Political Death

by Antonia Fraser

  “Let’s hope he’s out of office,” she said. “Unlike Olga and Holy Harry, I am not a Conservative, Jemima.” It did not seem the right moment to point out that since Jemima had seen Millie demonstrating here there and everywhere against the government, she’d had some inkling that this was the case.

  “After that, Olga and I will get what we always thought we were going to get, half each. We’ll sell that house, sell the past with it as far as I’m concerned, just as we’d always planned. Quite welcome in my case: I don’t own my own flat. Even more welcome to Olga. Says something about wanting more children before it’s too late, but Holy Harry is the sort of person who thinks it’s socially irresponsible to have more children than you can afford to bring up properly. She’s always telling me they’re absolutely desperate, what with Elfi’s private school—naturally—and Holy Harry not being the kind of MP who gathers directorships like nuts in May.”

  “Why not? Everyone else seems to.”

  “Well, would you want Holy Harry on your board to enhance the image of your company? He’d spend his entire time worrying his pretty head about the pensions of the workers, a sort of Robert Maxwell in reverse, and I don’t somehow think that’s what Tory directors are for.”

  Jemima laughed. “I’ve not met him. I’m going round there tomorrow.”

  “Ah. You may find yourself breaking the news to Olga: we’ll see. The thing is that it would be really helpful if those letters at least could be quietly handed back. And now they’ve vanished. Poor Hattie was in floods of tears, and yes, I do feel sorry for her, very sorry. I’m sorry if I was mean about her just now. I shouldn’t have flown at her. Hattie is great. I shouldn’t have involved her in the whole mess. Why is it that everything about my mother is and always has been such a mess?” For a moment Millie sounded hysterical. She went on more calmly. “Hattie just can’t think how it happened. But the cupboard is bare.”

  “A burglary? Here, backstage?”

  “Some sort of deliberate theft, that’s for sure. Randall keeps telling me to relax. It’ll all be for the best. How on earth can it be for the best? Unless those bloody Diaries vanish forever and are never seen again.” Millie sighed. “I can’t decide whether I’m glad or sorry I never read them. Actually, I’ve hardly digested it yet, Illyria and all that intervening. So now that you know all, shall we go and join the ladies? In the shape of the ladies thronging Randall’s dressing-room.”

  But when they got to the dressing-room, the door was locked. A note was stuck to the door. “Millie darling, some of us have gone on to Gino’s. Do come, please come.” The writing was rather beautiful: an italic hand slightly loosened up. There was a PS: “Do bring Jemima Shore Investigator.” Jemima fancied that Millie Swain looked upset, but she did not think it was in reference to herself. Maybe it was just that the atmosphere of the empty corridor was indeed, as Hattie had suggested earlier, creepy. As the two women trailed back up to the stage this feeling of unease did not go away. They drew level with the cubicle by the Stage Door. Millie handed in her dressing-room key.

  “Good night, Mike. See you.” But the bent back of the man watching television did not stir nor did he answer. There was no sign of the distressed Hattie Vickers.

  CHAPTER 8

  FAMILY VALUES

  Elfi, darling, don’t be shy. Give it to Jemima.” Jemima Shore understood “it” to be a piece of criticism which Elfrida Carter-Fox aged seven had written about a recent television programme. The programme had not featured Jemima, nor had Jemima seen it; having no children of her own, her interest in children’s television was at best peripheral—limited to those programmes enthusiastically endorsed by her goddaughter Becky Robertson. (Since Becky was the child of Jemima’s best friend from Cambridge, a former social worker, now a therapist, who had married a dedicated teacher of under-privileged children, Becky had plenty of leisure to develop a truly appalling taste in television.) None of this seemed to deter Elfi and her mother.

  “I’ll read it, I think.” Elfi began with great self-possession to read in her high confident little voice: “My favourite programme, by Elfrida Mary Carter-Fox. My favourite programme is when the little monkeys are so naughty, but the little children tell them to be good—” Jemima recalled Olga’s reported desire to have more children “before it was too late” and wondered privately whether it was not too late already …

  There was no sign of Harry Carter-Fox. The house in Shepherd’s Bush, cramped and not particularly pretty (surely Olga must have resented her mother all alone in cavernous Hippodrome Square), was inundated with election literature. Piles of pamphlets stood on the table in the hall. There was a large blue and white poster in the front window and two more upstairs. As Jemima parked her car and walked down Shepherd’s Avenue, she had noticed that the Tory posters in the windows just about equalled the posters of their opponents. A perfect representation of the state of the country, at least according to the polls. There were, however, rumours that the polls in the Sunday papers the next day would show a slight tilt away from Labour and the Liberals. The latest civil conflict on the fringes of Europe had resulted in bombs in major cities, including Istanbul and Athens. Here Burgo Smyth’s reputation as an experienced handler of such situations was standing the Tories in good stead. Helen Macdonald, leader of the Labour-Liberal coalition, had no such experience. Perversely, a country which had warmed to Mrs. Thatcher as a war leader, cartoons of Boadicea and so forth, now shrank from the younger woman’s potential military leadership. Or so the polls were beginning to record. Sarah Smyth had been right about one thing: torture by poll was a painful state of affairs. And there were still five days to go.

  There was another rumour, unconnected to the polls, which had been reported to Jemima that morning by Cherry, who had called up from her mobile phone on her way to the airport: she was setting off to Nice with her latest boyfriend, a meek but wealthy computer studies expert. (Sometimes Jemima envisaged a future in which she was entirely jealous of Cherry, instead of just most of the time.)

  “Jemima, they seem to have got hold of it. Burgo Smyth, your Lady who jumped, the old scandal and all that. They know it but they probably can’t use it. Just hints for the time being.”

  “Who?” Jemima shouted. Since Cherry was shouting, she felt she ought to join in.

  “The Op, who else? The Sunday Opinion is our remaining campaigning newspaper, whatever you think of its methods.”

  “John Barrymoor?”

  “Who else?” screamed Cherry amid a blur of hisses.

  “Who told you?”

  “John Barrymoor’s researcher, Margaret Rose. You remember her. Afro-Caribbean. She worked on our second birth control programme.” Jemima thought, not for the first time, that at some levels there were female networks and very strong networks too.

  The line on the mobile phone crackled loudly. Cherry’s next words included the name “Franklyn Faber.” Then the line cut off.

  Jemima could easily imagine that John Barrymoor of all people would make the connection. He had been living in Faber’s flat at the time of his disappearance, had read his note, had given evidence. In those days Barrymoor had been the epitome of the campaigning journalist with his violent red hair and blazing blue eyes. Thirty years later his hair had gone white (like Burgo Smyth’s) but his eyes had not lost their glare. His elder statesman stance on television, to say nothing of his Sunday column, gave him the power of a prophet, one who in a changing age had never deserted his radical principles.

  Jemima’s line rang. It was Cherry, back with her.

  “Did you hear that? She got on to him! Your Lady Imogen rang him. Incredibly, she still had some kind of number for him, his ex-wife’s ex-son-in-law answered and put her on to the Op. Told him she knew the real truth about Franklyn Faber. Twenty-four hours later, before they can meet, she’s dead. How’s that for bad timing?”

  Alternatively, how’s that for good timing, thought Jemima when the line had gone dead once more. It was a cliché that in
politics, timing was of the essence—which did not mean that it was untrue. Were the hounds of the media closing in on Burgo Smyth and, if so, was that really justice? Once again, Jemima found herself in agreement with Sarah Smyth in her fierce question: what was it all to do with government now, the problems everyone had to face in the country and abroad?

  Of course, while that was manifestly true about an ancient sexual scandal, it was not true about every kind of scandal. In the meantime, Jemima had to test her hunch about Sarah Smyth and Imogen Swain. She had an appointment with Sarah at her house in Fulham immediately after her meeting with the Carter-Fox family or, as it turned out, the female members of it. For Harry Carter-Fox was represented only by his earnest face on the pamphlets and posters, the eyes wide apart behind their rimless glasses, the hair vanishing, the expression intended to be magisterial perhaps, but actually rather pleading. As she listened to Elfi, Jemima wondered when, if ever, she would have Olga to herself. The answer turned out to be, when the candidate himself arrived.

  Harry Carter-Fox bustled in, his briefcase half open and bulging with papers. It fell open completely and the papers torrented on to the floor. Olga Carter-Fox, with an expression of tenderness Jemima had not seen on her face before, bent to pick everything up. Elfi flung herself at her father.

  “I’m afraid poor Mrs. Lowe was very confused about her new water tax,” he threw at Olga. “And frankly it’s not too easy to explain. I think the PM missed a trick there when he turned down my offer to help—or Central Office anyway. I could have helped them to phrase all this new stuff.”

  “If you can’t explain it, darling, no one can.” Olga was not only tender but she was also admirably loyal. Shortly after that, Harry Carter-Fox took Elfi off for some paternal ritual. Whatever it was, it kept her mercifully away from the living-room. Jemima found herself facing a very different Olga. All tenderness had fled.

  “Vanished! What on earth does Millie mean by that? This is catastrophic. Doesn’t she see that? Here we are, trying to get the whole thing about the house arranged with the greatest discretion. It’s all so embarrassing for my poor Harry, quite apart from anything else. My mother—our mother, if you like, though Millie hardly took that line when she was alive—and Burgo Smyth, the man who may well be leader of the party if we lose this election. I can’t think that Horace Granville will want to soldier on, for him it will be back to those wonderful estates, those forests of his, which make such good television. Then Harry’s chances may improve. HG has never really rated him, such a cynical man, frankly, but Burgo Smyth has always understood Harry is a good man—”

  Olga Carter-Fox recalled herself from her political dreams for Holy Harry Carter-Fox. All the while she had been methodically tidying the contents of her husband’s briefcase. Such a man, thought Jemima, both serious-minded and untidy, could have few secrets from his wife.

  “And now this has happened! How on earth are we to tell him? Burgo Smyth, the Foreign Secretary!” Even in her distress Olga savoured the title. “Oh what a mess.” Unconsciously Olga echoed exactly the word her sister had used, and added another virtually identical phrase: “It seems that the mess my mother—our mother—always created, lives after her. But I blame her, Millie, not Madre. How could she have let this happen? Or are you going to tell me that everyone in the theatrical world just helps themselves to private property as and when they feel like it? People just walking in and out. Just because they’re artists.”

  Before Jemima could answer—she was prepared to make some allowances for Olga’s exasperation but this was going a little too far—Harry Carter-Fox returned.

  “Darling, Elfi was really so lovely, she prayed for everyone in the government of course, and she prayed for us to win. I think that’s all right, don’t you?” He sounded anxious. “It was her idea. But after that, wait, she prayed for the Labs and Libs as well. She says that Jesus wants us to be kind to everyone, everyone we see on television. Wasn’t that adorable?”

  “How sweet,” said Olga absently. Then in a voice from which she had carefully eliminated all traces of her previous anger, she told her husband what had happened. There was an instant of silence. Then Harry Carter-Fox’s broad face turned alarmingly red. The struggle within this professionally patient and kindly man not to burst out in expletive-filled rage was almost palpable. When he finally spoke, it sounded as if he were choking.

  “Olga, you must get them back.” He ignored Jemima. “You must. This dreadful development must be kept secret. It’s a disaster, a political disaster. They must be destroyed, no, handed back. But the Diaries must be destroyed. You must do it.”

  “I will, darling, I will. Trust me.” Olga Carter-Fox was still patting her husband’s hand when Elfi appeared, framed in the doorway. Maddening as Elfi might be, she was, Jemima had to admit, an exceptionally pretty child, with her enormous eyes and small heart-shaped face. It occurred to Jemima that Elfi was more like her grandmother Imogen Swain than either of her parents. Was Olga to spend the second half of her life coping with the histrionics of her daughter, having spent the first half enduring the vagaries of her mother?

  “Mummy!” cried Elfi, choking back her sobs with about as much success as her father had choked back his anger. “Daddy! There was this dinosaur—”

  Jemima thought she would leave this post-Jurassic Park child to her parents. Besides, she had her appointment with Sarah Smyth to keep. There was just one more potentially embarrassing point to be covered: the single Diary in her possession. She broke the news to Olga and Harry in between Elfi’s sobs.

  Harry’s reaction was instantaneous. “I want it burnt immediately, totally burnt, in your biggest fire.” My biggest fire! thought Jemima, he seems to envisage me living in some mediaeval castle with a Great Hall; I can hardly burn the wretched Diary on my gas-fired coals. “I’ll shred it in the office” was what she said out loud.

  “And you will help us to get the rest of these unfortunate—things back?” put in Olga anxiously. “You’ll talk to Millie again. I just don’t feel like talking to her myself at this point, she’s so chippy about everything and this, which is all her fault,” she emphasised the words, “will just make it worse. And you’re going to talk to the Smyths. I’m sure we all of us agree that this needs very discreet handling.” Olga emphasised these words even more vehemently.

  Whatever Harry was about to say to this was interrupted by a more coherent wail from Elfi, “Mummy, don’t go out tonight, don’t leave me.”

  “Darling, you know I don’t leave you.”

  “You do, you do, you go out at night and leave me. When I come downstairs after my nasty dreams, you’re not there. It did happen,” Elfi persisted as Olga put her arms comfortingly round her.

  “Hush, Elfi,” said Olga. “No stories please.”

  “It did happen. It’s not a story. It happened. The night when you met Aunt Millie, then the babysitter went home, then you went out.”

  “Elfi, darling, stop this.” Olga’s tone remained gentle but Jemima was suddenly and acutely aware of something steely beneath the gentleness. The hand which was round Elfi’s small shoulders was, she noticed, clenched, not necessarily to restrain her child, perhaps to restrain herself. This quickened Jemima’s interest in a conversation which might otherwise have drifted past her as conversations of this sort between parents and children tended to do. She glanced at Harry Carter-Fox; he was staring at his wife with an expression which hovered between fear and respect.

  Not long after this Burgo Smyth was to be found addressing a meeting which consisted of his daughter Sarah and his son. He stood in Sarah’s pretty but diminutive drawing-room, dwarfing the two small armchairs in their pale blue linen covers and the tiny sofa in its perfectly chosen complementary print. When he raised his voice the collection of Dresden-type china ornaments on their glass shelves beside the mantelpiece rattled slightly, which the Foreign Secretary found extraordinarily irritating. He had disliked these ornaments when they were part of the decoration of h
is own home, as arranged by his wife, and he disliked them even more now that they had been passed to his daughter. They were somehow so excruciatingly feminine and demanding … Burgo Smyth withdrew his irritated glance from the offending shepherdess (it would be a shepherdess). He had more urgent problems to consider.

  As Harry Carter-Fox had lost his philanthropic look, so Burgo Smyth with his children had entirely put aside the paternal manner he always produced for the media. (As a result of this celebrated manner, his approval rate with the electorate was nearly 20 per cent higher than that of Horace Granville, the languid aristocratic Prime Minister.) The mouth, so full and sensuous when he was a young man, was set in a line which was quite thin, and the famous dark eyes with their long eyelashes which had given rise to the nickname of the Tory Elvis were certainly not gazing at his children softly. Confronted with his real-life son and daughter, Burgo Smyth looked not so much fatherly as grimly angry.

  “I forbid it,” he said. “I absolutely forbid it.” Even his voice had lost its habitual mellow tone: that wonderful natural bass which had thrilled generations of women voters down the years. “Sarah, Archie, do you hear me? Archie, you are to listen to me and for once you are to do exactly what I say.” Archie’s expression, at once embarrassed and defiant, indicated that he knew what his father was referring to—unwise dallying with some very far-right forces in his constituency which the Press had picked up.

  “This is not, I repeat not, the route we must take. I abhor—” Burgo began with vehemence, then hesitated as the politician took over—“I do not care for things like that,” he concluded lamely.