Political Death

by Antonia Fraser

  “But Dad, for Christ’s sake.” Archie looked if possible even more devastated than his sister. “We’ve bloody well got to know a lot more than that. For example, who else knew about this? Were there witnesses? We need to help you, protect you, cover this up—” His voice died away.

  “I don’t think so, Boy,” said Burgo gently. “I made a terrible decision thirty years ago. I’ve got to pay for it now. I think you’ll find that’s the case.”

  Nobody looked at Jemima Shore. There was no need. Jemima knew that Sarah Smyth, for all her maddening values (just because of these maddening values), was not the kind of character to cover up anything like this, even to protect her beloved father. About Archie, there could be more doubt, fairly or unfairly, but then it was not up to Archie Smyth.

  “So you did it, that terrible thing, which is going to ruin you, to protect her?” asked Sarah fiercely. Her eyes glistened as though she was about to shed tears of anger or frustration.

  “Oh Sarah, I did it to protect us all, even you and Archie, certainly Mum and of course myself. Think of the scandal. Dead man, centre of a controversial case, found in my mistress’s house. My precious political career. Worth saving or not? History will judge. In the meantime you can judge. I had such belief in myself, my destiny, in those days. Saviour of the country and all that. I saved myself, if you like, in order to save the country. How long ago it all seems!”

  Burgo Smyth had not offered any of them a drink. Perhaps he thought it was too late—or too early. She knew he did not drink spirits—doctor’s orders—and his favourite champagne would have been inappropriate. A cup of coffee might have been nice. She thought Burgo Smyth himself could do with some stimulant.

  Saviour of the country! He hadn’t exactly been that, supposing that such a person could exist in these modern, allegedly peaceful times. He had been a thoroughly decent and responsible Foreign Secretary, and a short-lived Home Secretary, too liberal for most members of his party. Could you balance that against the deliberate concealment of a dead man, the hoodwinking of his country’s justice? Of course, in human terms, you could say that the issue turned on the grief experienced by Franklyn Faber’s family or friends. There had been no wife, that was certain, but what if there had been a girl friend or, as seemed more probable, a boy friend, what about his or her feelings? Suspense could be even more damaging than certainty.

  “It was madness,” said Burgo Smyth. He spoke as if considering some knotty point of international diplomacy. “Of course I regret it passionately now. In fact I regretted it quite soon. But we’ll talk about it, you—Sarah and Archie—and I, another time. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, I’ve no doubt.”

  He pointed at the Sunday newspapers. “They’re on my trail of course. You knew that. She took to ringing up the papers, names she remembered I suppose. Let’s face it, it’s never all that difficult to get through to the Press. She even paid a call on the McGees. But of course the Press doesn’t know about this—what shall we call it—this twist.”

  Archie turned to Jemima. He found relief in belligerence. “You’re one of them. So what are you going to say about all this?”

  “I’m going to make my statement to the police, not the Press,” replied Jemima sharply, “and please remember that I came to Hippodrome Square at your express invitation.”

  “Cut it out, Archie.” Sarah turned back to her father. “What happened after that? I must know. Did you go on seeing her? All the time, all our childhood, when poor Mum was so dreadfully unhappy? All the time you were making love to this woman, this murderess—well, maybe she was a murderess, you say you weren’t there, Dad, not in the house at the time—”

  “She wasn’t a murderess. And no, I never saw her again,” he replied sombrely. “Not after that night. It was part of the bargain, you see. We could never meet again. Too dangerous for us both. There had never been any connection between them: Imogen and Frank. No public connection at least. We had to take advantage of that.”

  “So you left her to it?” In spite of herself and her genuine desire to be neutral, Jemima knew there was criticism in her voice.

  “If you want to put it like that, yes. For both our sakes, we never met again, never in private. And we avoided the sort of occasions where we might have met in public. But sometimes, of course, I did catch a glimpse of her at parties, big parties given by your relations”—he gestured towards his children—“on the rare occasions Mum wanted to come up from the country. At first it was agony to see her. Then I steeled myself. I was busy. Threw myself into my career, as they say. No more affairs, ever. All that was over. If I neglected Mum, it was for politics, nothing else. The pain dulled. It went away.”

  “Did it go away for her?”

  Burgo Smyth looked at Jemima. He put on the spectacles which he had been turning in his hands and contemplated her as if she had been some random questioner at a foreign affairs conference. He was wearing his celebrated paternal expression. “Probably not. Women are different, aren’t they? More romantic. More steadfast. Don’t you agree?” It was almost as though Burgo Smyth was about to give vent to that traditional smooth answer of the politician, “I’m so glad you asked me that question.”

  Jemima wanted to say, “They used to be. When they had nothing else to think about. Have you ever considered that? Your wife was driven to drink, first by your infidelity, then by your coldness and separateness; and still I understand she loved you. Lady Imogen had a broken heart at the end of your affair and so did you. But she also had a broken life. And you didn’t.” In short, it was back to Byron and love, which for a man was a thing apart, and woman’s whole existence. Things were different for Jemima Shore. Ned Silver, watch out …

  But these were the small hours of the night. This was no moment for Burgo Smyth to be instructed in the different emotional responses of the liberated career woman. Instead, Jemima asked—this she could not help, this was the ineradicable interviewer in her—“How did you feel when the calls started coming? From Lady Imogen. All those years later. You had once been in love.” It was impertinent. It was irresistible.

  Burgo Smyth stared at her from behind his reinstalled defences, his spectacles. What he said surprised her. It was a quotation she herself knew well.

  “ ‘But that was in another country,’ ” said the Foreign Secretary, “ ‘And besides, the wench is dead.’ Those lines have always haunted me. That’s what I felt when Imogen started all the crazy calls. The woman I had loved was dead long ago. Webster, I fancy.”

  It was in fact Marlowe. Was it only just over twenty-four hours since she had been happily quoting those lines to Randall Birley at Gino’s? She knew it was time to go away and leave the stricken Smyth family to work out their plan of action …

  Ye Gods! the election! The full enormity of what was going to happen to Burgo Smyth struck Jemima as she walked away from the Foreign Secretary’s residence, down the empty Mall. It was also, presumably, going to happen to the Tory party. Could something like this, revealed about the nation’s favourite father figure, persuade the dithering electorate to make a definite choice, in the opposite direction? Jemima passed a police car. Its two occupants looked at her with impersonal attention. In spite of that, she felt she must continue to have some fresh air. Another police car went past her at a slow pace. There were one or two lights on on a high floor of Buckingham Palace. This was one scandal-at-the-top which would leave its inhabitants unscathed.

  Jemima felt utterly chilled by what had happened, but she was well into Knightsbridge before she hailed a taxi to take her to Holland Park Mansions. She had time to ponder on the coincidence of the Foreign Secretary quoting Marlowe. She also had time to reflect that the wench in question—Lady Imogen—was well and truly dead now, not just in the romantic imagination of Burgo Smyth. The Faber Mystery was at least partially solved; the Swain Mystery had deepened. What a strong motive Burgo Smyth would have had for killing Imogen Swain! Jemima knew him to be a ruthless man, not so much because all poli
ticians were ruthless (her general conviction), but because he had already carried out one colossal deception, and lied and lied and lied, and shown a bland uncaring face to the public. Had he carried out a second and even more daring crime to rid himself of this unhappy incubus from his past? Jemima shivered.

  When she opened the door of Holland Park Mansions, Midnight was crouching on the carpet in front of her, imitating a sphinx. And the telephone was ringing. Jemima looked at her watch. At this hour even Cy Fredericks would not dare, unless he was in Los Angeles, eight hours behind, in which case he would dare all right with that indifference to other people’s sleep (and time zones) that was, in Jemima’s opinion, one of his least lovable characteristics. But Cy Fredericks was not in Los Angeles. He was in London, getting ready to play a prominent part in the annual David Garrick Awards ceremony on Sunday night.

  Which is actually tonight, thought Jemima.

  It could only be Ned. She picked up the telephone just as the answering machine got there too. That meant that all Ned’s sweet nothings would now be recorded. She decided not to point that out to him. She would have a passionate cassette to add to her collection of passionate faxes.

  But it was not Ned.

  “Jemima, thank God you’re there!” said a man’s voice. “I thought it would be the dread machine.”

  Jemima wanted to say, “Actually it’s both of us,” but she had no chance.

  The voice swept on, “I feel so awful about tonight, awful for me that I missed your company.” It was only at this point that Jemima recognised the voice of Randall Birley, since he had never bothered to announce his identity. “I couldn’t explain properly because it’s all a little delicate about this film. And I just had to meet the great Helen, and I couldn’t say so with—people around.”

  “Helen Macdonald?” Jemima had not figured Randall Birley as at all political, unlike Millie Swain, but perhaps he had been persuaded by Millie to do a commercial for the Labour-Liberal coalition. (In which case what about his devoted cousin Sarah Smyth?)

  “Who?” demanded Randall.

  “Helen Macdonald. Leader of the Labour Party—the alliance. Possibly our next Prime Minister.” Jemima was right about Randall Birley not being political.

  “No, no, of course not. This is show business. Helen Troy. Absurd name but she can get away with it, and anyway it’s her real name. The biggest female box-office draw in the US ever since that film, I can’t remember its name. Chased? No, Chaste. She’s interested in playing Viola in my film. She was trained as a classical actress, you know. It’s fantastic!”

  “Fantastic for whom?” thought Jemima crossly. “Why is he telling me all this?”

  But Randall had rattled on, “Now listen, what about tomorrow?”

  Before Jemima could reply, Randall Birley had run on yet again. “Oh shit,” he said. “No, tomorrow is the Garrick Awards. What a bore these things are. Boring if you win, even more boring if you don’t.”

  So far Jemima’s contribution to this late-night conversation had consisted of one piece of fairly obvious political information about Helen Macdonald. Jemima knew that she absolutely had to go to bed, be purred over by Midnight. Anything to stop the world and get off, however momentarily.

  “What a happy coincidence! I myself am presenting one of the boring Garrick Awards. So I’ll see you there.” And Jemima rang off.

  But she could not sleep. After a while she got out of bed and put on the tape of her Faber Mystery programme, falling asleep as the final credits rolled. The handsome saturnine face of the young Burgo Smyth haunted her dreams. In her dream—one of those odd upside-down dreams which plagued her, especially when Ned was away—Burgo Smyth was an actor, and he was receiving some kind of award. Jemima wanted to protest about it, but in her dream could not remember why.

  CHAPTER 12

  WHAT PRICE PRIZES?

  I can’t think what’s happened to Hattie, you know, our Hattie, ASM at the Irving, Hattie Vickers—Charley Baines was peering crossly into the gathering crowds around the vast Trumpet Cinema. Most of them stared back blankly, their eyes shifting onwards when they realised that Charley Baines was not famous. Or rather Charley Baines was not famous enough: his Toby Belch in Randall Birley’s Twelfth Night had been nominated for a David Garrick Award in the category of Best Character Actor in a Comic Performance in a Fringe Production (by no means the most obscure category in the long list of awards).

  “She was so desperate to come,” Charley Baines confided to no one in particular since everyone on the edge of the Trumpet foyer was desperate to move on, either wanting to get out of the limelight or more likely to get into it. Certainly nobody had time to worry about Hattie Vickers. You could not exactly call the Garrick Awards ceremony at the Trumpet Cinema A Hit, since it was for one night only once a year, but it was certainly A Happening.

  Up to this point nobody had missed Hattie throughout the whole of Sunday. She was not that kind of person. Arrangements were pretty casual for the inhabitants of the large, shabby house in Earl’s Court where she lived, even on weekdays. Not everyone was in work and those that had work did not necessarily work regular hours. After all, Hattie’s own hours, including the nights when she stayed late to lock up the theatre, were irregular enough. Hattie was friendly with a couple of middle-aged actors who came and went; one of them was currently working in a theatre in Wales and the other was thought to be in Edinburgh.

  As for Sunday, that was when the whole house was sometimes completely silent, as though all the lodgers were under some kind of dusty spell. Hattie regarded Sunday as a day she had to herself. Her adoptive parents—her mother, whom she had loved, and her father, whom she had both loved and loathed—were both dead. The small cousinage into which she had been introduced by her adoption had by degrees politely distanced themselves from Hattie after her parents’ death. In any case, Hattie felt no particular need to impose herself on their Sunday lunches, at best in the country near Guildford, at worst on the outskirts of Woking.

  Hattie had always told herself, “the theatre is my life.” (She had not foreseen that it was also to be her death.) The friends she had chosen to keep up with after university were entirely those who shared this passion. One of these was Charley Baines. Charley felt a genuine affection for Hattie which included playing the role, in so far as she would let him, of brotherly protector. It helped that Charley did not particularly fancy Hattie, and she certainly did not fancy him. Hattie, as Charley had kindly told her on more than one occasion, was a star-fucker; Hattie herself would have preferred to say that she had a capacity for hero-worship. In other words, Randall Birley was by no means the first hero in her particular world to receive the gift of Hattie’s devotion. He was, however, Charley thought, the one who presented the most danger to Hattie. He simply did not trust Randall where the vulnerable were concerned. He was a user—he would certainly use Hattie if it suited him.

  Although it was getting late, one or two major stars were still arriving at the Trumpet, a progress indicated by the flash bulbs of the paparazzi. Was that or was it not Joan Collins? A little bunch of protesters, all women, all holding placards, took a chance that it was Joan Collins. They started their chant again, the chant with which they had been periodically enlivening the proceedings. The words that Charley could hear most clearly were, “Garrick Pigs! Garrick Pigs!” So far as Charley Baines was concerned, the organisers of the David Garrick Awards would certainly turn out to be pigs if his bête noir Su Waggoner, also on the short-list in his own category, won a Garrick for her atrocious Mistress Touchstone in the all-woman As You Like It. Otherwise he could not quite see the connection.

  “Where on earth is Hattie? She’s generally so reliable.” The crowd shifted and Charley found himself standing beside Millie Swain, who was also waiting for someone. Like Charley, Millie had been nominated for a Garrick Award (as had Randall Birley, but he, unlike his colleagues, had been nominated in no fewer than seven categories, including his role as a director and his
appearances on television in the latest remakes of Rebecca and Wuthering Heights).

  Millie Swain looked magnificent, more Cleopatra than Viola, with her glossy hair cascading down in snake-like ringlets worthy of the Egyptian queen. She was wearing an extremely short white beaded dress in twenties style, suspended—becomingly low over the bosom—by thin silver straps. In spite of the cold spring, Millie Swain had no wrap. Charley Baines realised that he had never before seen Millie in such a revealing dress, showing not only her décolletage but her legs. Everyone knew that Millie Swain had wonderful long legs in trousers or tights; she now made it clear to the world that she had wonderful shapely legs and ankles in pale stockings and satin shoes.

  Charley Baines admired Millie’s talent enormously. “I hope she wins and he doesn’t,” was roughly his point of view about the Garrick Awards, Randall Birley and Millie Swain. “But I bet it’ll be exactly the other way round. He’ll win everything, including an award for Twelfth Night, and she’ll miss out.”

  Talented as Millie might be, Charley had never before thought of her as sexy. There was something daunting about her, he found. It could be a question of her height (Charley himself being short and stocky, not to say short and tubby), but Charley thought that was not the point since he much enjoyed wrapping himself around willowy beauties in so far as they permitted it. No, there was an odd air of austerity about Millie Swain which had put Charley off. Tonight was different: she looked adventurous, appealing.