NIGHT WATCHMAN

by Rolf Richardson

  “We’re therefore left with taking over other premises, the main contenders being County Hall across the river, then on this side either the Queen Elizabeth Conference Centre or Central Hall Westminster. County Hall is now more of a hotel than a meeting place. And the Queen Elizabeth turned us down flat; said they were booked solid and if they threw out a series of big clients it would wreck London as a business centre.”

  “Wouldn’t even do it for the Mother of Parliaments?” asked Reuter.”

  “Implied especially not for the Mother of Parliaments,” replied Adam. “They were very brusque. Said the country could only survive by creating wealth for which London was essential. This left us with the Central Hall Westminster and even here I had to do some arm twisting. In the end, they let us have their Lecture Hall on a short let. Capacity four hundred and fifty, which should be enough in our depleted state.”

  “When will you be holding your first meeting there?” asked Reuter.

  “They’ll have to prepare the venue,” replied Adam. “And we’ll need a reliable census of surviving MPs. Today is Thursday, so I’m suggesting next Monday as the earliest practical date.”

  “During which time you will be the country’s chief executive?”

  Tichbold nodded gravely. “Unless, of course, our beloved former leader is rescued alive and well.” All Adam’s colleagues were ‘beloved’ as long as they remained satisfactorily dead.

  “Will there be press facilities at this new location?” asked Reuter.

  “I will ensure that there are,” replied Adam. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, there’s work to do. I hope to see you all in our new location at the beginning of next week.”

  20

  Damian picked up Chloe from the back of the room and filed out with the rest of them.

  “Three days to kick our heels,” he commented. “Normally I’d have had a full workload up here, then three pm Friday back to Wheatley for my surgeries. Now...” he shrugged. “Don’t know what to suggest.”

  “I also need to get back,” said Chloe. “Change of undies.... change of boyfriend...”

  “There’s a boyfriend? You never said.”

  “You never asked. Anyway, it’s become pretty on-off. I seem to get through men rather fast.”

  “Is that a warning?”

  “I’ve already managed to lose two husbands. That should answer your question?”

  “Suits me. We keep it strictly business.”

  She seemed relieved. Said: “I’ve been speaking to my editor, who’s keen for me to develop my contacts up here....”

  “Contacts like me?”

  “And Chief Whip Bessie Robotham. And our new Prime Minister. Must be back first thing Monday, so would it be possible....?”

  Damian grinned: “To book a place at White’s B and B?”

  “I would of course pay the going rate.”

  Damian considered this, said: “I could do with a good housekeeper. Who up here can demand quite ridiculous rates. So let’s call it quits.”

  Chloe grinned. “Personal Assistant and now also Housekeeper. Onerous duties. I’ll need a job description.”

  “Easy. Sharing the chores; writing a reasonably truthful account of events as they unfold; keeping the master happy. Starting Sunday evening, if that’s agreeable?”

  “An offer I can hardly refuse.”

  “Worth celebrating with a cup of coffee.” They had reached the Portcullis House atrium with its cafeteria and he could think of nothing else to occupy them.

  If they’d been counting on a cosy tête-à-tête they were to be disappointed. Bessie appeared and asked to join them. She seemed ill at ease and edgy.

  Unburdening herself, she said: “Should now have been busy with the First Reading of the Armed Forces Bill. A tight vote in prospect, lots for me to do. But now...?” She spread her hands.

  “Have to wait until Monday; see what Adam has in store for us,” said Damian.

  “Yes, Adam.....” Bessie scowled. “Pretty damned impertinent of him. Going off to His Maj like that. Behind our backs. Unconstitutional, I’d say.”

  “Someone has to run the country,” Damian pointed out. “And we did vote him in as our leader.”

  “Provisional leader. Never thought he’d go off kissing hands with His Maj, pretending to be a real Prime Minister.”

  “It’s early days,” said Damian. “Things will sort themselves out. It’s been a horrible twenty four hours, everyone’s upset. We need a break, so why don’t you come round to my place this evening....” he made the offer on the spur of the moment. “...I’ve just engaged a new housekeeper, who might be persuaded to postpone her trip to the country to do us a feast. How about it Chloe?”

  “Great idea. Clean undies and P Forty Five for old boyfriend can wait until tomorrow. It’ll be good to unwind. What time do you suggest?”

  “Seven-ish?”

  Bessie nodded slowly. “You’re right. I have been getting a bit uptight. About seven, then.”

  21

  Damian and Chloe spent the afternoon getting some exercise and fresh air, the day still sunny, the wind abating. Their walk took them past the ghouls swarming around Parliament Square, where the police were still doing their best to keep pedestrian traffic moving. The rescuers must have given up hope of finding any survivors because there was now a large crane on site, hauling wreckage clear with little finesse, much noise and rising dust as the remains subsided. Elizabeth Tower - Big Ben - was still standing. And still leaning.

  In late afternoon they returned to Pimlico, after a diversion to Damian’s local minimarket to restock his larder and wine cellar. At 6pm they settled down with a drink to watch the early evening news on TV.

  Which reported that one hundred and twenty bodies had now been recovered, including that of the Prime Minister, his corpse crushed on top of the despatch box. A noble way to go.

  “No way Bessie can now claim Adam is not the real Prime Minister”, was Chloe’s comment.

  Another news item, little noted at the time, but which would later become crucial, was that Gerry Farthing, Labour’s shadow foreign secretary, had flown in from Teheran, where he had been on a fact-finding mission. Gerry was in his seventies, a remnant of the Labour old guard, now superseded by the Young Turks, who made up almost all the shadow cabinet. But most of these Young Turks, like their opposite numbers in government, had been in the Commons Chamber when disaster struck. The future belonged to the rag-tag band of survivors. People like Adam Tichbold, Bessie Robotham and Damian White. The opposition could now register theirs with Gerry Farthing.

  The bell announcing the arrival of Bessie Robotham rang at 7.10. Damian leapt down the stairs two at a time to help her up. The only way he had been able to afford a flat in Pimlico, even a top floor one, was the lack of a lift. For him it was an advantage, helping him keep fit, but it was not so good for visitors, especially if they were elderly or infirm: or, in this case, large and out of condition.

  They eventually made it to his attic, Bessie clutching a bag, which she opened to reveal a full bottle of gin and some tonics.

  “Need a stiff one,” she gasped, sitting down on the settee next to Chloe. “With ice and lemon if you have it.”

  Damian set off to do her bidding, reflecting that Bessie was not one of Westminster’s usual dypso brigade. The hard drinkers were well known, but the Chief Whip had no form in that direction. Perhaps it was just that her world had collapsed and she needed some solace.

  The three of them settled down to discuss the latest news, especially the fact that the prime minister was now known to be dead.

  “No stopping that bloody man now,” was Bessie’s comment. No need to specify who that ‘bloody man’ was.

  Damian pointed out that Adam - indeed the Conservative party - might not have it all their own way, when what was left of Parliament reconvened on Monday. The government had not enjoyed a large majority and who knew what that majority might be when they totted up the survivors.

&nbs
p; Bessie insisted that the Tories continued to have the right to govern by virtue of the last election result. Damian wasn’t so sure. They threw this back and forth for a while until a ‘ping’ from the kitchen announced dinner was ready. Chloe had done a free range chicken, roast spuds and veg, which they proceeded to demolish. Wine - red or white according to taste - replaced gin or aperitifs and the conversation continued to flow.

  Bessie latched on to the item about the return of Gerry Farthing, who had now been confirmed as Labour’s provisional leader. The opposition’s answer to Adam Tichbold.

  “Never made it to the top because he’s too honest for his own good,” was her comment.

  “An odd coincidence that both the top jobs are now occupied by people who were in foreign affairs,” said Damian.

  “Probably because everyone else was busy here at home,” suggested Bessie. “Can only get away when there’s a recess. Only Foreign Secretaries, real or shadow, can swan off in the middle of a sitting, when the rest of us may be needed for important votes. Anyway, Gerry’s a bit like you, Damian: something of a free spirit. Goes his own way.”

  Dessert - chocolate mousse - came and went. Drink continued to flow and Bessie became increasingly maudlin. Sensing that alcohol was starting to erode her defences, Damian chanced a remark:

  “Lots of rumours about you and Adam, Bessie. From the old days.”

  “Ah yes. The good old days. Good my eye!”

  “Undergraduate life... wild parties. I missed all that,” said Damian “Sounds a bit of all right.”

  “Trouble with Oxbridge is that you do it at the wrong time” said Bessie.. “Should happen a bit later, in your thirties, say, when you’re more responsible. More mature. Less open to temptation.”

  “But you’ve done okay. Chief Whip, famous in your chosen profession. A success by any standards.”

  “Hmm. Know what they say about me? Married to politics. That’s because I’ve had no choice. Thanks to that bastard Tichbold!”

  “Something that happened at Oxford?

  “Just the usual. Young girl from the provinces is smitten by that handsome upper-class cad. Finds herself in the family way…”

  Chloe put her hand to her mouth: “Couldn’t you...?

  “We’re talking about forty years ago. Only two choices then: keep the child or get rid of it. Of course I wanted to keep it. But Adam would have none of it. Said it would ruin our lives. Some such nonsense. I hinted at marriage, but that made it even worse. I knew what he was thinking: marry that scrubber from Rochdale? No way! Five years later Tatler was full of the ‘Wedding of the Year’: Old Etonian Adam Tichbold to the Honourable Hermione, daughter of Lord something-or-other. That was what he was after.”

  “You could still have kept the child,” said Chloe. “Even without marriage.”

  “I could have. And should have. But Adam talked me out of it. Something I’ll regret to my dying day. So I went to some nasty clinic - which botched the job. Made sure I could never have more children.”

  There was moment’s silence, no one knowing what to say.

  Then Bessie announced: “End of story! We’ll now talk about anything else. And I shall get absolutely paralytic!”

  She was as good as her word. They discussed films, TV, music, anything inconsequential, Bessie becoming increasingly incoherent. At around eleven Chloe went off to clear up in the kitchen, while Damian needed a pee. When he came back, Bessie was slumped on the settee, snoring. They covered her with a blanket, tidied up and then went off to bed themselves.

  22

  That long weekend, from Friday to Sunday evening, was hectic for those working the rescue site. With survivors no longer a possibility, their priority was to clear the wreckage and recover all the bodies, so Britain could start the next week knowing exactly where it stood.

  For those not involved in the rescue it was limbo time, little they could do except wait.

  Once Adam had signed up the Central Hall Lecture Room as the temporary House of Commons Chamber, the rest could be left to his officials, who would have the ticklish job of informing those who had booked the place that they would have to find somewhere else to meet. This left the Provisional Prime Minister free to depart to his Berkshire estate and comfort his wife Hermione, whose favourite horse had just been put down.

  Bessie was packed off in a cab to her flat in West Kensington, where she had several days to recover from her hangover.

  The new Labour Leader, Gerry Farthing, had to change his mindset from dealing with the devious mullahs of Iran to the equally daunting one of trying to chart the path ahead for the remnants of his party.

  Damian White and Chloe Pettigrew took the tube to Paddington, then a train to Oxford, Damian to sit in his constituency office to answer any surgery posers, Chloe for a laundry blitz and to terminate her past relationship.

  For everyone it was the lull before the storm.

  23

  MARCH 18th.

  Central Hall Westminster is a 1912 End-of-Empire building, not that distant in time from MP’s previous home in Barry and Pugin’s 1860s pile. But the two buildings could not have been more different. Augustus Pugin, the Gothic impetus behind the Palace of Westminster, was eventually committed to Bedlam’s asylum for the insane, so his creation is rather wacky. Central Hall Westminster, on the other hand, conveys a message of calm, with high ceilings, cream-coloured walls, classical columns and large vertical windows. The political refugees could well find their new home rather more soothing than their old recently demolished one.

  Even with seating limited to 450 and the media out in force, the place was not full, a testimony to the carnage caused by Osajefo’s unplanned landing on the palace of Westminster.

  For this first meeting of the Provisional Parliament a central aisle separated two blocks of blue chairs - no political bias intended, they just happened to be that colour. On a waist-high stage at the end of the room stood a small table and two chairs. The right-hand one was occupied - appropriately - by the Conservative leader and Provisional Prime Minister, Adam Tichbold; the left hand chair by the new Labour leader Gerry Farthing.

  Surviving MPs had drifted in to form little tribal cliques: the Tories opposite their new boss; Labour camped below Gerry Farthing; the Scots Nats somewhat further back; two Lib Dems looking rather forlorn at the sides. The solitary Green from Brighton was nowhere to be seen, the entire party wiped out by AfroAir.

  Today there was no way Damian could sneak in to the top table, but he had managed to find a front row seat close to Bessie Robotham, who was back to her old self, efficient, in control, no sign of that weekend drunken lapse.

  TV cameras and the press had been allocated space at the back in an area demarcated from that of the MPs. All rather ad hoc and amateurish, but this was the first time out and the system would no doubt be refined with experience.

  Chloe Pettigrew sat with the rest of the press corps, who were now beginning to accept her as a familiar face, although still unsure where she fitted in. A Daily Mail lady columnist greeted her with a friendly “Hi there!”, while the Sun man awarded her a leer.

  As ten o’clock struck, Adam Tichbold banged on the table. The hubbub quickly died.

  “As I said when addressing party members immediately after this catastrophe, I can hardly use the word ‘welcome’.” He spread his hands. “But what else can I say? So welcome to the task of rebuilding Britain’s democracy. This, I need hardly say, encompasses everyone: Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats, Scottish Nationalists, whichever party you’ve pledged your allegiance to. And to every nation within our United Kingdom: English, Scots, Welsh, Irish....” he smiled “....and to anyone else I’ve omitted to name.”

  “There will no doubt be arguments in the days ahead, but before that I want to place before you some figures: human figures. The rescue services have been heroic and tell me that all the victims of the disaster have now been recovered. The death toll has been heavy, not only amongst our own, but also in the
public and press galleries. I will confine myself to the list that just concerns us: the Members of Parliament.”

  Adam smoothed out a sheet of paper on the desk in front of him:

  “The dead recovered from the ruins of the House of Commons chamber are as follows: Two Hundred and Thirty Nine from my party, the Conservatives....”

  He paused to allow the collective gasp of horror to subside.

  He continued: “One Hundred and Sixty Eight from Farthing’s Labour party. Also Ten Lib Dems, Eleven SNP, Six Irish and one Green. Making a total of Four Hundred and Thirty Five.”

  There was silence as the room tried to take in the scale of the tragedy.

  Then a voice from the back, the Reuter man again: “Does that mean everyone is accounted for? That you can now tell us how many people are left to make up this Provisional Parliament?”

  “Indeed I can. Thanks to our esteemed Chief Whip, Bessie Robotham, who keeps tabs on such things, I’m happy to say that Seventy Nine Conservative MPs have survived and are now with us. Figures from the other parties are Fifty Five Labour, Thirty Three SNP, Two Lib Dems and Four from Ulster.”

  As people scribbled down these numbers, Reuter asked: “I make that a Parliament of One hundred and Seventy Three. Is that correct?”

  “I believe so.”

  “In that case, your Conservative party no longer has a working majority,” observed Reuter. “Only seventy nine members in a Parliament of over One Hundred and Seventy.”

  “Our job will be merely administrative,” said Adam, irritably. “Arranging for a general election. And hopefuly selecting a larger venue for a permanent parliament. We do not anticipate any legislation during this period, so the usual party politics won’t apply.”