by Sue Townsend
Everyone moved aside as the fire engine drew up and manoeuvred into position. The Prime Minister was thrilled by the sight of the gleaming engine and the firemen in their masculine uniforms. Did the fire service recruit on good looks lately? Did the requirement for a head for heights state that the head be handsome and heroic? The Prime Minister hastily applied his lipstick and ran his fingers through his blonde curls, but he stepped a little further back into the shadow, aware that his damn beard was coming through again.
Jack was now embroiled in an argument with the fat sergeant about the Human Rights Act, which Jack had sneered about in the recent past but which seemed to him now to be of the utmost importance. But when the firemen had extinguished the flames with a foam spray the argument went out of him, and he moved away to where the Prime Minister was waiting. They began the long walk into Leeds.
After some time they found themselves in the middle of what appeared to be a ghost-town council estate. Whole streets were boarded up. A row of houses had been burned out. Then a taxi drew up outside a boarded house and a couple of teenage girls in crop tops and hipster pants climbed out and let themselves into the metal-plated front door.
Jack ran across to the taxi and flagged it down. The taxi driver, Ali, sat at the wheel encased on three sides in a steel-mesh cage. He was joyous when Jack asked him to take him and his lady friend to a good hotel in Leeds city centre.
“I’ll take you to the best hotel in Leeds, innit,” said Ali enthusiastically. “They got antiques in the rooms and music and phones in the bathroom and they’ve even got cats for you to stroke to make you feel at home. They got eighty channels on the TV and the lime and orange juice comes free.”
They drove past more dereliction. At a roundabout the Prime Minister remarked that it was unusual to see council workmen working in the early hours of the morning. Burly men were lifting paving slabs and stacking them in the back of a white van.
Ali shouted, “They’re thieving bastards. Nicking the pavement, innit.”
“York stone,” said Jack. “They’ll fetch fifty quid a slab in London.”
The Prime Minister told Jack that David Samuelson had recently paid £7,000 for a York-stone patio, which was laid by ‘contractors’ from Leeds.
Ali said, “This is the Gumpton estate. Only a few taxis will come here after dark—wild people live here. Savages.”
There was a clattering noise overhead, then a bright beam of light illuminated the interior of the taxi. “The police helicopter is in the sky,” shouted Ali with delight. He made it sound as though he had just heard the first cuckoo of spring.
The helicopter hovered over them for a few minutes but flew away to the east as they neared the city centre. A weary voice crackled over the radio.
“Come in, Ali, come in, Ali, come in. Where are you?”
“I’m going home to sleep, boss, I’m outside my house now.”
The Prime Minister pursed his lips in disapproval—they were in fact pulling up outside The Falls, a converted grain warehouse that sprawled alongside a canal. Jack booked Ali and asked him to pick them up at o-ten-hundred hours. The weir that gave the hotel its name could be heard as Jack and the Prime Minister walked along the wet cobbles to the front door. A night porter called Norman let them in and switched on the futuristic-style gas fire in the minimalist fireplace in the reception area.
While Jack registered the Prime Minister took one of two dozen red apples that had been arranged in a pyramid shape in a glass bowl. Norman frowned at this; it was understood by the clientele of The Falls that the tower of apples was an objet d’art and that only a fool would take one and eat it.
While Jack filled in the registration form—Mr Jack Sprat and Miss E. St Clare—Norman went behind the reception desk and microwaved two glasses of mulled wine. It was far too hot to drink so Jack and the Prime Minister were forced to hang around and talk to Norman while the wine cooled. Norman boasted about the famous and important people who had stayed in The Falls. He mentioned a Coronation Street actress, unfamiliar to Jack, who had requested a Mother’s Pride and cheese sandwich at four o’clock in the morning. Norman tapped the side of his nose and said, “Don’t ask me how I did it, but at four-twenty-five she was eating that sandwich.”
Jack cut Norman off halfway through an anecdote about Sir Cliff Richard and a pot of Clarins face cream.
The Prime Minister was so tired that he climbed into bed without removing his make-up. He said, “I know it’s sluttish of me, Jack, but I promise to cleanse, tone and moisturise extra carefully in the morning.”
They lay awake in the double bed talking about police reform. Jack suggested that policemen on the beat should be paid on a higher scale than their patrol-car colleagues. The Prime Minister whispered sleepily that he would have a word with the Home Secretary, John Hay, when he got back to Number Ten.
∨ Number Ten ∧
NINE
Norma was burning bacon in a frying pan. It was how she and James liked it. James had told her how pale and watery the bacon at the children’s home had been, how the fat had not been properly cooked and how the rind had been chewy and impossible to swallow. So the small kitchen was full of the smell of burning fat and crispy bacon.
James was flapping smoke away from Peter’s cage with a copy of the Sun. A headline said, ‘Adele: Toe Man Tells All’. James was telling Norma how he’d been sexually abused by somebody who now sat in the House of Lords. “He bought me a leatherjacket one Christmas and a Yamaha keyboard the next. But nobody would pay for lessons so I swapped it for a racing bike and that got stolen a week later from outside social services.”
All James’s stories were depressing if you listened carefully and ignored the laughter that bubbled through them.
Norma lifted the crisped-up bacon out of the pan with a charred wooden spatula, then laid the crumbling bacon bits on slices of white spongy bread. Then, with a delicate hand, she shook evenly dispensed droplets of HP Sauce over the contents. When the sandwiches had their bread lids in place, Norma cut across them diagonally. James thought this showed class and he told Norma she was a classy bird—and she was today. She’d been in her wardrobe and brought to the front the clothes she used to save for best. She was wearing the turquoise two-piece she wore to Stuart’s ill-fated and short-lived wedding to that beanpole Karen. Even in her flat white silk shoes Karen had towered above everybody else in the registry office, including the bouncers. Stuart had stuffed a layer of newspaper inside his new shoes in a vain attempt to minimise the height difference between them, but there was still sniggering among some of the guests.
Jack had driven from London for the ceremony and brought with him a pretty young woman of average height called Celia. When it became obvious that the fight at the reception was going to go on for a while, Jack whisked Celia away without pausing to say goodbye to Norma, who was in the thick of it. Jack had been up for a promotion with a special services unit and hadn’t wanted to be around when the Leicester plods arrived to break up the fun.
In the car on the way down the M1 to London, Celia, who was a clinical psychologist, opined that Stuart, who was obviously an aggressive type, had married Karen because the ridicule she received gave him the perfect excuse to have a fight whenever he felt the need.
It had quickly become a habit for James to read aloud from the Sun. Norma couldn’t be bothered with reading herself but she had always loved stories.
As told to David Grubb, staff reporter: “I first met Mrs Floret-Clare in May. My client list was full but she sent word through one of my celebrity clients that she would like me to do her feet. I think Lulu had mentioned my name to her at a Persons of Restricted Growth charity dinner. Quite honestly, her feet were in a shocking state. She’d been abusing them terribly during the six-week pre-election period. She had multiple problems: corns, hard skin, bunions and the early-warning signs of hammer-toe syndrome were present. During the first hour-long appointment she worked on her laptop. But on subsequent visits we chat
ted about this and that. One day my life partner, Gregory, said, ‘Your little chats with the Prime Minister’s wife are of historical importance and should be recorded’. So purely for the sake of future historians I began to tape my conversations with Mrs Floret-Clare. She was unaware of the recording device. She might have become stressed had she known about it and stress is bad for the feet, and as a fully trained and certified chiropodist my first priority must be the health of my clients’ feet.”
Norma said, “I’m on the waiting list to get my feet done. But by the time my turn comes I’ll have so much hard skin I shan’t be able to get into my shoes.”
Peter swung happily on his little trapeze and watched Norma and James tearing at their bacon sandwiches. Norma said, “You like your little cage, don’t you, Peter? It’s cosy, ain’t it?”
The afternoon before, an angry woman from Victims Fight Back—Marjorie Makinson—had called on Norma and had offered to counsel her about her mugging trauma. Norma had led the woman into the kitchen and explained that she was recovering from the shock now and that James, her new lodger, had found out who the mugger was and had given him a good pasting, but he hadn’t managed to get any of her property or money back.
Marjorie was horrified. “I wholly disapprove of taking the law into your own hands, Mrs Sprat,” she said.
Norma answered: “We’ve always taken the law in our own hands round ‘ere. You’d get your legs broke if you thieved from a neighbour’s house or touched an old ‘un or a kiddy.”
For a few moments Norma enjoyed the view from the moral high-ground and remembered the words of advice Trev had given his young stepsons: “Never shit on your own patch, lads, and never steal from the poor. Go out to the suburbs and hang about until you see one of them happy families going somewhere together—picnic, sports centre, you know the sort of thing. It ain’t a crime to take stuff off the middle classes; they’re insured and anyway it keeps the economy going.”
Marjorie was eyeing Peter’s cage. She was not only a counsellor of the victims of crime but also an animal-rights activist, and she was sure that Peter’s animal rights were being infringed. Not only was his cage smaller than the written guidelines in the proposed Animal Rights bill, but also Peter was entitled by law to have a mate.
Marjorie explained the Animal Welfare legislation, which she had memorised. “According to RSPCA guidelines, Mrs Sprat, your budgie has the right to a large aviary where he can enjoy the company of other budgerigars in a stimulating environment that includes toys and branches.”
Norma said, “Peter’s happy in his cage and he likes being an only bird.”
“Nevertheless,” said Marjorie, “the law is the law.”
♦
Adele picked a flake of croissant from her Joseph sweater, then took Wendy’s hand and spoke to her in an urgent and evangelical manner. “Wendy, Barry’s leg is—or was, rather—a large part of him, you can’t just discard it as if it were a leg of lamb or something.”
Wendy said angrily, “I wouldn’t discard a leg of lamb, would I? I’d cook it and eat it.”
Adele said, “You’re such a bloody pedant, Wendy. It’s one of your least attractive qualities. Now, I’ve had a word with a certain cardinal pal of mine and he’s agreed to officiate at the interment of Barry’s leg. It would be a quiet affair, just family—and me, of course. An opening’s come up at Kensal Rise…Say yes now and I can start things moving. All I need is Barry’s inside-leg measurement for the coffin.”
Wendy said, “Doesn’t Barry have a say in all this?”
“Of course he does,” replied Adele. “And he’s in full agreement. I spoke to him this morning.”
“But he’s off his head on morphine. He’s deeply traumatised,” said Wendy.
“Yes, and this is a way of reaching closure. He can come to the funeral of one of his significant body-parts. He can talk about what the leg meant to him, his memories of it. You shouldn’t deny him this opportunity, Wendy.”
Wendy wondered, not for the first time, if it was Adele who was mad or herself. Was it unreasonable to oppose the burial of her son’s right leg or not? Adele was extremely clever and, more importantly, she was an original thinker and a leading amateur theologian.
“I’d like to wait until your husband comes back and talk it over with him,” said Wendy.
Adele’s face crumpled; last night the voices had told her that Ed was never coming back.
Alexander McPherson barged into the room and slammed a huge pile of newspapers down on the coffee table in front of Adele. Apart from the Catholic Herald, each front page was dominated by Adele’s wart story.
“Have you seen them?” He was struggling to control his rage. Adele had broken a sacred rule. She had gone on the Today programme and been interviewed by John Humphrys without the knowledge of the press office. It was as if a Christian had volunteered to face a coliseum full of lions and had expected to escape unhurt.
Adele was thrilled to see herself on the front pages of the national press. And she was proud of the context. She was standing up for the sanctity of life and celebrating the holiness of ordinary men and women.
Wendy said, “Adele’s arranged for Barry’s leg to be buried by a cardinal in Kensal Rise.” Wendy needed to tell somebody who had his feet on the ground—somebody who, though a bully and a manipulator, was so obviously sane.
Adele picked up the Independent and read the front-page leader. Alexander and Wendy exchanged a look, and Alexander put his index finger to the side of his head and twiddled it in an internationally recognised gesture. “Adele,” he said, “who is your doctor?”
∨ Number Ten ∧
TEN
Jack was sitting in the eighteenth-century wet-nurse chair looking out of the window at the unmoving grey water of the canal. A black wooden cat lay at his feet. He had stumbled over it several times in the night. He was trying very hard to be patient, but the Prime Minister had been getting ready to go out for over an hour now. Jack wondered what else the Prime Minister could do to himself. Surely there was a limit as to how much make-up he could apply, and to how long he could primp and rearrange his hair in front of the mirror.
A complimentary copy of the Daily Telegraph had been pushed under their door before they were awake. Jack was alarmed to read the headline ‘Premier’s Wife in Fundamentalist Controversy’, but when he showed it to the Prime Minister Edward merely said, “It’s tremendous that Adele has opened up a debate on such an important theological matter,” and went into the bathroom to curl his eyelashes.
♦
The Gumpton council estate lay in a gentle valley bordered on all sides by six-lane highways. A series of long pedestrian bridges and tunnels connected the estate with the outside world. As a resident wrote in the Yorkshire Post, “I know what it feels like to be a hamster now!”
There was a widespread belief among the population of this largely forgotten area that the weather was always worse over the Gumpton—that the clouds were lower and the wind was colder here than in other parts of Leeds. There was no meteorological evidence for this belief, but it persisted and added to the sense of persecution that the residents had been sent or ended up here as some kind of social punishment. Some of the younger inhabitants who’d tried prison said they preferred it to life on the Gumpton; there was more to do in prison.
Looking at the estate, you could be forgiven for thinking that it had been separated somehow from the rest of Great Britain and had never enjoyed any form of governance. It was like a lost civilisation. Travellers occasionally came in from the outside world—social workers, teachers and council officials—but they did their work anxiously and left before night fell. Before descending the hill into the Gumpton, Ali muttered a prayer asking Allah for his protection. On the way he had already told his passengers, the unsmiling man and the pretty blonde lady, that he would not, under any circumstances, leave his taxi unattended. The male adolescents of the Gumpton tribe were culturally programmed to steal any vehicle of any k
ind. A police Land Rover had recently been stolen and driven around the estate by two twelve-year-old boys to the cheers and congratulations of most of the population.
First Ali cruised the Gumpton estate pointing out the major landmarks. All the clichés of extreme poverty were there. The Prime Minister squirmed in his seat as they passed the boarded-up houses and the dirt paths where the pavement used to be. He had once visited the shantytown of Rio de Janeiro, where the people existed on a subsistence wage but where, at least, there was an atmosphere of lives being lived and even enjoyed. Here, though, was no evidence that the lives of the Gumpton residents were of any value whatsoever.
Ali parked beside an open space covered in mud and grass that may once have been a park. Heavy rain now obscured the windscreen and Ali switched on the wipers. They watched as a pick–up truck drew up outside a house opposite and two un-athletic, flabby men, both wearing tracksuits and trainers, got out of the cab and struggled to remove a rope that tied an old double mattress to the back of the pick–up. The rain had become a downpour and soon the hair of the two men was plastered to their heads. Their mouths formed violent and obscene words as they hurried to untie the mattress and get it inside the house before the rain soaked it. Jack, Ali and the Prime Minister watched the race as though it was a sporting event.
A tall stocky woman with weightlifters’ arms opened the front door of the house; a toddler wearing only a Spider-Man T–shirt and with a bottle hanging from his mouth clutched at her tracksuit trousers. She appeared to be shouting encouragement to the men, but when Ali wound his window down the trio in the car heard her yell, “Getta move on, ya fat bastards!”
One of the men roared, “Do you want this mattress or not, Toyota?”
The men hoisted the mattress on to their heads and staggered blindly up the path towards the front door. The half-naked toddler ran joyfully to greet them.