The Image in the Water Read online

  Again she stretched out a skeletal arm on top of the blankets. He came to the bed, crackling the absurd apron, lifted the hand and kissed it, as she in turn said, ‘Goodbye,’ and then, without explanation, ‘Sorry.’

  He left the room without a word of thanks to Nurse Wendy, tore off the apron and threw it on to a chair in the lounge. David Alcester had strong self-control. He had not wept for thirty years. The indoor walk back to the main door was just long enough for him to dominate the sharp stabs of sadness and frustration. But he never forgot them.

  ‘How was she?’ asked Clive, back in the car.

  ‘Pretty good. She sent her regards.’

  They drove to Heathrow in silence.

  ‘IS THIS THE DULLEST ELECTION CAMPAIGN ON RECORD?’

  By Alice Thomson

  As we approach the last weekend of the election campaign the loudest noise to be heard is the light snoring of the electorate. The two elderly party leaders tiptoe up and down the kingdom as if anxious not to wake anyone. If you listen carefully you can just catch the impression that the Leader of the Opposition might tinker with the tax system – of course, in a way from which everyone would benefit. He might be a little more co-operative with our European partners while, of course, preserving the British veto on everything that matters. He might be a little frosty with the right-wing governments in Poland and Austria, but would maintain our traditional friendship with both peoples. He might increase the fines on farmers who grow GM crops or clone farm animals without bureaucratic authorisation while, of course, encouraging the scientific community to press on with yet further experiments on both subjects. All this from a man who has been trying to be Prime Minister for fifteen years. If he asks the bookmakers he will hear that the job will be his in a week’s time. Will John Turnbull have the will to grasp the prize?

  Not that much grasping will be needed. The Prime Minister, Peter Makewell, goes through the motions of modern campaigning. His website is crowded, there is no pause between his e-mail shots, his computers conduct their telephone canvass with silken efficiency. Once upon a time there was a man behind all this apparatus, a steady Scottish laird, who became the natural choice for moderate Tories when Roger Courtauld stumbled over that beach towel. Not that Peter Makewell has been a bad prime minister – the way in which he had clamped down the Tory fury against the press two years ago had been masterly. But he must be the only holder of the office less well known at the end of his term (we must surely be there now) than at the beginning.

  Only one leading politician is giving the election campaign a taste of the noise and colour that used to be traditional. David Alcester is not a nice man, but he has chosen a style of politics in which niceness is unimportant. To an amazing extent he has managed to detach himself from the record of the government, of which he is a senior member. No one asks David Alcester about the rather dull Budget he produced soon after taking over from Joan Freetown. No one asks him how he would pay for the manifesto commitment to abolish capital-gains tax in the life of the next Parliament. Perhaps this is because no one expects the Tories to win again. But there is no doubt that David Alcester, a modern politician, using the old-fashioned techniques of public meeting and radio broadcast, has seized the initiative on his two brutal issues, Europe and the Scots. His New England Movement is still in its early days, but its slashing attacks on both targets are already scoring hits. There is a difference between the two. Europe is an old target full of holes, punctured by generations of critics having their fun. The European Union will never be popular, but everyone knows that nothing much will change. The fear of a superstate has gone, as one dreary meeting of ministers follows another. No party is going to disrupt the economy by rerunning the referendum on the euro. That reluctant and honourable change of tack has gone into political history alongside Peel’s repeal of the Corn Laws. We are left with a large, awkward, often quarrelsome union of states, vaguely right-minded in big matters and bureaucratic in small, easy to criticise, hard to reform and impossible to abandon.

  David Alcester understands this well. That is why he reserves his sharpest barbs and subtlest tactics for the Scots. The issue has been brewing since the Scots achieved their Parliament in 1999. David Alcester has brought it to the boil. While claiming to be a Unionist he and his New England Movement are in effect inciting the English against the Union. His speech last night in Leith Town Hall foreshadowed a tough assault on Scotland’s fiscal arrangements and on the number of Scots MPs at Westminster. I understand that he went well beyond anything approved by the Prime Minister at the Manifesto Committee of the Cabinet. He aims to make the Scots more unpopular in England than they have been since the days of Lord Bute and Dr Johnson. He means to ride this wave into the next Parliament, with what result neither he nor anyone else can predict.

  I have found in recent days that everyone is talking about David Alcester. Few people like him; even fewer despise him. This is not a bad foundation for political advancement. So, as the election campaign drones to its close, watch this space.

  Chapter 6

  ‘That’s generous of you. I talked to Louise about it in case you made the offer. Yes, we would like to spend the weekend at Chequers, to pack up our things and say goodbye to the staff. You’ll find them excellent.’

  ‘Stay a week, if you like. Or two. Florence is not exactly used to country life. It’ll take her a bit of time to realise the pleasure of it. She’s in no hurry.’

  ‘She’ll love Chequers, I’m sure.’

  The telephone crackled. Neither man was quite sure if any of their staff were listening in. There was a pause. Then the next Prime Minister said rather awkwardly to the present Prime Minister, ‘Do I wait for the Palace to ring? Sorry to ask you, but no one at Millbank has the faintest idea. It’s so long since we were in power.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll go out into Downing Street now, and concede. The Queen will drive up from Windsor, send for me, send for you. You don’t actually have to kiss hands. You’ll be installed at No. 10 here by teatime. The staff will line up in the entrance, and clap you warmly as you come in. Don’t take that too seriously. It’s a tradition, they do it for everyone. Louise will make sure there’s something up here in the flat for you to eat.’

  ‘Thanks. That’s very kind.’ Another pause. The two men had known each other for a quarter of a century, but always in a political context. It seemed natural to revert to this. Turnbull, as the winner, led the way. ‘It all went pretty much as expected, I think. You got a dozen more seats than we forecast, but no harm in that. If he’d lived Simon Russell would have done no better for the Tories, maybe worse. I just wanted to say that to you. The country wanted a change.’

  ‘I agree about the dozen seats. Carlisle, for example. Berwick-on-Tweed from the Liberal Democrats. We did relatively well in the North. Why was that, do you think?’

  ‘No mystery. Alcester stirred them up with all that nonsense against the Scots. That’s my only complaint about the campaign. You should have reined him in.’

  ‘Not possible.’

  ‘Now he’ll be pain and grief to both of us. I know he’s your son-in-law, but …’

  ‘Not quite.’ Peter Makewell had a thought. ‘I haven’t checked – does it look as if you’ll depend on Scottish Labour votes for your majority?’

  ‘Yes, thanks to these dozen extra seats of yours.’

  ‘Pity.’ He did not need to spell out the trouble ahead.

  ‘Can you keep that lad out of the way? Shadow Foreign Secretary would do. On home matters he’s a pain in the arse.’

  ‘You’re assuming I’m going to keep the leadership of the Party.’

  ‘You’ve done better than expected. No one will challenge you.’

  ‘Except myself. Aided and abetted by my wife.’ Another pause. Then the conversation changed from polite exchange to hard business.

  ‘Are you seriously considering standing down?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘All I can say is it’s your du
ty to carry on and keep your Party in shape.’

  ‘That’s balls.”

  Turnbull was by nature phlegmatic. A generation earlier he would have smoked a pipe. But every now and then a more forceful character broke out.

  He spoke firmly. ‘Being Leader of the Opposition is the worst job in politics. I’m bloody glad to be shot of it. You’ll have that job by teatime and you can’t run away. It’s public service, and you know it.’

  ‘Public service, indeed. You’re an old-fashioned Tory at heart. I always guessed it.’ But Peter Makewell, uneasy in his own mind, was not prepared to argue the point further. ‘Anyway, congratulations again. You must get on with your Cabinet-making.’

  ‘And a right shower they are, when you see the names on paper. Who’s to be Chancellor of the Exchequer? Never a one of them can count.’

  Peter Makewell knew that Turnbull would have prepared the Cabinet list in his own mind months ago. But both men ended the conversation liking the other the better for it.

  Tynemouth flickered on to the screen: a big increase in the Conservative majority, a beaming middle-aged woman with a blue rosette and ample display of teeth. ‘A high turnout compared to others, and another northern result against the Labour trend,’ shouted the commentator. He shouted because he thought this was the best way to hold the election-night audience after a campaign which, everyone said, had been the dullest in history.

  ‘Silly woman, fabulous result,’ said David Alcester.

  They had returned from his own count in Newbury Corn Exchange to the tiny cottage which they rented just north of the bypass.

  ‘She’s done better than you,’ said Julia. David’s majority had been quite sharply reduced.

  ‘You don’t understand anything.’ The tiny bedroom under the eaves had been chilly when they reached it an hour earlier. David had turned on both bars of an old electric fire. Now he sprawled in the only armchair, wearing only the old yellow wool dressing-gown that he kept at the cottage. Julia, still in her constituency tweed suit, lay on her side of the double bed. Watching David follow the election results was like watching him make love to a mistress. Julia was amazed to remember that, not long ago, as a Conservative prime minister’s radical daughter, she too had been interested in politics.

  She listened without understanding to David’s exposition of his own cleverness in raising the cry against the Scots. It had played well in the north. It would play well everywhere, even in Newbury, now that the electorate had landed itself with a Labour government dependent on the votes of Scottish MPs at Westminster.

  ‘You’ll see tomorrow,’ he ended.

  ‘What’s happening tomorrow?’

  ‘I told you. Rally of our supporters in the Market Square. I thank them for their efforts.’ He paused. ‘There’ll be a few people from outside, I expect.’ He smiled to himself. ‘Just to make the point.’

  What point? Julia did not care. Since their row on the day of his Leith speech they had hardly communicated. He had stayed away, returned to London. They had come down to the count in Newbury, without either fresh quarrel or reconciliation. She found this intolerable.

  The television moved away from announcing results to a discussion between experts. She saw a chance. ‘David,’ she said. ‘Come here.’ To her great relief he left the pundits and lay beside her slipping his hand under her shoulder. She raised herself from the pillow. He began to undo the large buttons at the back of her suit.

  ‘Tangier?’ she said, half in question.

  ‘Tangier,’ he said, in affirmation.

  She undressed slowly. David was patient now. He let Julia take control. It was the only act of power on her side of their relationship. In all other matters he dominated, even bullied, her in a way to which she could not get accustomed. But in these rare moments it was she who guided and David who submitted, until she had brought their bodies together and he lay exhausted beside her. For a fleeting moment they were both happy, and he looked about fifteen.

  The telephone rang. There was no extension in the bedroom. David swore, pulled on his dressing-gown and hurried down the steep straight stairs. She could hear him pick up the receiver in the sitting room. He said nothing for a while, then, ‘Ah. That’s very sad. I’m sorry.’ A pause while his calculating mind resumed control. ‘You’ve told Mr Freetown … What do you mean you can’t find him? I see, I see. Yes. No, I’ve no idea where he can have gone.’ Then, very firmly, ‘Look, Doctor, I have some experience with the press and handling these matters. It is essential that no one gives this sad news to the media before you have found Mr Freetown. If he finds out from radio or television there will be great pain for him and embarrassment to you. Obviously you will go on looking for him. Meanwhile, I strongly advise you to keep silent. Please ring me if you have any difficulty.’

  David climbed into bed, expressionless. He still wore his dressing-gown. There would be no more lovemaking that night.

  ‘Joan is dead?’ asked Julia. She had nothing in common with Joan, but remembered her kindness at the time of Simon Russell’s death.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Sad. You are sad. You were really fond of her.’

  ‘Yes, Julia, I was.’ He turned away his face. She kissed his shoulder. ‘I said goodbye. And the world must go on.’

  ‘Will you now become leader of the Conservative Party?’

  Roger Courtauld had just returned from his count in South Northamptonshire. This year Hélène had declined to accompany him. In recompense she had prepared a late-night supper of pâté, herb omelette and goat’s cheese with a Chablis at the right degree of chill. She had characteristically and accurately assumed that nothing Roger might have been offered when outside her jurisdiction had been worth eating. She had turned off the television and lit the fire. The two of them sat, as they had so often sat before, in armchairs at either side of the flickering logs, a picture of married harmony. Yet her question showed how far apart they were.

  ‘What do you mean, lead the Party?’

  ‘It is logical. You withdrew from that contest two years ago because of the stupid photograph, which no one now remembers. Peter Makewell was the winner, but he was never intelligent and has now lost the election. So there will be a new leader. No one is better placed than you.’ She refilled his glass, and for the first time he noticed she was wearing a smart jacket of brown Indian silk over cream linen trousers.

  ‘The thought is absurd, Hélène. Indeed, it horrifies me.’ He spoke more sharply than he intended.

  ‘Why absurd? Why horrific?’

  How could he explain, weary, in need of a bath, disappointed by his own sharply reduced majority? They had so few conversations of any substance, he and Hélène, that each seemed to become more difficult than the last.

  He put aside his tray, and softened his voice. But he knew he would never be a diplomat.

  ‘Look, ma petite. I will try to explain. First, I could not become leader. Not because of the photograph. That is not forgotten, but lingers below the surface. There are wider reasons. Time has moved on. I have deliberately stayed out of the public gaze. That has helped us as a family. Which is why I did it. But it means I am no longer in the first rank. Our friends in Daventry were talking about it even during the count. Chattering away – there was nothing else to do tonight. Either Makewell will stay for a bit, or David Alcester will take his place – that was their thought. They discussed it quite happily in front of me. No one supposed for a moment that I might again be a candidate. People like John Wilson and Eileen Hodge from the town branch. As you know, no one likes me more than those two.’

  Hélène leaned forward to put a log on the fire. ‘If you knew all this already, why in heaven did you stand again?’

  Roger hesitated. He knew he could not explain this to her convincingly. He had lost all appetite for the political battle, and in particular for the media-ridden noise of the House of Commons. In his day he had enjoyed it all, and jousted as sturdily as any. But that day had passed; now he wante
d to plan the evening. He wanted his horizons to narrow slowly and happily, so that there was more time for the boys and Felicity, for the garden, for village interests and the village church, for the committees and causes of Northamptonshire. All that was compatible with four or five years as the backbench Member of Parliament for South Northamptonshire. He would be diligent at his surgeries. He would unveil plaques at the opening of hospital wards and school computer centres. He would become less of a partisan figure, more of an elderly uncle to all his constituents. In opposition the whipping should be quite relaxed; in any case he was senior enough to ignore summonses to Westminster that did not suit him. The party whip had no more hold over him. He enjoyed the feeling that a pleasant corner of England belonged to him, that in every village street or shopping precinct he knew someone or could remember some anecdote from its past.

  But he saw suddenly that none of this was for Hélène. It was incomprehensible to her. Hélène’s idea of politics was strictly centralised, as became a Frenchwoman. The local constituency for her was simply a necessary condition of power at Westminster. He had somehow supposed that when the time came she would acquiesce in his plan for their gradual retirement. Because he was now a coward in their joint relationship he had also supposed that the practical questions would be more easily resolved if he did not discuss them with her in advance. He began to realise his mistake. But he could not summon up the energy needed to convince her. A part of him, he was surprised to find, did not really want to try.

  So he simply said, lamely, ‘I stood again because that fits into our life down here.’

  ‘Your life, Roger, your life. Not mine. Not mine any more.’ Hélène went to the table in half-darkness at the end of the sitting room and poured herself a whisky. This was unusual. ‘Listen, Roger. This poor little French girl was not interested in politics when you found her. She did not ask you to bury yourself in that dirty ridiculous career. But when you decided, I decided also – to help you, to push, to entertain, to organise on your behalf. But it is still a man’s world. My contribution in your eyes was as nothing. So, gradually, I did less. It did not matter to you. Perhaps you did not notice. At the time of the photograph affair I was already apathetic, as you remember. Since then, even more so. But today I decided that if you wanted to make one more political effort, once again I would be at your side.’