First Among Equals

Chapter four

When Alison McKenzie moved into Andrew Fraser’s Cheyne Walk flat everyone, including her father, the Minister of State for Scotland, assumed they would soon announce their engagement.

For the previous three months Andrew had had his head down in committee helping out with the public bills relating exclusively to Scotland which were referred to the committee from the House itself. He found much of the committee work boring, as so many members repeated the views of their colleagues, less and less articulately, and for some time only his doodling improved. Even so, Andrew’s energy and charm made him a popular companion through the long summer months and he quickly gained enough confidence to suggest first minor and later major changes to amendments considered by the committee. The disparity between penalties under English and Scottish law had long worried him, and he pressed hard for changes that would bring the two systems closer together. He soon discovered that the Scottish Labour members were more traditional and clannish than even the most hidebound of Tories.

When the session came to an end Andrew invited Alison to spend a long weekend with his parents at their country home in Stirling at the end of the recess.

“Do you expect me to sleep under the same roof as a former Conservative Lord Provost of Edinburgh?” she demanded.

“Why not? You’ve been sleeping with his son for the past six months.”

“Well, the same roof perhaps, but there’s one weekend we won’t be able to sleep in the same bed.”

“Why not? The Tories may be snobs but they’re not hypocrites.”

Alison didn’t want to admit that she was actually quite nervous about spending the weekend with Andrew’s father, as she had heard him continually maligned at her parents’ breakfast table for over twenty years.

When she did meet “Old Dungheap,” as her father referred to the former Lord Provost, Alison liked him immediately. He reminded her so much of her own father, while Lady Fraser was not at all the snobbish little battle-ax her mother had prepared her for.

It was immediately agreed that during the weekend nobody would talk politics. Andrew and Alison spent most of the Friday afternoon walking through the heather-covered hills and discussing in detail how they saw their future. On the Saturday morning the minister telephoned Sir Duncan and invited them over to Bute House — the official residence of the Secretary of State for Scotland — for dinner.

After so many years of opposing each other both families were nervous of the social get-together, but it seemed the children were to bridge the political gap they had failed to build for themselves. The McKenzies had invited two other Edinburgh families to dinner in the hope that it would ease the tension of the occasion, a branch of the Forsyths who owned the departmental store in Princes Street, and the Menzies, who ran the largest chain of newsagents in the country.

Andrew had decided to use the gathering to make an announcement at the end of dinner, and having spent longer shopping than he originally intended was the last to arrive at Bute House.

After they had all found their place cards around the long dining room table the fourteen guests remained silent as a lone piper played a lament before the chef entered carrying a silver salver which bore on it a large haggis for the minister’s inspection. Sir Duncan’s opinion was sought: “Warm — reekin rich!” he declared. It was the first occasion the two men had wholeheartedly agreed on anything.

Andrew did not eat as much as the others because he couldn’t take his eyes off the guest who had been placed opposite him. She didn’t pay much attention to Andrew, but seemed always to be smiling or laughing, making those around her enjoy her company. When Andrew had last seen Louise Forsyth it had been scoring goals on a hockey pitch. She had been a dumpy little girl with long pigtails and a tendency to go for one’s ankles rather than for the ball. Now the jet black hair was short and curly, while the body had become slim and graceful. After dinner Andrew mixed among the guests and it was well after one o’clock when the party broke up: he never managed a moment alone with her. Andrew was relieved to discover that Alison wanted to spend the night with her parents at Bute House while the Frasers traveled back to their home in Stirling.

“You’re very silent for a Socialist,” his father said in the car on the way home.

“He’s in love,” said his mother fondly.

Andrew made no reply.

The next morning he rose early and traveled into Edinburgh to see his agent. The minister had caught the first flight back to London but had left a message asking if Andrew would be kind enough to see him at ten o’clock in Dover House, the London headquarters of the Scottish Office, the following day, “on an official matter.”

Andrew was delighted but it didn’t change his attitude.

Having answered his local post and dealt with some constituents’ problems he left his office and made his way over to the New Club to make a private phone call. He was relieved to find her still at home. She reluctantly agreed to join him for lunch. Andrew sat alone for forty minutes, checking the grandfather clock every few moments while pretending to read the Scotsman. When she was eventually ushered in by the steward, Andrew knew this was the woman with whom he wanted to spend the rest of his life. He would have laughed, if he had been told — before the previous evening — that he could change his well-ordered plans on what was nothing more than a casual meeting. But then he had never met anyone like Louise before and was already convinced he never would again.

“Miss Forsyth,” said the man wearing the green livery uniform of the club. He inclined his head slightly and left them alone.

Louise smiled and Andrew guided her to a table in the corner.

“It was kind of you to come at such short notice,” he said nervously.

“No,” she said. “It was very stupid of me.”

Over a lunch which he ordered but didn’t eat Andrew learned that Louise Forsyth was engaged to an old friend of his from university days and that they planned to be married the following spring. By the end of lunch he had convinced her they should at least meet again.

Andrew caught the five-ten flight back to London and sat alone in his flat and waited. Alison returned a little after nine o’clock and asked why he hadn’t traveled down from Scotland with her or at least phoned. Andrew immediately told her the truth. She burst into tears while he stood helplessly by. Within the hour she had moved all her possessions out of Andrew’s flat and left.

At ten-thirty he phoned Louise again.

The next morning Andrew dropped into the Commons to collect his mail from the Members’ Post Office, and to check with the Whips’ office as to what time they were anticipating the votes that day.

“One at six and two at ten,” shouted a junior Whip from behind his desk. “And we could lose the second so be certain you’re not far away if we need you.”

Andrew nodded and turned to leave.

“By the way, congratulations.”

“On what?” queried Andrew.

“Oh hell, another indiscretion to start the week on. It’s penciled in on the morning sheet,” said the Whip, tapping a piece of paper in front of him.

“What is?” asked Andrew impatiently.

“Your appointment as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Hugh McKenzie. For pity’s sake don’t let him know I told you.”

“I won’t,” promised Andrew, breathing a sigh of relief. He checked his watch: perfect timing to stroll over to Dover House and keep his appointment with the minister.

He whistled as he walked down Whitehall and the doorman saluted as he entered the ministry. They had obviously been briefed as well. He tried not to show too much anticipation. He was met at the top of the stone steps by the minister’s secretary.

“Good morning,” Andrew said, trying to sound as if he had no idea what was in store for him.

“Good morning, Mr. Fraser,” replied the secretary. “The minister has asked me to apologize for not being available to see you, but he has been called away to a Cabinet committee to discuss the new IMF standby credit.”

“I see,” said Andrew. “Has the minister rearranged my appointment?”

“Well, no, he hasn’t,” replied the secretary, sounding a little surprised. “He simply said that it was no longer important, and he was sorry to have wasted your time.”

Charles Seymour was enjoying the challenge of his new appointment as a junior Opposition spokesman. Even if he was not actually making decisions on future policy he was listening to them, and at least he felt he was near the center of affairs. Whenever a debate on housing took place in the Commons he was allowed to sit on the front bench along with the rest of the team. He had already caused the defeat of two amendments on the Town and Country Planning Bill in standing committee, and had added one of his own, relating to the protection of trees, during the report stage of the bill on the floor of the House. “It isn’t preventing a world war,” he admitted to Fiona, “but in its own way it’s quite important because if we win the election I’m confident of being offered junior office and then I’ll have a real chance to shape policy.”

Fiona continued to play her part, hosting monthly dinner parties at their Eaton Square house. By the end of the year every member of the Shadow Cabinet had dined with the Seymours at least once and Fiona never wore the same dress twice or allowed a menu to be repeated.

When the parliamentary year began again in October Charles was one of the names continually dropped by the political pundits. Here was someone to watch. “He makes things happen,” was the sentiment that was expressed again and again. He could barely cross the Members’ Lobby without a correspondent trying to solicit his views on everything from butter mountains to rape. Fiona cut out of the papers every mention of her husband and couldn’t help noticing that, if any new member was receiving more press coverage than Charles, it was a young Socialist from Leeds called Raymond Gould.

Raymond’s name began to disappear from political columns soon after his success on the budget debate; his colleagues assumed it was because he was busy building a career at the bar. Had they passed his room at the Temple they would have heard the continual tap of a typewriter and been unable to contact him on his off-the-hook phone.

Each night Raymond could be found in chambers writing page after page, checking then rechecking his proofs, and often referring to the piles of books that cluttered his desk. When his Full Employment at Any Cost? Reflections of a Worker Educated After the Thirties was published it caused an immediate sensation. The suggestion that the unions would become impotent and the Labour party would need to be more radical to capture the young vote was never likely to endear him to the party activists. Raymond had anticipated that it would provoke a storm of abuse from union leaders, and even among some of his more left-wing colleagues. But A. J.P. Taylor suggested in The Times that it was the most profound and realistic look at the Labour party since Anthony Crosland’s The Future of Socialism, and had given the country a politician of rare honesty and courage. Raymond soon became aware that his strategy and hard work was paying dividends. He found himself a regular topic of conversation at political dinner parties in London.

Joyce thought the book a magnificent piece of scholarship and she spent a considerable time trying to convince trade unionists who had only read out-of-context quotations from it in the Sun or Daily Mirror that it in fact showed a passionate concern for the trade union movement, while at the same time realistically considering the Labour party’s future in the next decade.

The Labour Chief Whip took Raymond on one side and told him, “You’ve caused a right stir, lad. Now keep your head down for a few months and you’ll probably find every Cabinet member quoting you as if it was party policy.”

Raymond took the Chief Whip’s advice, but he did not have to wait months. Just three weeks after the book’s publication the Prime Minister quoted a whole passage at the Durham Miners’ Rally. A few weeks later Raymond received a missive from No. 10 requesting him to check over the Prime Minister’s speech to the TUC conference and add any suggestions he might have.

Simon Kerslake had sulked for about twenty-four hours after Maudling’s defeat for the leadership. He then decided to turn his anger and energy toward the Government benches. It hadn’t taken him long to work out that there was a fifteen-minute period twice a week when someone with his skills of oratory could command notice. At the beginning of a new session each week he would carefully study the order paper and in particular the first five questions listed for the Prime Minister on the Tuesday and Thursday. Every Monday morning he would prepare a supplementary for at least three of them. These he worded, then reworded, so that they were biting and witty and always likely to embarrass the Government. Although preparation of such supplementary questions could take several hours Simon would make them sound as though they had been jotted down on the back of the order paper during question time — and in fact would even do so. Elizabeth teased him about how long he took on something she considered trivial. He reminded her of Churchill’s comment after being praised for a brilliant rejoinder, “All my best off-the-cuff remarks had been worked on days before.”

Even so Simon was surprised at how quickly the House took it for granted that he would be there on the attack, probing, demanding, harrying the Prime Minister’s every move. Whenever he rose from his seat the party perked up in anticipation, and many of his interruptions reached the political column of the daily newspapers the following day.

Unemployment was the subject of that day’s question. Simon was on his feet leaning forward jabbing a finger in the direction of the Government front bench.

“With the appointment of four extra Secretaries of State this week the Prime Minister can at least claim he has full employment — in the Cabinet.”

The Prime Minister sank lower into his seat, looking forward to the recess.

Chapter five

When the Queen opened Parliament the talk was not of the contents of her speech, which traditionally lists the aims of the Government of the day, but of how much of the legislation could possibly be carried out while the Labour party retained a majority of only four. Any contentious legislation was likely to be defeated at the committee stage and everyone knew it. The Conservatives were convinced they could win the forthcoming election whatever date the Prime Minister chose until the by-election held in Hull increased the Labour majority from 1,100 to 5,350. The Prime Minister couldn’t believe the result and asked the Queen to dissolve Parliament immediately and to call a general election. The date announced from Buckingham Palace was 31 March.

Simon Kerslake began spending most of his spare time in his Coventry constituency. The local people seemed pleased with the apprenticeship of their new member, but the disinterested statisticians pointed out that a swing of less than one percent would remove him from the House for another five years. By then his rivals would be on the second rung of the ladder.

The Tory Chief Whip advised Simon to stay put in Coventry and not to participate in any further parliamentary business. “There’ll be no more three-line whips between now and the election,” he assured him. “The most worthwhile thing you can do is pick up votes in Coventry, not give them in Westminster.”

Elizabeth could only manage two weeks’ leave of absence from St. Mary’s, and yet between the two of them they covered the entire constituency before election day. Simon’s opponent was the former member, Alf Abbott, who became progressively confident of victory as the national swing to Labour accelerated during the campaign. The slogan “You know Labour Government works” was sounding convincing after only eighteen months in power. The Liberals fielded a third candidate, Nigel Bainbridge, but he admitted openly that he only hoped to save his deposit.

Alf Abbott felt assured enough to challenge Simon to a public debate. Although it was usual for the sitting member to refuse to be drawn on such occasions Simon jumped at his opponent’s challenge and prepared for the encounter with his usual diligence. Seven days before the election Simon and Elizabeth stood in the wings behind the stage of Coventry town hall with Alf Abbott, Nigel Bainbridge, and their wives. The three men made stilted conversation while the women eyed each other’s outfits critically. The political correspondent of the Coventry Evening Telegraph, acting as chairman, introduced each of the protagonists as they walked on to the stage, to whipped-up applause from different sections of the hall. Simon spoke first and held the attention of the large audience for over twenty minutes. Those who tried to heckle him ended up regretting having brought attention to themselves. Without once referring to his notes, he quoted figures and clauses from Government bills with an ease that impressed even Elizabeth. Abbott followed him and made a bitter attack on the Tories, accusing them of still wanting to tread down the workers at any cost, and was greeted by large cheers from his section of the audience. Bainbridge claimed that neither understood the real issues and went into an involved dissertation on the problem of the local sewers. During the questions that followed Simon once again proved to be far better informed than Abbott or Bainbridge, but he was aware that the packed hall only held 700 that cold March evening while elsewhere in Coventry were 50,000 more voters, most of them glued to “Coronation Street.”

Although the local press proclaimed Simon the victor of a one-sided debate he remained downcast by the national dailies which were now predicting a landslide for Labour.

On election morning Simon and Elizabeth were up by six and among the first to cast their votes at the local primary school. They spent the rest of the day traveling from polling station to committee room to party checking posts, trying to keep up the morale of their supporters. Everywhere they went the committed believed in his victory but Simon knew that the national swing would be impossible to ignore. A senior Conservative back-bencher had once told him that an outstanding member could be worth a thousand personal votes and a weak opponent might sacrifice another thousand. It wasn’t going to be enough.

By nine o’clock the last polling station had been locked and Simon and Elizabeth collapsed into a local pub and ordered two halves of bitter. They sat and watched the television above the bar. The commentator was saying that during the day a straw poll had been taken outside six constituencies in London and from those figures they were predicting a Labour majority of sixty to seventy seats. Up on the screen flashed the seventy seats most vulnerable to siege by Labour. Ninth on the list was Coventry Central: Simon ordered the other half.

“We should be off to watch the count soon,” said Elizabeth.

“There’s no hurry.”

“Don’t be such a wimp, Simon. And remember you’re still the member,” she said, surprisingly sharply. “You owe it to your supporters to remain confident after all the work they’ve put in.”

In the town hall black boxes were being-delivered by police vehicles from every ward in the constituency. Their contents were tipped on to trestle tables which made up three sides of a square on the vast cleared floor. The town clerk and his personal staff stood alone in the well made by the tables, while council workers sat around the outside carefully stacking up the votes into little piles of a hundred. These in turn were checked by party scrutineers who hovered over them, hawklike, often demanding that a particular hundred be rechecked.

The little piles grew into large stacks which were then placed next to each other, and as the hours passed it became obvious even to a casual observer that the outcome was going to be extremely close.

The tension on the floor mounted as each hundred, then each thousand, was handed over to the clerk. Rumors that began at one end of the room had been puffed up like soufflés long before they had reached the waiting crowd standing in a chill wind outside the hall. By midnight, several constituencies’ results around the country had been declared. The national swing seemed to be much as predicted, around three percent to Labour, which would give them the promised majority of seventy or over.

At twelve-twenty-one the Coventry town clerk invited all three candidates to join him in the center of the room. He told them the result of the count.

A recount was immediately demanded. The town clerk agreed, and each pile of voting slips was returned to the tables and checked over again.

An hour later the town clerk called the three candidates together again and briefed them on the result of the recount; it had changed by only three votes.

Another recount was requested and the town clerk reluctantly acquiesced. By two o’clock in the morning Elizabeth felt she had no nails left. Another hour passed, during which Heath conceded defeat while Wilson gave an extended interview to ITN spelling out his program for the new Parliament.

At two-twenty-seven the town clerk called the three candidates together for the last time and they all accepted the result. The town clerk walked up on to the stage accompanied by the rivals. He tapped the microphone to check the speaker was working, cleared his throat, and said:

“I, the undersigned, being the acting returning officer for the constituency of Coventry Central, hereby announce the total number of votes cast for each candidate to be as follows:

Alf Abbott 19,716

Nigel Bainbridge 7,002

Simon Kerslake 19,731

“I therefore declare Simon Kerslake to be the duly elected Member of Parliament for the constituency of Coventry Central.”

Even though the Labour party ended up with an overall majority in the House of ninety-seven, Simon had still won by fifteen votes.

Raymond Could increased his majority to 12,413 in line with the national swing, and Joyce was ready for a week’s rest.

Andrew Fraser improved his vote by 2,468 and announced his engagement to Louise Forsyth on the night after the election.

Charles Seymour could never recall accurately the size of his majority because, as Fiona explained to the old earl the following morning, “They don’t count the Conservative vote in Sussex Downs, darling, they weigh it.”

Chapter six

In most democratic countries a newly elected leader enjoys a transitional period during which he is able to announce the policies he intends to pursue and whom he has selected to implement them. In Britain MPs sit by their phones and wait for forty-eight hours immediately after the election result has been declared. If a call comes in the first twelve hours they will be asked to join the Cabinet, the second twelve given a position as a Minister of State, the third twelve made an Under-Secretary of State, and the last twelve a Parliamentary Private Secretary to a Cabinet minister. If the phone hasn’t rung by then, they remain on the back benches.

Andrew Fraser had not bothered to be anywhere near a phone when the BBC midday news announced that Hugh McKenzie had been promoted from Minister of State to Secretary of State for Scotland, with a seat in the Cabinet. Andrew and Louise Forsyth decided to spend a quiet weekend at Aviemore, he to relax and climb other mountains before returning to the House, she to make plans for their forthcoming wedding.

It had taken Andrew countless trips to Edinburgh to convince Louise what had happened to him at Bute House that night had not been mere infatuation that would soon pass, but held long-term conviction. When the one weekend he couldn’t travel to the Scottish capital and she came down to London he knew she no longer doubted his resolve. Andrew had found in the past that once the conquest was achieved interest soon waned. For him, though, his love for “the wee slip of a thing,” as his mother had come to describe Louise, grew and grew.

Although Louise was only five foot three she was so slim she appeared far taller, and her short black hair, blue eyes, and laughing smile had many tall men bending down to take a closer look.

“You eat like a pig and look like a rake. I don’t know how you manage it,” grumbled Andrew over dinner one night. He played regular games of squash and swam three times a week to keep his own heavy frame in trim. He stared in admiration and not a little envy as Louise’s eyes twinkled mischievously before she devoured another portion of Black Forest gâteau.

Although she had been brought up in a strict Calvinist household in which politics were never discussed Louise quickly learned about the machinery of Government and soon found herself debating long into the night with Sir Duncan. At first he scored points off her with ease, but it was not long before he had to answer her demands with more and more reasoned arguments, and sometimes even that was not enough.

By the time the election had taken place Louise had become a total convert to Andrew’s views. The squalor in some of the parts of the Edinburgh Carlton constituency, which she had never set foot in before, made her sick at heart. Like all converts, she became zealous and began by trying to reform the entire Forsyth clan. She even paid twelve shillings to join the Scottish Labour party.

“Why did you do that?” asked Andrew, trying not to show his pleasure.

“I’m against mixed marriages,” she replied.

Andrew was delighted and surprised by the interest she took, and the local constituency’s suspicions of “the wealthy lady” soon turned to affection.

“Your future husband will be Secretary of State for Scotland one day,” many of them shouted, as she walked down the narrow cobbled streets.

“It’s Downing Street, not Bute House, that I want to live in,” he had once confided to her. “And in any case I’ve still got to become a junior minister.”

“That could change in the very near future.”

“Not while Hugh McKenzie is Secretary of State,” he said, not under his breath.

“To hell with McKenzie,” she said. “Surely one of his Cabinet colleagues has the guts to offer you the chance to be his PPS?” But despite Louise’s sentiments the phone did not ring that weekend.

Raymond Gould returned from Leeds the moment the count was over, leaving Joyce to carry out the traditional “thank you” drive around the constituency.

When he wasn’t sitting by the phone the following day he was walking around it, nervously pushing his glasses back up his nose. The first call came from his mother who had rung to congratulate him.

“On what?” he asked. “Have you heard something?”

“No, love,” she said, “I just rang to say how pleased I was about your increased majority.”

“Oh.”

“And to add how sorry we were not to see you before you left the constituency, especially as you have to pass the shop on the way to the A1.”

Not again, Mother, he wanted to say.

The second call was from a colleague inquiring if Raymond had been offered a job.

“Nothing so far,” he said before learning of his contemporary’s promotion.

The third call was from one of Joyce’s friends.

“When will she be back?” another Yorkshire accent inquired.

“I’ve no idea,” said Raymond, desperate to get the caller off the line.

“I’ll call again this afternoon, then.”

“Fine,” said Raymond, putting the phone down quickly.

He went into the kitchen to make himself a cheese sandwich, but there wasn’t any cheese, so he ate stale bread smeared with three-week-old butter. He was halfway through a second slice when the phone rang.

“Raymond?”

He held his breath.

“Noel Brewster.”

He exhaled in exasperation as he recognized the vicar’s voice.

“Can you read the second lesson when you’re next up in Leeds? We had rather hoped you would read it this morning — your dear wife...”

“Yes,” he promised. “The first weekend I am back in Leeds.” The phone rang again as soon as he placed it back on the receiver.

“Raymond Gould?” said an anonymous voice.

“Speaking,” he said.

“The Prime Minister will be with you in one moment.”

Raymond waited. The front door opened and another voice shouted, “It’s only me. I don’t suppose you found anything to eat, poor love.” Joyce joined Raymond in the drawing room.

Without looking at his wife he waved his hand at her to keep quiet.

“Ray,” said a voice on the other end of the line.

“Good afternoon, Prime Minister,” he replied, rather formally in response to the more pronounced Yorkshire accent.

“I was hoping you would feel able to join the new team as Under-Secretary for Employment?”

Raymond breathed a sigh of relief. It was exactly what he’d hoped for. “I’d be delighted, Prime Minister.”

“Good, that will give the trade union leaders something new to think about.” The phone went dead.

Raymond Gould, Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Employment, sat motionless on the third rung of the ladder.

As Raymond left the house the next morning he was greeted by a driver standing next to a gleaming black Austin Westminster. Unlike his secondhand Sunbeam, it glowed in the morning light. The rear door was opened and Raymond climbed in to be driven off to the department. Thank Cod he knows where my office is, thought Raymond as he sat alone in the back. By his side on the back seat was a red leather box the size of a very thick briefcase with gold lettering running along the edge: “Under-Secretary of State for Employment.” Raymond turned the small key, knowing what Alice must have felt like on her way down the rabbit hole. The inside was crammed with buff files. He opened the first to see, “A five-point plan for discussion by Cabinet on how to keep unemployment under one million.” He immediately started to read the closely typed documents.

When Charles Seymour returned to the Commons on the Tuesday there was a note from the Whips’ office waiting for him on the Members’ Letter-board. One of the Housing and Local Government team had lost his seat in the general election and Charles had been promoted to number two on the Opposition bench. “No more preservation of trees. You’ll be on to higher things now,” chuckled the Chief Whip. “Pollution, water shortage, and exhaust fumes...”

Charles smiled with pleasure as he walked through the Commons, acknowledging old colleagues and noticing a considerable number of new faces. He didn’t stop and talk to any of the newcomers as he could not be certain if they were Labour or Conservative and, given the election result, most of them had to be Socialist. A doorkeeper in white tie and black tail-jacket handed him a message to say that a constituent was waiting to see him in the Central Lobby. He hurried off to find out what the problem was, passing some of his older colleagues who wore forlorn looks on their faces. For some it would be a considerable time before they were offered the chance of office again, while others knew they had served as ministers for the last time. As Macmillan had proclaimed, even the most glittering political career always ends in tears.

But at thirty-five Charles dismissed such thoughts as he marched toward the waiting constituent. He turned out to be a red-faced Master of Hounds who had traveled up to London to grumble about the proposed private member’s bill banning hare coursing. Charles listened to a fifteen-minute monologue before assuring his constituent that any such bill was doomed through lack of parliamentary time. The Master of Hounds went away happy and Charles returned to his room to check over the constituency mail. Fiona had reminded him of the 800 letters of thanks to the party workers that had been franked but still needed topping and tailing after every election. He groaned.

“Mrs. Blenkinsop, the chairman of Sussex Ladies’ Luncheon Club, wants you to be their guest speaker this year,” his secretary told him once he had settled.

“Reply yes — what’s the date?” asked Charles, reaching for his diary.

“16 June.”

“Stupid woman, that’s Ladies Day at Ascot. Tell her that I’m delivering a speech at a Housing Conference, but I’ll be certain to make myself free for the function next year.”

The secretary looked up anxiously.

“Don’t fuss, she’ll never know any better.”

She moved on to the next letter. “Mr. Heath wonders if you can join him for a drink on Thursday, six o’clock?”

Simon Kerslake also knew it was going to be a long slog. He was aware the Tories would not change their leader until Heath had been given a second chance at the polls, and that could take every day of five years with a Government which had a ninety-seven majority.

He began writing articles for the Spectator and for the Sunday Express center pages, in the hope of building a reputation outside the House while at the same time supplementing his parliamentary salary of £3,400. Even with Elizabeth’s income as a consultant he was finding it difficult to make ends meet, and soon their two young sons would have reached prep school age. He envied the Charles Seymours of this world who did not have to give a second thought about their next paycheck. Simon wondered if the damn man had any problems at all. He ran a finger down his own bank account: as usual there was a figure around £500 in the right-hand margin, and as usual it was in red. Many of his Oxford contemporaries had already established themselves in the City or at the bar and on a Friday evening could be seen being driven to large houses in the country. Simon laughed whenever he read that people went into politics to make money.

He pressed on with demanding questions to the Prime Minister, and tried not to show how frustrated he was by the expectations of his colleagues whenever he rose each Tuesday and Thursday. Even after it became routine he prepared himself thoroughly, and on one occasion he even elicited praise from his normally taciturn leader. But as the weeks passed he found that his thoughts continually returned to money — or to his lack of it.

That was before he met Ronnie Nethercote.

Andrew Fraser had often read that the anger or jealousy of one man could block the advance of a political career but he still found it hard to accept that it could apply to him. What annoyed him even more was that Hugh McKenzie’s tentacles seemed to have spread through every other department.

Andrew’s marriage to Louise Forsyth had been expansively covered in the national papers and the absence of the Secretary of State at the wedding did not escape the notice of the Daily Express’s William Hickey. They even published an out-of-date photograph of Alison McKenzie looking sorrowful.

Sir Duncan reminded his son that politics was for long-distance runners, not sprinters, and that he still had a few more laps to complete yet. “An unfortunate analogy,” considered Andrew as he had been a member of the Edinburgh University 4 x 110 relay team. Nevertheless he prepared himself for the marathon.

“Don’t forget, Harold Macmillan spent fourteen years on the back benches before holding office,” Sir Duncan added.

Louise accompanied Andrew all over the country for his speeches “of major importance,” usually to an audience of less than twenty; she only stopped traveling to Scotland every week when she discovered she was pregnant.

To Louise’s surprise, Andrew turned out to be a keen anticipatory father, determined his son would not think of him only as a politician. Single-handed, he converted one of the upstairs bedrooms in Cheyne Walk into a nursery and sought her approval for a variety of blue decorative schemes.

Louise was anxious that Andrew should extend the same feelings to their unborn child, if they had a daughter.

Raymond Could quickly gained a reputation at the Department of Employment. He was thought of as extremely bright, demanding, hard working and, not that it was ever reported to him, arrogant. His ability to cut a junior civil servant off in mid-sentence or to correct his principal Private Secretary on matters of detail did not endear him even to his closest staff, who always want to be loyal to their master.

Raymond’s work load was prodigious and even the Permanent Secretary experienced Gould’s unrelenting “Don’t make excuses” when he tried to trim one of the minister’s private schemes. Soon senior civil servants were talking of when, not whether, he would be promoted. His Secretary of State, like all men who were expected to be in six places at once, often asked Raymond to stand in for him, but even Raymond was surprised when he was invited to represent the department as guest of honor at the annual CBI dinner.

Joyce checked to see that her husband’s dinner jacket was well brushed, his shirt spotless, and his shoes shining like a guards officer’s. His carefully worded speech — a combination of civil-servant draftsmanship and a few more forceful phrases of his own to prove to the assembled capitalists that not every member of the Labour party was a “raving commie” — was safely lodged in his inside pocket. His driver ferried him from his Lansdowne Road home toward the West End.

Raymond enjoyed the occasion; although he was nervous when he rose to represent the Government in reply to the toast of the guests. By the time he had resumed his seat he felt it had been one of his better efforts. The ovation that followed was certainly more than polite from what had to be classified as a naturally hostile audience.

“That speech was dryer than the Chablis,” one guest whispered in the chairman’s ear but he had to agree that, with men like Gould in high office, it was going to be a lot easier to live with the Socialists.

The man on Simon Kerslake’s left was far more blunt in voicing his opinion of Could. “Bloody man thinks like a Tory, talks like a Tory, so why isn’t he a Tory?” he demanded.

Simon grinned at the prematurely balding man who had been expressing his equally vivid views throughout dinner. Corpulent and ruddy-faced, Ronnie Nethercote looked as if he was trying to escape from every part of his bulging dinner jacket.

“I expect,” said Simon in reply, “that Gould would have found it hard to join the Young Conservatives, born in the thirties and living in Leeds.”

“Balls,” said Ronnie. “I managed it and I was born in the East End of London without any of his advantages. Now tell me, Mr. Kerslake, what do you do when you’re not wasting your time in the House of Commons?”

Raymond stayed on after dinner and chatted for some time to the captains of industry. A little after eleven he left to return to Lansdowne Road.

As his chauffeur drove slowly away from Grosvenor House down Park Lane, the Under-Secretary waved expansively back to his host. Someone else waved in reply. At first Raymond only glanced across, assuming it was another dinner guest, until he saw her legs. Standing on the corner outside the petrol station on Park Lane stood a young girl smiling at him invitingly, her white leather miniskirt so short it might have been better described as a handkerchief. Her long legs reminded him of Joyce ten years before except that they were black. Her finely curled hair and the set of her hips remained firmly implanted in Raymond’s mind all the way home.

When they reached Lansdowne Road Raymond climbed out of the official car and said “Good night” to his driver before walking slowly toward his front door, but he did not take out his latch key. He waited until he was sure the driver had turned the corner before looking up and checking the bedroom window. All the lights were out. Joyce must be asleep.

He crept down the path and back on to the pavement, then looked up and down the road, finally spotting the space where Joyce had parked the Sunbeam. He checked the spare key was on his key-ring and fumbled about, feeling like a car thief. It took three attempts before the car spluttered into life, and Raymond wondered if he would wake up the whole road as he moved off and headed back to Park Lane, not certain what to expect. When he reached Marble Arch he traveled slowly down in the center stream of traffic. A few dinner guests in evening dress were still spilling out of Grosvenor House. He passed the petrol station: she hadn’t moved. She smiled again and he accelerated, nearly running into the car in front of him. Raymond traveled back up to Marble Arch but, instead of turning toward home, he drove down Park Lane again, this time not as quickly and on the inside lane. He took his foot off the accelerator as he approached the petrol station and she waved again. He returned to Marble Arch before repeating his detour down Park Lane, this time even more slowly. As he passed Grosvenor House for a third time he checked to be sure that there were no stragglers still chatting on the pavement. It was clear. He touched the brakes and his car came to a stop just beyond the petrol station. He waited.

The girl looked up and down the street before strolling over to the car, opening the passenger door and taking a seat next to the Under Secretary of State for Employment.

“Looking for business?”

“What do you mean?” asked Raymond hoarsely.

“Come on, darling. You can’t imagine I was standing out there hoping to get a suntan.”

Raymond turned to look at the girl more carefully and wanted to touch her despite the aura of cheap perfume. Her black blouse had three buttons undone; a fourth would have left nothing to the imagination.

“It’s ten pounds at my place.”

“Where’s your place?” he heard himself say.

“I use a hotel in Paddington.”

“How do we get there?” he asked, putting his hand nervously through his red hair.

“Just head up to Marble Arch and I’ll direct you.”

Raymond pulled out and went off toward Hyde Park Corner, and drove round before traveling on up toward Marble Arch once again.

“I’m Mandy,” she-said, “what’s your name?”

Raymond hesitated. “Malcolm.”

“And what do you do, Malcolm, in these hard times?”

“I... I sell secondhand cars.”

“Haven’t picked out a very good one for yourself, have you?” She laughed.

Raymond made no comment. It didn’t stop Mandy.

“What’s a secondhand car salesman doing dressed up like a toff, then?”

Raymond had quite forgotten he was still in evening dress.

“I’ve... just been to a convention... at the... Hilton Hotel.”

“Lucky for some,” she said, and lit a cigarette. “I’ve been standing outside Grosvenor House all night in the hope of getting some rich feller from that posh party.” Raymond’s cheeks nearly turned the color of his hair. “Slow down and take the second on the left.”

He followed her instructions until they pulled up outside a small dingy hotel. “I’ll get out first, then you,” she said. “Just walk straight through reception and follow me up the stairs.” As she got out of the car he nearly drove off and might have done so if his eye hadn’t caught the sway of her hips as she walked back toward the hotel.

He obeyed her instructions and climbed several flights of narrow stairs until he reached the top floor. As he approached the landing, a large bosomy blonde passed him on the way down.

“Hi, Mandy,” she shouted back at her friend.

“Hi, Sylv. Is the room free?”

“Just,” said the blonde sourly.

Mandy pushed open the door and Raymond followed her in. The room was small and narrow. In one corner stood a tiny bed and a threadbare carpet. The faded yellow wallpaper was peeling in several places. There was a washbasin attached to the wall; a dripping tap had left a brown stain on the enamel.

Mandy put her hand out, and waited.

“Ah, yes, of course,” said Raymond, taking out his wallet to find he only had nine pounds on him.

She scowled. “Not going to get overtime tonight, am I, darling?” she said, tucking the money carefully away in the corner of her bag before matter-of-factly taking off all her clothes.

Although the act of undressing had been totally sexless he was still amazed by the beauty of her body. Raymond felt somehow detached from the real world. He watched, eager to feel the texture of her skin, but made no move. She lay down on the bed.

“Let’s get on with it, darling. I’ve got a living to earn.”

The minister undressed quickly, keeping his back to the bed. He folded his clothes in a neat pile on the floor as there was no chair. Then he lay down on top of her. It was all over in a few minutes.

“Come quickly, don’t you, darling?” said Mandy, grinning.

Raymond turned away from her and started washing himself as best he could in the little basin. He dressed hurriedly, realizing he must get out of the place as rapidly as possible.

“Can you drop me back at the petrol station?” Mandy asked.

“It’s exactly the opposite direction for me,” he said, trying not to sound anxious as he made a bolt for the door. He passed Sylv on the stairs accompanied by a man. She stared at him more closely the second time. Raymond was back in his car a few moments later. He drove home quickly but not before unwinding the windows in an attempt to get rid of the smell of stale tobacco and cheap perfume.

Back in Lansdowne Road he had a long shower before creeping into bed next to Joyce; she stirred only slightly.

Chapter seven

Charles drove his wife down to Ascot early to be sure to avoid the bumper-to-bumper traffic that always developed later in the day. With his height and bearing, Charles Seymour was made for tails and a topper and Fiona wore a hat which on anyone less self-assured would have looked ridiculous. They had been invited to join the McFarlands for the afternoon and when they arrived they found Sir Robert awaiting them in his private box.

“You must have left home early,” said Charles.

“About thirty minutes ago,” he said, laughing. Fiona looked politely incredulous.

“I always come here by helicopter,” he explained.

They lunched on lobster and strawberries accompanied by a fine vintage champagne which the waiter kept pouring and pouring. Charles might not have drunk quite as much had he not picked the winners of the first three races. He spent the fifth race slumped in a chair in the corner of the box and only the noise of the crowd kept him from nodding off.

If they hadn’t waited for a farewell drink after the last race Charles might have gotten away with it. He had forgotten that his host was returning by helicopter.

The long tail of cars across Windsor Great Park all the way back to the M4 made Charles very short-tempered. When he eventually reached the motorway he put his Daimler into fourth gear. He didn’t notice the police car until the siren sounded and he was directed to pull over.

“Do be sensible, Charles,” whispered Fiona.

“Don’t worry, old girl, I know exactly how to deal with the law,” he said, and wound down the window to address the policeman who stood by the car. “Do you realize who I am, officer?”

“No, sir, but I would like you to accompany me—”

“Certainly not, officer, I am a Member of...”

“Do be quiet,” said Fiona, “and stop making such a fool of yourself.”

“... Parliament and I will not be treated...”

“Have you any idea how pompous you sound, Charles?”

“Perhaps you will be kind enough to accompany me to the station, sir?”

“I want to speak to my solicitor.”

“Of course, sir. As soon as we reach the station.”

When Charles arrived at the constabulary he proved quite incapable of walking in a straight line and refused to provide a blood sample.

“I am the Conservative MP for Sussex Downs.”

Which will not help you, Fiona thought, but he was past listening and only demanded that she phone the family solicitor at Speechly, Bircham and Soames.

After lan Kimmins had spoken first gently, then firmly to Charles his client eventually cooperated with the police.

Once Charles had completed his written statement Fiona drove him home, praying that his stupidity would pass unnoticed by the press the following day.

Andrew even bought a football but hid it from Louise.

As the months passed Louise’s slight frame expanded alarmingly. Andrew would rest his head on the bulge and listen for the heartbeat. “It’s a scrum-half,” he declared.

“Perhaps she’s a center forward,” Louise suggested, “and will want to emulate the distaff side of the family.”

“If he has to be a center forward he will play for Hearts,” Andrew assured her.

“Male chauvinist pig,” she called to his back as he headed off to the Commons that morning. Andrew toyed with the names of Jamie, Robert, Hector, and lain and had settled on Robert before he had reached Westminster. On arrival at New Palace Yard he hailed the policeman on the gate and was surprised to see the familiar figure immediately rush toward him.

Andrew wound down the window. “What’s the problem, officer?”

“Your wife’s been taken to St. Mary’s, Paddington, sir. Emergency wing.”

Andrew would have broken the speed limit all the way to Marble Arch if it hadn’t been for the traffic. He kept praying he would be there in time, but he couldn’t help remembering that Louise was only six months pregnant. When he arrived the doctor on duty would not allow him to see her.

“How is Louise?” were Andrew’s first words.

The young doctor hesitated, then said, “Your wife’s fine, but I’m afraid she’s lost the baby.”

Andrew felt his whole body go limp. “Thank God she’s all right,” he said.

“I’m afraid I can’t let you see her until she has come out of sedation.”

“Of course, Doctor,” said Andrew, glancing at the lapel badge on her white coat.

“But I can see no reason why you shouldn’t have more children in the future,” she added gently, before he had the chance to ask the question.

Andrew smiled with relief and began pacing up and down the corridor, unaware of the passing of time, until the doctor returned and said it would now be all right for him to see his wife.

“I hope you’re not too disappointed?” were Louise’s first words when eventually he was allowed to see her.

“Don’t be silly — we’ll have a dozen before we’re through,” he said, taking her hand.

She tried to laugh. “Do you know my doctor’s husband?”

“Not that I’m aware of,” said Andrew.

“Simon Kerslake.”

“Good heavens, yes. Very capable fellow. Look aye, lass,” said Andrew, putting on a deep brogue, “you’ll be a new woman after a couple of days’ rest, I’ll guarantee it.”

“And if I’m not?”

“I’ll stick with the old one. And I’ll tell you what: as soon as they let you out of this place we’ll go down to the south of France for the weekend.”

“You don’t like him because he comes from the East End,” said Simon, after she had read the letter.

“That’s not true,” replied Elizabeth. “I don’t like him because I don’t trust him.”

“But you’ve only met him twice.”

“Once would have been quite enough.”

“Well, I can tell you I’m impressed by the not inconsiderable empire he’s built up over the last ten years, and frankly it’s an offer I can’t refuse,” said Simon, pocketing the letter.

“I know we could do with a little more money,” said Elizabeth, “but surely not at any cost.”

“I won’t be offered many chances like this,” continued Simon, “and frankly we could use the money. The belief people have that every Tory MP has some lucrative sinecure and two or three non-executive directorships is plain baloney and you know it. Not one other serious proposition has been put to me since I’ve been in the House, and another £2,000 a year for a monthly board meeting would come in very handy.”

“And what else?”

“What do you mean, what else?”

“What else does Mr. Nethercote expect for his £2,000? Don’t be naive, Simon, he’s not offering you that kind of money on a plate unless he’s hoping to receive some scraps back.”

“Well, maybe I have a few contacts and a little influence with one or two people...”

“I’ll bet.”

“You’ve just taken against him, Elizabeth.”

“I’m against anything that might in the long term harm your career, Simon. Struggle on but never sacrifice your integrity, as you’re so fond of reminding the people of Coventry.”

On Friday morning, two weeks later, Andrew and Louise set out for London airport with one suitcase between them. As Andrew locked the front door the phone rang.

“No one’s in,” he shouted at the doorknob, “but we’ll be back on Monday.”

He had booked a suite at the Colombe d’Or nestled in the hills of St. Paul in the south of France. He was determined to prize Louise away from London and see she had some sun and rest.

The famous old hotel was everything the brochure had promised. On the walls hung paintings by Picasso, Monet, Manet, Utrillo — all of which the patroness, Madame Reux, had accepted many years before in place of payment from artists who needed lodging and a square meal. On the way up the winding staircase Louise was nearly knocked out by a Calder mobile and a Courbet hung above the bed in their room. But it was the bed itself, a sixteenth-century four-poster, that they both coveted. They were soon to discover it possessed a mattress so comfortable that visitors always overslept.

The food was memorable and they walked through the green hills each day to be sure they could tackle another full dinner at night. Three days of no radio, no television, no papers, and no telephone ensured that by Monday morning they were ready to face London. They swore they would return again soon.

Once their plane had landed at Heathrow they were made aware that the holiday was over. Twenty minutes passed before someone pushed the waiting steps up to the Vanguard’s door. Then a crowded bus to the terminal that seemed miles away was followed by a route-march to customs. Despite their first-class tickets their bags were among the last off. By the time the taxi had crawled through the morning rush hour to their front door in Cheyne Walk all Louise could say was, “I need another holiday.” As Andrew put his latch key in the door the telephone started ringing.

“I hope they haven’t been trying all weekend,” Louise said.

Andrew put the phone to his ear as it went dead.

“Just missed whoever it was,” said Andrew, picking up several brown envelopes from the floor. “France already seems about a week ago.” He kissed his wife. “Must get changed and be off to the House,” he said, checking his watch.

“How has the nation managed to survive without you?” mocked Louise.

When the phone rang again Andrew was just stepping out of the bath.

“Can you take it, Louise?” he shouted. A moment later he heard her rushing up the stairs.

“Andrew, it’s the Prime Minister’s office.”

He ran dripping and naked to the bedroom phone and picked up the extension.

“Andrew Fraser,” he said.

“This is No. 10,” said an official-sounding voice, “the Prime Minister has been wanting to contact you since Friday morning.”

“I’m sorry, I took my wife to Provence for the weekend.”

“Really, sir?” said the voice, not sounding at all interested. “May I tell the Prime Minister you are now free to speak to him?”

“Of course,” said Andrew, frowning at his nude reflection in the mirror. He must have put on half a stone; it would have to be four games of squash this week and no more wine at lunch.

“Andrew.”

“Good morning, Prime Minister.”

“Sad news about Hugh McKenzie.”

“Yes, sir,” said Andrew, automatically.

“They warned me about his heart before the last election but he insisted he wanted to carry on. I’ve asked Bruce to be the new Secretary of State and Angus to take his place as minister. They both want you to be the new Under-Secretary — how do you feel about it?”

“I’d be delighted, Prime Minister,” Andrew stammered, trying to take in the news.

“Good. And by the way, Andrew, when you open your first red box you won’t find any tickets for Colombe d’Or, so I do hope Louise is fully recovered.” The phone clicked.

They had tracked him down, but the Prime Minister had left him in peace.

The first official function Andrew Fraser attended as Her Majesty’s Under-Secretary of State at the Scottish Office was Hugh McKenzie’s funeral.

“Think about it, Simon,” said Ronnie, as they reached the boardroom door. “Two thousand pounds a year may be helpful but if you take shares in my property company it would give you a chance to make some capital.”

“What did you have in mind?” asked Simon, doing up the middle button of his blazer and trying not to sound too excited.

“Well, you’ve proved damned useful to me. Some of those people who you bring to lunch wouldn’t have allowed me past their front doors. I’d let you buy in cheap... you could get hold of 50,000 shares at one pound so when we go public you’ll make a killing.”

“Raising £50,000 won’t be that easy, Ronnie.”

“When your bank manager has checked over my books he’ll be only too happy to lend you the money, you see.”

After the Midland Bank had studied the authorized accounts of Nethercote and Company and the area manager had interviewed Simon, they agreed to his request, on the condition that Simon lodge the shares with the bank.

How wrong Elizabeth was proving to be, Simon thought, and when Nethercote and Company went on to double their profits for the year he brought home a copy of the annual report for his wife to study.

“Looks good,” she had to admit. “But that still doesn’t mean I have to trust Ronnie Nethercote.”

When Charles Seymour’s drink-driving charge came up in front of the Reading Bench he listed himself as C. G. Seymour — no mention of MP. Under profession he entered “Banker.”

He came sixth in the list that morning, and on behalf of his absent client lan Kimmins apologized to the Reading magistrates and assured them it would not happen again. Charles received a fifty-pound fine and was banned from driving for six months. The whole case was over in four minutes.

When Charles was told the news by telephone later that day he was appreciative of Kimmins’s sensible advice and felt he had escaped lightly. He couldn’t help remembering how many column inches George Brown, the Labour Foreign Secretary, had endured after a similar incident outside the Hilton Hotel.

Fiona kept her own counsel.

At the time Fleet Street was in the middle of “the silly season,” that period in the summer when the press are desperate for news. There had only been one cub reporter in the court when Charles’s case came up, and even he was surprised by the interest the nationals took in his little scoop. The pictures of Charles taken so discreetly outside the Seymours’ country home were now glaring from the pages the following morning. Headlines ranged from “Six months’ ban for drink-drive son of earl” to “MP’s Ascot binge ends in heavy fine.” Even The Times mentioned the case on its home news page.

By lunchtime the same day every Fleet Street newspaper had tried to contact Charles — and so had the Chief Whip. When he did track Charles down his advice was short and to the point. A junior Shadow minister can survive that sort of publicity once, not twice.

“Whatever you do, don’t drive a car during the next six months and don’t ever drink and drive again.”

Charles concurred, and after a quiet weekend hoped he had heard the last of the case. Then he caught the headline on the front page of the Sussex Gazette, “Member faces no confidence motion”: Mrs. Blenkinsop, the chairman of the Ladies’ Luncheon Club, was proposing the motion — not for the drunken driving but for deliberately misleading her about why he had been unable to fulfill a speaking engagement at their annual luncheon.

Raymond had become so used to receiving files marked “Strictly Private,” “Top Secret,” or even “For Your Eyes Only” in his position as a Government Under-Secretary that he didn’t give a second thought to a letter marked “Confidential and Personal” even though it was written in a scrawled hand. He opened it while Joyce was boiling his eggs.

“Four minutes and forty-five seconds, just the way you like them,” she said as she returned from the kitchen and placed two eggs in front of him. “Are you all right, dear? You’re white as a sheet.”

Raymond recovered quickly, pushing the letter into a pocket before checking his watch. “Haven’t the time for the other egg,” he said. “I’m already late for Cabinet committee, I must dash.”

Strange, thought Joyce, as her husband hurried to the door. Cabinet committees didn’t usually meet until ten and he hadn’t even cracked open his first egg. She sat down and slowly ate her husband’s breakfast, wondering why he had left all his post behind.

Once he was in the back of his official car Raymond read the letter again. It didn’t take long.

He read the letter once more and tried to compose his thoughts. There was no address on the top of the notebook paper. Neither letter nor envelope gave any clue as to where they had come from.

After he had arrived outside the Department of Employment Raymond remained in the back seat for several moments.

“Are you feeling all right, sir?” his driver asked.

“Fine, thank you,” he replied, and jumped out of the car and ran all the way up to his office. As he passed his secretary’s desk he barked at her, “No interruptions.”

“You won’t forget Cabinet committee at ten o’clock, will you, Minister?”

“No,” replied Raymond sharply and slammed his office door. Once at his desk he tried to calm himself and recall what he would have done had he been approached by a client as a barrister at the bar: first instruct a good solicitor. Raymond considered the two most capable lawyers in England to be Arnold Goodman and Sir Roger Pelham. Goodman was getting too high a profile for Raymond’s liking whereas Pelham was just as sound but virtually unknown to the general public. He called Pelham’s office and made an appointment to see him that afternoon.

Raymond hardly spoke in Cabinet committee, but as most of his colleagues wanted to express their own views nobody noticed. As soon as the meeting was over Raymond hurried out and took a taxi to High Holborn.

Sir Roger Pelham rose from behind his large Victorian desk to greet the junior minister.

“I know you’re a busy man, Gould,” Pelham said as he fell back into his black leather chair, “so I shan’t waste your time. Tell me what I can do for you.”

“It was kind of you to see me at such short notice,” Raymond began and without further word handed the letter over.

“Thank you,” the solicitor said courteously and, pushing his half-moon spectacles higher up his nose he read the note three times before he made any comment.

“Blackmail is something we all detest,” he began, “but it will be necessary for you to tell me the whole truth, and don’t miss out any details. Please remember I am on your side. You’ll recall only too well from your days at the bar what a disadvantage one labors under when one is in possession of only half the facts.”

The tips of Pelham’s fingers touched, forming a small roof in front of his nose as he listened intently to Raymond’s account of what had happened that night.

“Could anyone else have seen you?” was Pelham’s first question.

Raymond thought back and then nodded. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I’m afraid there was another girl who passed me on the stairs.”

Pelham read the letter once more. “My immediate advice,” he said, looking Raymond in the eye and speaking slowly and deliberately, “and you won’t like it, is to do nothing.”

“But what do I say if she contacts the press?”

“She will probably get in touch with someone from Fleet Street anyway, even if you pay the £500, or however many other £500s you can afford. Don’t imagine you’re the first minister to be blackmailed, Mr. Could. Every homosexual in the House lives in daily fear of it. It’s a game of hide and seek. Very few people other than saints have nothing to bide, and the problem with public life is that a lot of busybodies want to seek.” Raymond remained silent, trying not to show his anxiety. “Phone me on my private line immediately after the next letter arrives,” said Pelham, scribbling a number on a piece of paper.

“Thank you,” said Raymond, at least relieved that his secret was now shared with someone else. Pelham rose from behind his desk and accompanied Raymond to the door. “You’ll be glad to see Yorkshire back as county champions,” said the solicitor as he walked down the long passage with the minister. Raymond did not reply. When they reached the outer door they shook hands formally. “I’ll wait to hear from you,” said Pelham. A pity that the man showed no interest in cricket.

Raymond left the solicitor’s office feeling better, but he found it hard to concentrate on his work the rest of that day and slept only in fits and starts during the night. When he read the morning papers he was horrified to see how much space was being given to Charles Seymour’s peccadillo. What a field day they would be able to have with him. When the post came, he searched anxiously for the scrawled handwriting. It was hidden under an American Express circular. He tore it open. The same hand was this time demanding that the £500 should be deposited at a newsagent in Pimlico. Sir Roger Pelham saw the minister one hour later.

Despite the renewed demand the solicitor’s advice remained the same.

Andrew Fraser never stopped moving from one city to another because the Scottish Office had to show a presence in Edinburgh and Glasgow as well as in London. Louise did not complain; she had never seen her husband so happy. The only moment of light relief during his first three months as a minister came when Andrew found it necessary to send a letter to his father addressed, “Dear Sir Duncan,” which went on to explain why he had to reject his offered advice on a Highlands and Islands Board project. Andrew was particularly pleased with the line, “I have for some considerable time listened to both sides of the argument.”

Once he had settled in his favorite chair that night with a large whisky in his hand Louise told him she was pregnant again. “When did I find the time?” he asked, taking her in his arms.

“Maybe the half-hour between your meeting with the Norwegian Fishing Minister and the address to the Oil Conference in Aberdeen?”

When the AGM of the Sussex Downs Conservative Association came round in October Charles was pleased to learn that Mrs. Blenkinsop’s “no confidence” motion had been withdrawn. The local press tried to build up the story but the nationals were full of the Aberfan coal-tip disaster, in which 116 schoolchildren had lost their lives. No editor could find space for Sussex Downs.

Charles delivered a thoughtful speech to his association which was well received. During question time he was relieved to find no embarrassing questions directed at him.

When the Seymours finally said good night, Charles took the chairman to one side and inquired: “How did you manage it?”

“I explained to Mrs. Blenkinsop,” replied the chairman, “that if her motion of no confidence was discussed at the AGM it would be awfully hard for the member to back my recommendation that she should receive an OBE in the New Year’s Honors for service to the party. That shouldn’t be too hard for you to pull off, should it, Charles?”

Every time the phone rang Raymond assumed it would be the press asking him if he knew someone called Mandy. Often it was a journalist, but all that was needed was a quotable remark on the latest unemployment figures, or a statement of where the minister stood on devaluation of the pound.

It was Mike Molloy, a reporter from the Daily Mirror, who was the first to ask Raymond what he had to say about a statement phoned in to his office by a girl with a West Indian accent called Mandy Page.

“I have nothing to say on the subject. Please speak to my solicitor, Sir Roger Pelham,” was the Under-Secretary’s succinct reply. The moment he put the phone down he felt queasy.

A few minutes later when the phone rang again Raymond still hadn’t moved. He picked up the receiver, his hand still shaking. Pelham confirmed that Molloy had been in touch with him.

“I presume you made no comment,” said Raymond.

“On the contrary,” replied Pelham. “I told him the truth.”

“What?” exploded Raymond.

“Be thankful she hit on a fair journalist because I expect he’ll let this one go. Fleet Street are not quite the bunch of shits everyone imagines them to be,” Pelham said uncharacteristically, and added, “they also detest two things, bent policemen and blackmailers. I don’t think you’ll see anything in the press tomorrow.”

Sir Roger Pelham was wrong.

Raymond was standing outside his local newsagent the next morning when it opened at five-thirty and he surprised the proprietor by asking for a copy of the Daily Mirror. Raymond Gould was plastered all over page five saying, “Devaluation is not a course I can support while the unemployment figures remain so high.” The photograph by the side of the article was unusually flattering.

Simon Kerslake read a more detailed account of what the minister had said on devaluation in The Times, and noted Raymond Gould’s firm stand against what was beginning to look like inevitable Government policy.

Simon looked up from his paper and started to consider a ploy that might trap Gould. If he could make the minister commit himself again and again on devaluation in front of the whole House he knew that when the inevitable happened Gould would be left with no choice but to resign. Simon penciled a question on the top of the paper before returning to the political columns.

The devaluation news had caused a Tory lead in the opinion polls of eight percent, and despite a majority of ninety-five in the Commons the Government had actually lost a vote on the floor of the House the previous day. Nevertheless, Simon still could not envisage a general election for at least another two years.

On the business front Simon had advised Ronnie Nethercote not to allow his company shares to be traded on the Stock Exchange until the Tories returned to power. “The climate,” he assured Ronnie, “should be much easier then.”

Charles Seymour was glad to be behind the wheel again after his driving ban had been completed, and he had the grace to smile when Fiona showed him the photograph of the happy Mrs. Blenkinsop displaying her OBE outside Buckingham Palace to a reporter from the Sussex Gazette.

It was six months to the day of his first meeting with Sir Roger Pelham that Raymond Gould received an account from the solicitor for services rendered — £500. He sent the check by return of post in a parcel that also contained a copy of the recently published edition of Wisden.

Chapter eight

Andrew had been warned by his ministerial colleagues that the first day answering questions at the dispatch box would be an experience he was unlikely to forget.

Questions for the Scottish Office appear on the order paper on a Wednesday once every four or five weeks, and each minister answers on behalf of his own department between two-thirty-five and three-twenty. There are usually four or five ministers of the Crown, not including the law officer available to represent each great department of state. During the forty-minute to one-hour period the ministers would expect to reply to about twenty-five questions, but it is rarely the questions that are the problem; it is the supplementaries.

Any member can place a question through the table office to any minister, and can word it in a seemingly innocuous way. “When does the minister hope next to visit Aberdeen?” to which the minister concerned may reply anything from “next week” to “I have no plans to do so in the foreseeable future” — but when the member who put down the question rises from his seat to ask his supplementary he can change the subject completely. “Does the minister realize that Aberdeen has the highest rate of unemployment in the United Kingdom, and what new ideas does his department have to deal with this problem?” The hapless minister must then come up with a convincing reply on the spot.

In an attempt to see that a minister is adequately briefed, his department will spend the morning scrutinizing each tabled question and looking for pitfalls he might encounter. A variety of possible supplementaries will be placed in his brief with appropriate answers. Ministers can, of course, always ask colleagues on their own side what they are hoping to find out from their tabled questions, but Opposition members use question time to test a minister in the hope of discovering some weakness in his armory, thus making the Government appear incompetent.

Andrew spent a considerable time in preparation for his first encounter at the dispatch box although the more senior and experienced ministers in the Scottish Office had agreed to handle any questions that looked hostile.

He ended up having to respond to only one question from the Opposition benches, while fielding four from his own. Added to which, the timing was such that question number twenty-three from the Opposition member seemed unlikely to be reached by three-twenty, when the Solicitor General for Scotland would have to start answering questions himself.

Andrew’s first four answers to questions numbers five, nine, eleven, and fourteen, went smoothly enough. He opened his dark blue file and was pleased to confirm the well-prepared briefs to everything that was thrown at him. By three-fifteen, when question number nineteen was being answered, Andrew sat back on the front bench and began to relax for the first time that day.

The Solicitor General for Scotland entered a now packed Commons and, moving alongside the table in the center of the Chamber, he crouched slightly to be sure he did not obscure the Speaker’s view of the Government benches on his right. The Prime Minister had been left a place between the Chancellor and the Foreign Secretary and waited for the clock to reach three-twenty.

The Speaker called question number twenty-one but the member was not present. He called number twenty-two and once again the member was absent. Each had obviously considered that their question had little chance of being reached before three-twenty. At three-eighteen the Speaker called question twenty-three — Andrew’s heart sank — which read on the order paper, “Had the minister been invited to visit the Kinross Nursing Home?”

Andrew rose, opened his folder, and said, “No, sir.”

“No one in the House will be surprised by the minister’s reply,” said George Younger, the member for Ayr, “because the nursing home has forty-nine occupants, forty-seven of whom have their own television sets and yet the minister demands forty-seven separate license fees. If they were to congregate in one room, he would expect only one fee. Is this another example of the Labour party’s ‘Care for the Aged’ program that we hear so much about nowadays?”

Andrew rose to the dispatch box to cries of “Answer, answer,” from the Opposition benches. He had checked his crib sheet while sitting on the edge of his seat. Andrew had a prepared answer for medical facilities, old-age pensions, supplementary benefits, food allowances, medical charges — but nothing on TV licenses. As he stood stranded at the dispatch box he was aware for the first time of the pitfalls that a minister encounters when he is not fully prepared. Such a system might appear wonderfully democratic to onlookers, he thought, until you are the Christian facing the 300 hungry lions.

A handwritten note was quickly passed along the front bench to him from one of the civil servants who sit in the official box to the left behind the Speaker’s chair. With no time to consider its implications Andrew crossed his fingers and read the note out to the House.

“This was a decision taken by the last administration, of which the Honorable Gentleman was a member. We have seen no reason to reverse that decision,” he read, thinking how much like a parrot he sounded. He sat down to polite Government murmurs and some considerable relief.

Mr. Younger rose again and was allowed a second supplementary.

“Mr. Speaker, this is the sort of inaccuracy we have grown to expect from this Government. The decision he refers to was made by his Right Honorable friend, the Secretary of State, only last year, and I think the minister will find, if he does his research more fastidiously, that his party was in power at the time.” The Opposition howled their delight.

Andrew rose again and gripped the sides of the dispatch box to avoid anyone seeing that he was shaking in fear. Several members of the Government front bench had their heads bowed. The Opposition had drawn blood and were baying in triumph. Lord Attlee’s words came back to Andrew. “When you are caught out by the House admit it, apologize, and sit down.”

Andrew waited for the noise to subside before he replied. “The Secretary of State warned me that a new minister will never forget his first question time and I feel bound to agree with him.” Andrew, who knew how the atmosphere in the House can change in a moment, felt such a moment now, and before it could turn back added, “On the question of television licenses in the Kinross Nursing Home, I apologize to the Honorable Gentleman for Ayr for my mistake and I will look into the case immediately and send him a written reply within twenty-four hours.” “Hear, hears” could now be heard from his own benches and the Opposition benches were quietened. Mr. Younger was trying to interrupt again but as Andrew didn’t give way he had to resume his seat, knowing the Speaker would not call on him again once the clock had passed three-nineteen. Andrew waited for silence before adding, “And I blame my grandmother for this who, as President of the Kinross Nursing Home and a staunch Conservative, has always believed in increasing old-age pensions rather than looking for false subsidies that can never be fair to everyone.” By now the Labour members were laughing and all the heads on the front bench were looking toward the new minister, who remained at the dispatch box until the House was silent again. “My grandmother would be delighted to learn that this administration has raised that old-age pension by fifty percent in the three years since we have taken office.” The Labour back-benchers were now cheering and waving their order papers as Andrew resumed his seat, while the Opposition were silent and glum.

The hands of the clock touched three-twenty and the Speaker said, “The Solicitor General’s questions.”

Andrew Fraser had made a political reputation, and as the laughter echoed round the House the intense figure sitting on the end of the front bench put a hand through his red hair and wondered if he could ever match Andrew’s skill at the dispatch box. On the Opposition back benches Simon Kerslake made a mental note to be cautious if he ever thought of putting a sharp question to Andrew Fraser.

As soon as the Solicitor General’s questions were over Simon left the House and drove himself to Whitechapel Road. He arrived a few minutes after the four o’clock board meeting of Nethercote and Company had begun, quietly took his seat, and listened to Ronnie Nethercote describing another coup.

Ronnie had signed a contract that morning to take over a major city block at a cost of fifteen million pounds with a guaranteed rental income of over 1.1 million per annum for the first seven years of a twenty-one-year lease with seven-year rent reviews.

Simon formally congratulated him and asked if this made any difference to the company’s timing for going public.

“Why do you ask?” said Ronnie.

“Because I still feel it might be wise to wait until we know the result of the next general election. If the Conservatives return to power, as the opinion polls forecast, that could change the whole atmosphere for launching a new company.”

“If they don’t, I shan’t hold up going public much longer.”

“I wouldn’t disagree with that decision either, Mr. Chairman,” said Simon.

When the meeting was over he joined Nethercote in his office for a drink.

“I want to thank you,” Ronnie said, “for that introduction to Harold Samuel and Louis Freedman. It made the deal go through much more smoothly.”

“Does that mean you’ll allow me to purchase some more shares?”

Ronnie hesitated. “Why not? You’ve earned them. But only another 10,000. Don’t get ahead of yourself, Simon, or the other directors may become jealous.”

In the car on the way to pick up Elizabeth Simon decided to take a second mortgage out on the house in Beaufort Street to raise the extra cash needed for the new shares. He thought it might be wise not to trouble her with the details. He savored the prospect of the Conservatives winning the next election, perhaps being given office in the Government and selling his shares for a sum that would make it possible for him to stop the continual worries of how he would finance his children’s education. Perhaps he could even give Elizabeth that holiday in Venice she had talked about so often.

When he drove up to the hospital Elizabeth was waiting outside the gates. “We won’t be late, will we?” were her first words.

“No,” said Simon, checking the clock on the dashboard as he turned the car round in the direction of Beaufort Street.

They arrived at the hall five minutes before the curtain was due to rise. The occasion was their sons’ pantomime, and both Peter and Michael had assured their parents that they had major parts. It was Charles Kingsley’s The Water Babies, and Michael turned out to be a crab, who although he never left the stage lay on his stomach throughout the entire performance and never uttered a word. Peter, who had spent the week learning his words off by heart, was an unconvincing water baby standing at the end of a row of twelve. His speaking part turned out to be one sentence: “If grown-ups go on eating all the fish in the sea there will be none left for me.” King Neptune fixed his imperial eye on Peter and said, “Don’t blame us, it’s your father who’s the MP,” upon which Peter bowed his head and blushed, though not as deeply as Elizabeth when the audience in front of them turned round and smiled at Simon, who felt more embarrassed than if he had been in the center of a raging debate in the Commons.

At coffee afterward the headmaster admitted that the sentence had been added without the approval of the late Charles Kingsley. When Simon and Elizabeth took the children home that night they insisted on repeating Peter’s one line again and again.

“If the Government did an about-turn and devalued the pound, would the Under-Secretary find it possible to remain in office?”

Raymond Gould stiffened when he heard Simon Kerslake’s question. His grasp of the law and his background knowledge of the subject made all except the extremely articulate or highly experienced wary of taking him on. Nevertheless Raymond had one Achilles’ heel arising from his firmly stated views in Full Employment at Any Cost?: any suggestion that the Government would devalue. Time and again eager back-benchers would seek to tackle him on the subject but once more it was Simon Kerslake who felled his opponent.

Andrew, sitting on the front bench, composed in his mind a sharp reply about his colleagues’ collective responsibility, but Raymond Gould said rather ponderously: “The policy of Her Majesty’s Government is one hundred percent against devaluation, and therefore the question does not arise.”

“Wait and see,” shouted Kerslake.

“Order,” said the Speaker, rising from his seat and turning toward Simon as Raymond sat down. “The Honorable member knows all too well he must not address the House from a sedentary position. The Under-Secretary of State.”

Raymond rose again. “This Government believes in a strong pound, which still remains our best hope for keeping unemployment figures down.”

“But what would you do if Cabinet does go ahead and devalue?” Joyce asked him when she read her husband’s reply to Kerslake’s question reported in The Times the next morning.

Raymond was already facing the fact that devaluation looked more likely every day. A strong dollar causing imports to reach record levels coupled with a run of strikes during the summer of sixty-seven was causing foreign bankers to ask when, not if.

“I’d have to resign,” he said in reply to Joyce’s question.

“Why? No other minister will.”

“I’m afraid Kerslake is right. I’m on the record and he’s made sure everybody knows it. Don’t worry, Harold will never devalue. He’s assured me of that many times.”

“He only has to change his mind once.”

Pressure on the pound increased during the following weeks and Raymond began to fear that Joyce might turn out to be right.

Andrew Fraser had read Full Employment at Any Cost? and considered it a succinctly argued case although he did not agree with all the small print. He personally was in favor of devaluation but felt it should have been pushed through in the Labour party’s first week in office, so that the blame could be left at the door of the Tories. After three years and a second election victory any such suggestion would rightly be considered outrageous.

As Louise’s time of delivery approached she was getting larger by the day. Andrew helped to take pressure off her as much as he could, but this time he did not prepare so obviously for the birth, as he felt his unbridled enthusiasm might have contributed to her previous anxiety. He tried as often as possible to bring the red boxes home each night, but it remained an exception if he returned to Cheyne Walk before eleven o’clock.

“Voting every night at ten o’clock and sometimes on through the night into the next day is one system the rest of the world has not considered worth emulating,” Andrew had told Louise after one particularly grueling session. He couldn’t even remember what he had been voting on — although he didn’t admit that to her. “But as no Government of whatever party has ever seriously considered the idea of limiting the time for ending business ‘the troops’, as back-benchers are known, go on charging through the lobbies day in and day out. That’s why the press refer to us as ‘lobby fodder.’”

“More like a bunch of unruly children,” she chided.

When Louise went into hospital one week early Elizabeth Kerslake assured her there was nothing to be worried about, and two days later Louise gave birth to a beautiful girl.

Andrew was in a departmental meeting discussing Glasgow’s high-rise housing program when the hospital staff nurse rang to congratulate him. He went straight to his fridge and took out the bottle of champagne his father had sent him the day he joined the Scottish Office. He poured a plastic mug of Krug for each of his team of advisers.

“Just better than drinking it out of the bottle,” he suggested as he left his civil servants to go to the hospital.

On arrival at St. Mary’s Andrew was relieved to find Elizabeth Kerslake was on duty. She warned him that his wife was still under sedation after a particularly complicated Caesarian delivery. Elizabeth took him to see his daughter who remained under observation in an isolation unit.

“Nothing to fret about,” Elizabeth assured him. “We always take this precaution after any Caesarian birth as there are a number of routine tests we still have to carry out.”

She left Andrew to stare at his daughter’s large blue eyes. Although he knew it might change in time the soft down on the crown of her head was already dark.

He slipped out an hour later when she had fallen asleep to return to Dover House, where he had a second celebration in the Secretary of State’s office, but this time the champagne was served in crystal glasses.

When Andrew climbed into bed that night the champagne helped him fall into a deep sleep with the only problem on his mind being what they should call their daughter. Claire had always been the name Louise favored.

The phone had rung several times before he answered it and as soon as he had replaced the receiver he dressed and drove to the hospital as quickly as possible. He parked the car and ran to the now-familiar ward. Elizabeth Kerslake was standing waiting by the door. She looked tired and disheveled, and even with all her training and experience she found it hard to explain to Andrew what had happened.

“Your daughter died forty minutes ago when her heart stopped beating. Believe me, we tried everything.”

Andrew collapsed on the bench in the corridor and didn’t speak for several moments. “How’s Louise?” was all he could eventually manage.

“She hasn’t been told yet. She’s still under sedation. Be thankful she never saw the baby.”

Andrew thumped his leg until it was numb. He stopped suddenly. “I’ll tell her myself,” he said quietly and remained on the bench, tears coursing down his cheeks. Elizabeth sat down beside him but didn’t speak. When she left it was only to check that Mrs. Fraser was ready to see her husband.

Louise knew the moment Andrew walked in. It was over an hour before she managed to speak.

“I bet Alison McKenzie would have given you a dozen sons,” she said, trying to make him smile.

“No doubt about that,” said Andrew, “but they would have all been ugly and stupid.”

“I agree with you,” said Louise. “But that wouldn’t have been her fault.”

They both tried to laugh.

Andrew returned to Cheyne Walk a little after four o’clock, but he didn’t sleep again that night.

The great orator lain Macleod once remarked that it was the first two minutes of a speech that decided one’s fate. One either grasps the House and commands it or dithers, and loses it, and once the House is lost it can rarely be brought to heel. When Charles Seymour was invited to present the winding-up speech for the Opposition during the Economic debate, he felt he had prepared himself well, and although he knew he could not expect to convert Government back-benchers to his argument he hoped the press would acknowledge the following day that he had won the argument and embarrassed the Government. The Administration was already rocking over daily rumors of devaluation and economic trouble, and Charles was confident that this was the chance to make his name.

Full parliamentary debates usually start at three-thirty, after question time, but can be delayed if there are ministerial statements to be made. The senior minister in the department concerned makes the opening speech for approximately thirty minutes and then the Opposition spokesman addresses the House for the same period of time. Between four-thirty and nine the debate is thrown open to the floor and the Speaker tries to be scrupulously fair in calling a cross-section of back-benchers who have demonstrated an interest in the subject, as well as preserving a party and regional balance. These back-bencher speeches are frowned on if they last for more than fifteen minutes. Some of the most memorable speeches delivered in the House have lasted eight or nine minutes, some of the worst over thirty.

At nine o’clock the Opposition spokesman makes his final comments, and at nine-thirty a Government minister winds up.

When Charles rose and stood at the dispatch box he intended to press home the Tory case on the Government’s economic record, the fatal consequences of devaluation, the record inflation, coupled with record borrowing and a lack of confidence in Britain unknown in any member’s lifetime.

He stood his full height and stared down belligerently at the Government benches.

“Mr. Speaker,” he began, “I can’t think

“Then don’t bother to speak,” someone shouted from the Labour benches. Laughter broke out as Charles tried to compose himself, cursing his initial over-confidence. He began again.

“I can’t imagine...”

“No imagination either,” came another voice. “Typical Tory.”

“... why this motion was ever put before the House.”

“Certainly not for you to give us a lesson in public speaking.”

“Order,” growled the Speaker, but it was too late.

The House was lost and Charles stumbled through thirty minutes of embarrassment until no one but the Speaker was listening to a word he said. Several members of his own front bench had their feet up on the table and their eyes closed. Back-benchers on either side sat chattering amongst themselves waiting for the ten o’clock division: the ultimate humiliation the House affords to its worst debaters. The Speaker had to call for order several times during Charles’s speech, once rising to rebuke noisy members, “The House does its reputation no service by behaving in this way.” But his plea fell on deaf ears as the conversations continued. At nine-thirty Charles sat down in a cold sweat. A few of his own back-benchers managed to raise an unconvincing “Hear, hear.”

When the Government minister opened his speech by describing Charles’s offering as among the most pathetic he had heard in a long political career he may well have been exaggerating, but from the expressions on the Tory front benches not many Opposition members were going to disagree with him.

Chapter nine

The decision was finally made by the inner Cabinet of twelve on Thursday, 16 November 1967. By Friday every bank clerk in Tokyo was privy to the inner Cabinet’s closest secret, and by the time the Prime Minister made the announcement official on Saturday afternoon the Bank of England had lost 600 million dollars of reserves on the foreign exchange market.

At the time of the Prime Minister’s statement Raymond was in Leeds conducting one of his fortnightly constituency “surgeries.” He was in the process of explaining the new housing bill to a young married couple when Fred Padgett, his agent, burst into the room.

“Raymond, sorry to interrupt you, but I thought you’d want to know immediately. No. 10 have just announced that the pound has been devalued from two dollars eighty to two dollars forty.” The sitting member was momentarily stunned, the local housing problem driven from his mind. He stared blankly across the table at the two constituents who had come to seek his advice.

“Will you please excuse me for a moment, Mr. Higginbottom,” Raymond asked courteously, “but I must make a phone call.” The moment turned out to be fifteen minutes, in which time Raymond had made contact with a senior civil servant from the Treasury and had all the details confirmed. He called Joyce and told her not to answer the phone until he arrived back home. It was several minutes before he felt composed enough to put his head round the office door.

“How many people are still waiting to see me, Fred?” he asked.

“After the Higginbottoms there’s only the mad major, still convinced that Martians are about to land on the roof of Leeds town hall.”

“Why would they want to come to Leeds first?” asked Raymond, trying to hide his anxiety with false humor.

“Once they’ve captured Yorkshire, the rest would be easy.”

“Hard to find fault with that argument. Nevertheless, tell the major I’m deeply concerned but I need to study his claim in more detail and to seek further advice from the Ministry of Defense. Make an appointment for him to see me at the next surgery and by then I should have a strategic plan ready for him.”

Fred Padgett grinned. “That will give him something to tell his friends about for at least two weeks.”

Raymond returned to Mr. and Mrs. Higginbottom and assured them he would have their housing problem sorted out within a few days. He made a note on his file to ring the Leeds Council Housing Officer.

“What an afternoon,” exclaimed Raymond after the door had closed behind them. “One wife-beating, one electricity turned off by the YEB with four children under ten in the house, one pollution of the Aire river, and one appalling housing problem — never forgetting the mad major and his itinerant Martians. And on top of all of that the devaluation news.”

“How can you remain so calm?” asked Fred Padgett.

“Because I can’t afford to let anyone know how I really feel.”

After his surgery Raymond would normally have gone round to the local pub for a pint and an obligatory natter with the locals. This always gave him the chance to catch up on what had been happening in Leeds during the past fortnight. But on this occasion he bypassed the pub and returned quickly to his parents’ home.

Joyce told him that the phone had rung so often that she had finally taken it off the hook, without letting his mother know the real reason.

“Very sensible,” said Raymond.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“I shall resign, of course.”

“Why do that, Raymond? It will only harm your career.”

“You may turn out to be right, but that won’t stop me going.”

“But you’re only just beginning to get on top of your work.”

“Joyce, without trying to sound pompous, I know I have many failings but I’m not a coward and I’m certainly not so self-seeking as totally to desert any principles I might have.”

“You know, you just sounded like a man who is destined to become Prime Minister.”

“A moment ago you said it would harm my chances. Make up your mind.”

“I have,” she said.

Raymond smiled wanly before retreating to his study to write a short handwritten letter.

When the red box arrived at the house that Saturday night Raymond instructed the messenger to deliver the letter to No. 10 immediately. As he opened the box for the last time he reflected that his department was answering questions on employment in the House that Monday. He wondered who would take his place.

Because of the paraphernalia surrounding devaluation, the Prime Minister did not get round to reading Raymond’s letter until late Sunday morning. The Coulds’ phone was still off the hook when an anxious Fred Padgett was heard knocking on the front door later that day.

“Don’t answer it,” said Raymond. “It’s bound to be another journalist.”

“No, it’s not, it’s only Fred,” said Joyce, peeping through an opening in the curtain.

She opened the door. “Where the hell’s Raymond?” were Fred’s first words.

“Right here,” said Raymond, appearing from the kitchen holding the Sunday newspapers.

“The Prime Minister has been trying to contact you all morning.” Raymond turned round and replaced the phone on the hook, picked it up a few seconds later, and checked the tone before dialing London WHI 4433. The Prime Minister was on the line in moments. He sounded calm enough, thought Raymond.

“Have you issued any statement to the press, Ray?”

“No, I wanted to be sure you had received my letter first.”

“Good. Please don’t mention your resignation to anyone until we’ve met. Could you be at Downing Street by eight o’clock?”

“Yes, Prime Minister.”

“Remember, not a word to the press.”

Raymond heard the phone click.

Within the hour he was on his way to London, and arrived at his house in Lansdowne Road a little after seven. The phone was ringing again. He wanted to ignore the insistent burr-burr but thought it might be Downing Street.

He picked the phone up. “Hello.”

“Is that Raymond Gould?” said a voice.

“Who’s speaking?” asked Raymond.

“Walter Terry, Daily Mail.”

“I am not going to say anything,” said Raymond.

“Do you feel the Prime Minister was right to devalue?”

“I said nothing, Walter.”

“Does that mean you are going to resign?”

“Walter, nothing.”

“Is it true you have already handed in your resignation?”

Raymond hesitated.

“I thought so,” said Terry.

“I said nothing,” spluttered Raymond and slammed down the phone — before lifting it back off the hook.

He quickly washed and changed his shirt before leaving the house. He nearly missed the note that was lying on the doormat, and he wouldn’t have stopped to open it had the envelope not been embossed with large black letters across the left-hand corner — “Prime Minister.” Raymond ripped it open. The handwritten note from a secretary asked him on his arrival to come by the rear entrance of Downing Street and not the front door. A small map was enclosed. Raymond was becoming weary of the whole exercise.

Two more journalists were waiting by the gate and followed him to his car.

“Have you resigned, Minister?” asked the first.

“No comment.”

“Are you on your way to see the Prime Minister?”

Raymond did not reply and leaped into his car. He drove off so quickly that the pursuing journalists were left with no chance of catching him.

Twelve minutes later, at five to eight, he was seated in the anteroom of No. 10 Downing Street. As eight struck he was taken through to Harold Wilson’s study. He was surprised to find the Secretary of State for Employment seated in the corner of the room.

“Ray,” said the Prime Minister. “How are you?”

“I’m well, thank you, Prime Minister.”

“I was sorry to receive your letter and thoroughly understand the position you are in, but I hope perhaps we can work something out.”

“Work something out?” Raymond repeated, puzzled.

“Well, we all realize devaluation is a problem for you after Full Employment at Any Cost? but I felt perhaps a move to the Foreign Office as Minister of State might be a palatable way out of the dilemma. It’s a promotion you’ve well earned.”

Raymond hesitated. The Prime Minister continued. “It may interest you to know that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has also resigned, but will be moving to the Home Office.”

“I am surprised,” said Raymond.

“What with the problems we are about to tackle in Rhodesia and Europe your legal skills would come in very useful.”

Raymond remained silent as he listened to the Prime Minister; he knew what decision he must now make.

Monday usually gets off to a quiet start in the Commons. The Whips never plan for any contentious business to be debated, remembering that members are still arriving back from their constituencies all over the country. The House is seldom full before the early evening. But the knowledge that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would be making a statement on devaluation at three-thirty ensured that the Commons would be packed long before that hour.

The green benches, accommodating just 427 members, had deliberately been restored as they were after the Germans had bombed the Palace of Westminster on 10 May 1941. The intimate theatrical atmosphere of the House had remained intact. Sir Giles Gilbert Scott could not resist highlighting some of the Gothic decor of Barry, but he concurred with Churchill’s view that to enlarge the Chamber would only destroy the packed atmosphere of great occasions.

The Commons filled up quickly, and by two-forty-five there was not a seat to be found. Members huddled up on the steps by the Speaker’s canopied chair and around the legs of the chairs of the clerks at the table. One or two even perched like unfed sparrows on the empty petition bag behind the Speaker’s chair. The galleries to the side and above the Chamber, which normally resembled empty benches at the Oval on a rainy day, had taken on the look of a crucial last Test match against Australia.

The chief doorkeeper checked his supply of snuff that it had been his office to keep since those days when “unpleasant odors” wafted through London.

Raymond Gould rose to answer question number seven on the order paper, an innocent enough inquiry concerning supplementary benefits for women. As soon as he reached the dispatch box the first cries of “Resign” came from the Tory benches. Raymond couldn’t hide his embarrassment. Even those seated on the back benches could see he had gone scarlet. It didn’t help that he hadn’t slept the previous night following the agreement he had come to with the Prime Minister. He answered the question, but the calls for his resignation did not subside. The Opposition fell silent as he sat down, only waiting for him to rise for a further question. The next question on the order paper for Raymond to answer was from Simon Kerslake; it came a few minutes after three. “What analysis has been made by his department of the special factors contributing to increasing unemployment in the Midlands?”

Raymond checked his brief before replying. “The closure of two large factories in the area, one in the Honorable member’s constituency, has exacerbated local unemployment. Both of these factories specialized in car components which have suffered from the Leyland strike.”

Simon Kerslake rose slowly from his place to put his supplementary. The Opposition benches waited in eager anticipation. “But surely the minister remembers informing the House, in reply to my adjournment debate last April, that devaluation would drastically increase unemployment in the Midlands, indeed in the whole country. If the Honorable Gentleman’s words are to carry any conviction, why hasn’t he resigned?” Simon sat down as the Tory benches demanded, “Why, why, why?”

“My speech to the House on that occasion is being quoted out of context, and the circumstances have since changed.”

“They certainly have,” shouted a number of Conservatives and the benches opposite Raymond exploded with demands that he give up his office.

“Order, order,” shouted the Speaker into the tide of noise.

Simon rose again, while everyone on the Conservative benches remained seated to ensure no one else was called. They were now hunting as a pack. Everyone’s eyes switched back and forth between the two men, watching the dark, assured figure of Kerslake once again jabbing his forefinger at the bowed head of Raymond Gould who was now only praying for the clock to reach three-thirty.

“Mr. Speaker, during the debate, which he now seems happy to orphan, the Honorable Gentleman was only echoing the views he so lucidly expressed in his book Full Employment at Any Cost? Can those views have altered so radically in three years, or is his desire to remain a minister so great that he now realizes that his employment can be retained at any cost?”

“This question has nothing to do with what I said to the House on that occasion,” retorted Raymond angrily. His last few words were lost in Opposition shouts of “Resign, resign!”

Simon was up in a flash and the Speaker called him for a third time.

“Is the Honorable Gentleman telling the House that he has one set of moral standards when he speaks, and yet another when he writes?”

The House was now in total uproar and few members heard Raymond say, “No, sir, I try to be consistent.”

The Speaker rose and the noise subsided slightly. He looked about him with an aggrieved frown. “I realize the House feels strongly on these matters, but I must ask the Honorable member for Coventry Central to withdraw his remark suggesting that the minister has behaved dishonorably.”

Simon rose and retracted his statement at once, but the damage had been done. Nor did it stop members from calling “Resign” until Raymond left the Chamber a few minutes later.

Simon sat back smugly as Gould left the Chamber. Conservative members turned to nod their acknowledgment of his professional demolition of the Government’s Under-Secretary of State. The Chancellor of the Exchequer rose to deliver his prepared statement on devaluation. Simon felt sick as he listened with horror to the Chancellor’s opening words. “The Honorable member for Leeds North handed in his resignation to the Prime Minister on Saturday evening but graciously agreed not to make this public until I had had an opportunity to address the House.”

The Chancellor went on to praise Raymond for his work in the Department of Employment, and to wish him well on the back benches.

Andrew visited Raymond in his room immediately after the Chancellor had finished answering questions. He found him slumped at his desk, a vacant look on his face. Andrew had never considered Raymond a natural friend but he wanted to express his admiration for the way he had conducted himself.

“It’s kind of you,” said Raymond, who was still shaking from the experience. “Particularly as you would have demolished the lot of them.”

“Well, they’re all demolished now,” said Andrew. “Simon Kerslake must feel the biggest shit in town.”

“There’s no way he could have known,” said Raymond. “He’d certainly done his homework and the questions were spot on. I suspect we would have approached the situation in much the same way given the circumstances.”

Several other members dropped in to commiserate with Raymond after which he returned to his old department to say farewell to his team before he went home to spend a quiet evening with Joyce. There was a long silence before the Permanent Secretary ventured an opinion: “I hope, sir, it will not be long before you return to Government. You have certainly made our lives hard but for those you ultimately serve you have undoubtedly made life easier.” The sincerity of the statement touched Raymond, especially as the civil servant was already serving a new master.

It felt strange to sit down and watch television, read a book, even go for a walk and not be perpetually surrounded by red boxes and ringing phones. Within forty-eight hours he missed it all.

He was to receive over a hundred letters from colleagues in the House but he kept only one.

When Raymond returned to the Commons that afternoon, he was cheered by the members of both sides from the moment he entered the Chamber. The minister who had been in the middle of addressing the House at the time had no choice but to wait until Raymond had taken his seat on the back benches.

Chapter ten

Simon had already left when Edward Heath called his home. It was another hour before Elizabeth was able to pass on the message that the party leader wanted to see him at two-thirty.

Charles was at the bank when the Chief Whip called, asking if they could meet at two-thirty that afternoon before Commons business began. Charles felt like a schoolboy who had been told the headmaster expected him to be in his study after lunch. The last time the Chief Whip had phoned was to ask him to make the winding-up speech and they had hardly spoken since. Charles remained apprehensive; he always preferred to be told what a problem was immediately.

He decided to skip lunch at the bank and join his colleagues in the House, to be certain he wouldn’t be late for the afternoon appointment.

Charles did not enjoy eating at the House as the food, with the exception of the hors d’oeuvres trolley, was only a little better than Paddington station and rather worse than London airport.

He joined some of his colleagues at the large table in the center of the Members’ Dining Room and took the only seat available, next to Simon Kerslake. The two men had not really been on good terms since the Heath-Maudling leadership contest. Charles did not care much for Kerslake: he had once told Fiona that he was one of the new breed of Tories who tried a little too hard and he had not been displeased to see him embarrassed over the Gould resignation. Not that he allowed anyone other than Fiona to know his true feelings.

Simon watched Charles sit down and wondered how much longer the party could go on electing Etonian guardsmen who spent more time making money in the City and spending it at Ascot than they did working in the House — not that it was an opinion he would have expressed to anyone but his closest friend. The discussion over lunch centered on the remarkable run of by-election results the Tories had had at Acton, Meriden, and Dudley. It was obvious that most of those around the table could not wait for a general election, although the Prime Minister did not have to call one for at least another three years.

Neither Charles nor Simon ordered coffee.

At two-twenty-five Charles watched the Chief Whip leave his private table in the corner of the room and turn to walk toward his office. Charles checked his watch and waited a moment before leaving his colleagues to begin a heated discussion about entry into the Common Market.

He strolled past the smoking room before turning left at the entrance to the library. Then he continued down the old Ways and Means corridor, passed through the swing doors, and entered the Members’ Lobby which he crossed to reach the Government Whips’ office. He put his head round the secretary’s door. Miss Norse OBE, the Chiefs invaluable secretary, stopped typing.

“I have an appointment with the Chief Whip,” said Charles.

“Yes, Mr. Seymour, he is expecting you. Please go through.” The typing recommenced immediately.

Charles walked on down the corridor and found the Chief Whip blocking his own doorway.

“Come on in, Charles. Can I offer you a drink?”

“No, thank you,” replied Charles, not wanting to delay the news any longer.

The Chief Whip poured himself a gin and tonic before sitting down.

“I hope what I’m about to tell you will be looked upon as good news.” The Chief Whip paused and took a gulp of his drink. “The leader thinks you might benefit from a spell in the Whips’ office, and I must say I would be delighted if you felt able to join us...”

Charles wanted to protest but checked himself. “And give up my Housing and Local Government post?”

“Oh yes, and more of course, because Mr. Heath expects all Whips to forgo outside commitments. Working in this office is not a part-time occupation.”

Charles needed a moment to compose his thoughts. “And if I turn it down, will I keep my post at Housing and Local Government?”

“That’s not for me to decide,” said the Chief Whip, “but it is no secret that Ted Heath is planning several changes in the run-up to the election.”

“How long do I have to consider the offer?”

“Perhaps you could let me know your decision by question time tomorrow.”

“Yes, of course. Thank you,” said Charles. He left the Chief Whip’s office and drove to Eaton Square.

Simon arrived at two-twenty-five, five minutes before his meeting with the party leader. He had tried not to speculate as to why Heath wanted to see him, in case the meeting only resulted in disappointment. Douglas Hurd, the head of the private office, ushered him straight through to the Conservative leader.

“Simon, how would you like to join the Housing and Local Government team in the run-up to the election?” It was typical of Heath not to waste any time on small talk and the suddenness of the offer stunned Simon. He recovered quickly.

“Thank you very much,” he said. “I mean er... yes... thank you.”

“Good, let’s see you put your back into it, and be sure the results at the dispatch box are as effective as they have been from the back benches.”

The door was opened once again by the private secretary; the interview was clearly over. Simon found himself back in the corridor at two-thirty-three. It was several moments before the offer sank in. Then he suddenly felt elated and made a dash for the nearest phone. He dialed the St. Mary’s switchboard and asked if he could be put through to Dr. Kerslake. As he spoke, his voice was almost drowned by the sound of the division bells, signaling the start of the day’s business at two-thirty-five following prayers. A woman’s voice came on the line.

“Is that you, darling?” asked Simon above the din.

“No, sir. It’s the switchboard operator. Dr. Kerslake’s in the operating theater.”

“Is there any hope of getting her out?”

“Not unless you’re expecting a baby, sir.”

“What brings you home so early?” asked Fiona as Charles came charging through the front door.

“I need to talk to someone.” Fiona could never be sure if she ought to be flattered, but she didn’t express any opinion as it was all too rare these days to have his company at all.

Charles repeated to his wife as nearly verbatim as possible his conversation with the Chief Whip. Fiona remained silent when Charles had come to the end of his monologue. “Well, what’s your opinion?” he asked anxiously.

“All because of one bad speech from the dispatch box,” Fiona commented wryly.

“I agree,” said Charles, “but nothing can be gained by tramping over that ground again.”

“We’ll miss the salary you earn as a director of the bank,” said Fiona. “The tax on my private income has made the amount I now receive derisory.”

“I know, but if I turn it down, and we win the next election...?”

“You’ll be left out in the cold.”

“More to the point, stranded on the back benches.”

“Charles, politics has always been your first love,” said Fiona, touching him gently on the cheek. “So I don’t see that you have a choice, and if that means some sacrifices you’ll never hear me complain.”

Charles rose from his chair saying, “Thank you. I’d better go and see Derek Spencer immediately.”

As Charles turned to leave, Fiona added, “And don’t forget, Ted Heath became leader of the party via the Whips’ office.”

Charles smiled for the first time that day.

“A quiet dinner at home tonight?” suggested Fiona.

“Can’t,” said Charles. “I’ve got a late vote.”

Fiona sat alone wondering if she would spend the rest of her life cohabiting with three-line whips.

At last they put him through.

“Let’s have a celebration dinner tonight.”

“Why?” asked Elizabeth.

“Because I’ve been invited to join the front-bench team to cover Housing and Local Government.”

“Congratulations, darling, but what does Housing and Local Government consist of?”

“Housing, urban land, transport, devolution, water, historic buildings, Stansted or Maplin airport, the Channel tunnel, royal parks...”

“Have they left anything for anyone else to do?”

“That’s only half of it, if it’s out of doors it’s mine. I’ll tell you the rest over dinner.”

“Oh, hell, I don’t think I can get away until eight tonight, and we’d still have to get a baby-sitter. Does that come under Housing and Local Government, Simon?”

“Sure does,” he said, laughing. “I’ll fix it and book a table at the Grange for eight-thirty.”

“Have you got a ten o’clock vote?”

“Afraid so.”

“I see, coffee with the baby-sitter,” she said. She paused. “Simon.”

“Yes, darling?”

“I’m very proud of you.”

Derek Spencer sat behind his massive partner’s desk in Cheapside and listened intently to what Charles had to say.

“You will be a great loss to the bank,” were the chairman’s first words. “But no one here would want to hold up your political career, least of all me.”

Charles noticed that Spencer could not look him in the eye as he spoke.

“Can I assume that I would be invited back on the board if for any reason my situation changed at the Commons?”

“Of course,” said Spencer. “There was no need for you to ask such a question.”

“That’s kind of you,” said Charles, genuinely relieved. He stood up, leaned forward, and shook hands rather stiffly.

“Good luck, Charles,” were Spencer’s parting words.

“Does that mean you can no longer remain on the board?” asked Ronnie Nethercote when he heard Simon’s news.

“No, not while I’m in Opposition and only a Shadow spokesman. Only the Chief Whip receives a salary and is therefore disqualified, but if we win the next election and I’m offered a job in Government I would have to resign immediately.”

“So I’ve got your services for another three years?”

“Unless the Prime Minister goes earlier, or we lose the next election.”

“No fear of the latter,” said Ronnie. “I knew I’d picked a winner the day I met you, and I don’t think you’ll ever regret joining my board.”

Over the months that followed Charles was surprised to find how much he enjoyed working in the Whips’ office, although he had been unable to hide from Fiona his anger at Kerslake taking over his shadow post at Housing and Local Government. The order, discipline, and camaraderie of the job brought back memories of his days in the Grenadier Guards. His duties were manifold and ranged from checking that members were all present in their committees to sitting on the front bench in the Commons and picking out the salient points members made in their speeches to the House. He also had to keep an eye out for any signs of dissension or rebellion on his own benches while remaining abreast of what was happening on the other side of the House. In addition he had fifty of his own members from the Midlands area to shepherd, and had to be certain that they never missed a vote unless paired, and only then when the Whips’ office had been informed.

As Whips are never called on to make speeches in the House at any time Charles seemed to have discovered a role for which he was best cut out. Fiona reminded him once again that Ted Heath had a spell in the Whips’ office on his way to becoming Shadow Chancellor. She was delighted to see how involved her husband had become with Commons life but still hated going to bed alone each night and regularly falling asleep before he had even arrived home.

Simon also enjoyed his new appointment from the first moment. As the junior member of the Housing and Local Government team he was given transport as his special subject. During the first year he read books, studied pamphlets, held meetings with national transport chairmen from air, sea, and rail, and frequently worked long into the night trying to master his new brief. Simon was one of those rare members who, after only a few weeks, looked as if he had always been on the front bench.

Both parties were surprised by the fourteen percent swing to the Conservatives at the Louth by-election toward the end of 1969. It began to look as if the Labour party did not have enough time to recover before they had to call an election. But in March 1970 the Labour party had a surprisingly good result in the Ayrshire South by-election; it caused the press to speculate that the Prime Minister might go to the country early. The May local elections in England and Wales showed a further swing to Labour, which was contrary to every other political trend of the previous two years. Talk of a general election was suddenly in the air.

When the following month’s opinion polls confirmed the swing to Labour Harold Wilson visited the Queen at Buckingham Palace and asked her to dissolve Parliament. The date of the general election was set for 18 June 1970.

The press were convinced that Wilson had got it right again, and would lead his party to victory for the third time in a row, a feat no man in political history had managed. Every Conservative knew that would spell the end of Edward Heath’s leadership of his party.

Andrew and Louise returned to Edinburgh as soon as the Queen had made the announcement. Parliament went into a limbo period while members dispersed all over the country only in order to try and return to Westminster.

Andrew found his local committee had been taken by surprise by the PM’s announcement, and realized he only had a matter of days to prepare himself.

The evening he arrived back in Edinburgh he called his General Purposes Committee together and over coffee and sandwiches mapped out a demanding three-week timetable which would allow him to reach every part of the constituency not once but several times. Street cards were pinned on to an old trestle table, soon to be filled in with crayon of various colors according to the canvassing returns: a red line through a definite Labour vote, a blue line through a Conservative one, a yellow through a Liberal, and a black line through the growing Scottish Nationalist party.

Andrew began each day of the campaign with a press conference at which he discussed local matters that affected his constituents, answered criticisms made by the other candidates, and dealt with any national issues that had arisen during the previous twenty-four hours. He then spent the rest of the morning touring the constituency with a loudspeaker van, entreating people to “Send Fraser back to Westminster.” He and Louise would fit in a pub lunch together before the dreaded door-to-door canvassing began.

“You’ll enjoy this,” said Andrew as they walked up to the first door on a cold Monday morning. The street list of names was on a card in his pocket. Andrew pressed the door bell, and a little jingle could be heard. A woman still in her dressing gown answered it a few moments later.

“Good morning, Mrs. Foster,” he began. “My name is Andrew Fraser. I’m your Labour candidate.”

“Oh, how nice to meet you. I have so much I need to discuss with you — won’t you come in and have a cup of tea?”

“It’s kind of you, Mrs. Foster, but I have rather a lot of ground to cover during the next few days.” When the door closed, Andrew put a blue line through her name on his card.

“How can you be sure she’s Conservative?” demanded Louise, “she seemed so friendly.”

“The Conservatives are trained to ask all the other candidates in for tea and waste their time. Your own side will always say, ‘You have my vote, don’t spend your time with me,’ and let you get on to those who are genuinely uncommitted.”

“I always vote for Fraser,” said Mrs. Foster’s next-door neighbor. “Labour for parliament, Tory for the local council.”

“But don’t you feel Sir Duncan should be removed from the council?” asked Andrew, grinning.

“Certainly not, and that’s what I told him when he suggested I shouldn’t vote for you.”

Andrew put a red line through the name and knocked on the next door.

“My name is Andrew Fraser and I—”

“I know who you are, young man, and I’ll have none of your politics, or your father’s for that matter.”

“May I ask who you will be voting for?” asked Andrew.

“Scottish Nationalist.”

“Why?” asked Louise.

“Because the oil belongs to us, not those bloody Sassenachs.”

“Surely it’s better for the United Kingdom to remain as one body?” suggested Andrew. “At least that way—”

“Never. The Act of 1707 was a disgrace to our nation.”

“But—” began Louise enthusiastically. Andrew put a hand on her arm. “Thank you, sir, for your time,” and prodded his wife gently down the path.

“Sorry, Louise,” said Andrew, when they were back on the pavement. “Once they mention the 1707 Act of Union we have no chance; some Scots have remarkably long memories.”

He knocked on the next door. A fat man answered it, a dog lead in his hand.

“My name is Andrew Fraser, I—”

“Get lost, creep,” came back the reply.

“Who are you calling creep?” Louise retaliated as the door was slammed in their faces. “Charming man.”

“Don’t be offended, darling. He was referring to me, not you.”

“What will you put by his name?”

“A question mark. No way of telling who he votes for. Probably abstains.”

He tried the next door.

“Hello, Andrew,” said a lady before he could open his mouth. “Don’t waste your time on me, I always vote for you.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Irvine,” said Andrew, checking his house list. “What about your next-door neighbor?” he asked, pointing back.

“Ah, he’s an irritable old basket, but I’ll see he gets to the polls on the day and puts his cross in the right box. He’d better, or I’ll stop keeping an eye on his greyhound for him when he’s out.”

“Thank you very much, Mrs. Irvine,” said Andrew, laughing.

“One more red,” he told Louise as they returned to the pavement.

“And you might even pick up the greyhound vote.”

They covered four streets during the next three hours, and Andrew put red lines through those names he was certain would support him on polling day.

“Why do you have to be so sure?” asked Louise.

“Because when we pick them up to vote on election day we don’t want to remind the opposition, let alone arrange a lift for someone who then takes pleasure in voting Tory.”

Louise laughed. “Politics is so dishonest.”

“Be relieved you’re not married to an American senator,” said Andrew, putting a red line through the last name in the street. “At least we don’t have to be millionaires to stand. Time for a quick bite before the evening meeting,” he added, taking his wife’s hand. On their way back to their headquarters they came across their Conservative opponent, but Andrew didn’t respond when Hector McGregor tried to engage him in conversation, again holding him up.

Louise never joined her husband again on these sessions, deciding she could be of more use working back in the Committee Rooms.

In the public meetings held each evening, Andrew made the same speech thirty-two times in twenty-four days with only slight variations to account for national developments. Louise sat loyally through every one of them, always laughing at his punch lines and starting the clapping whenever he made a telling point. Somehow she managed to remain fresh and lively even at the end of the day when she drove her husband home.

By the eve of the election all the press were predicting a clear majority for Labour, but Andrew observed the gleam in his father’s eye when he passed him in the street canvassing for McGregor.

At five-thirty on the morning of the election Louise woke Andrew with a cup of tea. He didn’t see another cup that day. To his relief the sun was shining when he pulled back the curtains after he had had his bath: bad weather invariably helped the Tories with their never-ending pool of cars, ferrying voters to the polling booths. He returned to the bedroom to find his wife pinning to the lapel of his jacket a vast red rosette bearing the exhortation, “Send Fraser back to Westminster.”

He was strolling through the streets of Edinburgh shaking hands, chatting to well-wishers, trying to convince last-minute “don’t knows” when he spotted his father heading toward him. They ended up facing each other in the middle of the street.

“It’s going to be a close-run thing,” said Sir Duncan.

“Then I’ll know who to blame if I lose by one vote,” said Andrew.

Sir Duncan looked conspiratorially about him, then lowered his voice. “If you win by one vote you’ll have me to thank, laddie.” He marched away entreating the citizens of Edinburgh to remove the turncoat Fraser.

The next time father and son met was at the count that evening. As the little piles of votes began to grow it became obvious that Andrew would be returned to Parliament, and Hector McGregor was soon shaking his head in disappointment.

But when the first result was announced in Guildford and showed a four percent swing to the Tories all the previous predictions of a strong Labour victory began to look unrealistic. As each return was announced from town hall platforms all over the country it became progressively more obvious that the Tories were going to end up with a large enough majority to govern.

“I would have thought,” Sir Duncan said to his son as the trend was confirmed across the nation, “that you’ll be in for a wee spell of Opposition.”

“Wee is the important word,” was all that Andrew replied.

Andrew retained his seat, keeping the swing against him down to one percent and his majority a safe 4,009. Scotland wasn’t as sure about Heath as the rest of the country, which showed an average swing against Labour of 4.7 percent.

Simon Kerslake managed a four-figure majority for the first time when he won Coventry Central by 2,118.

When Fiona was asked by the old earl how many votes Charles had won by, she said she couldn’t be certain but she did recall Charles telling a journalist it was more than the other candidates put together.

Raymond Gould suffered an adverse swing of only two percent and was returned with a 10,416 majority. The people of Leeds admire independence in a member, especially when it comes to a matter of principle.

The Conservatives captured Parliament with an overall majority of thirty. Her Majesty the Queen called for Edward Heath and asked him to form a Government. He kissed the hands of his sovereign and accepted her commission.

Chapter eleven

When Simon awoke on the morning after the election he felt both exhausted and exhilarated. He lay in bed trying to imagine how those Labour ministers, who only the previous day had assumed they would be returning to their departments, would be feeling now.

Elizabeth stirred, let out a small sleep-filled sigh. Simon stared down at his wife. In the seven years of their marriage she had lost none of her attraction for him, but he still took pleasure in just looking at her sleeping form. Her long fair hair rested on her shoulders and her slim, firm figure curved gently beneath the silk nightgown. He started stroking her back and watched her slowly come out of sleep. When she finally awoke she turned over and he took her in his arms.

“I admire your energy,” she said. “If you’re still fit after three weeks on the trail I can hardly claim to have a headache.”

He smiled, delighted to catch a moment of privacy between the seeming lunacy of electioneering and the anticipation of office. No voter was going to interrupt this rare moment of pleasure.

“Mum,” said a voice, and Simon quickly turned over to see Peter standing at the door in his pajamas. “I’m hungry.”

On the way back to London in the car Elizabeth asked, “What do you think he’ll offer you?”

“Daren’t anticipate anything,” said Simon. “But I would hope — Under-Secretary of State for Housing and Local Government.”

“But you’re still not certain to be offered a post?”

“Not at all. One can never know what permutations and pressures a new Prime Minister has to consider.”

“Like what?” asked Elizabeth.

“Left and right wings of the party, north and south of the country — countless debts to be cleared with those people who can claim they played a role in getting him into No. 10.” Simon yawned.

“Are you saying he could leave you out?”

“Oh yes. But I’ll be livid if he does, and I’d certainly want to know who had been given my job — and why.”

“And what could you do about it?”

“Nothing. There is absolutely nothing one can do and every back-bencher knows it. The Prime Minister’s power of patronage is absolute.”

“It won’t matter, if you continue driving on the center line,” she said. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to take a turn at the wheel?”

Louise let Andrew lie in on the Friday morning. She knew he had been expecting to return to a higher ministerial office and had been shattered by the election result.

By the time Andrew woke it was nearly eleven. He sat in silence in his dressing gown, unshaven, and tapped a hardboiled egg that refused to crack. An unopened Times lay by his side.

“Thank you for all your hard work,” he said once the second cup of coffee had taken effect. She smiled.

An hour later, dressed in sports jacket and gray flannels, he toured the constituency in a loudspeaker van, thanking his supporters for returning him to Westminster. Louise was by his side, often able to jog his memory on names he couldn’t recall.

After they had shaken the last hand they spent a quiet weekend with Sir Duncan in Stirling — who found it extremely hard to remove the smirk from his face.

Raymond was astonished by the election result. He couldn’t believe that the opinion polls had been so wrong. He didn’t confide in Joyce that he had hoped a Labour victory would bring him back into office after languishing on the back benches for what seemed an interminable time.

“There’s nothing for it,” he told her, “but to rebuild a career at the bar. We may be out of office for years.”

“But surely that won’t be enough to keep you fully occupied?”

“I have to be realistic about the future,” he said slowly. “Although I don’t intend to let Heath drag us into Europe without putting up one hell of a fight.”

“Perhaps they’ll ask you to Shadow someone?”

“No, there are always far fewer jobs available in Opposition, and in any case they always give the orators like Fraser the dispatch box when all you can do is to sit and make noises while we wait for another election.”

Raymond wondered how he would broach what was really on his mind and tried to sound casual when he said, “Perhaps it’s time we considered having our own home in the constituency.”

“That seems an unnecessary expense,” said Joyce, “especially as there’s nothing wrong with your parents’ home. And, in any case, wouldn’t they be offended?”

“My first interest should be my duty to the constituents and this would be a chance to prove a long-term commitment to them. Naturally my parents will understand.”

“But we can’t afford the cost of two houses,” said Joyce uncertainly.

“I realize that, but it’s you who have always wanted to live in Leeds, and this will give you the chance to stop commuting from London every week. After I’ve done the rounds why don’t you stay up, contact a few local estate agents, and see what’s on the market?”

“All right, if that’s what you really want,” said Joyce. “I’ll start next week.”

Charles and Fiona spent a quiet weekend at their cottage in Sussex. Charles tried to do some gardening while he kept one ear open for the telephone. Fiona began to realize how anxious he was when she looked through the French windows and saw her finest delphinium being taken for a weed.

Charles eventually gave the weeds a reprieve and came in and turned on the television to catch Maudling, Macleod, Thatcher, and Carrington enter No. 10 Downing Street looking pensive, only to leave smiling. The senior appointments had been made: the Cabinet was taking shape. The new Prime Minister came out and waved to the crowds before being whisked away in his official car.

Would he remember who had organized the young vote for him before he was even the party leader?

“When do you want to go back to Eaton Square?” Fiona inquired from the kitchen.

“Depends,” said Charles.

“On what?”

“On whether the phone rings.”

Simon sat staring at the television. All those hours of work on Housing and Local Government, and the PM had offered the portfolio to someone else. He had left the set on all day but didn’t learn who it was, only that the rest of the Housing and Local Government team had remained intact.

“Why do I bother?” he said out loud. “The whole thing’s a farce.”

“What were you saying, darling?” asked Elizabeth as she came into the room.

The phone rang again. It was the newly appointed Home Secretary, Reginald Maudling.

“Simon?”

“Reggie, many congratulations on your appointment — not that it came as a great surprise.”

“That’s what I’m calling about, Simon. Would you like to join me at the Home Office as Under-Secretary?”

“Like to? I’d be delighted.”

“Thank heavens for that,” said Maudling. “It took me a dickens of a time to convince Ted Heath that you should be released from the Housing and Local Government team.”

When Andrew and Louise arrived back at Cheyne Walk after the weekend a red box was waiting for him in the drawing room. “Under-Secretary of State for Scotland” was printed in gold on the side.

“They’ll be round to collect that later today,” he told Louise. He turned the key to find the box was empty, and then he saw the small envelope in one corner. It was addressed to “Andrew Fraser Esquire, MP.” He tore it open. It contained a short handwritten note from the Permanent Secretary, the senior civil servant at the Scottish Office.

“In keeping with a long tradition, ministers are presented with the last red box from which they worked. Au revoir. No doubt we will meet again.”

“I suppose it could be used as a lunch box,” said Louise, standing by the door.

“Or perhaps an overnight case,” offered Andrew.

“Or a very small cot,” added his wife, trying to make her words casual.

Andrew looked up to see Louise looking radiant.

“I let your parents know last night, but I wasn’t going to tell you until dinner this evening.”

Andrew threw his arms around her.

“By the way,” Louise added, “we’ve already decided on her name.”

When Raymond arrived back at Lincoln’s Inn he let his clerk know that he wanted to be flooded with work. Over lunch with Sir Nigel Hartwell, the head of chambers, he explained that he thought it unlikely that the Labour party would be in Government again for some considerable time.

“Age is on your side, Raymond. Another full Parliament and you’ll be barely forty, so you can still look forward to many years in the Cabinet.”

“I wonder,” said Raymond, uncharacteristically hesitant.

“Well, you needn’t worry about briefs. Solicitors have been calling constantly since it was known you were back on a more permanent basis.”

Raymond began to relax.

Joyce phoned him after lunch with the news that she hadn’t found anything suitable, but the estate agent had assured her that they were expecting a lot more on the market in the autumn.

“Well, keep looking,” said Raymond.

“Don’t worry, I will,” said Joyce, sounding as if she was enjoying the whole exercise. “If we find something perhaps we can think of starting a family,” she added tentatively.

“Perhaps,” said Raymond brusquely.

Charles eventually received a call on the Monday night, not from No. 10 Downing Street but from No. 12, the office of the Chief Whip. Because the Chief Whip’s is not an official post, he is paid as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury and he works from No. 12. The Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, being the first and second Lords of the Treasury, live at Nos. 10 and 11 Downing Street respectively.

The Chief Whip had phoned to say he hoped that Charles would be willing to soldier on as a junior Whip. When he heard the disappointment in Charles’s voice he added, “For the time being.”

“For the time being,” repeated Charles and put the phone down.

“At least you’re a member of the Government. You haven’t been left out in the cold,” said Fiona gamely.

“True,” he replied.

“People are sure to come and go during the next five years.”

Charles had to agree with his wife but it didn’t lessen his disappointment. Returning to the Commons as a member of the Government, however, turned out to be far more rewarding than he had expected. This time it was his party that were making the decisions.

The Queen traveled early that July morning to the House of Lords in the Irish State Coach. An escort of the Household Cavalry accompanied her, preceded by a procession of lesser state carriages in which the Imperial State Crown and other royal trappings were transported. Charles could remember watching the ceremony from the streets when he was a boy. Now he was taking part in it. When the Queen arrived at the Upper House she was accompanied by the Lord Chancellor through the Sovereign’s entrance to the robing room, where her ladies-in-waiting began to prepare her for the ceremony.

Charles always considered the State opening of Parliament a special occasion for members of both Houses. As a Whip he watched the members take their seats in the Commons and await the arrival of Black Rod. Once the Queen was seated on the throne the Lord Great Chamberlain commanded the Gentleman Usher of Black Rod to inform the Commons that: “It is Her Majesty’s pleasure they attend her immediately in this House.” Black Rod, wearing his black topcoat, black waistcoat, black knee-breeches, black stockings, and black shoes, resembled the devil’s advocate rather than the Queen’s messenger. He marched alone across the great tiled floor joining the two Chambers until he reached the doors of the House of Commons which were slammed in his face when he was just two paces away from them.

He struck the door three times with the silver tip of his long thin black rod. In response a little window in the door was flicked back to check on who it was — not unlike a sleazy nightclub, Charles’s father had once observed. Black Rod was then allowed admittance to the Lower House. He advanced toward the table and made three obeisances to the chair before saying, “Mr. Speaker, the Queen commands this Honorable House to attend Her Majesty immediately in the House of Peers.”

With that, the Serjeant-at-Arms, bearing the mace, led Mr. Speaker, in full court dress, a gold embroidered gown of black satin damask, back toward the Lords. They were followed by the Clerk of the House and the Speaker’s chaplain, behind whom came the Prime Minister, accompanied by the leader of the Opposition, then Government ministers with their opposite numbers, and finally as many backbenchers as could squeeze into the rear of the Lords’ Chamber.

The Lords themselves were waiting in the Upper House, dressed in red capes with ermine collars, looking somewhat like benevolent Draculas, accompanied by peeresses glittering in diamond tiaras and wearing long evening dresses. The Queen was seated on the throne, in her full Monarchical robes, the Imperial State Crown on her head originally made for George IV. She waited until the procession had filled the Chamber and all was still.

The Lord Chancellor shuffled forward and, bending down on one knee, presented her with a printed document. It was the speech, written by the Government of the day, and although she had read over a copy of the script earlier that morning she had made no personal contribution to its contents, as her role on this occasion was only ceremonial. She looked up at her subjects and began to read.

Charles stood at the back of the cramped gathering, but with his height he had no trouble in following the entire proceedings. Their lordships were all in their places for the Queen’s speech, with the law lords seated in their privileged position in the center of the Chamber, an honor bestowed upon them by an Act of 1539. The Lord Chancellor stood to one side of the Woolsack, which was stuffed with wool from the days when it was the staple commodity of England. When the Lords are in session he acts much as the Speaker does for the Commons.

Charles could spot his elderly father, the Earl of Bridgwater, nodding off during the Queen’s speech, which promised that Britain would make a determined effort to become a full member of the EEC. “My Government also intends to bring in a bill to enact trade union reform,” she declared. Charles, along with everyone else from the Commons, was counting the likely number of bills that would be presented during the coming months and soon worked out that the Whips’ office were going to be in for a busy session.

As the Queen finished her speech Charles took one more look at his father, now sound asleep. How Charles dreaded the moment when he would be standing there watching his brother Rupert in ermine. The only compensation would be if he could produce a son who would one day inherit the title, as it was now obvious Rupert would never marry.

It was not as if he and Fiona had not tried. He was beginning to wonder if the time had not come to suggest that she visit a specialist. He dreaded finding out she was unable to bear a child.

The speech delivered, the Sovereign left the Upper House followed by Prince Philip and Prince Charles to a fanfare of trumpets. At the other end of the Chamber the procession of MPs, led again by the Speaker, made their way back in pairs from the red benches of the Lords to the green of the Commons.

The leader of the Opposition, having formed his own team, invited Andrew to cover the Home Office brief as number two. Andrew was delighted by the challenge of this new responsibility, especially when he discovered Simon Kerslake was to be his opposite number in Government.

Louise once again became very large in a short period, but Andrew tried to keep his mind off the pregnancy, as he dreaded her going through that amount of pain and sorrow for a third time. He telephoned Elizabeth Kerslake and they agreed to meet privately.

“That’s a hard question to answer without ifs and buts,” she told Andrew over coffee in her room the following day.

“But what would your advice be if Louise were to lose the third child?”

Elizabeth took a long time considering her reply. “If that happened I cannot believe it would be wise to put her through the same ordeal again,” she said flatly. “The psychological repercussions alone might affect her for the rest of her life.”

Andrew sat staring in front of him.

“Enough of this morbid talk,” Elizabeth added. “I checked Louise last week and I can see no reason why this shouldn’t turn out to be a routine birth.”

As the first weeks of the new Tory administration took shape, Simon and Andrew became locked in battle over several issues and were soon known as “the mongoose and the rattlesnake.” When either of the names “Kerslake” or “Fraser” was cranked up on the old-fashioned wall machines indicating one of them had risen to speak, members drifted back into the Chamber. Andrew found himself a constant visitor to the table office, a tiny room in the corridor behind the Speaker’s chair where members tabled their questions, usually scribbled on yellow sheets, but still acceptable to the omniscient clerks had they been written on postage stamps.

The clerks often helped Andrew reword a question so that it would be acceptable to the chair, a function they carried out for any member, even Tom Carson, who had once accused them of political bias when they suggested one of his questions was out of order. When Carson was finally referred to the Speaker, he was called for and reprimanded, and his question deposited in one of the mock-Gothic wastepaper baskets in the Order office.

Once behind the Speaker’s chair, Simon and Andrew would good-humoredly discuss the issues on which they were crossing swords. The opportunity to be out of sight of the Press Gallery above them was often taken by the two opposing members, but once they had both returned to the dispatch box they would tear into each other, looking for any weakness in the other’s argument.

On one subject they found themselves in total accord. Ever since August 1969, when the troops had first been sent in, Parliament had been having another of its periodic bouts of trouble with Northern Ireland. In October 1970 the House devoted a full day’s business to listen to members’ opinions in the never-ending effort to find a solution to the growing clash between the Protestant extremists and the IRA. The motion before the House was to allow emergency powers to be renewed in the province.

Andrew rose from his seat on the front bench to deliver the opening speech for the Opposition. He said he took no side in this unhappy affair, but he felt sure the House was united in condemning violence. Yet however hard he searched for the answer he found neither faction willing to give an inch. “Goodwill” and “trust” were words that might as well have been left out of any dictionary printed in Ulster. It was not long before Andrew came to the conclusion that Gladstone was right when he had said, “Every time I find the solution to the Irish question, they change the question.”

When Andrew had finished he surprised members by leaving the Chamber and not returning for several minutes.

Simon had been selected to wind up for the Government and had prepared his speech with meticulous care. Although both sides appeared in agreement on the main issue, the mood as always could change in a moment if an unfortunate view was expressed by a Government minister.

During the debate, much to everyone’s surprise, Andrew Fraser kept leaving the Chamber. Simon left only twice between three-thirty and the ten o’clock division, once to take a call from his wife, and then again at seven-thirty for a quick supper.

When Simon came back Andrew was still absent from the Chamber, and he had not returned by the time the Shadow Home Secretary began to sum up. Andrew did eventually take his seat on the front bench but Simon had already begun his speech.

As Andrew entered the Chamber and took his place on the front bench, an elderly Conservative rose from his seat.

“On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.”

Simon sat down immediately and turned his head to listen to the point his colleague wanted to make.

“Is it not a tradition of this House, sir,” began the elder statesman rather ponderously, “for a front-bench spokesman to have the courtesy to remain in his seat during the debate in order that he may ascertain views other than his own?”

“That is not a point of order,” replied the Speaker above the cries of “Hear, hear” from the Conservative benches. Andrew scribbled a quick note and hurriedly passed it over to Simon. On it was written a single sentence.

“I accept the point my Right Honorable friend makes,” Simon began, “and would have complained myself had I not known that the Honorable Gentleman, the member for Edinburgh Carlton, has spent most of the afternoon in hospital.” Simon paused to let the effect sink in. “Where his wife was in labor. I am not given to accepting as necessarily accurate all the Opposition tells me,” he continued, “but I am able to confirm this statement because it was my wife who delivered the baby.” The House began to laugh. “I can assure my Honorable friend that my wife has spent her entire afternoon indoctrinating the infant in the value of Conservative policies as understood by his grandfather, which is why the Honorable Gentleman has found it necessary to be absent himself from so much of the debate.” Simon waited for the laughter to subside. “For those members of the House who thrive on statistics, it’s a boy and he weighs four pounds three ounces.”

There are times in the House when affection is displayed on both sides, thought Andrew, who considered it was ironic that during an Irish debate an Englishman had demonstrated such affection for a Scotsman.

There was no challenge when the Speaker “collected the voices” at ten o’clock so the matter was decided “on the nod” and Simon joined Andrew behind the Speaker’s chair.

“Just over four pounds doesn’t sound very big to me. I thought I’d take a second opinion from the Minister of Health.”

“I agree,” said Andrew, “the little blighter is stuck in an incubator, but your wife is doing everything she can to fatten him up. I’m off to watch him now.”

“Good luck,” said Simon.

Andrew sat by the incubator all night, hating the drip, drip, drip of the little plastic tube that passed up the child’s nose and down into his stomach. He feared that when he woke his son would be dead and continually went to the washbasin and put a damp, cold cloth over his eyes to ensure he remained awake. He finally lost the battle and dozed off in a “dad’s bed” in the corner.

When his father woke, Robert Bruce Fraser was very much alive. The crumpled father rose from his bed to admire his “crumpled offspring, who was receiving milk down the plastic tube from a night nurse.

Andrew stared down at the crinkly face. The boy had inherited his square jaw, but he had his mother’s nose and hair coloring. Andrew chuckled at the time Louise had wasted over girls’ names. Robert it would be.

Robert Bruce Fraser traveled to Cheyne Walk with his mother and father three weeks later, having topped the scales earlier that morning at five pounds ten ounces.

Elizabeth Kerslake had told them to be thankful: the postnatal examination had shown that it would not be possible for Louise to bear another child.

Chapter twelve

The Chief Whip looked round at his colleagues, wondering which of them would volunteer for such a thankless task.

A hand went up, and he was pleasantly surprised.

“Thank you, Charles.”

Charles had already warned Fiona that he was going to volunteer to be the Whip responsible for the issue that had most dominated the last election: Britain’s entry into the EEC. Everyone in that room realized that it would be the most demanding marathon of the entire Parliament, and there was an audible sigh of relief when Charles volunteered.

“Not a job for anyone with a rocky marriage,” he heard one Whip whisper. At least that’s something I don’t have to worry about, thought Charles, but he made a note to take home some flowers that night.

“Why was it the bill everyone wanted to avoid?” asked Fiona as she arranged the daffodils.

“Because many of our side don’t necessarily back Edward Heath in his lifelong ambition to take Britain into Europe, while quite a few of the Opposition do,” said Charles, accepting a large brandy. “Added to that, we have the problem of presenting a bill to curb the trade unions at the same time which may well influence many members of the Labour party from voting with us on Europe. Because of this problem, the Prime Minister requires a regular ‘state of play’ assessment on Europe even though legislation may not be presented on the floor of the Commons for at least another year. He’ll want to know periodically how many of our side are still against entry, and how many from the Opposition we can rely on to break ranks when the crucial vote is taken.”

“Perhaps I should become Member of Parliament and then at least I could spend a little more time with you.”

“Especially on the European issue if you were a ‘don’t know.’”

The “Great Debate” was discussed by the media to the point of boredom. Members were nevertheless conscious that they were playing a part in history. And, because of the unusual spectacle of the Whips not being in absolute control of the voting procedure, the Commons sprang to life, and excitement began to build up over the weeks and months of debate.

Charles retained his normal task of watching over fifty members on all normal Government bills, but because of the priority given to the issue of entry into Europe he had been released from all other duties. He knew that this was his chance to atone for his disastrous winding-up speech on the economy which he sensed his colleagues had still not completely forgotten.

“I’m gambling everything on this one,” he told Fiona. “And if we lose the final vote I will be sentenced to the back benches for life.”

“And if we win?”

“It will be hard to keep me off the front bench,” replied Charles.

Robert Fraser was one of those noisy children who after only a few weeks sounded as if he was on the front bench.

“Perhaps he’s going to be a politician after all,” concluded Louise, staring down at her son.

“What has changed your mind?” asked Andrew.

“He never stops shouting at everyone, he’s totally preoccupied with himself, and he falls asleep as soon as someone else offers an opinion,” she replied.

“At last I think I’ve found it.” After Raymond heard the news he took the train up to Leeds the following Friday. Joyce had selected four houses for him to consider, but he had to agree with her that the one in Chapel Allerton was exactly what they were looking for. It was also by far the most expensive.

“Can we afford it?” asked Joyce anxiously.

“Probably not, but one of the problems of seeing four houses is that you end up only wanting the best one.”

“I could go on looking.”

“No, you’ve found the right house; now I’ll have to work out how we can pay for it, and I think I may have come up with an idea.”

Joyce said nothing, waiting for him to continue.

“We could sell our place in Lansdowne Road.”

“But where would we live when you’re in London?”

“I could rent a small flat somewhere between the law courts and the Commons while you set up our real home in Leeds.”

“But wouldn’t you get lonely?”

“Of course I will,” said Raymond, trying to sound convincing. “But almost every member north of Birmingham is parted from his wife during the week. In any case, you’ve always wanted to settle in Yorkshire, and this might be our best chance. If my practice continues to grow we can buy a second house in London at a later date.”

Joyce looked apprehensive.

“One added bonus,” said Raymond, “your being in Leeds will ensure I never lose the seat.”

She smiled, as she always felt reassured whenever Raymond showed the slightest sign of needing her.

On Monday morning Raymond put in a bid for the house in Chapel Allerton before returning to London. After a little bargaining over the phone during the week, he and the owner settled on a price. By Thursday Raymond had put his Lansdowne Road house on the market and was surprised by the amount the estate agent thought it would fetch.

All Raymond had to do now was find himself a flat.

Simon sent a note to Ronnie expressing his thanks for keeping him so well informed about what was happening at Nethercote and Company. It had been eight months since he had resigned from the board because of his appointment as a minister, but Ronnie saw that the minutes of each meeting were posted to him to study in his own time. “His own time”: Simon had to laugh at the thought.

His overdraft at the bank now stood at a little over £72,000, but as Ronnie intended the shares should be offered at five pounds each when they went public Simon felt sure there was still a fair leeway, as his personal holding should realize £300,000. Elizabeth warned him not to spend a penny of the profit until the money was safely in the bank. He was thankful she didn’t know the full extent of his borrowing.

Over one of their occasional lunches at the Ritz, Ronnie spelled out to Simon his plans for the future of the company.

“Now that the Tories are in I think I’ll go public in eighteen months’ time. This year’s profits are up again and next year’s look even better. So 1973 looks a perfect bet.”

Simon looked apprehensive and Ronnie responded quickly. “If you’re having any problem, Simon, I’ll be happy to take the shares off your hands at their market value. At least that way you’d show a small profit.”

“No, no,” said Simon. “I’ll hang in there now that I’ve waited this long.”

“Suit yourself,” said Ronnie. “Now tell me — how are you enjoying the Home Office?”

Simon put down his knife and fork. “Of the three great offices of state, it’s the one most involved with people, so there’s a new challenge at a personal level every day, although it can be depressing too. Locking people up in prisons, banning immigrants and deporting harmless aliens isn’t my idea of fun. The Home Office never seems to want anyone to enjoy too much freedom.”

“And what about Ireland?”

“What about Ireland?” said Simon, shrugging his shoulders.

“I’d give the north back to Eire,” said Ronnie, “or let them go independent and give them a large cash incentive to do so. At the moment the whole exercise is money down the drain.”

“We’re discussing people,” said Simon, “not money.”

“Ninety percent of the voters would back me,” said Ronnie, lighting a cigar.

“Everyone imagines ninety percent of the people support their views, until they stand for election,” said Simon. “The issue of Ireland is far too important to be glib about. I repeat, we’re discussing people, eight million people, all of whom have the same right to justice as you and I. And as long as I work in the Home Office I intend to see that they get it.”

Ronnie remained silent.

“I’m sorry, Ronnie,” continued Simon. “Too many people have an easy solution to Ireland. If there was an easy solution the problem wouldn’t have lasted over two hundred years.”

“Don’t be sorry,” said Ronnie. “I’m so stupid, I’ve only just worked out for the first time why you’re in public office.”

“You’re a typical self-made Fascist,” said Simon, teasing his companion once again.

“You may be right, but you won’t change my mind on hanging. Your lot should bring back the rope; the streets aren’t safe any longer.”

“For property developers like you, hoping for a quick killing?”

Both men laughed.

“Andrew, do you want lunch?”

“In a moment, in a moment.”

“That’s what you said half an hour ago.”

“I know, but he’s nearly got it. Just give me a few more minutes.” Louise waited and watched, but Robert collapsed in a heap again.

“No doubt you’re expecting him to play soccer for England by the time he’s two.”

“No, certainly not,” said Andrew, carrying his son back into the house. “Rugby for Scotland.”

Louise was touched by the amount of time Andrew spent with Robert. She told her disbelieving friends that he regularly fed and bathed the baby and even changed his nappy.

“Don’t you think he’s good-looking?” asked Andrew, strapping his son carefully into his chair.

“Yes,” said Louise, laughing.

“That’s because he looks like me,” said Andrew, putting his arms round his wife.

“He most certainly does not,” said Louise firmly.

Crash. A bowlful of porridge had been deposited on the floor, leaving just a lump left in the spoon, which Robert was now smearing across his face and hair.

“He looks as if he has just stepped out of a concrete mixer,” said Andrew.

Louise stared at her son. “Perhaps you’re right. There are times when he looks like you.”

“How do you feel about rape?” asked Raymond.

“I can’t see that it’s relevant,” Stephanie Arnold replied.

“I think they’ll go for me on it,” said Raymond.

“But why?”

“They’ll be able to pin me in a corner, damage my character.”

“But where does it get them? They can’t prove lack of consent.”

“Maybe, but they will offer it as background to prove the rest of the case.”

“Because you raped someone doesn’t prove you murdered them.”

Raymond and Stephanie Arnold, who was new to chambers, continued discussing their first case together on the way to the Old Bailey, and she left Raymond in no doubt that she was delighted to be led by him. They were to appear together to defend a laborer accused of the rape and murder of his stepdaughter.

“Open and shut case unfortunately,” said Raymond, “but we’re going to make the Crown prove their argument beyond anyone’s doubt.”

When the case stretched into a second week Raymond began to believe that the jury were so gullible they might even get their client off. Stephanie was sure they would.

The day before the judge’s summing up Raymond invited Stephanie to dinner at the House of Commons. That’ll make them turn their heads, he thought to himself. They won’t have seen anything in a white shirt and black stockings that looks like that for some time, certainly not Mr. Speaker.

Stephanie seemed flattered by the invitation and sat through the stodgy meal served in the Strangers’ Dining Room, obviously impressed as former Cabinet ministers flitted in and out, all of them acknowledging him.

“How’s the new flat?” asked Stephanie.

“Worked out well,” replied Raymond. “The Barbican is so convenient for Parliament and the law courts.”

“Does your wife like it?” she asked, lighting a cigarette but not looking at him directly.

“She’s not in town that much nowadays. She spends most of her time in Leeds — doesn’t care much for London.”

The awkward pause that followed was interrupted by a sudden clanging of bells.

“Are we on fire?” said Stephanie, quickly stubbing out her cigarette.

“No,” said Raymond, laughing. “Just the ten o’clock division. I have to leave you and vote. I’ll be back in about fifteen minutes.”

“Shall I order coffee?”

“No, don’t bother,” said Raymond. “It’s foul. Perhaps... perhaps you’d like to come back to the Barbican? Then you can give a verdict on my flat.”

“Maybe it’s an open and shut case.” She smiled.

Raymond returned the smile before joining his colleagues as they flooded out of the dining room down the corridor toward the Commons Chamber. He didn’t have time to explain to Stephanie that he had only six minutes to get into the right lobby. As Raymond had no idea what they were voting on that night he followed the surge of Labour members into the Noes lobby. The bells stopped and the doors were bolted.

Whenever the vote is called for at the end of the debate the Speaker puts the question and the moment he reaches the words, “I think the Ayes have it,” the roar of “No” from those opposed to the motion ensures a vote at ten o’clock. Bells peal out over the Palace of Westminster, and in some nearby restaurants and members’ homes in the division-bell area.

Members then scurry into the Ayes or Noes division lobby before the cry of “Lock the doors” is heard. Once the doors have been secured each member then files past two clerks seated at a high desk at the far end of the corridor who tick off his name. As Raymond stepped past the clerks he came toward the exit doors which were angled so as to make a funnel through which only one member at a time could pass. The Whip acting as teller shouted out the mounting vote. “Seventy-three,” he called as Raymond passed him. The only particular rule relating to voting was that members could not wear a hat or overcoat while in the lobby. A clerk had once told Raymond that this dated from the days when lazy members sent their driver off in the hansom cab, hats over ears, coat buttoned up to the nose, to march through the corridors and give their masters’ names. Some of them would have been a damn sight better MPs than their employers, Raymond had often thought.

While in the corridor he discovered that they were voting on a clause of the Trade Union Bill concerning the validity of closed shops. He was in no doubt that he supported his party on that subject.

When he returned to the Strangers’ Dining Room after the vote he found Stephanie checking her face in a compact mirror, a small round face with green eyes and brunette hair. She was replacing the trace of lipstick. He suddenly felt conscious of being a little overweight for a man not yet forty.

“Shall we go?” he suggested, after he had signed the bill.

Once they had reached the flat Raymond put on a Charles Aznavour record and retired to the small kitchen to prepare coffee. He was totally oblivious to the fact that women were beginning to find him attractive. A little extra weight and a few gray hairs had not harmed his appearance, if anything giving him an air of authority.

“There’s no doubting this is a bachelor flat,” Stephanie remarked as she took in the one comfortable leather chair, the pipe stand, and the Spy cartoons of turn-of-the-century judges and politicians.

“I suppose that’s because that’s what it is,” he mused, setting down a tray laden with coffee and two brandy balloons generously filled with cognac.

“Don’t you get lonely?” she asked.

“From time to time,” he said, pouring the coffee.

“And between times?”

“Black?” he asked, not looking at her.

“Black,” she said.

“Sugar?”

“For a man who has served as a minister of the Crown and who, it’s rumored, is about to become the youngest QC in the country, you’re still very unsure of yourself with women.”

Raymond blushed, but raised his head and stared into her eyes.

In the silence he caught Aznavour’s words, “You’ve let yourself go...”

“Would my Honorable friend care to dance?” she said quietly.

Raymond could still remember the last occasion he had danced. This time he was determined it would be different. He held Stephanie so that their bodies touched and they swayed rather than danced to the music of Marcel Stellman. She didn’t notice Raymond slipping off his glasses and putting them into his jacket pocket. He bent over and kissed her neck. She gave a long sigh, and when they parted, she said, “Let’s hope this is between times.”

Charles studied his chart of 33 °Conservatives. He felt confident of 217, not sure about fifty-four, and had almost given up on fifty-nine. On the Labour side the best information he could glean was that fifty Socialists were expected to defy the Whip and join the Government’s ranks when the great vote took place.

“The main fly in the ointment,” Charles reported to the Chief Whip, “is still the Trade Union Reform Bill. The left are trying to convince those Socialists who still support the bill that there is no cause so important for which they should enter the same lobby as those Tory trade union bashers.” He went on to explain his fear that unless the Government were willing to modify the Trade Union Bill they might lose Europe on the back of it. “Alec Pimkin doesn’t help matters by trying to gather the waverers in our party round him.”

“There’s no chance of the Prime Minister modifying one sentence of the Trade Union Bill,” said the Chief Whip, draining his gin and tonic. “He promised it in his speech at the party conference, and he intends to deliver by the time he goes to Blackpool at the end of this year. I can also tell you he isn’t going to like your conclusions on Pimkin, Charles. He cares almost as passionately about trade union reform as he does about Europe.” Charles was about to protest. “I’m not complaining, you’ve done damn well so far. Just keep working on the fifty waverers. Threaten, cajole, bully, bribe. Try anything, but get them in the right lobby come the night, Pimkin included.”

“How about sex?” asked Charles.

“You’ve been seeing too many American films,” said the Chief Whip, laughing. “In any case I don’t think we’ve got anyone other than Miss Norse to offer them.”

Charles returned to his office and went over the list once again. His forefinger stopped at the letter “P.” Charles strolled out into the corridor and looked around; his quarry wasn’t there. He checked the Chamber: no sign of him. He passed the library. No need to look in there, he thought, and moved on to the smoking room where he found his man, about to order another gin.

“Alec,” said Charles expansively.

The rotund figure of Pimkin looked round.

May as well try bribery first, thought Charles. “Let me get you a drink.”

“That’s good of you, old fellow,” said Pimkin, nervously fingering his bow tie.

“Now, Alec, what’s this about your voting against the European Bill?”

Simon was horrified when he read the initial document. Its implications were all too evident.

The report of the new Boundary Commission had been left in the red box for him to study over the weekend. He had agreed at a meeting of Home Office officials that he would steer it through the House as quickly as possible so that it would make the basis for the seats to be contested at the next election. As the Secretary of State reminded him: there must be no hold-ups.

Simon had read the document carefully. In essence the changes made sense and, because of the movement of families from urban to rural areas, it would undoubtedly create more winnable seats for the Conservatives overall. No wonder the party wanted no hold-ups. But what could he do about the decision the Commission had come to on his own constituency, Coventry Central? His hands were tied. If he suggested any change from the Boundary Commission’s recommendations he would rightly be accused of gerrymandering.

Because of the city’s dwindling population the Commission had recommended that the four constituencies of Coventry become three. Coventry Central was to be the one to disappear, its voters distributed among Coventry West, Coventry East, and Coventry North. Simon realized this would leave one safe seat for his sitting colleague and two safe Labour seats. It had never been far from his mind how marginal a constituency he represented. Now he was on the verge of being without one at all. He would have to traipse around the country all over again looking for a new seat to fight at the next election, while at the same time taking care of his constituents in the moribund one; and at the stroke of a pen — bis pen — they would pass on their loyalties to someone else. If only he had remained in Housing and Local Government he could have put up a case for keeping all four seats.

Elizabeth was sympathetic when he explained the problem but told him not to concern himself too much until he had spoken to the vice-chairman of the party, who advised candidates which constituencies were likely to become available.

“It may even work out to your advantage,” she added.

“What do you mean?” said Simon.

“You could get a safer seat nearer London.”

“With my luck I’ll end up with a marginal in Newcastle.”

Elizabeth prepared his favorite meal and spent the evening trying to keep up his spirits. After three portions of shepherd’s pie Simon fell asleep almost as soon as he put his head on the pillow. But she stayed awake long into the night.

The casual conversation with the head of Gynecology at St. Mary’s kept running through her mind. Although she hadn’t confided in Simon, she could recall her supervisor’s every word.

“I notice from the roster that you’ve had far more days off than you are entitled to, Dr. Kerslake. You must make up your mind if you want to be a doctor or the wife of an MP.”

Elizabeth stirred restlessly as she considered the problem, but came to no conclusion except not to bother Simon while he had so much on his mind.

“Do these boundary changes affect you?” Louise asked, looking up from her copy of The Times.

Andrew was bouncing a small rubber ball on Robert’s head.

“You’ll give him brain damage,” said Louise.

“I know, but think of the goals he’ll score — and it won’t be long before I can start him on rugby.”

Robert started to cry when his father stopped to answer his mother’s question. “No, Edinburgh isn’t affected. There’s such a small movement in the population that the seven city seats will remain intact. The only real changes in Scotland will be in Glasgow and the Highlands.”

“That’s a relief,” said Louise. “I should hate to have to look for another constituency.”

“Poor old Simon Kerslake is losing his seat altogether and he daren’t do anything about it.”

“Why not?” asked Louise.

“Because he’s the minister in charge of the bill, and if he tried anything clever we would crucify him.”

“So what will he do?”

“Have to shop around for a new seat, or convince an older colleague to stand down in his favor.”

“But surely ministers find it easy to pick up a plum seat?”

“Not necessarily,” said Andrew. “Many constituencies don’t like to have someone foisted on them and want to choose their own man. And some actually prefer a local man who will never be a minister, because they feel he can devote more time to them.”

“Andrew, can you revert to being some use in Opposition?”

“What are you suggesting?” asked Andrew.

“Just keep throwing that ball at your stupid son’s head or he’ll be crying all day.”

“Take no notice of her, Robert. She’ll feel differently when you score your first goal against England.”

Chapter thirteen

At exactly the time Raymond was ready to stop the affair Stephanie began leaving a set of court clothes in the flat. Although the two had gone their separate ways at the conclusion of the case they continued to see one another a couple of evenings a week. Raymond had had a spare key made so that Stephanie didn’t have to spend her life checking when he had a three-line whip.

At first he began simply to avoid her, but she would then seek him out. When he did manage to give her the slip he would often find her back in his flat when he returned from the Commons. When he suggested they should be a little more discreet she began to make threats, subtle at first, but after a time more direct.

During the period of their affair Raymond conducted three major cases for the Crown, all of which had successful conclusions and which added to his reputation. On each occasion his clerk made certain Stephanie was not assigned to be with him. Now that his residency problem had been sorted out Raymond’s only worry was how to end their relationship. He quickly discovered that getting rid of Stephanie Arnold was going to prove considerably more difficult than picking her up.

Simon was on time for his appointment at Central Office. He explained his dilemma to Sir Edward Mountjoy — vice-chairman of the party responsible for candidates — in graphic detail.

“What bloody bad luck,” said Sir Edward. “But perhaps I may be able to help,” he added, opening the green folder on the desk in front of him. Simon could see that he was studying a list of names. It made him feel once again like an undergraduate who needed someone to die.

“There seem to be about a dozen safe seats that will fall vacant at the next election, caused either by retirement or redistribution.”

“Anywhere in particular you could recommend?”

“I fancy Littlehampton.”

“Where’s that?” said Simon.

“It will be a new seat, safe as houses. It’s in Sussex, on the borders of Hampshire.” He studied an attached map. “Runs proud to Charles Seymour’s constituency which remains unchanged. Can’t think you would have many rivals there,” said Sir Edward. “But why don’t you have a word with Charles? He’s bound to know everyone involved in taking the decision.”

“Anything else that looks promising?” asked Simon, only too aware that Seymour might not prove altogether cooperative.

“Let me see. Can’t afford to put all your eggs in one basket, can we? Ah, yes — Redcorn, in Northumberland.” Again the vice-chairman studied the map. “Three hundred and twenty miles from London and no airport within eighty miles, and their nearest main line station is forty miles. I think that one’s only worth trying for if you get desperate. My advice would be to speak to Charles Seymour about Littlehampton. He must know the lay of the land in that neck of the woods.”

Two clichés in one sentence, thought Simon. Thank heavens Sir Edward would never have to make a speech from the dispatch box.

“I’m sure you’re right, Sir Edward,” he said.

“Selection committees are being formed already,” continued Sir Edward, “so you shouldn’t have to wait too long.”

“I appreciate your help,” said Simon. “Perhaps you could let me know if anything else comes up in the meantime.”

“Of course, delighted. The problem is that if one of our side were to die during the sessions you couldn’t desert your present seat because that would cause two by-elections. We certainly don’t want a by-election in Coventry Central with you being accused of being a carpetbagger somewhere else.”

“Don’t remind me,” said Simon.

Charles had whittled down the fifty-nine anti-Common Market members to fifty-one, but he was now dealing with the hard kernel who seemed quite immune to future advancement or bullying. When he made his next report to the Chief Whip Charles assured him that the Conservatives who would vote against entry into Europe were outnumbered by the Socialists who had declared they would support the Government. The Chief Whip seemed pleased, but asked if Charles had made any progress with Pimkin’s disciples.

“Those twelve mad right-wingers?” said Charles sharply. “They seem to be willing to follow Pimkin even into the valley of death. I’ve tried everything but they’re still determined to vote against Europe whatever the cost.”

“The maddening thing is that that bloody nuisance Pimkin has nothing to lose,” said the Chief Whip. “His seat disappears at the end of this Parliament in the redistribution. I can’t imagine anyone with his extreme views would find a constituency to select him, but by then he’ll have done the damage.” The Chief Whip paused. “If his twelve would even abstain I would feel confident of advising the PM of victory.”

“The problem is to find a way of turning Pimkin into Judas and then urging him to lead the chosen twelve into our camp,” said Charles.

“You achieve that, and we’d certainly win.”

Charles returned to the Whips’ office to find Simon Kerslake waiting by his desk.

“I dropped by on the off-chance, hoping you might be able to spare me a few moments,” said Simon.

“Of course,” said Charles, trying to sound welcoming. “Take a pew.”

Simon sat down opposite him. “You may have heard that I lose my constituency as a result of the Boundary Commission report and Edward Mountjoy suggested I have a word with you about Littlehampton, the new seat that borders your constituency.”

“It does indeed,” said Charles, masking his surprise. He had not considered the problem as his own seat remained intact. He recovered quickly. “And how wise of Edward to send you to me. I’ll do everything I can to help.”

“Littlehampton would be ideal,” said Simon. “Especially while my wife is still working in Paddington.”

Charles raised his eyebrows.

“I don’t think you’ve met Elizabeth. She’s a doctor at St. Mary’s,” Simon explained.

“Yes, I can see how convenient Littlehampton would be. Why don’t I start by having a word with Alexander Dalglish, the constituency chairman, and see what I can come up with?”

“That would be extremely helpful.”

“Not at all. I’ll call him at home this evening and find out what stage they’ve reached over selection, and then I’ll put you in the picture.”

“I’d appreciate that.”

“While I’ve got you, let me give you the whip for next week,” said Charles, passing over a sheet of paper. Simon folded it up and put it in his pocket. “I’ll call you the moment I have some news.”

Simon left feeling happier and a little guilty about his past prejudice concerning Charles, whom he watched disappear into the Chamber to carry out his bench duty.

The European issue had been given six days for debate by back-benchers, the longest period of time allocated to one motion in living memory.

Charles strolled down the aisle leading to the front bench and took a seat on the end to check on another set of speeches. Usually he listened intently to see if he could spot a member wavering in his position; but on this occasion his thoughts were in Littlehampton. Andrew Fraser was on his feet, and Charles was delighted to be able to confirm the tick alongside his name before he drifted into deep thought.

“I for one shall vote for entry into Europe,” Andrew was telling the House. “When my party was in power I was a pro-European, and now we are in Opposition I can see no good reason to do a volte-face. The principles that held true two years ago hold true today. Not all of us...”

Tom Carson leaped up and asked if his Honorable friend would give way. Andrew resumed his seat immediately.

“Would my Honorable friend really support the peasant farmers of France before the sheep farmers in New Zealand?” asked Carson.

Andrew rose and explained to his colleague that he would certainly expect safeguards for New Zealand, but the initial vote on the floor of the House was on the principle of entry. The details could and should be dealt with in committee. He went on to express the view that had his Honorable friend talked of wogs or Jews in such a context the House would have been in uproar. “Why is it therefore acceptable to the anti-marketeers to describe French farmers as peasants?”

“Perhaps it’s you who is the peasant,” Carson shouted back, in seven words thus ruining his case for the lamb farmers of New Zealand.

Andrew ignored the jibe and went on to tell the House that he believed in a united Europe as a further insurance against a third world war. He concluded with the words:

“Britain has for a thousand years written history, even the history of the world. Let us decide with our votes whether our children will read that history, or continue to write it.” Andrew sat down to acclamation from both sides.

By the time Andrew had resumed his seat Charles had formed a plan and left the Chamber when one of his own colleagues started what promised to be a long, boring, and predictable speech.

Instead of returning to the Whips’ office which afforded no privacy, Charles disappeared into one of the telephone booths near the cloisters above the Members’ Cloakroom. He checked the number and dialed it.

“Alexander, it’s Charles. Charles Seymour.”

“Good to hear from you, Charles, it’s been a long time. How are you?”

“Well. And you?”

“Can’t complain. What can I do for a busy man like you?”

“Wanted to chew over the new Sussex constituency with you, Littlehampton. How’s your selection of a candidate going?”

“They’ve left me to draw up a short list of six for final selection by the full committee in about ten days’ time.”

“Have you thought of standing yourself, Alexander?”

“Many times,” came back the reply. “But the old lady wouldn’t allow it, neither would the bank balance. Do you have any ideas?”

“Might be able to help. Why don’t you come and have a quiet dinner at my place early next week?”

“That’s kind of you, Charles.”

“Not at all, it will be good to see you again. It’s been far too long. Next Monday suit you?”

“Absolutely.”

“Good, let’s say eight o’clock, 27 Eaton Square.”

Charles put the phone down, returned to the Whips’ Office and, penciled a note in his diary.

Raymond had just finished making his contribution to the European debate when Charles returned to take a seat on a half-empty Treasury bench. Raymond had made a coherent economic case for remaining free of the other six European countries and for building stronger links with the Commonwealth and America. He doubted that Britain could take the financial burden of entering a club that had been in existence for so long. If the country had joined at its inception it might have been different, he argued, but he would have to vote against this risky, unproven venture that he suspected could only lead to higher unemployment. When Raymond sat down he did not receive the acclamation that Andrew had and, worse, what praise he did elicit came from the left wing of the party who had spent so much time in the past criticizing Full Employment, at Any Cost? Charles put a cross by the name Gould.

A note was being passed along the row to Raymond from one of the House Badge messengers, dressed in white tie and black tails. It read, “Please ring head of chambers as soon as convenient.”

Raymond left the floor of the House and went to the nearest telephone in the corner of the Members’ Lobby. He was immediately put through to Sir Nigel Hartwell.

“You wanted me to phone?”

“Yes,” said Sir Nigel. “Are you free at the moment?”

“I am,” said Raymond. “Why? Is it something urgent?”

“I’d rather not talk about it over the phone,” said Sir Nigel ominously.

Raymond took a tube from Westminster to Temple and was in chambers fifteen minutes later. He went straight to Sir Nigel’s office, sat down in the comfortable chair in the corner of the spacious club-like room, crossed his legs, and watched Sir Nigel pace about in front of him. He was clearly determined to get something off his chest.

“Raymond, I have been asked by those in authority about you taking silk. I’ve said I think you’d make a damn good QC.” A smile came over Raymond’s face, but it was soon wiped off. “But I need an undertaking from you.”

“An undertaking?”

“Yes,” said Sir Nigel. “You must stop having this damn silly er... relationship with another member of chambers.” He rounded on Raymond and faced him.

Raymond turned scarlet but before he could speak the head of chambers continued.

“Now I want your word on it,” said Sir Nigel, “that it will end, and end immediately.”

“You have my word,” said Raymond quietly.

“I’m not a prig,” said Sir Nigel, pulling down on his waistcoat, “but if you are going to have an affair for Cod’s sake make it as far away from the office as possible and, if I may advise you, that should include the House of Commons and Leeds. There’s still a lot of the world left over and it’s full of women.

Raymond nodded his agreement: he could not fault the head of chambers’ logic.

Sir Nigel continued, obviously embarrassed. “There’s a nasty fraud case starting in Manchester next Monday. Our client has been accused of setting up a series of companies that specialize in life insurance but avoid paying out on the claims: I expect you remember all the publicity. Miss Arnold has been put on the case as a reserve junior. They tell me it could last several weeks.”

“She’ll try and get out of it,” said Raymond glumly.

“She already has, but I made it quite clear that if she felt unable to take the case on she would have to find other chambers.”

Raymond breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you,” he said.

“Sorry about this. I know you’ve earned your silk, old boy, but I can’t have members of chambers going around with egg on their faces. Thank you for your cooperation: I can’t pretend I enjoyed that.”

“Got time for a quiet word?” asked Charles.

“You’re wasting your time, dear thing, if you imagine the disciples will change their minds at this late stage,” said Alec Pimkin. “All twelve of them will vote against the Government on Europe. That’s final.”

“I don’t want to discuss Europe this time, Alec. It’s far more serious, and on a personal level. Let’s go and have a drink on the terrace.”

Charles ordered the drinks, and the two men strolled out on to the quiet end of the terrace toward the Speaker’s house. Charles stopped as soon as he was certain there was no longer anyone within earshot.

“If it’s not Europe, what is it?” asked Pimkin, staring out at the Thames.

“What’s this I hear about you losing your seat?”

Pimkin turned pale and touched his bow tie nervously. “It’s this bloody boundary business. My constituency is swallowed up, and no one seems willing to interview me for a new one.”

“What’s it worth if I secure you a safe seat for the rest of your life?”

Pimkin looked suspiciously up at Charles. “Almost anything up to a pound of flesh,” he added with a false laugh.

“No, I won’t need to cut that deep.”

The color returned to Pimkin’s cheeks. “Whatever it is, you can rely on me, old fellow.”

“Can you deliver the disciples?” said Charles.

Pimkin turned pale again.

“Not on the small votes in committee,” said Charles, before Pimkin could reply. “Not on the clauses even, just on the second reading, the principle itself. Standing by the party in their hour of need, no desire to cause an unnecessary general election, all that stuff — you fill in the details for the disciples. I know you can convince them, Alec.”

Pimkin still didn’t speak.

“I deliver a copper-bottomed seat, you deliver twelve votes. I think we can call that a fair exchange.”

“What if I get them to abstain?” said Pimkin.

Charles waited, as if giving the idea considerable thought. “It’s a deal,” he said, never having hoped for anything more.

Alexander Dalglish arrived at Eaton Square a little after eight. Fiona met him at the door and explained that Charles had not yet returned from the Commons.

“But I expect him any moment,” she added. “May I offer you a drink?”

Another thirty minutes passed before Charles hurried in. “Sorry I’m late, Alexander,” he said, grasping his guest by the hand. “Hoped I might make it just before you.” He kissed his wife on the forehead.

“Not at all,” said Alexander, “I couldn’t have asked for more pleasant company.”

“What will you have, darling?” asked Fiona.

“A strong whisky, please, and can we go straight into dinner? I’ve got to be back at the talkshop by ten.”

Charles guided his guest toward the dining room and seated him at the side of the table before taking his place below the Holbein portrait of the first Earl of Bridgwater, an heirloom his grandfather had left him. Fiona took a seat opposite her husband. During the meal of Beef Wellington, Charles spent a great deal of time catching up on what Alexander had been doing since they had last met. Although they had spent three years together in the Guards as brother officers they rarely saw each other outside of regimental reunions since Charles had entered the House. He made no mention of the real purpose behind the meeting until Fiona provided the opportunity when she served coffee.

“I know you two have a lot to talk about, so I’ll leave you to get on with it.”

“Thank you,” said Alexander. He looked up at Fiona and smiled. “For a lovely dinner.”

She smiled back and left them alone.

“Now, Charles,” said Alexander, picking up the file he had left on the floor by his side. “I need to pick your brains.”

“Go ahead, old fellow,” said Charles, “only too delighted to be of assistance.”

“Sir Edward Mountjoy has sent me a pretty long list for us to consider, among them a Home Office minister and one or two other Members of Parliament who’ll be losing their present seats. What do you think of...?”

Dalglish opened the file in front of him as Charles poured him a generous glass of port and offered him a cigar from a gold case that he picked up from the sideboard.

“What a magnificent object,” said Alexander, staring in awe at the crested box and the engraved C.G.S. along its top.

“A family heirloom,” said Charles. “Should have been left to my brother Rupert, but I was lucky enough to have the same initials as my grandfather.”

Alexander handed it back to his host before returning to his notes.

“Here’s the man who impresses me,” he said at last. “Kerslake, Simon Kerslake.”

Charles remained silent.

“You don’t have an opinion, Charles?”

“Yes.”

“So what do you think of Kerslake?”

“Strictly off the record?”

Dalglish nodded, but said nothing.

Charles sipped his port. “Very good,” he said.

“Kerstake?”

“No, the port. Taylor’s ’35. I’m afraid Kerslake is not the same vintage. Need I say more?”

“Well, no, I follow your drift but it’s most disappointing. He looks so good on paper.”

“On paper is one thing,” said Charles, “but having him as your member for twenty years is quite another. You want a man you can rely on. And his wife — never seen in the constituency, you know.” He frowned. “I’m afraid I’ve gone too far.”

“No, no,” said Alexander. “I’ve got the picture. Next one is Norman Lamont.”

“First class but he’s already been selected for Kingston, I’m afraid,” said Charles.

Dalglish looked down at his file once again. “Well, what about Pimkin?”

“We were at Eton together. His looks are against him, as my grandmother used to say, but he’s a sound man, and very good in the constituency, so they tell me.”

“You would recommend him then?”

“I should snap him up before another constituency adopts him.”

“That popular, is he?” said Alexander. “Thanks for the tip. Pity about Kerslake.”

“That was strictly off the record,” said Charles.

“Of course. Not a word. You can rely on me.”

“Cigar to your liking?”

“Excellent,” said Alexander, “but your judgment has always been so good. You only have to look at Fiona to realize that.”

Charles smiled.

Most of the other names Dalglish produced were either unknown, unsuitable, or easy to dismiss. When Alexander left shortly before ten Fiona asked him if the chat had been worthwhile.

“Yes, I think we’ve found the right man.”

Raymond had the locks on his flat changed that afternoon. It turned out to be more expensive than he had bargained for, and the carpenter had insisted on cash in advance.

The carpenter grinned as he pocketed the money. “I make a fortune doing this job, Guv’nor, I can tell you. At least one gentleman a day, always cash, no receipt. Means the wife and I can spend a month in Ibiza every year, tax free.”

Raymond smiled at the thought. He checked his watch; he could just catch the Thursday seven-ten from King’s Cross and be in Leeds by ten o’clock for a long weekend.

Alexander Dalglish phoned Charles a week later to tell him Pimkin had made the short list, and that they hadn’t considered Kerslake.

“Pimkin didn’t go over very well with the committee at the first interview.”

“No, he wouldn’t,” said Charles. “I warned you his looks were again’ him and he may come over a bit right wing at times but he’s as sound as a bell and will never let you down, take my word.”

“I’ll have to, Charles. Because by getting rid of Kerslake we’ve removed his only real challenger.”

Charles put the phone down and dialed the Home Office.

“Simon Kerslake, please.”

“Who’s calling?”

“Seymour, Whips’ office.” He was put straight through.

“Simon, it’s Charles. I thought I ought to give you an update on Littlehampton.”

“That’s thoughtful of you,” said Simon.

“Not good news, I’m afraid. It turns out the chairman wants the seat for himself. He’s making sure the committee only interviews idiots.”

“How can you be so certain?”

“I’ve seen the short list and Pimkin’s the only sitting member they’re considering.”

“I can’t believe it.”

“No, I was pretty shocked myself. I pressed the case for you, but it fell on deaf ears. Didn’t care for your views on hanging or some such words. Still, I can’t believe you’ll find it hard to pick up a seat.”

“I hope you’re right, Charles, but in any case thanks for trying.”

“Any time. Let me know of any other seats you put your name in for. I have a lot of friends up and down the country.”

“Thank you, Charles. Can you pair me for next Thursday?”

Two days later Alec Pimkin was invited by the Littlehampton Conservatives to attend a short-list interview for the selection of a Tory candidate for the new constituency.

“How do I begin to thank you?” he asked Charles when they met up in the bar.

“Keep your word — and I want it in writing,” replied Charles.

“What do you mean?”

“A letter to the Chief Whip saying you’ve changed your mind on the main European vote, and you and the disciples will be abstaining on Thursday.”

Pimkin looked cocky. “And if I don’t play ball, dear thing?”

“You haven’t got the seat yet, Alec, and I might find it necessary to phone Alexander Dalglish and tell him about that awfully nice little boy you made such a fool of yourself over when you were up at Oxford.”

Three days later the Chief Whip received the letter from Pimkin. He immediately summoned his junior Whip.

“Well done, Charles. How did you manage to succeed where we’ve all failed — and the disciples as well?”

“Matter of loyalty,” said Charles. “Pimkin saw that in the end.”

On the final day of the Great Debate on “the principle of entry” into Europe the Prime Minister delivered the winding-up speech. He rose at nine-thirty to cheers from both sides. At ten o’clock the House divided and voted in favor of “the principle” by a majority of 112 Sixty-nine Labour MPs, led by Roy Jenkins, had helped to swell the Government’s majority.

Raymond Could voted against the motion in accordance with his long-held beliefs. Andrew Fraser joined Simon Kerslake and Charles Seymour in the Ayes lobby. Alec Pimkin and the twelve disciples remained in their places on the Commons benches while the vote took place.

When Charles heard the Speaker read out the final result he felt a moment of triumph, although he realized that he still had the committee stage to go through. Hundreds of clauses, any of which could go wrong and turn the bill into a farce. Nevertheless the first round belonged to him.

Ten days later Alec Pimkin defeated a keen young Conservative just down from Cambridge and a local woman councillor to be selected as prospective candidate for Littlehampton,

Chapter fourteen

Andrew studied the case once again and decided to make his own inquiries. Too many constituents had in the past demonstrated that they were willing to lie to him in surgery as happily as they would in the witness box to any judge.

Robert was trying to climb up on to his lap. Andrew hoisted him the remainder of the way in one tug and attempted to return to his papers. “Whose side are you on?” Andrew demanded as his son dribbled all over his freshly written notes. He stopped to pat his bottom. “Ugh,” he said, putting the case file by his side on the floor. A few minutes later Robert had been changed and left with his mother.

“I’m afraid your son is not overanxious to help me in my desire to secure the release of an innocent man,” Andrew shouted over his shoulder.

He settled down to go over the papers once more, something about the case didn’t ring true... Andrew dialed the Procurator Fiscal’s number. There was one man who could cut his work in half with a sentence.

“Good morning, Mr. Fraser. What can I do for you, sir?”

Andrew had to smile. Angus Sinclair was a contemporary of his father and had known Andrew all his life, but once he was in his office he treated everyone as a stranger, making no exception.

“He even calls his wife ‘Mrs. Sinclair’ when she rings the office,” Sir Duncan once told him. Andrew was willing to join in the game.

“Good morning, Mr. Sinclair. I need your advice as Procurator Fiscal.”

“Always happy to be of service, sir.”

“I want to talk to you off the record about the Paddy O’Halloran case. Do you remember it?”

“Of course, everyone in this office remembers that case.”

“Good,” said Andrew. “Then you’ll know what a help you can be to me in cutting through the thicket.”

“Thank you, sir,” the slight burr came back down the telephone.

“A group of my constituents, whom I wouldn’t trust further than I could toss a caber, claim O’Halloran was framed for the Princes Street bank robbery last year. They don’t deny he has criminal tendencies” — Andrew would have chuckled if he hadn’t been speaking to Angus Sinclair — “but they say he never left a pub called the Sir Walter Scott the entire time the robbery was taking place. All you have to tell me, Mr. Sinclair, is that you have no doubt that O’Halloran was guilty and I’ll drop my inquiries. If you say nothing, I shall dig deeper.”

Andrew waited, but he received no reply.

“Thank you, Mr. Sinclair.” Although he knew it would elicit no response, he couldn’t resist adding: “No doubt I’ll see you at the golf club some time over the weekend.” The silence continued.

“Good-bye, Mr. Sinclair.”

“Good day, Mr. Fraser.”

Andrew settled back: it was going to be a lengthy exercise. He started by checking with all the people who had confirmed O’Halloran’s alibi that night but after interviewing the first eight he came to the reluctant conclusion that none of them could be trusted as a witness. Whenever he came across another of O’Halloran’s friends the expression “anyone’s for a pint” kept crossing his mind. The time had come to talk with the landlord of the Sir Walter Scott.

“I couldn’t be sure, Mr. Fraser, but I think he was here that evening. Trouble is, O’Halloran came almost every night. It’s hard to recall.”

“Do you know anyone who might remember? Someone you could trust with your cash register?”

“That’d be pushing your luck in this pub, Mr. Fraser.” The landlord thought for a moment. “However, there’s old Mrs. Bloxham,” he said at last, slapping the drying-up cloth over his shoulder. “She sits in that corner every night.” He pointed to a small round table that would have been crowded had it seated more than two people. “If she says he was here, he was.”

Andrew asked the landlord where Mrs. Bloxham lived and then, hoping she was in, made his way to 43 Mafeking Road, neatly sidestepping a gang of young children playing football in the middle of the street. He climbed some steps that badly needed repairing and knocked on the door of number forty-three.

“Is it another general election already, Mr. Fraser?” asked a disbelieving old lady as she peered through the letterbox.

“No, it’s nothing to do with politics, Mrs. Bloxham,” said Andrew, bending down. “I came round to seek your advice on a personal matter.”

“A personal matter? Better come on in out of the cold then,” she said, opening the door to him. “There’s a terrible draft rushes through this corridor.”

Andrew followed the old lady as she shuffled down the dingy corridor in her carpet slippers to a room that he would have said was colder than it had been outside on the street. There were no ornaments in the room save a crucifix that stood on a narrow mantelpiece below a pastel print of the Virgin Mary. Mrs. Bloxham beckoned Andrew to a wooden seat by a table yet unlaid. She eased her plump frame into an ancient stuffed armchair. It groaned under her weight and a strand of horsehair fell to the floor. Andrew looked more carefully at the old lady. She was wearing a black shawl over a dress she must have worn a thousand times. Once settled in her chair, she kicked off her slippers.

“Feet still giving you trouble, then?” he inquired.

“Doctor doesn’t seem to be able to explain the swellings,” she said, without bitterness.

Andrew leaned on the table and noticed what a fine piece of furniture it was, and how incongruous it looked in its present surroundings. He was struck by the craftsmanship of the carved Georgian legs. She noticed he was admiring it. “My great-grandfather gave that to my great-grandmother the day they were married, Mr. Fraser.”

“It’s magnificent,” said Andrew.

She didn’t seem to hear because all she said was, “What can I do for you, sir?” The second time that day he had been addressed by an elder in that way.

Andrew went over the O’Halloran story again. Mrs. Bloxham listened intently, leaning forward slightly and cupping her hand round her ear to be sure she could hear every word.

“That O’Halloran’s an evil one,” she said, “not to be trusted. Our Blessed Lady will have to be very forgiving to allow the likes of him to enter the kingdom of heavens.” Andrew smiled. “Not that I’m expecting to meet all that many politicians when I get there either,” she added, giving Andrew a toothless grin.

“Could O’Halloran possibly have been there that Friday night as all his friends claim?” Andrew asked.

“He was there all right,” said Mrs. Bloxham. “No doubt about that — saw him with my own eyes.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Spilled his beer over my best dress, and I knew something bad would happen on the thirteenth, especially with it being a Friday. I won’t forgive him for that. I still haven’t been able to get the stain out despite what those washing-powder ads tell you on the telly.”

“Why didn’t you inform the police immediately?”

“Didn’t ask,” she said simply. “They’ve been after him for a long time for a lot of things they couldn’t pin on him, but for once he was in the clear.”

Andrew finished writing his notes and then rose to leave. Mrs. Bloxham heaved herself out of the chair, dispensing yet more horsehair on to the floor. They walked to the door together. “I’m sorry I couldn’t offer you a cup of tea but I’m right out at the moment,” she said. “If you had come tomorrow it would have been all right.”

Andrew paused on the doorstep.

“I get the pension tomorrow, you see,” she replied to his unasked question.

It took Elizabeth some time to find a locum to cover for her so that she could travel to Redcorn for the interview. Once again the children had to be left with a baby-sitter. The local and national press had made him the hot favorite for the new seat. Elizabeth put on what she called her best Conservative outfit, a pale blue suit with a dark blue collar that hid everything on top and reached well below her knees.

The journey from King’s Cross to Newcastle took three hours and twenty minutes, on what was described in the timetable as “the express.” At least Simon was able to catch up with a great deal of the paperwork that had been stuffed into his red box. Civil servants, he reflected, rarely allowed politicians time to involve themselves in politics. They wouldn’t have been pleased to learn that he spent an hour of the journey reading the last four weekly copies of the Redcorn News.

At Newcastle they were met by the wife of the Association treasurer, who had volunteered to escort the minister and Mrs. Kerslake to the constituency to be sure they were in time for the interview. “That’s very thoughtful of you,” said Elizabeth, as she stared at the mode of transport that had been chosen to take them the next forty miles.

The ancient Austin Mini took a further hour and a half through the winding B-roads before they reached their destination, and the treasurer’s wife never drew breath once throughout the entire journey. When Simon and Elizabeth piled out of the car at the market town of Redcorn they were physically and mentally exhausted.

The treasurer’s wife took them through to the constituency headquarters and introduced them both to the agent.

“Good of you to come,” he said. “Hell of a journey, isn’t it?”

Elizabeth felt unable to disagree with his judgment. But on this occasion she made no comment, feeling that if this was to be Simon’s best chance of returning to Parliament she had already decided to give him every support possible. Nevertheless she dreaded the thought of her husband making the journey to Redcorn twice a month as she feared they would see even less of each other than they did at present, let alone the children.

“Now the form is,” began the agent, “that we are interviewing six potential candidates and they’ll be seeing you last.” He winked knowingly.

Simon and Elizabeth smiled uncertainly.

“I’m afraid they won’t be ready for you for at least another hour, so you have time for a stroll round the town.”

Simon was glad of the chance to stretch his legs and take a closer look at Redcorn. He and Elizabeth walked slowly round the pretty market town, admiring the Elizabethan architecture that had somehow survived irresponsible or greedy town planners. They even climbed the hill to take a look inside the magnificent perpendicular church which dominated the surrounding area.

As he walked back past the shops in the high street Simon nodded to those locals who appeared to recognize him.

“A lot of people seem to know who you are,” said Elizabeth, and then they saw the paper rack outside the local newsagent. They sat on the bench in the market square and read the lead story under a large picture of Simon.

“Redcorn’s next MP?” ran the headline.

The story volunteered the fact that although Simon Kerslake had to be considered the favorite, Bill Travers, a local farmer who had been chairman of the county council the previous year, was still thought to have an outside chance.

Simon began to feel a little sick in the stomach. It reminded him of the day he had been interviewed at Coventry Central nearly eight years before. Now that he was a minister of the Crown he wasn’t any less nervous.

When he and Elizabeth returned to constituency headquarters they were informed that only two more candidates had been seen and the third was still being interviewed. They walked around the town once again, even more slowly this time, watching the shopkeepers put up their colored shutters and turn “Open” signs to “Closed.”

“What a pleasant market town,” said Simon, trying to find out how his wife was feeling.

“And the people seem so polite after London,” she added.

Simon smiled as they headed back to the party headquarters. As they passed Simon and Elizabeth they bid the strangers “Good evening,” courteous people whom Simon felt he would have been proud to represent. But although they walked slowly Elizabeth and he could not make their journey last more than thirty minutes.

When they returned a third time to constituency headquarters the fourth candidate was leaving the interview room. She looked very despondent. “It shouldn’t be long now,” said the agent, but it was another forty minutes before they heard a ripple of applause, and a man dressed in a Harris tweed jacket and brown trousers left the room. He didn’t seem happy either.

The agent ushered Simon and Elizabeth through, and as they entered everyone in the room stood. Ministers of the Crown did not visit Redcorn often.

Simon waited for Elizabeth to be seated before he took the chair in the center of the room facing the committee. He estimated that there were about fifty people present and they were all staring at him, showing no aggression, merely curiosity. He looked around at the weather-beaten faces. Most of them, male and female, were dressed in tweed. In his dark striped London suit Simon felt out of place.

“And now,” said the chairman, “we welcome the Right Honorable Simon Kerslake, MP.”

Simon had to smile at the mistake so many people made in thinking that all ministers were automatically members of the Privy Council, and therefore entitled to the prefix “Right Honorable” instead of the plain “Honorable” accorded to all MPs — and then only when they were present in the House.

“Mr. Kerslake will address us for twenty minutes, and he has kindly agreed to answer questions after that,” added the chairman.

Simon felt confident he had spoken well, but even his few carefully chosen quips received no more than a smile, and his more serious comments elicited little response. This was not a group of people given to showing their emotions. When he had finished he sat down to respectful clapping and murmurs.

“Now the minister will take questions,” said the chairman.

“Where do you stand on hanging?” said a scowling middle-aged woman in a gray suit seated in the front row.

Simon explained his reasons for being a convinced abolitionist. The scowl did not move from the questioner’s face and Simon thought to himself how much happier she would be with Ronnie Nethercote as her member.

A man in a hacking jacket asked: “How do you feel, Mr. Kerslake, about this year’s farm subsidy?”

“Good on eggs, tough on beef, and disastrous for pig farmers. Or at least that’s what I read on the front page of Farmers Weekly yesterday.” Some of them laughed for the first time. “It hasn’t proved necessary for me to have a great knowledge of farming in Coventry Central, but if I am lucky enough to be selected for Redcorn I shall try to learn quickly, and with your help I shall hope to master the farmers’ problems.” Several heads nodded their approval.

“Miss Pentecost, chairman of the Women’s s Advisory,” announced a tall, thin spinsterish woman who had stood up to catch the chairman’s eye. “May I be permitted to ask Mrs. Kerslake a question? If your husband were offered this seat, would you be willing to come and live in Northumbertand?”

Elizabeth had dreaded the question because she knew that if Simon was offered the constituency she would be expected to resign her post at the hospital. Simon turned and looked toward his wife.

“No,” she replied directly. “I am a doctor at St. Mary’s Hospital, Paddington, where I practice gynecology. I support my husband in his career but, like Margaret Thatcher, I believe a woman has the right to a good education and then the chance to use her qualifications to their best advantage.”

A ripple of applause went round the room and Simon smiled at his wife.

The next question was on Europe, and Simon gave an unequivocal statement as to his reasons for backing the Prime Minister in his desire to see Britain as part of the Common Market.

Simon continued to answer questions on subjects ranging from trade union reform to violence on television before the chairman asked, “Are there any more questions?”

There was a long silence and just as he was about to thank Simon the scowling lady in the front row, without being recognized by the chair, asked what Mr. Kerslake’s views were on abortion.

“Morally, I’m against it,” said Simon. “At the time of the Abortion Act many of us believed it would stem the tide of divorce. We have been proved wrong: the rate of divorce has quadrupled. Nevertheless, in the cases of rape or fear of physical or mental injury arising from birth I would have to support the medical advice given at the time. Elizabeth and I have two children and my wife’s job is to see that babies are safely delivered,” he added.

The lips moved from a scowl to a straight line.

“Thank you,” said the chairman. “It was good of you to give us so much of your time. Perhaps you and Mrs. Kerslake would be kind enough to wait outside.”

Simon and Elizabeth joined the other hopeful candidates, their wives, and the agent in a small dingy room at the back of the building. When they saw the half-empty trestle table in front of them they both remembered they hadn’t had any lunch and devoured what was left of the curling cucumber sandwiches and the cold sausage rolls.

“What happens next?” Simon asked the agent between mouthfuls.

“Nothing out of the ordinary. They’ll have a discussion, allowing everyone to express their views, and then vote. It should all be over in twenty minutes.”

Elizabeth checked her watch: it was seven o’clock and the last train was at nine-fifteen.

“Ought to make the train comfortably,” said Simon.

An hour later when no smoke had emerged from the chimney the agent suggested to all the candidates who had a long journey ahead of them that they might like to check into the Bell Inn just over the road.

When Simon looked around the room it was clear that everyone else had done so in advance.

“You had better stay put in case you’re called again,” Elizabeth said. “I’ll go off and book a room and at the same time call and see how the children are getting on.”

“Probably eaten the poor baby-sitter by now,” said Simon.

Elizabeth smiled before slipping out and making her way to the small hotel.

Simon opened his red box and tried to complete some work. The man who looked like a farmer came over and introduced himself.

“I’m Bill Travers, the chairman of the new constituency,” he began. “I only wanted to say that you’ll have my full support as chairman if the committee select you.”

“Thank you,” said Simon.

“I had hoped to represent this area, as my grandfather did. But I shall understand if Redcorn prefers to choose a man destined for the Cabinet rather than someone who would be happy to spend his life on the back benches.”

Simon was touched by his opponent’s goodwill, and would have liked to respond in kind but Travers quickly added, “Forgive me, I’ll not waste any more of your time. I can see” — he looked down at the red box — “that you have a lot of work to catch up on.”

Simon felt guilty as he watched the man walk away. A few minutes later Elizabeth returned and tried to smile. “The only room left is smaller than Peter’s and it faces the main road, so it’s just about as noisy.”

“At least no children to say ‘I’m hungry’,” he said, touching her hand.

It was a little after nine when a weary chairman came out and asked all the candidates if he could have their attention. Husbands and wives all faced him. “My committee want to thank you for going through this grim procedure. It has been hard for us to decide something that we hope not to have to discuss again for twenty years.” He paused. “The committee are going to invite Mr. Bill Travers to fight the Redcorn seat at the next election.”

In a sentence it was all over. Simon’s throat went dry.

He and Elizabeth didn’t get much sleep in their tiny room at the Bell Inn, and it hadn’t helped that the agent told them the final vote had been twenty-five — twenty three.

“I don’t think Miss Pentecost liked me,” said Elizabeth, feeling guilty. “If I had told her that I would have been willing to live in the constituency I think you’d have been offered the seat.”

“I doubt it,” said Simon. “In any case it’s no use agreeing to their terms at the interview and then imposing your own when you have been offered the constituency. My guess is you’ll find Redcorn has chosen the right man.”

Elizabeth smiled at her husband, grateful for his support.

“There will be other seats,” said Simon, only too aware that time was now running out. “You’ll see.”

Elizabeth prayed that he would prove right, and that next time the choice of a constituency would not make her have to face the dilemma she had so far managed to avoid.

When Raymond took silk, the second Tuesday after the Easter holiday, and became a Queen’s Counsel, Joyce made one of her periodic trips to London. The occasion she decided warranted another visit to Harvey Nichols. She recalled her first trip to the store so many years before when she had accompanied her husband to meet the Prime Minister. Raymond had come so far since then although their relationship seemed to have progressed so little. She had given up hope of being a mother, but still wanted him to believe she was a good wife. She couldn’t help thinking how much better-looking Raymond had become in middle age, and feared the same could not be said of her.

She enjoyed watching the legal ceremony as her husband was presented in court before the judges. Latin words spoken but not understood. Suddenly her husband was Raymond Could, QC, MP.

She and Raymond arrived late in chambers for the celebration party. Everyone seemed to have turned out in her husband’s honor. Raymond felt full of bonhomie and was chatting to the chief clerk when Sir Nigel handed him a glass of champagne. Then he saw a familiar figure by the mantelpiece and remembered that the trial in Manchester was over. He managed to circle the room speaking to everyone but Stephanie Arnold. To his horror he turned to see her introducing herself to his wife. Every time he glanced toward them they seemed deeper in conversation.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Sir Nigel, banging a table. He waited for silence. “We are always proud in chambers when one of our members takes silk. It is a comment not only on the man but also on his chambers. And when it is the youngest silk — still under forty — it adds to that pride. All of you, of course, know that Raymond also serves in another place in which we expect him to rise to even greater glory. May I add finally how pleasant it is to have his wife Joyce among us tonight. Ladies and gentlemen,” he concluded. “The toast is Raymond Gould, QC.”

“Raymond Gould, QC,” said everyone in chorus. Then, “Speech, speech.”

“I would like to thank all those people who made this great honor possible,” began Raymond. “My producer, my director, the other stars, and not forgetting the criminals, without whom I would have no profession to profess. And finally,” he said, “to those of you who want to see the back of me, I direct you all to work tirelessly to ensure the return of a Labour Government at the next election. Thank you.”

The applause was sustained and genuine and many of his colleagues were impressed by how relaxed Raymond had become of late. As they came up to congratulate him Raymond couldn’t help noticing that Stephanie and Joyce had resumed their conversation. Raymond was handed another glass of champagne just as an earnest young pupil called Patrick Montague who had recently joined them from chambers in Bristol engaged him in conversation. Although Montague had been with them for some weeks Raymond had never spoken to him at length before. He seemed to have very clear views on criminal law and the changes that were necessary. For the first time in his life Raymond felt he was no longer a young man.

Suddenly both women were at his side.

“Hello, Raymond.”

“Hello, Stephanie,” he said awkwardly and looked anxiously toward his wife. “Do you know Patrick Montague?” he asked, absentmindedly.

The three of them burst out laughing.

“What’s so funny?” asked Raymond.

“You do embarrass me sometimes, Raymond,” said Joyce. “Surely you realize Stephanie and Patrick are engaged?”

Chapter fifteen

“With or without civil servants?” asked Simon as Andrew entered the minister’s office.

“Without, please.”

“Fine,” said Simon and pressed a switch on the intercom by his desk.

“I don’t want to be disturbed while I’m with Mr. Fraser,” he said and ushered his colleague toward a comfortable seat in the corner.

“Elizabeth was asking me this morning to find out how Robert was getting on.”

“It’s his second birthday next month and he’s overweight for a scrum-half,” replied Andrew. “And how’s your search for a seat working out?”

“Not too good. The last three constituencies to come up haven’t even asked to see me. I can’t put a finger on why, except they all seem to have selected local men.”

“It’s still a long time to the next election. You’re sure to find a seat before then.”

“It might not be so long if the Prime Minister decides to go to the country and test his strength against the unions.”

“That would be a foolish thing to do,” said Andrew. “He might defeat us but he still wouldn’t defeat the unions.”

A young woman came into the room with two cups of coffee, put them on the low Formica table, and left the two men alone.

“Have you had time to look at the file?” Andrew continued.

“Yes, I went over it last night between checking over Peter’s prep and helping Michael to build a model galleon.”

“And how do you feel?” Andrew asked.

“Not very good. I can’t get to grips with this new maths they’re now teaching, and my mast was the only one that fell off when Elizabeth launched the galleon in the bath.”

Andrew laughed.

“I think you’ve got a case,” said Simon, sounding serious.

“Good,” said Andrew. “Now the reason I wanted to see you privately is because I feel there are no party political points to be made out of this case for either of us. I’ve no plans to try to embarrass your department, and I consider it’s in the best interest of my constituents to cooperate as closely as I can with you.”

“Thank you,” said Simon. “So where do you want to go from here?”

“I’d like to table a planted question for your department in the hope that you would consider opening an inquiry. If the inquiry comes to the same conclusion as I have, I would expect you to order a retrial.”

Simon hesitated. “And if the inquiry goes against you will you agree to no reprisals for the Home Office?”

“You have my word on it.”

“Shall I ask the civil servants to come in now?”

“Yes, please do.”

Simon returned to his desk and pressed a button. A moment later three men in almost identical suits, white shirts with stiff collars, and discreet ties entered the room. Between them they could have ruined any police identification parade.

“Mr. Fraser,” began Simon, “is asking the Home Office to consider...”

“Can you explain why Simon Kerslake missed a vote yesterday?”

Charles looked across the table at the Chief Whip.

“No, I can’t,” he said. “I’ve been distributing the weekly whip to him the same as every member of my group.”

“What’s behind it then?”

“I think the poor man has been spending a lot of his time traipsing around the country looking for a seat to fight at the next election.”

“That’s no excuse,” said the Chief Whip. “Duties in the House must come first, every member knows that. He missed a vote on a vital clause during the European Bill last Thursday while everyone else in your group has proved reliable. Despite our majority we seem to be in single figures for almost every clause. Perhaps I should have a word with him?”

“No, no, I’d rather you didn’t,” said Charles, fearing he sounded a little too insistent. “I consider it my responsibility. I’ll speak to him and see that it doesn’t happen again.”

“All right, Charles, if that’s the way you want to play it. Thank God it can’t last much longer and the damn thing will soon be law, but we must remain vigilant over every clause. The Labour party know only too well that if they defeat us on certain key clauses they can still scupper the whole bill, and if I lost one of those by a single vote I would cut Kerslake’s throat. Or anyone else’s who was responsible.”

“I’ll make sure he gets the message,” said Charles.

“How’s Fiona reacting to all these late nights?” the Chief Whip asked, finally relaxing.

“Very well, considering. In fact now that you mention it I have never seen her looking better.”

“Can’t say my wife is enjoying ‘the prep school antics,’ as she describes our continual late-night sittings. I’ve had to promise to take her to the West Indies this winter to make up for it. Well, I’ll leave you to deal with Kerslake then. Be firm, Charles. Just remember, we can’t afford to lose a vote at this late stage.”

“Norman Edwards?” repeated Raymond in disbelief. “The General Secretary of the Haulage Union?”

“Yes,” said Fred Padgett, getting up from behind his desk.

“But he burned Full Employment at Any Cost? on a public bonfire with every journalist he could lay his hands on to witness the conflagration.”

“I know,” said Fred, returning a letter to the filing cabinet. “I’m only your agent, I’m not here to explain the mysteries of the universe.”

“When does he want to see me?” asked Raymond.

“As soon as possible.”

“Better ask him if he can come for a drink back at the house round six o’clock.”

Raymond had had a heavy Saturday morning surgery and thanks to the still imminent Martians had only found time to grab a sandwich at the pub before going off to pursue his favorite pastime. This week Leeds were playing Liverpool at Elland Road. Sitting in the directors’ box every other week in full view of his constituents while he supported his local football team killed 30,000 birds with one stone. Later, when talking to the lads in the dressing room after the match, he found himself lapsing into a pronounced Yorkshire accent that bore no resemblance to the one he used to address high court judges during the week.

Leeds won three-two and after the match Raymond joined the directors for a drink in the boardroom. He became so impassioned about an off-side decision that could have lost them a point that he nearly forgot about his meeting with Norman Edwards.

Joyce was in the garden showing the union leader her early snowdrops when Raymond returned.

“Sorry I’m late,” he shouted, as he hung up his yellow and blue scarf. “I’ve been to the match.”

“Who won?” asked Edwards.

“Leeds, of course, three-two.”

“Damn,” said Norman, his accent leaving the other in no doubt that he had not spent many nights outside of Liverpool.

“Come on in and have a beer,” said Raymond.

“I’d prefer a vodka.”

The two men went into the house while Joyce continued with her gardening.

“Well,” said Raymond, pouring his guest a Smirnoff. “What brings you all the way from Liverpool if it wasn’t to watch the football? Perhaps you want a signed copy of my book for your next union bonfire.”

“Don’t give me any hassle, Ray. I came all this way because I need your help, simple as that.”

“I’m all ears,” said Raymond.

“We had a full meeting of the General Purposes Committee yesterday, and one of the brothers has spotted a clause in the European Bill which could put us all out of work.”

Norman passed over a copy of the bill to Raymond with the relevant clause marked in red. It gave the minister power to make new haulage and lorry regulations which would come before the House as statutory instruments and thus could not be amended.

“If that gets through the House my boys are in deep trouble.”

“Why?” said Raymond.

“Because those bloody Frogs know only too well that there’s a Channel between us and them, and if my lads are forced by law to sleep a night each side the only people who’ll end up making money on the deal will be the guest-house proprietors.”

“What’s behind it?” asked Raymond.

“They want us to drop the stuff our end, so they can pick it up on the other side.”

“But wouldn’t that also be true when they need to deliver goods to us?”

“No. Their journeys are much longer to the coast, and they have to stay overnight anyway, not to mention the fact that there are eight of them to one of us. It’s diabolical, nothing less.”

Raymond studied the wording in detail while Edwards helped himself to another vodka.

“The clause doesn’t stop you from going over the next day.”

“And how much do you think that will add to your costs?” asked Raymond.

“I’ll tell you, enough to make us uncompetitive, that’s how much,” replied the trade union leader.

“Point taken,” said Raymond. “So what’s wrong with asking your own member to put the case?”

“Don’t trust him. He’s pro-European at any price.”

“And what about your sponsored trade union representative in the House?”

“Tom Carson? You must be joking. He’s so far to the left that even his own side are suspicious when he supports a cause. We lost the ‘tachograph’ clause because he championed it. In any case I only put him in the House to get him off my back.” Raymond laughed. “Now, all my General Purposes Committee want to know is: would you be willing to fight this clause in the House for us? Not that we can afford the sort of fees you’re used to at the bar,” he added.

“There would be no fee involved,” said Raymond, “but I’m sure you’ll be able to repay me in kind sometime in the future.”

“Got the picture,” said Edwards, touching the side of his nose with a forefinger. “What do I do next?”

“You go back to Liverpool and hope that I am better on an away pitch than your team.”

Norman Edwards put on an old raincoat and started to button it up. He smiled at Raymond. “I may have been appalled by your book, Ray. But it doesn’t mean I didn’t admire it.”

The Speaker looked down at the front bench. “Mr. Andrew Fraser.”

“Number seventeen, sir,” said Andrew.

The Speaker looked down to check over the question, seeking a Home Office answer.

Simon rose to the dispatch box, opened his file, and said, “Yes, sir.”

“Mr. Andrew Fraser,” called the Speaker again.

Andrew rose from his place on the Opposition front bench to put his supplementary.

“May I thank the minister for agreeing to an inquiry so quickly, and ask him that, if he discovers an injustice has been done to my constituent Mr. Paddy O’Halloran, that the Home Secretary will order a retrial immediately?”

Simon rose again.

“Yes, sir.”

“I am grateful to the Honorable Gentleman,” said Andrew, half-rising from his place.

All over in less than a minute, but older members who listened to the brief exchange between Fraser and Kerslake in the House that day had no doubt that considerable preparation had gone into that minute from both sides.

“The damn man missed another three-line whip, Charles. It must be the last time. You’ve been protecting him for far too long.”

“It won’t happen again,” promised Charles convincingly. “I would like to give him one more chance. Allow him that.”

“You’re very loyal to him,” said the Chief Whip. “But next time I’m going to see Kerslake myself and get to the bottom of it.”

“It won’t happen again,” repeated Charles.

“Hm,” said the Chief Whip. “Next problem is, are there any clauses on the European Bill that we should be worried about next week?”

“Yes,” replied Charles. “This haulage clause that Raymond Gould is fighting. He made a brilliant case on the floor of the House, and got all his own side and half of ours backing him.”

“He’s not the sponsored MP for the Haulage Union,” said the Chief Whip, surprised.

“No, the unions obviously felt Tom Carson wouldn’t help the cause and he’s hopping mad at the slight.”

“Clever of them to pick Gould. He improves as a speaker every time I hear him, and no one can fault him when it comes to a point of law.”

“So we’d better face the fact that we’re going to lose the clause?”

“Never. We’ll redraft the damn thing so that it’s acceptable and seen to be compassionate. It’s not a bad time to be the defender of the union interests. That way we’ll keep Gould from getting all the credit. I’ll speak to the PM tonight — and don’t forget what I said about Kerslake.”

Charles returned to his office and realized that in future he would have to be more careful about telling Simon Kerslake when he was paired for the European Bill. He suspected he had carried this ploy as far as he could for now.

Simon had read the final report prepared by his department on the O’Halloran case while Elizabeth was trying to get to sleep. He only had to go over the details once to realize that he would have to order a retrial and institute a full investigation into the past record of the police officers who had been involved in the case.

When Andrew heard the news, and that the retrial would be held in London, he asked Raymond Gould to represent O’Halloran.

“Praise indeed,” said Raymond, who still considered Andrew among the Commons’ finest orators. He somehow managed to fit O’Halloran into his busy schedule.

The trial was in its third day when Mr. Justice Comyns, after listening to Mrs. Bloxham’s evidence, stopped proceedings and instructed the jury to return a verdict of not guilty.

Andrew received praise from all quarters of the House, but he was quick to acknowledge the support given him by Simon Kerslake and the Home Office. The Times even wrote a leader the next day on the proper use of influence by a constituency MP.

Some months later the court awarded O’Halloran £25,000 in compensation. The only drawback Andrew’s success caused was that every convict’s mother north of Hadrian’s wall queued to tell him about her innocent son at his fortnightly surgery. But during the year he took only one seriously and once again began to check into the details.

During the long hot summer of 1972 clause after clause of the European Bill was voted on, often through the night. On some occasions the Government managed majorities of only five or six but somehow the bill remained intact.

Charles would often arrive home at Eaton Square at three in the morning to find Fiona asleep, only to leave again before she had woken. Veterans of the House, both servants and elected, confirmed they had never experienced anything like it since the Second World War.

And, just as suddenly, the last vote was taken and the marathon was over. The European Bill was through the Commons and on its way to the Upper House to receive their lordships’ approval. Charles wondered what he would do with all the hours that were suddenly left him in the day.

When the bill finally received the Royal Assent in October the Chief Whip held a celebration lunch at the Carlton Club in St. James’s to thank all his team. “And in particular, Charles Seymour,” he said, raising his glass during an impromptu speech. When the lunch broke up the Chief Whip offered Charles a lift back to the Commons in his official car. They traveled along Piccadilly, down Haymarket, through Trafalgar Square, and into Whitehall. Just as the Commons came into sight the black Rover turned into Downing Street, as Charles assumed, to drop the Chief Whip at No. 12. But as the car stopped the Chief Whip said, “The Prime Minister is expecting you in five minutes.”

“What? Why?” said Charles, as he joined his colleague outside No. 10.

“Timed it rather well, didn’t I?” said the Chief Whip — and headed off toward No. 12.

Charles stood alone in front of No. 10. The door was opened by a man in a long black coat. “Good afternoon, Mr. Seymour.”

The Prime Minister saw Charles in his study and, as ever, wasted no time on small talk.

“Thank you for all the hard work you have put in on the European Bill.”

“It was a tremendous challenge,” said Charles, searching for words.

“As will be your next job,” said Mr. Heath. “I want you to take over as one of the Ministers of State at the Department of Trade and Industry.”

Charles was speechless.

“With all the problems we are going to encounter with the trade unions during the next few months, that should keep you fully occupied.”

“It certainly will,” said Charles.

He still hadn’t been asked to sit down, but as the Prime Minister was now rising from behind his desk it was clear that the meeting was over.

“You and Fiona must come and have dinner at No. 10 as soon as you’ve settled into your new department,” said the Prime Minister as they walked toward the door.

“Thank you,” Charles said.

As he stepped back on to Downing Street a driver opened the back door of a shiny Austin Westminster. It was several moments before Charles realized the car was his.

“The Commons, sir?”

“No, I’d like to return to Eaton Square for a few minutes,” he said, sitting back and enjoying the thought of tackling his new job.

The car drove past the Commons, up Victoria Street, and on to Eaton Square. He wanted to tell Fiona that all the hard work had been rewarded. He felt guilty about how little he had seen of her lately, although he could not believe it would be much better now that he was to be involved in trade union legislation. How much he still hoped for a son, perhaps even that would prove possible now. The car came to a halt outside the Georgian house. Charles ran up the steps and into the hall. He could hear his wife’s voice from the first floor. He took the wide staircase in bounds of two and three at a time, and threw open the bedroom door.

“I’m the new Minister of State at the Department of Trade and Industry,” he announced to Fiona, who was lying in bed.

Alexander Dalglish looked up. He showed no sign of interest in Charles’s elevation.

When Andrew rang Angus Sinclair at the Procurator Fiscal’s office to find that nothing was known of Ricky Hodge and that Sinclair was able to confirm that he had no criminal record, Andrew felt he had stumbled on a case with international implications.

As Ricky Hodge was in a Turkish jail any inquiries had to be made through the Foreign Office. Andrew did not have the same relationship with the Foreign Secretary as he did with Simon, so he felt the direct approach would be best and put down a question to be answered in the House. He worded it carefully: “What action does the Foreign Secretary intend to take over the confiscation of a British passport from a constituent of the Honorable member for Edinburgh Carlton, details of which have been supplied to him?”

When the question came in front of the House on the following Wednesday the Foreign Secretary rose to answer the question himself. He stood at the dispatch box and peered over his half-moon spectacles and said:

“Her Majesty’s Government are pursuing this matter through the usual diplomatic channels.”

Andrew was quickly on his feet. “Does the Right Honorable Gentleman realize that my constituent has been in a Turkish prison for six months and has still not been charged?”

“Yes, sir,” replied the Foreign Secretary. “I have asked the Turkish Embassy to supply the Foreign Office with more details of the case.”

Andrew leaped up again. “How long will my constituent have to be forgotten in Ankara before the Foreign Secretary does more than ask for the details of his case?”

The Foreign Secretary rose again showing no sign of annoyance. “I will report those findings to the Honorable member as quickly as possible.”

“When? Tomorrow, next week, next year?” Andrew shouted angrily.

“When?” joined in a chorus of Labour back-benchers, but the Speaker called for the next question above the uproar.

Within the hour Andrew received a handwritten note from the Foreign Office. It read: “If Mr. Fraser would be kind enough to telephone, the Foreign Secretary would be delighted to make an appointment to see him.”

Andrew phoned from the Commons and was invited to join the Foreign Secretary in Whitehall immediately.

The Foreign Office, known as “The Palazzo” by its inmates, has an atmosphere of its own. Although Andrew had worked in a Government department as a minister he was still struck by its grandeur. He was met at the courtyard entrance and guided along yards of marble corridors before climbing a fine double staircase at the top of which he was greeted by the Foreign Secretary’s Principal Private Secretary.

“Sir Alec will see you immediately, Mr. Fraser,” he said, and led Andrew past the magnificent pictures and tapestries which lined the way. He was taken into a beautifully proportioned room. The Foreign Secretary stood in front of an Adam fireplace over which hung a portrait of Lord Palmerston.

“Fraser, how kind of you to come at such short notice. I do hope it has not caused you any inconvenience.” Platitudes, thought Andrew. Next the silly man will be mentioning my father. “I don’t think we have met before, but of course I have known your father for many years. Won’t you sit down?”

“I realize you are a busy man. Can we get down to the point at issue, Foreign Secretary?” Andrew demanded.

“Of course,” Sir Alec said courteously. “Forgive me for taking up so much of your time.” Without a further word, he handed Andrew a file marked “Richard M. Hodge — Confidential.” “Although Members of Parliament are not subject to the Official Secrets Act I know you will respect the fact that this file is classified.”

Another bluff, thought Andrew. He flicked back the cover. It was true: exactly as he had suspected, Ricky Hodge had never been arrested or charged. He turned the page. “Rome, child prostitution; Marseilles, narcotics; Paris, blackmail.” Page after page, ending in Turkey, where Hodge had been found in possession of four pounds of heroin which he had been selling in small packets on the black market. In his twenty-nine years Ricky Hodge had spent eleven of the last fourteen in foreign jails.

Andrew closed the file and could feel the sweat on his forehead. It was some moments before he spoke. “I apologize, Foreign Secretary,” he said. “I have made a fool of myself.”

“When I was a young man,” said Sir Alec, “I made a similar mistake on behalf of a constituent. Ernie Bevin was Foreign Secretary at the time. He could have crucified me in the House with the knowledge he had. Instead he revealed everything over a drink in this room. I sometimes wish the public could see members in their quiet moments as well as in their rowdy ones.”

Andrew thanked Sir Alec and walked thoughtfully back to the House. The Evening Standard poster outside the Commons caught his eye. “O’Halloran arrested again.” He bought a copy, stood by the railings, and began reading. Paddy O’Halloran had been detained in a Glasgow police station and charged with robbing the Bank of Scotland in Sauchichall Street. Andrew wondered if his friends would allege it was another “frame up” by the police until he read the next paragraph. “O’Halloran was arrested leaving the bank in possession of a shotgun and £25,000 in used notes. He said when apprehended by the police, ‘I’ve just been clearing my account.’”

At home, Louise told him that Ricky Hodge had done him a favor.

“How’s that possible?” asked Andrew.

“You won’t take yourself so seriously in future.” She smiled.

When Andrew conducted his next surgery in Edinburgh two weeks later he was surprised to see that Mrs. Bloxham had made an appointment.

As he greeted her at the door he was even more surprised. She was wearing a bright crimplene dress and a new pair of squeaky brown leather shoes. She also looked as if “Our Blessed Lady” might have to wait a few more years to receive her after all. Andrew motioned her to a seat.

“I came to thank you, Mr. Fraser,” she said, once she was settled.

“What for?” asked Andrew.

“For sending that nice young man round from Christie’s. They auctioned great-grandma’s table for me. I couldn’t believe my luck — it fetched £1,400.” Andrew smiled. “So it don’t matter about the stain on the dress any more.” She paused. “It even made up for having to eat off the floor for three months.”

Simon steered the new Boundary Commission recommendations unspectacularly through the House as an order in Council, and suddenly he had lost his own constituency. His colleagues in Coventry were understanding, and nursed those wards that would become theirs at the next election in order that he might spend more time searching for a new seat.

Seven seats became available during the year but Simon was only interviewed for two of them. Both were almost on the Scottish border and both put him in second place. He began to appreciate what it must feel like for an Olympic favorite to be awarded the silver medal.

Ronnie Nethercote’s monthly board reports began to paint an increasingly somber picture, thus reflecting in real life what the politicians were decreeing in Parliament. Ronnie had decided to postpone going public until the climate was more advantageous. Simon couldn’t disagree with the judgment, but when he checked his special overdraft facility the interest on his loans had pushed the figure in red to over £90,000.

When unemployment first passed the million mark and Ted Heath ordered a pay and prices freeze strikes broke out all over the country.

The new parliamentary session in the autumn was dominated by the issue of a Prices and Incomes policy. Charles Seymour became involved in putting the case for the Government. While he didn’t always win every argument, he was now so well briefed on his subject that he no longer feared making a fool of himself at the dispatch box. Raymond Gould and Andrew Fraser both made passionate speeches on behalf of the unions, but the Conservative majority beat them again and again.

However, the Prime Minister was moving inexorably toward a head-on clash with the unions and an early general election.

When all three party conferences were over members returned to the Commons aware that it was likely to be their last session before the general election. It was openly being said in the corridors that all the Prime Minister was waiting for was a catalyst. The miners provided it. In the middle of a bleak winter they called an all-out strike for more pay in defiance of the Government’s new trade union legislation.

In a television interview the Prime Minister told the nation that with unemployment at an unprecedented 2,294,448 and the country on a three-day week he had to call an election to ensure that the rule of law be maintained. The inner Cabinet advised Heath to plump for 28 February 1974.

“Who runs the country?” became the Tory theme but seemed only to emphasize class differences, rather than uniting the country as Edward Heath had hoped.

Andrew Fraser had his doubts but he faced a different threat in his own constituency, where the Scottish Nationalists were using the quarrel between the two major parties to promote their own cause. He returned to Scotland, to be warned by his father that the Scottish Nationalists were no longer a joke and that he would be facing a hard campaign against the robust local candidate, Jock McPherson.

Raymond Gould traveled back to Leeds, confident that the northeast industrial area would not tolerate Heath’s high-handedness.

Charles felt sure that the people would back any party which had shown the courage to stand up to the unions, although the left wing, led vociferously by Tom Carson, made a great play of the “two nations” issue, insisting that the Government were out to crush the Labour movement once and for all.

Charles drove down to Sussex to find his supporters glad of the chance to put those “lazy trade unionists” in their place.

Simon, with no seat to fight, worked on in the Home Office right up to the day of the election, convinced that his career was facing only a temporary setback.

“I’ll fight the first by-election that comes up,” he promised Elizabeth.

“Even if it’s a mining seat in South Wales,?” she replied.

Many months had passed before Charles had found it possible even to sustain a conversation with Fiona for any length of time. Neither wanted a divorce, both citing the ailing Earl of Bridgwater as their reason, although inconvenience and loss of face were nearer the truth. In public it would have been hard to detect the change in their relationship since they had never been given to overt affection.

Charles gradually became aware that it was possible for marriages to have been over for years without outsiders knowing it. Certainly the old earl never found out, because even on his deathbed he told Fiona to hurry up and produce an heir.

“Do you think you’ll ever forgive me?” Fiona once asked her husband.

“Never,” he replied, with a finality that encouraged no further discourse.

During the three-week election campaign in Sussex they both went about their duties with a professionalism that masked their true feelings.

“How is your husband bearing up?” someone would inquire.

“Much enjoying the campaign and looking forward to returning to Government,” was Fiona’s stock reply.

“And how is dear Lady Fiona?” Charles was continuously asked.

“Never better than when she’s helping in the constituency,” was his.

On Sundays, at one church after another, he read the lesson with confidence while she sang “Fight the good fight” in a clear contralto.

The demands of a rural constituency are considerably different from those of a city. Every village, however small, expects the member to visit them and to recall the local chairmen’s names. Subtle changes were taking place: Fiona no longer whispered the names in Charles’s ear. Charles no longer turned to her for advice.

During the campaign Charles would ring the photographer on the local paper to discover which events his editor had instructed him to cover that day. With the list of places and times in his hand Charles would arrive on each occasion a few minutes before the photographer. The Labour candidate complained officially to the local editor that Mr. Seymour’s photograph was never out of the paper.

“If you were present at these functions we would be only too happy to publish your photo,” said the editor.

“But they never invite me,” cried the Labour candidate.

They don’t invite Seymour either, the editor wanted to say, but he somehow manages to be there. It was never far from the editor’s mind that his proprietor was a Tory peer so he kept his mouth shut.

All the way up to election day Charles and Fiona opened bazaars, attended dinners, drew raffles, and only just stopped short of kissing babies.

Once, when Fiona asked him, Charles admitted that he hoped to be moved to the Foreign Office as a Minister of State, and perhaps to be made a Privy Councillor.

On the last day of February they dressed in silence and went off to their local polling station to vote. The photographer was there on the steps to take their picture. They stood closer together than they had for some weeks, looking like a smart register office couple. Charles knew it would be the main photograph on the front page of the Sussex Gazette the following day, as surely as he knew the Labour candidate would be relegated to a half-column mention on the inside page not far from the obituaries.

The count in a rural seat is always taken the following morning at a more leisurely pace than is customary for its city cousins. So Charles anticipated that by the time he arrived in the town hall the Conservative majority in the House would already be assured. But it was not to be, and the result still hung in the balance that Friday morning.

Edward Heath did not concede when the newscasters predicted he would fail to be given the overall majority he required. Charles spent the day striding around the town hall with an anxious look on his face. The little piles of votes soon became larger and it was obvious that he would hold the seat with at least his usual 21,000 — or was it 22,000? — majority. He never could remember the exact figure. But as the day progressed it became more and more difficult to assess the national verdict.

The last result came in from Northern Ireland a little after four o’clock that afternoon and a BBC commentator announced—

Ted Heath invited the Liberal leader to join him at Downing Street for talks in the hope that they could form a coalition. The Liberals demanded a firm commitment to electoral reform and, in particular, to proportional representation by the next election. Heath knew he could never get his back-benchers to deliver. On the Monday morning he told the Queen in her drawing room at Buckingham Palace that he was unable to form a Government. She called for Harold Wilson. He accepted her commission and drove back to Downing Street to enter the front door. Heath left by the back.

By the Tuesday afternoon every member, having watched the drama unfold, had returned to London. Raymond had increased his majority and now hoped that the Prime Minister had long since forgotten his resignation and would offer him a job.

Andrew had had the hard and unpleasant fight with Jock McPherson, just as his father had predicted, and held on to his seat by only 2,229.

Charles, still unsure of the exact majority by which he had won, drove back to London, resigned to Opposition. The one compensation was that he would be reinstated on the board of Seymour’s where the knowledge he had gained as a minister of Trade and Industry could only be of value.

Simon left the Home Office on 1 March 1974 with little more than an empty red box to show for nine years as a parliamentarian.