The Cockroach

by Ian Mcewan

  The prime minister who had called the referendum resigned immediately and was never heard of again. In his place there emerged a compromise candidate, the lukewarm Clockwiser James Sams. Fresh from his visit to Buckingham Palace, he promised on the steps of Downing Street to honour the wish of the people. The money would be turned around. But, as many economists and other commentators had predicted in the low circulation press and unregarded, specialist journals, it was not so easy. The first and overwhelming question concerned overseas trade. The Germans would surely be happy to receive our goods along with our hefty payments. But they would surely not reciprocate by sending their cars to us stuffed with cash. Since we ran a trade deficit, we would soon be broke.

  So how was a Reversalist economy to flourish in a Clockwise world? Negotiations with our most important trading partners, the Europeans, stalled. Three years went by. A mostly Clockwise parliament, torn between common sense and bending to the people’s will, could offer no practical solutions. Sams had inherited a slim majority and flailed about between passionate factions in his party. Despite that, he was known to some newspapers as Lucky Jim, for it could have been far worse: Horace Crabbe, the leader of the opposition, was himself an elderly Reversalist of the post-Leninist left.

  While Sams dithered, and his Cabinet remained divided along several lines of dissent, a purist faction on the Conservative backbenches was hardening its position. Britain must go it alone and convert the rest of the world by example. If the world failed to follow, so much the worse for it. This was ROC. Reversalism in One Country. Then the song and the graffiti were everywhere – Roc around the Clock. We had stood alone before, in 1940, after the fall of France, when German Nazi terror was engulfing Europe. Why bother with their automobiles now? But Sams held back, promising everything to all sides. Most economists, City journalists, business leaders and the entire financial sector predicted economic catastrophe if Sams went the way of the hard Reversalists. Banks, clearing houses, insurance brokers and international corporations were already relocating abroad. Eminent scientists, Nobel laureates, despaired in high-profile letters to the press. But on the street, the popular cry was lusty and heartfelt: get on with it! There was a mood of growing anger, a reasonable suspicion of having been betrayed. A newspaper cartoon depicted Jim Sams as Shakespeare’s Gloucester, blinded, teetering on the chalk cliff’s edge while Edgar, a tough John Bull Reversalist, urged him to jump.

  Then, without warning and to general amazement, Sams and his wavering Cabinet seemed to find their courage. They were about to leap.

  * * *

  *

  Once he had seen into all the pairs of eyes round the table, and as soon as he was confident of not bursting into joyful pheromonal song, the prime minister spoke some grave words of welcome. His voice was low and level. A muscle above his right cheekbone twitched repeatedly. No one had seen that before. During his introductory remarks he made a single passing reference to their shared identity when he spoke of this being a ‘new’ Cabinet which would from now on be voting as one in parliament. No more indiscipline. Blind collective obedience. There followed a sustained rustling and hum of assent around the table. They were of one mind, a colony of dedicated purpose.

  Then business. On their way out, they would find copies of a recent survey of voter attitude which they should take away and read closely. They were to be mindful of one particular result: two thirds of those in the twenty-five to thirty-four age group longed for a strong leader who ‘did not have to bother with parliament’.

  ‘For now, we do,’ Jim said. ‘But…’ He let that hang and the room went still. He continued. ‘The delayed Reversal Bill comes back to the house in three months. All opposition amendments will be voted down. Adaptation measures will start now. The chancellor will confirm, we’ll be spending eight billion on transition arrangements.’

  The chancellor, a frosty little fellow with pale grey eyebrows and a white goatee, smothered his moment of surprise and nodded sagely.

  The prime minister returned the nod and gave a tight smile that did not part his lips. High reward. ‘You should know now. I’ve fixed Reversalism day, R-Day, for the twenty-fifth of December, when the shops are closed. After that, the Christmas sales will be a colossal boost to GDP.’

  He looked around. They were watching him intently. Not a single person doodling on one of the notepads provided. Jim raised his arms and locked his fingers behind his head, a peculiarly pleasant sensation.

  ‘We’ll be on course for quantitative easing, printing money so that the department stores can afford their customers and the customers can afford their jobs.’

  The foreign secretary said abruptly, ‘There’s a developing situation in—’

  The PM silenced him with a minimal shake of his head. He let his arms fall by his sides. ‘Delivering R-Day, or Our Day as we might well call it, is our dedicated first priority. But our second is almost as important. Without it, the first could fail.’

  He paused for effect. In that brief interval he had time to consider what to do with Benedict St John. His odd man out. A perfect murder was not easily arranged from Downing Street. One had been planned long ago from the House of Commons by that posturing top-hatted berk, Jeremy Thorpe. How that unravelled was warning enough.

  ‘There’ll be some bumps in the road ahead and we have to take the people with us. The focus groups are restive just when we need to be wildly popular. Vitally important. So, we’ll be raising taxes for the low paid and lowering them for the rich. Big handouts for the workers after the twenty-fifth. To pay for that, as I’m sure our wise chancellor will agree, we’ll increase government revenues by employing another twenty thousand policemen, fifty thousand nurses, fifteen thousand doctors and two hundred thousand dustmen to ensure daily collections. With their tax breaks, these new hires should easily be able to pay for their jobs. And the Chinese owe us eight hundred billion for the three nuclear power stations they’ll be building.’

  The attentive silence in the room appeared to shift, to downgrade in quality. No one trusted the Chinese government. Would they pay up? Would they put their own vast economy into reverse? Someone coughed politely. A few were examining their fingernails. If he had not quite lost the Cabinet’s support, Jim realised he was in danger of earning its scepticism. He was saved by the minister for transport, an affable, pipe-smoking MP for a northeastern constituency, believed to be fanatically ambitious.

  ‘We’d save a lot of money by pressing ahead with the high-speed rail link to Birmingham.’

  ‘Brilliant. Thank you, Jane.’

  Emboldened, the muscular, square-jawed minister of defence Humphrey Batton said, ‘And by commissioning four more aircraft carriers.’

  ‘Excellent, Humph.’

  ‘Ten thousand new prison places would bring in two and a half billion.’

  ‘Well done, Frank.’

  Suddenly, they were all at it, anxious to please, talking over each other by calling out departmental projects enabled by the new dispensation.

  The PM sat back, beaming, letting the voices wash over him, occasionally murmuring, ‘Jolly good…that’s the spirit…tops!’

  Inevitably, after a while, a feeling of exhaustion descended on the room, and into this lull the foreign secretary spoke.

  ‘What about us?’

  All heads turned respectfully towards Benedict St John. In that moment Jim realised that he was the only one who understood the man’s unique status.

  ‘What?’

  The foreign secretary spread his palms to indicate an obvious point. ‘Take my own case. But it could be yours. Next year I’m supposed to be in every capital in the world for Global Britain, persuading governments to come in with us. And I’m on a salary of £141,405 a year.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘With all my extended family responsibilities, it’s simply too much to live on. How am I going to find time to do all the sho
pping to afford my job?’

  Again, there was that quiet rustling sound beneath the table. Jim glanced around the room. Was Benedict being satirical? Perhaps he had spoken for all of them.

  The prime minister stared at him in full contempt. ‘Bloody hell, how should I…you just, er…’

  It was the transport minister, Jane Fish, who once more helped him out.

  ‘Go on Amazon, Bennie. One click. Get yourself a Tesla!’

  A general sigh of relief at this elegant solution. The PM was ready to move on, but St John had not finished.

  ‘I’m worried. On your R-Day the pound is likely to take a dive.’

  Your? This was intolerable, but the PM managed a kindly look. ‘That’ll help our imports.’

  ‘Exactly my point. Exports. We’ll have to send even more money abroad.’

  Jim explained as though to a child. ‘Balanced by money we earn from imports.’

  ‘In three years St Kitts and Nevis is all we have. Jim, this could be ruinous.’

  Every minister was watching closely this direct challenge. The prime minister’s sudden delighted laughter was genuine, for he had seen ahead, not only to the foreign secretary’s inexplicable death, but to his funeral, a medium-grand affair at which Jim himself would deliver the peroration. St Paul’s. Elgar’s ‘Nimrod’. The Horse Guards. Which reminded him, he had not yet had breakfast.

  ‘Well, Benedict, as Karl Marx said, there’s a lot of ruin in a nation.’

  ‘It was Adam Smith.’

  ‘All the truer for that.’

  The ministers relaxed. They were disposed to take this last as a clincher, as a crushing remark. Jim drew breath to announce the next item.

  But the foreign secretary said, ‘Now to the important matter.’

  ‘For God’s sake, man,’ the home secretary, Frank Corde, growled.

  Benedict was sitting opposite the minister of defence. When the two men exchanged a glance, Batton shrugged and looked down at his hands. You tell them.

  ‘It’s a developing situation. No official statements as yet. But I’m told that the Daily Mail is about to run it on its website. So you all should know. I’m not usually—’

  ‘Get on with it,’ Jim said.

  ‘Just after seven this morning a French frigate collided with the Larkin, one of our fishing boats off the Brittany coast, near Roscoff. Cut it in two. Crew of six. All pulled out of the drink.’

  ‘Glad to hear it. So let’s—’

  ‘All drowned.’

  The prime minister and his colleagues had grown up with death as a daily feature, with customary posthumous feasting as a hygienic necessity, as well as being a rather decent— he wrenched his thoughts away. He knew enough to allow a short silence before saying, ‘Tragic. But things happen at sea. Why are we discussing this?’

  ‘The boat was fishing illegally. In French coastal waters.’

  ‘Well?’

  The foreign secretary rested his chin on his hands. ‘We were keeping this quiet while the relatives were being informed. But it broke on Twitter. The story going around now is the French rammed our boat deliberately. Enforcing their territorial rights.’

  The chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said, ‘What’s the French line?’

  ‘Thick fog, smallish wooden boat, two kilometres offshore, transponder off for some reason. Didn’t show on the frigate’s radar. Our own naval data and other sources back up everything they’re saying.’

  ‘That’s clear enough, then,’ the attorney general said.

  The foreign secretary looked at his watch. ‘The Mail will be running a fighting piece this morning on their website. Patriotically outraged. Soon the story will be on all platforms. It’s getting nasty. Fifty minutes ago, just as we were sitting down, someone put a brick through a window at the French embassy.’

  He paused and looked at the prime minister. ‘We need a statement from the highest level. Take the heat out of this nonsense.’

  They all looked at Jim, who tipped back in his chair and said to the ceiling, ‘Hmm.’

  In a coaxing tone, Benedict added, ‘Plus a call to the French president, with the conversation put on the record?’

  ‘Hmm.’

  They watched and waited.

  At last he righted his chair and nodded at the Cabinet secretary, who customarily sat apart. ‘If they’re being buried together I want to be at the funeral.’

  The foreign secretary started to say, ‘That might seem a bit—’

  ‘Hang on. Better than that. If the coffins are coming back together, and bloody well make sure they are, I intend to be there, quayside, airstrip, whatever.’

  While the rest were frozen, not so much in outrage as fascination, the foreign secretary was trembling. He seemed to be about to stand, then sat again. ‘Jim. You cannot do that.’

  The prime minister appeared suddenly joyful. He adopted a breezy, mocking, see-saw voice. ‘Now, Benedict, when this meeting breaks up, you’re to go round the corner to your splendid office and do two things. You’ll summon the French ambassador and demand an explanation. And you’ll tell your press office what you’re doing.’

  The foreign secretary took a deep breath. ‘We can’t play games. This is a very close ally.’

  ‘Six of our brave men have died. Until it’s proved otherwise, I’m assuming this was a despicable assault.’

  Finally, the secretary of state for defence found his courage. His voice had a throttled sound. ‘Actually, the Admiralty data is pretty sound.’

  ‘Admirals! Time servers, the lot of them. No doubt with farmhouses in the Dordogne to consider.’

  This was good. Such an unfashionable English corner of France. There were chuckles round the table. The tight line of St John’s jaw suggested he had nothing more to say. But the prime minister went on staring hard at him for almost thirty seconds. The effect on the rest was intimidating, in particular on Humphrey Batton, popular in the country for having once been a captain in the Second Paras. He found something of interest in his water glass on the table in front of him. He clasped it tightly between both hands.

  ‘We’ll get the Americans on side,’ Jim said. ‘They have special feelings for the French. Comments? Good. Now, moving on.’ He took from his pocket a scrap of paper torn out from the Spectator magazine. On it was a pencilled list. ‘To mark R-Day we’ll mint a commemorative ten-pound coin. My idea is for a mirror image of a clock.’

  ‘Brilliant…wonderful idea,’ was the collective response. The chancellor swallowed hard and nodded. Someone said, ‘On the reverse, I assume.’

  The prime minister glared about, looking for the culprit. The joke fell flat. ‘Any other thoughts?’

  There were none.

  ‘Next. We’ll institute an R-Day national holiday. The Christmas period’s no good, obviously, so I’m going for the nearest date in the new year, January the second. Objections?’

  ‘No,’ they murmured.

  ‘Good. That happens to be my birthday.’

  At that, the entire Cabinet, except for the foreign secretary, applauded with slaps to the table.

  Modestly, the prime minister held up a restraining hand and the room fell silent. In his short, previous existence he had never known such contentment. It seemed to him five years had passed, not three or four hours, since he had woken, sad and deranged, unable to control his limbs or even his tongue. He saw it in his colleagues’ faces – he was in command, he was a force, here and in the land, and beyond. Hard to believe. Thrilling. Amazing. Nothing could stand in his way.

  He glanced down at his list. ‘Ah yes. I had this thought. The Reversalist movement needs a song, a positive one. An anthem of some sort. Something more with-it than “Ode to Joy”. And it came to me. This old favourite from the sixties. “Walking Back to Happiness.” You must know it. No? For God’s sake, Helen Shapiro!�
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  They didn’t know it, or her. But they did not dare shake their heads. Whatever secretly bound them, they were now immersed, lost to their respective roles. The cost of their ignorance was high, for the prime minister began to sing in a wavering baritone, with his arms spread wide and a forced grin like a practised crooner.

  ‘Walking back to happiness, woopah oh yeah yeah.’

  Nor did they dare catch each other’s eye. They sensed that a misplaced smile could terminate a career. Nor, when the PM made a come hither wiggle with his fingers, did they dare not join the chorus. They sang in solemn unison ‘Yay yay yay yay ba dum be do’ as they might a hymn by Hubert Parry.

  Even while in full throat, Jim saw that the foreign secretary was silent. Not even mouthing the words. He was staring straight ahead, immobile, perhaps with embarrassment. Or was it contempt?

  When the singing came to a ragged end, St John stood and said to no one in particular, ‘Well, I have things to do, as you know.’ Without acknowledging the PM, he quickly left the room.

  As he turned to watch him go, Jim was amazed at how it was possible to feel such joy and such hatred at the same time. A human heart, of which he was now in full possession, was a wondrous thing.

  * * *

  *

  After he had brought the meeting to an end, Jim spent some minutes alone, working on his priorities statement. He gave some selected quotations to Shirley to shape into a press release. She worked quickly and well. By the time word came that his car was outside and the front door was opening for him, the press already had wind of something new and bold sweeping through his government. How fine it was to step out into daylight, to tower above the threshold he had crawled over the night before. Fine too, to hear the babble of excited questions shouted at him from the other side of the street. He paused by the front door, which had closed behind him, to give the photographers their half minute, but he did not speak. Instead, he raised a hand in friendly salute and gave the cameras a determined half smile. He was completely in command now of his binocular, non-mosaic, high-colour focused gaze, and he let it move slowly over the faces of the journalists, over the lenses, and then, as the Jaguar XJ Sentinel (an armoured car much to his taste) drew up and the door opened, he raised both hands in triumph, now grinning broadly, and stooped to slip onto the rear seat.