The Image in the Water Read online

  ‘Which you want? You want the Union to disintegrate?’

  ‘If that meant the Tory Party could rule England for ever.’ Alcester saw that he had gone too far. ‘Of course that’s putting it too crudely. I’ve always been a Unionist. But if the price of the Union is too high? That’s why I’ve formed the New England Movement. At least, let us show the Scots that the price of their behaviour could be too high. That way they’ll behave better.’

  ‘That doesn’t seem to be what’s happening. The more we bang on about the price, the stronger these extremists in the Central Belt become. It’s Labour and the moderate Nationalists who suffer.’

  ‘Precisely, Clive, precisely. The extremists, the Scottish Liberation people, aren’t going to win any seats. But if they frighten enough people, then it’s we who can gain, north and south of the border. We can show how frightening they are.’

  They were crossing Hammersmith Bridge.

  ‘Isn’t this your constituency?’ asked David. But of course he must have known all the time that this was Clive’s patch. It would have been quicker to get to the hospital over Putney Bridge. ‘We’ve got ten minutes in hand. Is there anywhere we could do a quick walkabout?’

  Alcester had made a virtue of traditional electioneering. He believed in walkabouts, in town meetings with real people, in the soap-box oratory reinvented in 1992 by John Major. He disdained studios and TV debates. That way the publicity followed him, not the other way round. It did not matter that there were no journalists around the shops in Barnes through which they bustled shaking hands. David Alcester was already well known and a small crowd gathered. All the London media would know by lunchtime. The story would be that there was no ‘story’, nothing prepared, nothing artificial, just a man of the people among the people.

  ‘But it’s Clive Wilson you’ve come to see – of course you know him and how hard he works for you in Barnes. I’m just his helper today.’

  Ten minutes well spent, not least because it buttoned Wilson closer to him.

  ‘Thanks for that.’ They were back in the car.

  ‘Not at all. It was fun … Look, have you a copy of our manifesto on you? Can you find the Scottish paragraph?’

  Clive Wilson read it out: ‘“The Conservative Party remains devoted to the Union of Scotland with the rest of the United Kingdom. Within that Union we shall work to correct the present unfairness thrown up by crude Nationalist pressures within Scotland. We shall work with the elected Scottish Executive and the Parliament in Edinburgh to achieve a better constitutional and financial balance.”’

  ‘Good Central Office prose,’ said Alcester. ‘Nice and vague, but does it fit what I’m going to say at Leith? Can we argue, you and I, that I’m just filling in a few gaps in official policy?’

  Clive Wilson liked the ‘we’ and the ‘you and I’. He was also grateful for that small crowd in Barnes. His majority was not entirely safe. He put his own judgement to sleep.

  ‘Yes, of course. The two fit together very neatly.’

  ‘I thought so. Thanks.’

  David Alcester paused, then took a decision. Clive Wilson would never be a great man, but from David’s point of view this was an advantage. Clive was a shrewd organiser, and worth keeping alongside.

  ‘If we lose – or rather, when we lose – I’m going to change things.’

  ‘You’ll become leader.’

  ‘I hope so. I think so. Then we’ll have to do what we’re failing to do in this campaign. Reach out to people who take no interest. Frighten them, excite them, get them into the streets. That’s what the New England Movement is about – up to now it’s just small groups here and there, and I’ve had to keep it within the framework of the Party. But if I lead the Party, that will change.’

  ‘How exactly?’

  But David Alcester was not yet ready to trust Wilson further. ‘You’ll see. But I want you to be part of it.’

  ‘Gladly.’ But for the first time in his dealings with David Alcester, Clive felt a twinge of caution. He was a man for the back stairs and the smoke-filled room, not for violent shouting and shoving in the streets.

  The car turned through laurels into the hospital drive.

  Spring had turned back to winter. In the streets of Barnes this had not been apparent; they were blowy and bleak, as usual. But as the car moved through the gardens of the hospital a soft flurry of white across Clive’s windscreen might have been either snow or falling blossom. The stucco battlements of the Glebe stood out a shade paler than the March sky. Their Strawberry Hill Gothic seemed to stretch for ever along the flanking lawn. Within this fortress were fought innumerable battles against death, battles unfair in their balance of power, for success was measured in decay rather than cure. Clive knew the place well, for it lay near the southern end of his constituency. He was accustomed to canvass patients and staff during each general-election campaign. The results were satisfactory on the whole. He usually timed this election visit as close as possible to polling day. If he came too early the dramatic clarity of the Conservative candidate’s visit would become confused with other influences in the minds of some patients as the days of the campaign passed. A small proportion of the effort was bound to go to waste, since several dozen electors left the Glebe each week, either back to their homes in other constituencies or into the disenfranchisement of the crematorium. Despite its electoral assets, the Glebe filled Clive Wilson with gloom.

  It was not easy for the two politicians to reach their objective. The approach drive was too narrow for cars to pass each other without driving in and out of the ranks of vehicles parked irregularly on either side.

  ‘Do you mind staying here?’ said David Alcester when the Peugeot finally found a gap big enough to nest in within a hundred yards of the main portico.

  The relationship between the two men made this an order rather than a question. Clive was still grateful for the chilly but successful walkabout in Barnes ten minutes ago. The greengrocer, an elderly man of pronounced liberal views, had actually welcomed David Alcester into his shop and loudly complained of the absence from the market of the usual crop of new potatoes from Egypt. David and Clive had joined him in refusing to blame the weather and fastening instead on absurd health restrictions from Brussels and a greedy Scots wholesaler called Mackie. A small but satisfactory crowd had gathered. David had bought a bag of Cox’s Orange Pippins.

  ‘Just helping my old friend, Clive Wilson,’ he had said, pushing the change into a cardboard lifeboat on the counter.

  ‘We need every vote this time to keep those greedy Scots at bay.’

  ‘And those interfering Eurocrats,’ Clive had butted in.

  ‘But particularly the Scots. Did you hear the Bank of Scotland closed another thirty branches last week? All in England, of course.’

  On parting David had shaken the greengrocer and his wife warmly by the hand. ‘We must be off now to pay our respects to Joan Freetown. She’s not too well, but I’m sure she’s properly looked after up the road at the Glebe.’

  Clive had supposed that they would both join the pilgrimage into the hospital. He had never felt close to Joan Freetown – she had always been too definite in her views to suit his own sinuous approach to politics – but he collected personalities as in youth he had collected postage stamps, and she would have been a notable addition. However David Alcester was already out of the car. ‘About half an hour, I should think,’ he said, closing the door with just enough authority to forestall any discussion without actually falling into rudeness.

  The automatic doors of the hospital fitted awkwardly into the pretended Gothic of the entrance. They hissed slightly as they opened, and then closed, excluding the cold spring. David Alcester was ushered into a different world, warm, bureaucratic, smelling of past meals and the carbolic used to remove their memory.

  A woman greeted him at the reception desk, her voluminous garments overflowing somewhat the cubicle in which she sat. She radiated a kind but rule-based authority. This was the
National Health section of the Glebe, about four-fifths of the whole, depending for its survival on the private wing in which Joan Freetown was lodged.

  ‘The Milburn Wing?’ asked Alcester. He knew the way, having visited once before, but with a politician’s instinct judged that the woman in the cubicle would like to be asked.

  ‘Down there to the right and straight on through four fire doors. Turn left when the paint becomes mauve, and straight on for another two hundred yards till you see the Milburn plaque.’

  She spoke by rote but, as he had guessed, she was pleased.

  ‘Is there a shop nearby? I need some flowers.’

  ‘Yes, indeed, that way, just past the disabled toilets … but can I ask if the patient you’re visiting is having cancer treatment?’

  ‘She is.’ He wondered whether to mention Joan’s name. He was slightly irked that he had not been recognised.

  ‘I’m afraid they won’t allow flowers near her. Because of the risk of infection.’ The lady was not by nature uncharitable but her day had been changed for the better by the opportunity of instructing a fellow human in something he could not do. ‘I’m really sorry,’ she added. ‘Of course there is no objection to artificial flowers.’

  David Alcester found the shop, crowded into a corner not much bigger than the receptionist’s cubicle. Paracetamol, magazines, cheap perfume, get-well cards, boxes of soap, and a huge variety of chocolates. The previous exchange about flowers was otiose since there were none. He looked around impatiently. There was nothing there that Joan would welcome. He bought last week’s Economist from the volunteer in charge, and started off down the long walk to the Milburn Wing. David Alcester spared a thought for his recent argument with Julia. He had failed to get his way, but there would be other opportunities. He moved his mind to another subject, reflecting that while a second or two was enough for him to think of Julia, she would be spending hours thinking of him.

  David had banished from his mind an awkward question that was likely to confront him soon after the colour of the walls turned to mauve. Joan Freetown would be expecting him because he had telephoned the night before, and established that this would be a convenient time. He had done this direct to the wing. He wished now that he had made contact with Guy Freetown. If Joan was as ill as he suspected, Guy would almost certainly be there. Everyone admired Guy for his absolute devotion to his wife despite his dislike of politics. He was credited with keeping some sparks of generous humanity alive in Joan regardless of the shifting weight of Cabinet work and political ambition. David knew from past episodes that this was broadly true.

  David had been Joan’s political disciple and political friend. He had suspected that from time to time she had felt sexually attracted to him. Sometimes a change in her voice, sometimes her hand on his shoulder, or a long touch of their fingers as she passed him a document – these had been sufficient signs for a man acutely aware of his own physical drawing power. But he had never tried to displace Guy. That would lead nowhere and, anyway, he doubted he could succeed. Guy was quiet in manner and insignificant in appearance but he held over his wife a power the greater for being rarely exercised. David did not join in the general admiration of Guy. He resented the man who had prevented Joan Freetown from using her natural cutting power to best effect. She had been too subservient to Simon Russell, too restrained in her struggle against Roger Courtauld, too ready to let Peter Makewell outwit her with his show of old-fashioned integrity. At the crunch each time she had patted David’s knee and done what pleased Guy. But now he supposed that their interests were converging. Both were genuinely devoted to Joan, and would wish her last days to hold as much happiness as possible. They would still differ as to how such happiness might be composed.

  The nurse on duty recognised him. ‘Hi, David, we’re expecting you. How’s the election going?’ She was dressed in bright blue; none of the nurses wore uniforms at the Glebe. Her dreadlocks helped to convey informal jollity to the world. He had never met her before, but her name badge introduced her.

  ‘Is Mr Freetown here?’ The approaching moment was serious for David Alcester, and he felt in no mood to deploy his usual political charm with strangers.

  ‘Oh, you hadn’t heard?’ For a moment Nurse Wendy allowed the world to dampen her good cheer. ‘But he’s out of danger this morning. We’ll soon have him skipping about again.’ She had brought this nursery phrase from a traditional hospital in the Caribbean.

  ‘He? What do you mean “he”? What has happened?’

  Guy Freetown’s car had been rammed from behind by a truck the night before on the Headington roundabout just east of Oxford. He had been driving to see Joan after a snatched few hours of opening post and paying bills at their Cotswold home. He had been wearing his safety-belt but the forward jolt had dislocated his neck.

  ‘Broken it, you mean?’

  Nurse Wendy laughed. ‘Dislocated, we say nowadays. He’s still unconscious. I rang just now because Joan was worrying. They’ll put him in a collar for a few months, then he’ll be fine.’

  Although David Alcester had found Guy a hindrance whose processes of thought he could not understand, he could not imagine Joan without him. The three of them had worked as a triangle of which two sides were now disintegrating.

  David was genuinely moved that morning at the thought of Joan’s illness, which was why he had insisted on leaving Clive in the car park. But in a general election campaign only limited time was available for personal emotion. He looked at his watch. If the day was not to be wasted he must catch the one o’clock shuttle to Edinburgh from Heathrow. ‘Can I go in now?’ he asked.

  ‘Don’t forget Nanny’s rules.’ Nurse Wendy pointed to a notice. ‘Shall I help you on with your little apron?’

  David washed his hands in disinfectant squeezed from a bottle in the basin in the corridor. Wendy tied a plastic apron round his back. He did not know what he was going to find beyond the door. It carried Joan’s name slotted into a metal holder.

  Joan Freetown sat upright in bed, propped by three pillows. The room was in half-darkness, but David could see that her face was heavily rouged. There was another change he did not immediately identify. The thick white streak of hair running back from her forehead just above the parting had been her political trademark for as long as he could remember. It had gone. Her hair was black and lustrous without interruption. He realised, with a shock, that this was a wig. In giving her some months of extra life, the chemotherapy had exacted its price. ‘David, my dear.’ She stretched out; his plastic apron crackled as her shrunken arms embraced it.

  ‘Nurse Wendy says you’re doing fine.’ She had not said this, but certainly would have done so if asked. Joan did not answer, but lay back on her pillows. By the side of the bed a flask of colourless liquid was suspended on a stand. A pipe, plastic again, carried the liquid drop by drop until it disappeared at the top of Joan’s blue nightdress. Every minute or so the apparatus produced a musical note, sad but peaceful, as if recording an apology from modem medicine to Joan Freetown for its earlier ravages.

  ‘How’s the campaign?’ The words came from a dry mouth through cracked lips.

  David, moving newspapers from a cane chair, sat down and told her. The sluggishness of Makewell and Central Office, the lamentable inactivity of Roger Courtauld and all other party chieftains except himself, their continuing failure to narrow Labour’s lead in the polls, the neglect of the two issues that could really stir the English electorate, namely the interfering Europeans and the grasping Scots, the birth of his New England Movement. He could see her face and neck strain as she exerted herself to follow what he said.

  There was silence when he finished, punctuated by the measured note of the drip.

  David Alcester was suddenly impatient with Joan’s passivity. Her natural energy was being destroyed by the futility of this darkened room. He rose abruptly to open the half-closed curtains and let in some winter light. The cord snagged in his hand; the curtain moved an inch, then
stuck.

  ‘Leave it,’ Joan said, with strain in her voice.

  He sat down again, and forced himself back into courtesy. ‘Sorry to hear about Guy.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘He will be all right.’

  David recalled the moments over the last five years when he had judged that he could take Guy’s place. He had listed one or two incidents in his memory, knowing that each was trivial, even silly, in case they might one day be turned to good effect. He did not find Joan sexually attractive but would have slept with her had it been necessary. Somehow the moment had never come for a political takeover of Joan Freetown in the interests of his career. Guy occupied a compartment of her life into which she invited no other and which she was not prepared to discuss with him.

  David gazed at the fox-hunting prints, bizarre and tasteless against a chintzy wall Red paper peonies glared at him from an alcove opposite Joan’s bed. Dozens of get-well cards were pinned to a green felt noticeboard around the fire safety instructions. Nurse Wendy came in with a large cardboard menu and invited Joan to choose her lunch.

  His frustration returned and he got up to go. He believed that he would never see Joan Freetown again. He had not wanted a sentimental farewell, which would have been out of character for both of them. He had hoped, he now realised, for one last great rumbustious political discussion. She should have torn into his description of the lacklustre election campaign, attacked the faint-hearts, told him to pull himself together, and generally been her bossy, intolerable, irresistible self. But he had come too late. She was drifting back, perhaps, into older memories of Guy and the Cotswold farmhouse, then forward into death and whatever happened next.

  ‘My meeting is in Edinburgh at five,’ he said. ‘Goodbye, Joan.’