What a Carve Up!

by Jonathan Coe

  Hilary fanned herself with the menu.

  ‘Well can’t you take it outside for a while? It’s showing us up in front of everybody.’

  Once they’d gone, she turned to her companion.

  ‘I’m sorry, Simon, you were saying?’

  ‘I was saying we must think of a title. A single word, preferably. Lust, or Revenge, or Desire, or something.’

  ‘Well, can’t we leave that to their marketing people? I’m going to have enough trouble writing the bloody thing.’

  Simon nodded. He was a tall and handsome man whose slightly vague exterior masked a sharp business sense. He had come highly recommended: Hilary had chosen him to be her agent from a shortlist of seven or eight.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry the auction was a bit disappointing,’ he said. ‘But publishers are really playing safe at the moment. A few years ago six figures would have been no problem at all. Anyway, you didn’t do too badly. I read recently that the same people paid some new writer seven hundred and fifty quid for his first novel.’

  ‘Couldn’t you have pushed a little bit harder, though?’

  ‘There was no point. Once they’d gone up to eighty-five thousand they weren’t going to budge. I could tell.’

  ‘Oh well. I’m sure you did your best.’

  They ordered oysters followed by fresh lobster. Just as the waitress was leaving, Simon said: ‘Shouldn’t we order something for – what’s her name – Maria?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Your nanny.’

  ‘Oh, yes. I suppose we should.’

  Hilary called the waitress back and ordered a hamburger.

  ‘What does Josephine eat?’ asked Simon.

  ‘Oh, some vile muck you have to get in little bottles from the supermarket. It goes in one end and comes out of the other about ten minutes later looking exactly the same. It really is the most disgusting business. And it screams all the time. Honestly, if I’m ever going to get this book started, I’m going to have to go away for a few weeks. I don’t mind where – maybe Bali again, or one of the Barrier Reef islands – any old dump, really. But I can’t get a thing done with that blasted baby around. Honestly, I just can’t.’

  Simon laid a sympathetic hand on her arm.

  Over coffee, he said: ‘Once you’ve got this novel under your belt, why not do a book about motherhood? Terribly popular these days.’

  ∗

  Hilary disliked most women, regarding them as competitors rather than allies, and so she always felt at home in the Heartland Club, the stodgy, calcified and male-dominated establishment where her cousin Henry liked to conduct most of his informal business.

  Henry had broken with the Labour Party shortly before the second general election of 1974, and although he had never officially joined the Conservatives, he had, throughout the 1980s, been among their most loyal and outspoken supporters. During this period he became a familiar public figure, his bushy white hair and bulldog features (always rendered a little rakish by a trademark spotted bow-tie) forever cropping up on television discussion programmes, where he would take full advantage of his freedom from party loyalties by slavishly toeing the line of whichever cynical new shift in policy the present administration happened to be trying out at the time. It was partly for these appearances, but also – and more importantly – for the decade of legwork he had put in on a succession of policy-making committees, that he was rewarded with a peerage in the 1990 honours’ list. The notepaper upon which Hilary had been summoned to her latest audience was proudly headed with his new title: Lord Winshaw of Micklethorpe.

  ‘Ever think of going back into television?’ he asked her, pouring two brandies from a crystal decanter.

  ‘Of course, I’d love to,’ said Hilary. ‘I was bloody good at it, apart from anything else.’

  ‘Well, I hear there’s a vacancy coming up soon at one of the ITV companies. I’ll look into it for you, if you like.’

  ‘In return for which …?’ said Hilary archly, as they sat down on opposite sides of the empty fireplace. It was a hot evening in late July.

  ‘Oh, nothing much. We just wondered if you and your fellow scribes could start putting a bit more heat on the BBC. There’s a general feeling that they’ve gone way out of control.’

  ‘What did you have in mind: features? Or just the column?’

  ‘A bit of both, I would have thought. I really think that something pretty urgent has to be done, because as you know the situation now is completely unacceptable. The place is overrun with Marxists. They’re making absolutely no secret of it. I don’t know if you’ve seen the Nine O’clock News recently, but there’s no longer even a pretence of impartiality. Particularly on the Health Service: the way they’ve reported our reforms has been deplorable. Quite deplorable. There are homes up and down the country which are being invaded – quite literally invaded every night – by a torrent of anti-government lies and propaganda. It’s intolerable.’ He raised a brandy glass to his bilious face and took a lengthy gulp, which seemed to cheer him up. ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘the PM loved your front page on Tuesday.’

  ‘What, LOONY LABOUR LESBIANS BAN KIDS’ CLASSICS?’

  ‘That’s the one. Laughed like a drain, she did. God knows, we all need a bit of light relief these days.’ His face clouded over again. ‘There’s talk of another leadership challenge, you know. Heseltine might make his move. Madness. Utter madness.’

  ‘This vacancy you were talking about …’ Hilary prompted.

  ‘Oh, that.’ Henry mentioned the name of one of the larger independent companies. ‘You know there’s been a reshuffle there and they’ve got a new MD. Luckily we were able to get one of our own men in. Comes from a financial background, so not only is he good with figures but best of all he knows absolutely sweet FA about the business. One of his first jobs is going to be to get rid of that clapped-out old pinko Beamish.’

  ‘So they’ll be looking for a new head of current affairs.’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  Hilary digested this news.

  ‘He gave me my first break, you know. Back in the mid seventies.’

  ‘Quite.’ Henry drained his glass and reached for the decanter. ‘But then not even your worst enemies,’ he said drily, ‘could accuse you of being the sentimental type.’

  ∗

  When Hilary turned up for her meeting with Alan Beamish she was shown – as arranged – not into his office but into an impersonal interview room with a view over the main entrance.

  ‘I’m sorry about this,’ he said. ‘It’s a blasted nuisance. They’re repainting my ceiling, or something. I wouldn’t mind but I was only told about it this morning. Can I get you a coffee?’

  He hadn’t changed much. His hair may have been greyer, his movements slower, and his resemblance to an elderly parish priest even more pronounced: but otherwise, it seemed to Hilary that the dreadful evening he had inflicted on her during that long school holiday might have been yesterday rather than twenty years ago.

  ‘I was more than a little surprised to get your call,’ he said. ‘To be honest, I don’t really see that you and I have got very much to discuss.’

  ‘Well, for instance: I might have come to ask you to apologize for calling me a barbarian in your little diatribe for the Independent.’

  Alan had recently published an article about the decline of public service broadcasting called ‘The Barbarians at the Gate’, in which Hilary had been held up (rather to her delight, it must be said) as an example of everything he hated about the present cultural climate.

  ‘I meant every word,’ he said. ‘And you know very well that you give as good as you get. You’ve devoted plenty of column inches to attacking me over the years – as a type, if not by name.’

  ‘Do you ever regret giving me so much help,’ Hilary asked, ‘when you see what a Fury you unleashed upon the world?’

  ‘You would have got there sooner or later.’

  Hilary took her coffee cup and sat on the window-sill. Th
e sun was shining brightly.

  ‘Your new boss can’t have been too delighted with that piece,’ she said.

  ‘He hasn’t mentioned it.’

  ‘How have things been since he took over?’

  ‘Difficult, if you must know,’ said Alan. ‘Bloody awful, in fact.’

  ‘Oh? In what way?’

  ‘No money for programmes. No enthusiasm for programmes, either: at least not the sort I want to make. I mean, you wouldn’t believe their attitude over this Kuwaiti thing. I’ve been telling them for months we should be doing a programme on Saddam and his military build-up. We’re in this bloody ridiculous situation whereby we’ve spent the last few years selling him these weapons, and now we’re turning round and calling him the Beast of Babel because he’s actually using them. You’d have thought there’d be something to be said on that subject. I mean, just in the last few weeks I’ve been having talks with an independent film-maker who’s been working on a documentary about all this for years, purely off his own bat. Showed me some superb footage. But the people upstairs won’t commit themselves to it. They don’t want to know.’

  ‘That’s too bad.’

  Alan glanced at his watch.

  ‘Look, Hilary, I’m sure you didn’t come all the way here just to look at the view of our forecourt, beautiful though it is. Would you mind coming to the point?’

  ‘That photo that went with your article,’ she said absently. ‘Was it taken in your office?’

  ‘Yes, it was.’

  ‘Was that a Bridget Riley hanging on the wall?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘You bought it off my brother, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘Lots of green and black rectangles, all on a slant.’

  ‘That’s the one. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Well, it’s just that there seem to be two men outside, loading it into the back of a van.’

  ‘What the –’

  Alan leapt to his feet and came to the window. He looked down and saw a removal van parked by the steps, with the contents of his office stacked on the sunbaked tarmac: his books, his swivel chair, his plants, stationery and paintings. Hilary smiled.

  ‘We thought this would be the kindest way to tell you. It’s best to get these things over with quickly.’

  Somehow, he managed to say: ‘We?’

  ‘Is there anything I should know about the job before you go?’ When no answer was forthcoming, she opened her briefcase and said, ‘Well look, here’s your P45, and I’ve even written down the address of your nearest DSS office. It’s open till three-thirty today, so you’ve got plenty of time.’ She offered him the piece of paper, but he didn’t take it. Laying it down on the window-sill, her smile broadened, and she shook her head. ‘The barbarians aren’t at the gate any more, Alan. Unfortunately, you left the gate swinging wide open. So we wandered right inside, and now we’ve got all the best seats and our feet are up on the table. And we intend to stay here for a long, long time.’

  Hilary snapped her briefcase shut and made for the door.

  ‘Now: how do I get to your office from here?’

  September 1990

  1

  It was purely by chance that I found myself writing a book about the Winshaws. The story of how it all came about is quite complicated and can probably wait. Sufficient to say that if it had not been for an entirely accidental meeting on a railway journey from London to Sheffield in the month of June, 1982, I would never have become their official historian and my life would have taken a very different turn. An amusing vindication, when you think about it, of the theories outlined in my first novel, Accidents Will Happen. But I doubt if many people remember that far back.

  The 1980s were not a good time for me, on the whole. Perhaps it had been a mistake to accept the Winshaw commission in the first place; perhaps I should have carried on writing fiction in the hope that one day I would be able to make a living at it. After all, my second novel had attracted a certain amount of attention, and there had at least been a few isolated moments of glory – such as the week when I’d been featured in a regular Sunday newspaper article, usually devoted to vastly more famous writers, entitled ‘The First Story I Ever Wrote’. (You had to supply a sample of something you had written when you were very young, along with a photograph of yourself as a child. The overall effect was rather cute. I’ve still got the cutting somewhere.) But my financial situation remained desperate – the general public persisting in a steely indifference to the products of my imagination – and so I had sound economic reasons for trying my luck with Tabitha Winshaw and her peculiarly generous offer.

  The terms of this offer were as follows. It seemed that in the seclusion of her long-term inmate’s quarters at the Hatchjaw-Bassett Institute for the Actively Insane, Miss Winshaw, then aged seventy-six and by all accounts madder than ever, had taken it into her sad, confused head that the time was ripe for the history of her glorious family to be laid before the world. In the face of implacable opposition from her relatives, and drawing only upon her own far from inconsiderable resources, she had set up a trust fund for this purpose and enlisted the services of the Peacock Press, a discreetly operated private concern which specialized in the publication (for a small fee) of military memoirs, family chronicles and the reminiscences of minor public figures. They, for their part, were entrusted with the task of finding a suitable writer, of proven experience and ability, who was to be paid an annual, five-figure salary throughout the entire period of research and composition, conditional upon a progress report – or a ‘significant portion’ of completed manuscript – being presented to the publishers and forwarded for Tabitha’s inspection every year. Otherwise, it seemed that time and money were no object. She wanted the best, the most thorough, the most honest and most up-to-date history that it was possible to compile. There was no deadline for final submission.

  The story of how I came to be offered this job is, as I mentioned, a long and complicated one, and must wait its turn; but once the offer was made, I had little hesitation in accepting it. The prospect of a regular income was itself too much to resist, but I was also, if truth be told, in no hurry to start writing another work of fiction. So it seemed like the perfect arrangement. I bought my flat in Battersea (property was cheaper in those days) and set to work with some eagerness. Inspired by the very novelty of the enterprise, I wrote the first two thirds of the book in a couple of years, delving deep into the Winshaws’ early history and recording everything that I found there with absolute candour: for it was quite obvious to me, from the very beginning, that I was essentially dealing with a family of criminals, whose wealth and prestige were founded upon every manner of swindling, forgery, larceny, robbery, thievery, trickery, jiggery-pokery, hanky-panky, plundering, looting, sacking, misappropriation, spoliation and embezzlement. Not that the Winshaws’ activities were openly criminal, or indeed ever recognized as such by polite society: in fact, as far as I could determine, there was only one convicted felon in the family. (I refer, of course, to Matthew’s great uncle, Joshua Winshaw, universally acknowledged as the most brilliant pickpocket and burglar of his time – the most celebrated of his achievements being, as you will scarcely need to be reminded, his audacious visit to the country home of a rival family, the Kenways of Britteridge: where, during the course of a public guided tour in the company of seventeen tourists, he succeeded – quite unnoticed – in pilfering a Louis XV grandfather clock worth tens of thousands of pounds.) But because every penny of the Winshaw fortune – dating right back to the seventeenth century, when Alexander Winshaw first made it his business to corner a lucrative portion of the burgeoning slave trade – could be said to have derived, by some route or other, from the shameless exploitation of persons weaker than themselves, I felt that the word ‘criminal’ fitted the bill well enough, and that I was performing a useful service by bringing this fact to the attention of the public, while staying scrupulously within the bounds of my commission.<
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  There came a point, however, somewhere in the mid 1980s, when I realized that I had lost nearly all enthusiasm for the project. For one thing there was my father’s death. I hadn’t been in close contact with my parents for a number of years, but the days of my childhood – a calm, happy and untroubled childhood – had formed bonds of empathy and affection between us which made the fact of our physical separation irrelevant. My father was only sixty-one when he died and his loss affected me deeply. I spent several months in the Midlands, doing whatever I could to comfort my mother, and when I returned to London and the Winshaws it was with unmistakable feelings of distaste.

  In another two or three years’ time I was to abandon work on the book altogether, but before that happened a significant change had taken place in the nature of my research. I had by now reached the final chapters, in which I was to have the honour and the duty of celebrating the achievements of those members of the family who still had the good fortune to be with us: and it was here that I began to meet with serious opposition, not only from my own conscience, but from the Winshaws themselves. Some of them, it grieves me to say, became unaccountably shy in the face of my inquiries, and even began to show a scarcely befitting modesty when I invited them to discuss the details of their glittering careers. Thus it became something of a pattern for my interviews to break up amid scenes of what can only be described as unpleasantness. Thomas Winshaw threw me out on to the street when I asked him to disclose the precise nature of his involvement with the Westland Helicopters incident which had resulted in the resignation of two cabinet ministers in 1986. Henry Winshaw attempted to throw my manuscript on to the fire at the Heartland Club, when he discovered that it drew attention to some minor discrepancies between the socialist programme upon which he had first risen to power, and his subsequent role (for which he will perhaps be better remembered) as a prominent spokesman for the extreme right and, above all, one of the key figures behind the clandestine dismantling of the National Health Service. And I sometimes wonder, even now, whether it was entirely by coincidence that I happened to be assaulted in the street late one night as I walked back to my flat, only two days after a meeting with Mark Winshaw during which I had pressed him – perhaps a little too forcibly – for further information about his post as ‘sales co-ordinator’ for the Vanguard Import and Export Company, and the real reasons for his frequent visits to the Middle East throughout the bloodiest years of the Iraq–Iran war.