thought. 'We have to stop seeing each other.' 'Why?' 'Too many people know.' 'It never bothered you before.' 'Elizabeth knows.' 'I see.' 'And there's the election. It's all very difficult.' 'It wasn't exactly easy fiddling your goddamned figures.' There was a silence. He was still trying to find something in the sheet of paper on which to concentrate. 'For how long? How long do we have to stop seeing each other?'

  He looked up, a flicker of unease in his eyes, his lips stretched awkwardly. 'I'm… afraid it must be for good. Elizabeth insists.' 'And if Elizabeth insists…' Her tone was scornful.

  'Elizabeth and I have a very solid relationship, mature. We understand each other. We don't cheat on that understanding.'

  'My God, Francis, what the hell do you think we've been doing here, there, everywhere in this building, even in that chair you're sitting in, if it wasn't cheating on your wife? Or wasn't it personal for you? Just business?'

  He couldn't hold her stare. He began fiddling with his pencil, wondering if she were going to burst into hysterics. Not that, anything but that. He couldn't handle hysterical women. 'Not even after the election, Francis?'

  'I've never cheated on her, not like that. Not when she has made her wishes clear.'

  'But she need never know. Our work together, it's been fantastic, historic' 'And I'm grateful…'

  'It's been much more than that, Francis. At least for me. You are like none of the other men I've ever been with. I'd hate to lose that. You're better than the rest. You know that, don't you?'

  Her nose was bobbing sensuously, full of sexual semaphore, and he felt himself torn. His relationship with Elizabeth was his bedrock; through the years, it had made up for his sense of guilt and sexual inadequacy, provided a foundation from which he had withstood all the storms of political ambition and had conquered. It had made him a man. By God, he owed her. She had sacrificed as much as he for his career, in some ways more, but it was all beginning to blur as he stared at Sally. She leant forward, her full breasts enticing, offered up still more fully by the support of the Cabinet table. 'I'd be happy to wait, Francis. It would be worth waiting for.'

  And wasn't she right. He owed Elizabeth but with her it had never been like this, not raw, uninhibited, dominating lust.

  'And there's our work together. We're lucky for each other, Francis. It's got to go on.' He had never betrayed his wife before, never! But he could feel that irresistible tightness growing within him once more and somehow Elizabeth seemed to belong to another world, the sort of world they had inhabited before he became Prime Minister. Things had changed; the job imposed different rules and responsibilities. He had given Elizabeth what she wanted, the chance to run her own court in Downing Street, did she have a right to ask still more of him? And somehow he knew he would never be able to find another Sally, would have neither the time nor the opportunity. He might be able to replace her mind, but not her body and what it did for him. She had made him feel so supreme, a young man once again. And he could always explain to Elizabeth that it was in nobody's interest to have Sally roaming free, discontented, perhaps vengeful, not now. 'It would be difficult, Sally.' He swallowed. 'But I'd like to try.' 'First time? Give up your virginity, Francis?' 'If you would have it that way.'

  He was staring at her breasts, which held him like a rabbit in the beam of a lamp. She smiled, closed the lid of her briefcase and snapped the locks shut as if inside it she had trapped his innocence. Then she rose and walked slowly around the long table. She wore a tight black body stocking in an oversized silk-cotton jacket from Harvey Nicks, an arrangement he hadn't seen before, and as she approached him the jacket was drawn back to expose her full physical charms. He knew he had made the right decision. It was good for the cause, would ensure continue
d support and security, Elizabeth would understand that – if she ever found out.

  Sally was there, beside him. She extended a hand. 'I can't wait. Partner.'

  He stood up, they shook hands. He felt triumphant, all-powerful, as though there were no challenge, no dilemma, to which he could not rise. She was a remarkable woman, this American, practically a true British sport, his smile suggested. What an utter English prick, she thought.

  ***

  Brian Redhead's beard had grown longer and wispier with the years, but his Geordie bite remained formidably sharp. Why else would he have survived so long as the doyen of early morning radio and continued to attract an endless stream of politicians to be mangled and torn even before their first cup of coffee had time to grow cold? He sat in his studio within Broadcasting House like a hermit in his cave, searching for some intangible truth, the table strewn with dirty cups, disused notes and soiled reputations, glowering at his producer through the murky window of the control room. A huge old-fashioned wall clock with a burnished oak surround hung on the wall, like a British Rail waiting room, the second hand ticking remorselessly onward.

  'It's time once more for our review of the morning papers and we have our regular Thursday reviewer, Matthew Parris, to do just that for us. The Royal robes seem to be in something of a twist again, Matthew.'

  'Yes, Brian. Our home-bred answer to all those Australian soaps begins another tangle-filled episode this morning, but perhaps there are signs that some sort of ending may be in sight. There are suggestions that we could be losing at least one of the key players, because the latest straw poll carried in The Times puts the Opposition ten points behind and it could be the straw that breaks the Opposition camel's back. Not that Gordon McKillin will take kindly to being compared to a camel, or a tramp for that matter, but he must be wondering how soon it will be before he's sent off to live in a Royal underpass. He might find it a lot more comfortable than the House of Commons this afternoon. But it's The Times editorial comment which has galvanized the rest of Fleet Street in their late editions. Time for an election to clear the air? it asks. No one doubts that it would not only be Mr McKillin's leadership under public scrutiny, but also the King's. The Mirror goes back to basics. "Under the present system he could be the biggest twerp in the kingdom yet still get to reign. To use his own words, something has got to be done." And not all the other papers show as much respect. Have you forgotten the Sun headline of just a few days ago which shouted "King of Conscience"? The Sun's editor obviously has, because he's reused the same headline today – except it's been abbreviated to read simply: "King Con". It seems a week is a long time in Royal politics. There's more in the rest…'