Number 10

by Sue Townsend

  He wished his wife was here now; she would know what to order from the menu. She read better English than he did. She had taken GCSEs and had worked in a bank until she’d got married to him.

  The Prime Minister asked Ali what he would like to order from the menu. Ali said, “I’m all right, thanks.” It wasn’t true but he could hardly tell them he couldn’t understand some of the words on the menu, could he? Even though he was starving and hadn’t eaten since breakfast.

  Jack said, “We’ll get a mixture of things and share.”

  A lanky schoolgirl with round shoulders came to their table and said robotically, “Hello, my name is Emma, I am your waitress for today, how may I help you?”

  Jack said, “Hello, Emma, I am your customer this afternoon, and I would like to order.” Jack looked at the olde English script in the menu and read, “A platter of fresh picked salad nestling inside slices of oven-baked bread, traditional farmhouse scones with a serving of finest dairy cream and a selection of fruit from the hedgerow, preserves, and a large pot of Earl Grey.”

  After the order had been repeated a few times and the girl finally understood, the Prime Minister said, “I’d like to talk to you, Ali, about your experience of living in this country, racism, integration, and ethnicity.”

  Ali said, “I’d sooner talk about cricket, if you don’t mind, Edwina.”

  The Prime Minister had been warned by Alexander McPherson, who had said to him, “Steer clear of bollockin’ cricket and force yourself to follow football. New Labour, New Football.”

  The three men sat in an uncomfortable silence for a while. Jack pretended to read the menu. Ali traced a pattern on the cloth with his forefinger and the Prime Minister tried desperately to remember the last time he had been briefed about cricket. Eventually he said, “The English Cricket Board has approached us for guidance on whether the forthcoming test between India and Pakistan should be played on neutral grounds, in England.”

  Ali laughed. “Neutral,” he said. “There’ll be blood on the outfield at Headingley, I’m telling you, innit. Don’t get me wrong, I ain’t prejudiced—some of my best friends are Indians.”

  When the food came it failed to live up to the cream-tea ideal that Jack had envisioned. The inside of every sandwich was slimy with mayonnaise, the scones had been incompetently microwaved and were sizzling on the plate, the cream had been squirted from a can and the jam came in little plastic containers that required piercing with the prongs of a fork.

  Jack called Emma over and said, “These sandwiches are covered in mayonnaise.”

  Emma mumbled, “They came with mayonnaise.”

  Jack asked, “Came from where?”

  The girl said, “The sandwich factory, in Buxton.”

  Jack said, “That must be ten miles away.”

  Ali, the professional, said, “Nearer fifteen.”

  Jack said, “Who bakes the scones?”

  The girl didn’t seem to understand. “Bakes? They’re from Iceland.”

  “Iceland?” said the Prime Minister, who had recently been in Reykjavik. “Now that is, clearly, absurd.”

  Ali explained that Iceland was a nationwide retail chain that specialised in frozen food.

  Emma said, “Shall I clear the table, then?”

  Jack said, “Leave the Earl Grey.”

  When Emma brought the bill over to them Jack paid it in full; he didn’t want to have an argument with a nervous girl who didn’t know the true meaning of the words ‘fresh’, traditional’ or ‘hedgerow.

  As they left the tea room Emma said gloomily, “Missing you already.”

  Jack said, “I beg your pardon?”

  Emma repeated, “Missing you already.”

  Jack said, “Emma, you’re not an American and this is not America. Whoever told you to use that expression is a monumental fool.”

  Emma said, “Whatever.”

  The microwave pinged and Emma turned away.

  They stopped a mile down the road at a garage and bought sweets, crisps, bottles of pop and a copy of the Daily Mail. Ali never missed reading his horoscope; these childish treats cheered them up. When he inserted his All-Time Soul Greats compilation tape into the car stereo the three men sang along with Eddie Floyd and ‘Knock on Wood’ as they drove towards Stafford and the horrors of the M6.

  Four junctions later, after joining in with ‘Under the Boardwalk’, ‘Rainy Night in Georgia’, ‘Soul Sister’, ‘Brown Sugar’ and ‘When a Man Loves a Woman’, traffic from the M54 joined them and they came to a standstill sandwiched between a tanker displaying a skull and crossbones on its rear and a lorry stacked with three tiers of bleating sheep.

  “Why have we stopped?” asked the Prime Minister.

  “Volume of traffic, innit,” said Ali. “It’s always like this at Walsall. Last time I done this journey I got stuck for three and a half hours. I read the paper, went to sleep, and when I woke up people had got out of their cars and were walking about on the motorway talking to each other. It was quite nice really,” he said dreamily. “A bloke in a red Astra gave me a can of Lilt when I said I was thirsty. But I tell you what, if that prat Edward Clare had turned up he woudda been tore to pieces.”

  The Prime Minister looked around at the stalled traffic and said nervously, “Traffic is not the Prime Minister’s responsibility Ron Phillpot is the Minister for Transport.”

  Ali said, “Ron Phillpot’s a tosspot, innit.”

  “Yes, it’s quite clear to me that he is in fact a tosspot. He was only made Deputy Prime Minister as a sop to the left,” said the Prime Minister.

  Jack asked, “Aren’t the government building the Northern Relief Road somewhere around here?”

  The Prime Minister said, “It’s a public⁄private partnership; it’s going to be a toll road.”

  Ali said, “Why should I pay ten quid to drive along a bit of road? I pay road tax, income tax, council tax and fuel tax already, innit.”

  Jack said, “It’s highway robbery. Dick Turpin was doing the same thing 200 years ago.”

  They drove at walking pace for the next two hours, listening to Five Live Drive on which a debate was raging about the role of the Prime Minister’s wife. Should Adele be seen and not heard or should she be able to express an opinion on matters of national interest?

  When Peter, a caller from Truro, rang in and said that Adele Floret-Clare had more balls than her husband, the Prime Minister surreptitiously adjusted his testicles inside his wife’s knickers and nodded in agreement.

  Hassin from Kettering asserted that Adele was right about the question of Barry’s Leg, though he thought that the burial of warts was a step too far.

  Sandra from Cardiff rang in to suggest that a compromise be found whereby wart burial could be centralised; she wasn’t sure how many warts could be fitted into an average-size coffin but she was sure that it would run into hundreds, if not thousands.

  When a Doctor Singh, a Lecturer in Mathematics from Brunel University, rang in to say that approximately 51,842 warts would fit into the average coffin, Ali switched off the radio and reinserted the All-Time Soul Greats tape.

  By the time the traffic was moving again the three men had memorised the words of ‘Knock on Wood’ and had even perfected an in-car dance routine which included synchronised knocking on each other’s heads.

  The Prime Minister had a moment of epiphany. He had never been so happy in the whole of his life. Each time ‘Knock on Wood’ finished he begged for it to be played again.

  Eventually Ali said, “No, my head’s hurting, innit. Jack, read me out my horoscope—I’m Capricorn.”

  Jack read aloud.

  Storm clouds are gathering in your life. A person of the opposite sex is feeling resentful—have you told them lately that you love them? Failure to act could lead to a serious life change, one you may regret.

  Ali picked up his mobile and phoned home. He spoke urgently to his wife in Urdu. When Ali was driving with two hands on the wheel again the Prime Minister
said, “What do the stars say for Pisces?”

  Jack said, “I thought you were born in May.”

  “I was,” said the Prime Minister. “But Malcolm Black’s Pisces.”

  Jack read:

  Seize the opportunity for self-fulfilment this week. You have the courage, you have the talent; now go ahead and take what is rightfully yours. If planning to move house this week you may find a short delay—don’t be dispirited.

  The Prime Minister whispered, “The bastard, as soon as my back is turned…”

  He nodded his head when Jack asked if he should read out the forecast for Taurus, the Prime Minister’s own sign.

  Jack read:

  Your old feelings of insecurity continue to haunt you. Don’t give up on your quest. Perhaps now is the time to rest on your laurels. Let others do the dirty work. Family matters need your attention.

  The Prime Minister sat in silence.

  Ali asked, “Jack, what are you?”

  Jack said, “I’m Cancer and it’s all a load of rubbish.” But to please Ali he read:

  Romance is just around the corner. However, if you scuttle back into your shell when it appears, you could miss the opportunity to be truly happy. Is your pet insurance up to date?

  They pulled in at Frankley Services on the M5 for a toilet stop. Jack and Ali went into the men’s together and the Prime Minister joined the women in the ladies.

  The Prime Minister remained seated on the lavatory long after he had finished urinating. He couldn’t bear the fact that they were driving south and that in two days he would once again be immersed in the troubles of the world. He felt that he could remain seated in this cubicle for ever, listening to the sounds of flushing water, the roar of the hand-dryers and the bright chatter of women as they primped in front of the mirrors. He put his head in his hands and sat there until he heard Jack’s voice calling to him.

  “Edwina, are you in there?”

  ∨ Number Ten ∧

  SEVENTEEN

  Malcolm Black was sitting on the sofa with his arm around his wife, Hannah. His huge head lay heavily on her delicate shoulder. He had told his office manager and his private secretary that he wanted one uninterrupted hour alone with his wife.

  She said to him, “It’s time you had your hair cut, Malc. It looked awful on the telly last night, like an NHS wig.”

  “That bad?” he said.

  Their hour together was coming to an end and still no decision had been made. Did she want him to be the next Prime Minister or not? If she said no, he would concentrate on stabilising the economy and eradicating child poverty. If she said yes, he would change the face of Britain for ever.

  He began to bite his nails, until she slapped his hand away from his mouth. “It’s nice sitting here,” he said.

  “It could be an adventure,” said Hannah.

  He laughed. “Yes, one of those glorious British adventures that end in failure and defeat. I could be the Ernest Shackleton of British politics.”

  Hannah sat up straight and looked him in the eye. “How much do you want to be Prime Minister, out of ten?”

  “Ten,” he answered.

  “Then you better had be,” she said. “You’ve not done bad for a smart-arsed Govan boy, have you?” She laughed. Precocious as a child, Malcolm could recite all of the Thomas the Tank Engine books from memory by the age of three. He asked endless questions, so that those questioned fled at the earliest opportunity. He seemed to inhabit a different world to that of his classmates; he shrank from being touched. At sixteen he’d entered Edinburgh University, where he’d fallen in love with a Balkan princess—had he married her he could have ended up as king of her country. He was hopelessly disorganised and kept a filing system in various pockets. When he watched a football match on the television, he threw himself into the game with such ferocity that Hannah feared he would burst a blood vessel. He had grown up in the Govan shipyards, and the poverty he had seen there had made him a socialist. He had a deep and tender affection for babies and small children.

  He didn’t believe in God, and found it astonishing that the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and the Foreign Secretary were all members of the Socialist Christian Movement. All three of them seemed to be such rational men. Malcolm had once come across them in a room, each man with his hands pressed together and his eyes closed, and he’d fervently hoped that they were thinking, not praying.

  Hannah Black left to attend an evening function. Malcolm pulled Morgan Clare’s homework folder on to his knee. “Public—Private Partnerships are less efficient and more costly than publicly funded projects. Discuss.” Malcolm Black wrote:

  “There is nothing to discuss. PPPs are a proven disaster. Extreme prudence must be used when considering future projects. National and regional devolution and PPPs increasingly absolve central government from responsibility when things go wrong, but allow them to claim the credit when things go right.”

  Ali’s taxi came to a board at the side of the road that said in Gothic lettering, ‘The Haven: superior boarding for dogs. First right’. Next to it was a For Sale sign featuring the name of an estate agent and a telephone number.

  Ali waited for a slow-moving tractor to pass by, then he turned the car and crunched down a long gravel drive. They heard the distant sound of many dogs barking.

  Ali said fearfully, “That sounds like a lot of dogs, innit? I ain’t happy with dogs; my uncle was bit by one in Lahore an’ he got the rabies.”

  The Prime Minister said, “I doubt if any of the dogs at Pamela’s kennels are rabid. It costs £100 a day to board here.”

  Ali said, “You’re jokin’ me!”

  They drew up outside the pretty Georgian house; a tall woman with blonde hair tied up on top of her head came through a side gate carrying a plastic bucket. Even from a distance she looked disconcertingly like the Prime Minister.

  She wore a grey fleece jacket, tight faded denims and green Wellingtons.

  She put down the bucket when the Prime Minister got out of the taxi, and said, “Christ, Ed! You look better in a frock than I do!”

  Her laugh was attractively low and husky and sounded as if she was recovering from a throat infection. She took a packet of St Moritz cigarettes from the top pocket of her jacket and lit one with a pink disposable lighter. She immediately started to cough and said, “These bloody things will kill me.”

  Her accent was posh but not intimidating. Jack loved her immediately.

  He didn’t notice at first that her fingernails were dirty, nor that her hair was tied up with a man’s sock. The Prime Minister introduced them, they shook hands and looked each other in the eye and smiled. She said, “I knew you would come one day.”

  Jack thought at first that she was talking to him, but if she was it was the Prime Minister who answered. “Pam, I’m not here.”

  “I know,” she said. “You’re in a bunker playing at being the great war leader.”

  The Prime Minister led her away from the car and whispered, “Ali, the driver, doesn’t know who I am, Pam—don’t spoil things for me.”

  Ali sat behind the wheel waiting for the English to go through their strange greeting ceremony. He wondered if his children would learn to pretend not to be pleased to see their relations or to meet new friends. The beautiful sister of the strange man in the blonde wig knocked on the window and invited him to come inside the house to have a cup of tea.

  He asked about the dogs and told her about his uncle in Lahore. She was most interested and assured him that all the dogs here were in secure accommodation.

  Since shaking Jack’s hand she had avoided looking at him directly, but spoke mostly to Ali, asking him for details of his uncle’s lingering death.

  They came to a low whitewashed building. “That’s where the boarders live,” she said. “I was just about to give them their supper. Eddy, go inside and make Ali a cup of tea. Jack can help me to feed the dogs.”

  The Prime Minister was relieved to get away from the barking
and growling dogs; his father had not allowed him to keep pets, on grounds of hygiene.

  Jack had expected the smell of disinfectant, stone floors and cages. He was astonished to find cubicles, carpets and soft lighting. Each dog had an outside run and a colour television; a few of them were watching Crossroads.

  As Pamela went from room to room distributing Pedigree Chum into the dogs’ bowls, Jack found himself talking to her about the dog he’d had as a boy. How the dog hadn’t minded being used as a footstool.

  “What was he called?” asked Pamela.

  “Bob,” said Jack. He didn’t tell Pamela that he had never called out the dog’s name in the street; if he had the dog would have been subjected to abuse and ridicule by the neighbours—the local euphemism for excrement was bob.

  She was almost as tall as he was and he liked that; smaller women intimidated him with their frailty. He couldn’t stop looking at her lovely face. She said everything with half a laugh. He tried to work out how old she was, but in the end he asked her.

  She told him immediately. “I’m forty-one,” she said. “They lied about the forties being the best years of your life.”

  “It’s only been one year,” said Jack.

  “Yes, and it’s been fucking awful. My husband left me in January, my financial advisor is now living in Tangier, and Eddy’s bloody government has allowed corporate Britain to steal my pension scheme.”