by Sue Townsend
Norma said, “I wish Trev had been cremated now. I don’t like to think of him lying in the earth, all on his own.”
Jack said, “You’ve never told me how much Trev left you, Mam.”
Norma began to search through the pockets of her various coats, which were hanging bunched up together from a single hook on the back of the kitchen door. Jack knew she was looking for cigarettes. The whole of his childhood seemed to have been wreathed in cigarette smoke. Eventually she brought out a crumpled, half-smoked Lambert & Butler, which she held up in triumph before putting it between her lips. Jack felt himself tense as she began to search for a light, opening drawers and rummaging through bags before finding a box of Swan Vesta matches in the filthy cleaning cupboard under the sink.
Norma sat down and blew smoke across the table. “I don’t like talking about money,” she said stubbornly.
Jack said, “We’ve got to, Mam. Did you get that money back from Yvonne?”
Norma shook her head.
Jack had warned his mother not to invest in his sister Yvonne’s women-empowering Women Get Rich Quick pyramid scheme. But she had invested £3,000, having been mesmerised by Yvonne’s dramatic stories of ordinary women walking away from the empowerment meeting carrying £24,000 at a time.
Now Yvonne and his mother were not speaking to each other. There had been no contact between them since Yvonne had empowered herself by leaving her baffled husband of twenty-six years and disappearing. Even the police computer had failed to find her. Jack missed Yvonne acutely. His sister had taken care of Norma and now it seemed that Norma was entirely Jack’s responsibility.
Jack worked his way through the list. He took his mother to the frozen-food cabinets at Asda. A card was put into the post-office window which said ‘CLEANER WANTED. TWO HOURS A WEEK.
While they were unpacking the frozen ready-meals from the Asda bags the phone rang in the hall. Jack answered it and a young man’s voice said, “I’m ringing about the cleaning job.”
Jack hesitated.
“I’m a good cleaner,” the young man said. “I used to work in the hospital.”
“Why aren’t you working there now?” asked Jack suspiciously.
“I’m a student now. I need a part-time job to pay for my books.”
Jack asked the young man, James Hamilton, to come round at five o’clock.
♦
Morgan Clare was writing an essay on the Tolpuddle Martyrs. He wrote effortlessly in a good clean hand: “The Tolpuddle Martyrs were six farm labourers who joined together in 1833 to form a Friendly Society, when their ‘master’ cut their wages from nine shillings a week to six shillings a week.”
He was uncomfortably aware that his sister Estelle was not doing her homework and that there would be a row later on when Mum and Dad came upstairs to give them half an hour of quality time. Morgan said, “Estelle, you could at least pretend to do some work, at least start it!”
Estelle said, “I don’t give a toss about when I grow up. I want to be an uneducated person.”
Morgan laughed. “You’re already uneducated. You can’t uneducate yourself.”
“I shan’t take any exams or tests, then,” said Estelle. Morgan wrote: “In my opinion these men, James Brine, Thomas Stanfield, John Stanfield, James Hammett, George Loveless and James Loveless, were pioneers of the labour movement who did not deserve to be treated in such a cruel and heartless manner.” He put down his pen and said, “So you’ve got no ambitions?”
“I’m very ambitious,” said Estelle. “I want to be very beautiful and I want a wardrobe full of expensive clothes and shoes and I want to marry a good-looking man who makes me laugh and have a baby.”
♦
MI5 were listening in to the Prime Minister and his wife making love. A tiny microphone no bigger than a baby’s fingernail was secreted in the headboard of their bateau lit.
“They sound as though they’re halfway up Snowdon,” said Robert Palmer.
“I wish they’d get to the fuckin’ summit,” grumbled Alan Clarke.
“It’s so embarrassing; thank Christ it’s only audio.”
A tone change in the Prime Minister’s passionate endearments alerted the two men that he would be finished and reaching for a tissue soon.
Morgan Clare did not expect to find his parents in bed together at six in the afternoon. When Poppy was born, four months ago, he had been forced to admit to himself that his parents, though old, were still doing it. It was gross, really gross, but to do it when it was still light outside was abnormal or something. What were they, animals? OK, so he shouldn’t have just barged in without knocking, but he had wanted to tell Dad about the Tolpuddle Martyrs.
“Dad, have you heard of the Tolpuddle Martyrs?”
The listening MI5 agent Clarke chuckled and said, “Talk about coitus interruptus.”
“Of course I have.”
“What do you think of them?”
“Well, I think they were brave but misguided.”
“Misguided? Like how?” Morgan’s voice was aggrieved.
“Well, I think that they would have saved themselves and their families a great deal of distress if they had been prepared to negotiate a wage increase with their master, rather than take to the streets as incendiaries.”
In the Prime Minister’s bedroom Morgan’s face flushed red; he passionately loved the six Tolpuddle Martyrs and their wives and families, and felt now that he could die for their cause. “Dad, they weren’t incendiaries, they volunteered to guard buildings against rioters and fire-raisers. And, Dad, they weren’t asking for a rise in their wages, their wages had been cut from nine shillings a week to six shillings.”
Edward smiled and said, “Perhaps a good compromise would have been to settle for seven shillings and sixpence.”
“Dad, they couldn’t even feed their children properly on nine shillings so…”
“They signed an illegal oath, Morgan.”
“They formed a Friendly Society, Dad. That’s all! They were a hundred per cent in the right.”
“Nothing is ever black and white, Morgan. They were enemies of the state.”
“They were SO not! They were all-right guys who stood up against a cruel and, like, unjust system and they, like, got sent to Australia as a punishment for seven years! Whose side are you on, Dad?”
Adele, her voice muffled by the quilt, said, “When you say ‘side’, what exactly do you mean?”
Morgan shouted, “You know what I fucking mean.” Adele struggled to the surface and screamed, “You can forget about those Nike trainers and you’re grounded for a week. Now go away, I’d like to get out of bed and I’m naked.”
Morgan asked, “Dad, is there anything you’d die for?”
The Prime Minister replied, “Not now, son.”
The agents heard a door close. Then Adele saying, “You’re doing live telly tonight, aren’t you? Use plenty of anti-perspirant after your shower. You sweat like a pig under the lights, Ed.”
♦
Norma went upstairs shortly before five o’clock. When she came back down Jack saw that she had changed into one of her full-skirted summer dresses and that she had pinned her hair up and applied lipstick.
James Hamilton disarmed them both with his apparent enthusiasm for housework. Jack showed him around the small house, apologising for the state it was in, explaining that his mother had been mugged recently and had let things go. This was only a small lie; Norma had never been much of a housekeeper. But for each apology James had simply smiled and said, “No problem.”
James had made a great fuss of Peter, saying, “My dad used to have budgies in his garden at home.”
“In an aviary?” asked Jack.
“No. Flying wild. He lived in Trinidad.”
Jack said, “I thought budgies only flew wild in Australia?”
“No! No! They’re all over Trinidad,” replied James.
“Is your mum from Trinidad?” asked Norma.
“No, me mum wa
s from round here, but she’s dead now. When do you want me to start?”
Norma said, without looking at or referring to Jack, “You can start now and clean that poor little bugger’s cage out.”
James, however, looked directly at Jack and said, “Shall we say seven pounds an hour?”
Jack said, “No, we’ll say six.”
♦
By half past seven James had left the house with twelve pounds in his pocket. In two hours he had transformed the kitchen and had even cleaned and polished the mirror in Peter’s cage. He promised to return at ten o’clock the next morning, before he went to college.
When James had gone, Jack put two frozen Quorn shepherd’s pies into the newly gleaming oven. Norma said, “He’s a lovely lad. Can you afford for him to come twice a week, Jack?”—
Jack said, “Of course I can, can’t I, Pete?”
They took their dinners through into the living room because there was a programme on the television they both wanted to watch. A new series was starting tonight, Face the Press, which was going outlive in front of a celebrity audience. The Prime Minister had agreed to be the first guest.
Jack wanted to watch because of his increasingly close relationship with the Prime Minister; Norma’s interests, however, were centred entirely on the celebrities. She was hoping to spot Sir Cliff Richard and to try and work out from his face whether he was a virgin.
Jack sat down at his old desk to eat. Norma sat in front of him on the sofa with her dinner on her lap.
♦
The Prime Minister sat in the hospitality room watching hungrily as Donna Flak, the producer of Face the Press, removed clingfilm from an oval platter of quarter-cut sandwiches. His natural good manners prevented him from getting to his feet and helping himself.
Donna balled the clingfilm in one hand and threw it expertly into a BBC waste bin across the other side of the room.
“Blimey!” said the Prime Minister. “England could use you on the cricket field.”
His aides and the assembled BBC bigwigs laughed for longer than the slight joke deserved.
Donna said, “I used to keep wicket for Cambridge Ladies first eleven.”
“And you still got a First?” smiled the PM.
Donna handed him a small plate and a napkin, and offered him the platter. He took two smoked-salmon sandwiches and began to eat. He would have liked to have sat quietly for a few moments while he ate, but people gathered around him.
Alexander handed him the list of questions and some suggested answers. “There’s nothing you need worry about, he said.”
He knew every journalist on the panel apart from one, a woman called Mary Murphy. The briefing notes said she was from the Northants Voice. That she was twenty-five, had been married and divorced and had a three-year-old daughter, and voted Socialist Alliance.
In the celebrity audience, Ulrika Jonsson sat on the front row between Stephen Hawking and Gary Linker. There was a warm round of applause when the Prime Minister walked on to the set. He hoiked himself on to the seat of a high stool and experimented with crossing and uncrossing his legs, before settling for resting one foot on the rung and letting the other hang loosely.
After a quick sound-check, during which the Prime Minister recited what he had for breakfast—“Egg, orange juice, muesli, wholemeal toast and er…”—there were questions on the Euro. “I’ve made it quite clear that a referendum will be held when…”
On Africa. “Clearly Africa has huge problems…”
And Malcolm Black. “I think it’s clear to everyone that Malcolm is a wonderful Chancellor of the Exchequer…”
All went well until Mary Murphy asked him if he knew the price of a pint of milk.
He smiled and said, “We’re European, Mary, clearly you mean a litre.”
The audience laughed. But Mary Murphy did not. “How much?” she repeated.
He smiled again and, playing for time, asked, “Fully pasteurised or semi-skimmed?”
The celebrity audience laughed, more nervously this time. Few of them knew the price of milk.
“Either,” said Mary Murphy implacably.
Graham Norton, who was flanked by Adele and Ben Elton, shouted, “Never mind milk, how much is a bottle of Bollinger?”
When the laughter had died down a panellist from the Independent asked, “Prime Minister, there has been much comment in the media, and this has been backed up by recent polls, that you have lost touch with the realities of daily life. Can you still call yourself the people’s Prime Minister?”
It was three long seconds before the Prime Minister spoke. He smiled and blinked rapidly before saying, “Look, a couple of days ago I was talking to an ordinary bloke about his elderly mother who had been the victim of a vicious street crime.”
♦
Jack said to Norma, “He’s talking about you, Mam.”
“Don’t be daft,” she said. “I’m not elderly.” And Jack thought to himself, “And I’m not ordinary.”
♦
At 10.15 the next morning Jack phoned his mother’s house from the motorway. James answered the phone. The sound of the vacuum cleaner could be heard in the background. James told Jack cheerfully that he was taking Norma into town to get her hair done.
Jack said, “What about college?”
“The lecturer’s got bronchitis, so…” answered James.
Jack could hear his mother in the background talking to Peter in the kitchen, asking the little bird what she should wear for her trip into town.
∨ Number Ten ∧
FOUR
Before Jack went on duty on the door at two o’clock he went to the staff room at Number Ten and made himself a cup of filter coffee. Wendy was in there talking to Su Lo, Poppy’s nanny, about Barry’s leg.
Su Lo said, “I don’t know why you don’t try Chinese medicine, Wendy, it cured my genital warts.”
Jack wished that he hadn’t heard this reference. Now he wouldn’t be able to look Su Lo in the face for a few days without thinking about her genital warts.
Wendy said, “A wart is a wart, but a gangrenous leg is something else.”
While Jack was washing out his mug at the sink he listened to Wendy telling Su Lo that a doctor had been called for in the night to attend to Adele, who had suffered a severe bout of tinnitus. “Noises in the head?” said Su Lo.
“Something like that,” said Wendy bitterly.
Jack put on his helmet and fastened the strap under his chin. It was a warm April day; he wouldn’t need his overcoat.
As he walked through the corridors towards the front door he felt the tension and excitement in the air. It was always like this in the hour before Prime Minister’s Questions.
Before getting in his car the Prime Minister stopped and said to Jack, “How’s your mother?”
Jack settled for saying, “She’s on good form, sir, thank you for asking.”
“That’s super,” the Prime Minister replied. Then he asked, “Jack, what in your opinion is the thing that most concerns the people of this country?”
“It’s crime, sir,” answered Jack. “There should be more policemen on the streets.”
♦
Prime Minister’s Questions started badly when the Prime Minister misread his notes and erroneously declared in answer to a query about cod stocks that there were only eighty-nine such fish left in the North Sea.
It was some time before the mocking laughter died down and the Prime Minister recovered enough to correct his mistake and inform the honourable members that, though stocks were depleted, 89,100 tonnes of fish were alive and well and currently swimming in British waters.
The leader of the Opposition, Tim Patrick Jones, rose to his feet and said contemptuously, “Is the Prime Minister aware that the rail network of the southeast came to a complete standstill yesterday morning, and that literally millions, millions of long-suffering commuters failed to get to work, not just on time, but at all!”
Edward had watched the television
news the previous night and had been shocked at the scenes of near anarchy at Waterloo station as frustrated passengers had damaged automatic ticket machines and stormed into W.H. Smith helping themselves to newspapers and confectionery.
The Prime Minister rose to his feet to a barrage of “Shame! Shame!” He glanced at his notes. Then he lifted his head defiantly, and noticed that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Malcolm Black, had shifted his huge bulk slightly to the left, causing others on the front bench to squash up even closer.
As Edward rose to his feet he heard Malcolm mutter, “Butch up, Eddy,” in his refined lowland accent. For a split second Edward wondered if the political friendship he and Malcolm had apparently enjoyed for fifteen years was coming to an end.
His concentration shifted and his explanation for the chaos on the railways was rambling and unfocused. Sweat began to stream from his forehead. Behind him on the bench he heard Malcolm Black expel a quiet but protracted sigh.
When Tim Patrick Jones sneered, “Will the Prime Minister tell us when he last travelled on a train?” Edward replied instantly with an answer that he immediately regretted and that was to change the rest of his life.
“I am delighted to be able to tell the right honourable gentleman that I last travelled on a train three days ago, with my wife and my three children.”
The Labour backbenchers roared with pleasure. Edward wanted to snatch at his words and cram them back into his mouth, but the renegade answer was already being recorded in Hansard and scribbled in notebooks by the satirists and mockers who sat in the press gallery.
The sentence ‘I last travelled on a train three days ago, with my wife and my three children’ was to become as infamous as Neville Chamberlain’s ‘I hold in my hand a piece of paper.
Meanwhile, in a semi-detached house in a suburb of Coventry, a keen amateur photographer, Derek Fisher, who had been listening to Prime Minister’s Questions on Radio Five Live, was busy emailing a photograph of the Prime Minister and his family to the picture desk of the Daily Mail. The picture editor immediately sent a text message to the Mail’s correspondent in the press gallery, who was listening to the Prime Minister answering a question about a British man found guilty of brewing beer in Saudi Arabia and sentenced to death by stoning.