by Sue Townsend
48
‘It’s time to do some tough talking, Graham,’ said Miranda, on their seventh date. ‘No offence, piglet, but you’re an ugly bastard with the charm of a septic tank. And your clothes! What’s your style guide? Pensioner chic?’
Graham stepped back as though he had been kicked in the chest. His own view of himself was entirely self-approving. They had just left The Mouse and Cheese, where they had eaten a gruesome English Heritage Ploughman’s Lunch, consisting of a stale baguette, rubbery cheese and a tired salad.
They were walking back to the bungalow when Miranda started criticizing him ‘out of nowhere’, as he later told Gin. Graham had heard that women tried to change their men, so thought it was part of a modern relationship when Miranda suggested that he have a makeover. He was a little alarmed that she had arranged a series of appointments for him, and even more alarmed when she told him the cost. But he had his legacy, and Miranda had more or less said that unless he improved his appearance and adjusted certain mannerisms, she would not have sex with him again.
Graham was very anxious that the sex should continue. He had enjoyed himself a great deal recently, and was determined to improve his times. On the second occasion he and Miranda had made love, Graham had told her that he was going to wear his stopwatch and get an accurate timing of the bout.
Miranda had said, ‘Graham, please! You make it sound as if we’re about to take part in a boxing match.’
After his climax, she heard him stop his watch and say, ‘Better – four minutes, seven point five seconds.’
Miranda had pushed him off her and run into the bathroom with the avocado suite. She had stayed under the shower for twenty minutes trying to scrub herself clean. Since then, he hadn’t worn the stopwatch. But she knew he watched the little alarm clock on his bedside table, which had Winnie the Pooh on the second hand.
At 8.30 a.m. on Monday, Graham presented himself at Zachary Stein’s dental surgery and underwent extraction, filing, moulding, and finally, the fitting of Hollywood-style caps. At 5 p.m. he kept an appointment with celebrity hairdresser and professional cockney sparrow, the ageing Alfie Tompkins, who frowned over Graham’s hair before saying to Miranda, ‘You’re ’aving a larf, ain’tcha? I’ve seen a better barnet on a lavvy brush.’
Miranda said, ‘Graham will be on the front cover of Hello! next week.’
Alfie grumbled, ‘I suppose a few golden highlights and a scruffy “just jumped off a surfboard” look might be possible.’
As his hair was washed, coloured and cut, Graham was disconcerted by Miranda’s conversation with Alfie. It appeared that they shared the same circle of friends. There were references to ‘wasted Pete’ and ‘crackhead Giles’, and light-hearted anecdotes about being too ‘bladdered’ to get home.
Alfie said, ‘Now me, these days, I like to be home by eight with a bottle of Moët and in bed by nine with a lissom young stylist.’
They made cynical comments about authority figures; including the Prime Minister, Jack Barker, for whom Graham had the greatest respect. The banning of novelty slippers and stepladders would make Graham’s professional life much easier. When Alfie had finished blow-drying Graham’s hair, he waited for the verdict.
Graham looked in the mirror and asked, ‘Have you finished? It’s sticking up all over the place.’
Alfie said, ‘Doh! It’s meant to be like that.’
Miranda said, ‘You look cool, Graham. Clothes and shoes tomorrow.’
Graham had been hoping that Miranda would take him back to her flat in Stoke Newington, but she told him that she had to visit her sick best friend who was in a hospice. So Graham returned to the bungalow where Gin and Tonic had a good laugh at his hair.
Later that night, after many tequila slammers, Miranda told Boy’s election team that she would sooner have a threesome with grizzly bears than sleep with Graham again.
The filming of the New Cons party political broadcast had taken place over three fraught days. On the first day, Boy’s wife, Cordelia, had objected to the camera, the lights and the electric cables snaking across the bathroom floor, and had refused to put the children into the bath until a safety officer had checked that all was well.
Only thirty seconds of footage showing Boy bathing the children, as though it were part of their normal routine, were required. However, whenever Boy approached them with a soapy sponge, they shrank away from him and retreated to the end of the bath, crying for their Polish nanny, Katya. Eventually, when the bathwater was cold and the children’s skin had begun to wrinkle, the director called an end. The sobbing children were taken out of the bath by Katya and wrapped up in warm, white towels.
The children also refused to cooperate for the mock breakfast scene, and the filming ended in a confusion of tears, spilt milk and frayed tempers. So the focus of the film was shifted gradually from ‘Boy English, Hands-on Father’ to ‘Boy English, Dog Lover’, because Billy was undoubtedly a star. He was obedient, cooperative, silent and gloriously photogenic. The film crew were besotted with the dog, and what had been a walk-on part for Billy became a leading role.
The puppy brought out another side in Boy. Whenever he looked at the dog, his face softened and his voice deepened. He allowed Billy to lick his face and he fed him titbits from his plate. The dog went everywhere with him; Boy stormed out of the Ivy when the maître d’ refused to set a place for Billy. Boy happily cleared up the piles of stinking ordure that Billy distributed in the house and garden, though changing a nappy for the first time had made him retch and he had refused to do it ever again.
Five miles away in Westminster, Jack Barker was so desperate to lose the general election that he began to tell the truth to the many media outlets he spoke to during the long electioneering days. He was surprised at how much better he felt; the strain of having to choose his words as carefully as a man carrying an unstable stick of gelignite was gone. His brain cleared, it was like leaving a dark cave and breathing the fresh air of a sunlit meadow.
Asked by Peter Allen of BBC Five Drive if he would raise taxes to pay for his manifesto promises, he said, ‘Yes, by five pence in the pound!’
Asked if there was a satisfactory solution to the territorial dispute between Palestine and Israel, he simply said, ‘No!’
When he was asked by a hospital radio presenter in Liverpool to state whether he enjoyed visiting the city, he replied, ‘No! I hate the accent, I think the men are work-shy crooks and the women are all loud-mouthed tarts.’
There was outrage in Liverpool, but in Manchester, Leeds, York and Chester the Prime Minister’s popularity soared. One flat-capper interviewed in the centre of Bolton said, ‘Up ’ere we like a bloke ’oo speaks ’is mind.’
It had only taken a few weeks for the anti-dog propaganda to work. When Jack had been shown a survey commissioned by The Independent newspaper, which showed that the dog terror was the most important issue of the day, he had grown depressed; he had not realized that the electorate had become so gullible. When did they lose their scepticism? The survey found that fifty-one per cent of English dog owners no longer considered their pet to be their best friend.
This was hardly surprising since television programmes were frequently interrupted, not only by advertisements for consumer goods, but also by short, brutal films featuring dogs attacking small children and elderly and disabled people. One particularly harrowing film showed a blind toddler trying to find her way around the living room of her home. A spectral voiceover intoned: ‘Maisie will never see this room, never see the world, never see the sunrise, never see the stars, never see the changing seasons. Every day children like Maisie go blind because of contamination by dogs’ faeces.’ The last shot was a close-up of Maisie’s sightless blue eyes, which were brimming with fat unshed tears.
Jack consulted the latest survey concerning his own popularity and was alarmed to find that his own approval rating had risen by seven per cent since he had started telling the truth.
When Graham’s makeove
r was complete, a DVD presenting the new Graham – suntanned, white-toothed, expensively shod and tailored with a West Coast haircut – was shown to a select audience of aides in Boy’s private office. A press conference announcing Graham’s existence and status as second in line to the throne was cancelled, until Graham had benefited from intensive media training. His lip-licking nervousness and awkward physical mannerisms did not look good on camera. And when the twenty-one females working on Boy’s election campaign played ‘shag or die’, twenty of them said ‘die’ when Graham’s name came up. The remaining woman said ‘suicide’.
Rip Spitzenburger, the elderly man with film-star looks, who had taught Bill Clinton his ‘people skills’ and had masterminded two winning election campaigns for the Democrats, was flown First Class from the United States and given a suite at the Savoy. He had a week in which to transform Graham from an awkward geek into a confident aristocrat. He watched the DVD in his hotel sitting room with the large windows overlooking the Thames. At the end of Graham’s film he stared out at the river. He enjoyed a challenge – he had coached Mike Tyson on the correct use of a fish knife – but he wondered if this time, he had, like Mike, bitten off more than he could chew.
Rip and Graham’s first meeting, held over room-service afternoon tea, started badly when Graham told Rip that, according to a poll of international risk assessors, ‘America is the biggest threat to world peace.’
Rip, considered a liberal crypto-commie flip-flopper, in his own country, bridled at Graham’s statement and said, ‘First rule, Gray: do not on your first meeting insult your new acquaintance’s country. Second rule: do not start a sentence with “According to a recent poll”.’
Rip Spitzenburger felt that he had been duped by Boy English and his team. ‘I shoulda been notified that the guy was bipolar,’ he complained to his agent after Graham had gone home to Ruislip. After Rip’s agent had negotiated a higher fee and a sponsor had been found to cover the extra cost, Rip agreed to complete the week’s media training.
For the next seven days Rip attempted to teach Graham to smile without looking like Jack Nicholson in The Shining; to stop rolling his eyes back when asked a question; to show his best profile, his left, when posing for a photograph; and to speak and enunciate clearly, but without sounding like somebody whose vocal cords had been removed and replaced with an electronic voice box.
On most evenings Miranda met Graham in the American Bar at the Savoy, where she wheedled him into buying her a glass of champagne. He was surprised that she seemed to be on such intimate terms with the barman. For a shy girl she certainly knew a lot of people.
49
As the terror campaign intensified dog owning had quickly become synonymous with antisocial behaviour. There were fewer people exercising their dogs on the streets and in the parks. A man walking his gentle golden Labrador in Hyde Park was beaten up by a gang of youths and called ‘a dog-loving bastard’.
Dog rescue centres were unable to cope with the constant flood of abandoned canines. Cruft’s was cancelled, breeders of pedigree dogs could not sell their puppies and veterinary surgeons were inundated with requests for euthanasia. There were many stories from around the country of dogs jumping from high buildings to their deaths. Suicide could not be proved in any of these sad cases, but nobody could deny that the surviving dog population looked depressed and fearful. It was not a good time to be a dog, or a dog lover.
In the fourth week of what quickly became known as the War On Dogs, a government agency was set up to manage the crisis. Operation Dog Round-up opened centres around the country where unwanted dogs could be left, on the understanding that ‘suitable candidates’ would be shipped to Canada to work on farms. A government information film showed a ship leaving Liverpool Docks with dogs crowded on the top deck. An ‘owner’ was interviewed waving goodbye to her sheepdog. ‘I know he’s going to a better place,’ she said. Another ‘owner’ said, ‘My dog, Rex, was cooped up in a flat all day. He’ll have better opportunities in Canada.’
The Queen watched these propaganda films with considerable scepticism. As she said to Violet, ‘I’ve been to Canada many times. The climate is entirely unsuitable for English dogs, and there certainly aren’t enough farms to go round.’
King was the first dog to go from Hell Close. Beverley Threadgold had never liked King; he was Vince’s dog and would follow his master from room to room, waiting outside the bathroom when Vince had a bath and greeting him when he emerged as though they had been separated for years. Sometimes Vince thought that he loved King more than he loved Beverley. King was better looking than Bev for starters, and caused less trouble. Bev had let herself go, big time. Sometimes she couldn’t even be bothered to get herself dressed and just slobbed about the house in a scruffy dressing gown and sheepskin slippers, the insoles of which had turned a shiny, smelly black. On such days she tied her hair back with whatever came to hand: string, a sock, once a torn-up J-cloth.
She moaned that she was depressed but Vince thought, what’s she got to be depressed about? I only smack her one when she deserves it. King, though, he was a looker – big brown eyes, a lovely silky coat – and another thing about King, he was always smiling.
The first that Charles and Camilla knew about King’s disappearance was when Vince asked over the garden fence if either of them had, ‘Seen the dog around?’
Camilla said, ‘Vince, you look frightful.’
Vince said, ‘I ain’t slept a wink. I were lying awake listening for ’im to scratch on the door, but ’e din’t come ’ome.’
‘Has he stayed out all night before?’ asked Charles.
‘No, ’e looked ’ard but ’e were frit of the dark,’ said Vince. ‘We ’ad to leave the bedroom light on for ’im.’
Camilla said, ‘I’m sure he’ll come back, Vince.’
Vince said, bleakly, ‘I keep seein’ ’im in me mind’s eye, chasin’ motorbikes.’
When Vince went back into the house he noticed that King’s possessions, his food and water bowls, his spare collar, grooming brush and leather leash, were also missing.
‘A bleedin’ dog don’t take its stuff with it,’ he said out loud to himself. King was clever, but he hadn’t mastered the art of packing an overnight bag.
When he asked Beverley about King’s bits and pieces, Beverley cursed herself for this oversight; she’d been too anxious to remove all traces of King from the house. She said, falteringly, ‘We must ’ave ’ad the burglars. Maddo Clarke’s lads were messing about in front of the ’ouse yesterday.’
Vince always knew when Beverley lied to him; her eyes flicked from right to left, like an umpire at Wimbledon.
Vince asked, ‘When was the last time you seen King? Think carefully, Bev, ’cause if you lie to me I’ll kill you.’
Beverley walked to the back doorstep, lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. She needed to think. Vince had killed before; a teenage fight in a taxi queue in the early hours of the morning.
She looked him in the eye and said, ‘I meant to tell you, Vince, but it went right out of my mind. I took King to the dog collection point, he’s going to start a new life, on a farm in Canada.’ She backed into the kitchen and, as Vince advanced on her, she shouted, ‘Dogs are dangerous, Vince! King were a nutter, you said so yourself!’
‘I liked ’im being a nutter!’ roared Vince. ‘It saved me from being one myself!’
The first blow knocked Beverley’s head against the built-in oven, activating the timer. Camilla listened to Beverley’s screams with her head in her hands. Charles was white-faced.
He said, ‘One must do something. Should I go round and try to reason with Vince?’
Leo barked, ‘No!’
Camilla said, ‘Better not, darling. The last time you intervened, Beverley hit you.’
After a while the screaming stopped, and the only sound to be heard through the wall was Vince, sobbing for his dog.
The opinion polls alarmed Jack; the Government was neck and neck with the
New Cons. Just what did he have to do to lose this election? Call the electorate moronic bastards on television? Suggest the culling of girl babies? He was constantly astonished at how complacent and compliant the electorate were. Sometimes he wondered if those bastards at Porton Down were slipping something into the water supply, but there was nobody he could ask because there was nobody he could trust. He couldn’t even discuss his thoughts with his wife.
As Jack went through the motions of electioneering, Caroline was constantly at his side wearing an ever-changing collection of outfits and smiling as they alighted from cars, coaches, helicopters and trains. The press and public seemed to like her, and the public mistook his bad temper and manner for bluff honesty. They applauded Jack’s increasingly taciturn behaviour, his rudeness to journalists.
When he warned a local television audience during an otherwise unremarkable speech in a leisure centre hall in Grimsby that if re-elected, he would raise the basic level of income tax to fifty per cent, saying, ‘If you want excellent public services, you’ll have to pay for ’em,’ the audience applauded and gave him a standing ovation of three minutes and fifteen seconds. He had left the platform scowling and shaking his fist, but, as ever, his belligerence was interpreted as passion.
A leader in The Times said: ‘Mr Barker has expressed some unpalatable truths about taxation. We may not want to hear them, but we ignore such fiscal realities at our peril.’ Reading the press the next day, Jack was reminded of a book by Samuel Butler he had once read, Erewhon, in which the world was turned upside down and inside out, convicted criminals were treated in hospitals, the sick were sent to prison.
He hardly slept and appeared at the morning press conferences pale and hollow-eyed; he ate very little and lost weight; he let his hair grow and stopped shaving as meticulously as he had previously. One day he left Number Ten wearing an old pair of hipster jeans and a denim shirt. He became a cult figure in France, where he was called ‘Le bloke anglais’. The readers of Heat voted him the sexiest man in politics; even his wife began to find him attractive again.