The House

by Tom Watson

  Owen finishes making the pasta. She takes a plate from the cupboard, holds it out.

  ‘I’ll just serve Jay’s dinner then,’ Owen says and tugs his forelock.

  ‘Give me a break, Owen,’ she snaps. ‘I’ve had an evening of Coogan’s funny jokes and everyone calling the waitress “darling” and I’m the one taking Jay his fucking dinner, Oxford degree or not.’

  Owen bites his tongue. Just let it go, he tells himself. He fills the plate, and Georgina grabs a fork out of the drying rack and exits in a plume of indignation.

  Chapter 7

  Monday 7 March 2022

  ‘Mr McKenna?’

  Chloe Lefiami is looking at him patiently.

  ‘Sorry. I lost my thread.’

  ‘We were talking about the day Lehman Brothers collapsed. You had a party at the house. You met Christine Armstrong. You and she were engaged for a while. I believe?’

  ‘That’s right. Jay introduced us. We got engaged late in 2009, but it didn’t last long. She married an old schoolfriend of hers three years after that.’

  ‘But were things tense in the house at that point?’

  Owen thinks it through. ‘Everyone was tense. World was falling apart. We were all working too hard, and it was all … high pressured. For all of us in different ways.’

  She nods and Owen wonders what she was doing in 2008 – if she remembers that night.

  ‘And Jay? What about him?’

  That was his last night as the golden boy, Owen realises. He’s always thought of that evening as part of his own story – his and Christine’s. Not Jay’s. But now his view shifts and he realises that was the last time he saw Jay and Georgina spar like that, the last time Jay seemed to radiate light out into the room. His last night as the ‘real’ Jay.

  Owen gathers his thoughts. Tries to turn them into things which can be written onto Ms Lefiami’s yellow pad.

  ‘He missed a couple of phone messages that evening. His boss, the head of comms on the Treasury team, wanted him to put together some stats for a party press pack. Left a message on his phone. When Jay got in on the Tuesday night, knackered, and hadn’t got a clue about it, he got his arse handed to him.’

  Chloe looks up from her pad.

  ‘That was all? Just a missed call?’

  Owen nods. ‘Thing was, if he had just apologised and got on with it, he’d have been forgiven. Everyone screws up sometimes. But he kept insisting no one had left him a message, which sounded like he was calling his boss a liar, so it blew up. He could be stubborn. But then he’d been complaining about stories circulating about him for a while. He was already wound pretty tight.’

  Jay was still talking about it when Owen had got in the next evening, high on his first date with Christine. It had killed Owen’s happy mood.

  ‘Then his boss said the hangover had probably been to blame and Jay got on his high horse over that,’ he tells Lefiami. Those appeals to him and Phil and Georgina. I wasn’t hungover. I went for a run! Even though I didn’t get to bed till four! It was you who had the hangover, Owen. Remember? Owen just wanting him to shut up. Georgina being soothing.

  ‘But yeah. That was where it started. God, I accidentally delete messages all the time. You get a bit fat-fingered … everybody does it. We had more important things to worry about.’

  Lefiami nods. ‘Like the party conference that year?’

  ‘I was in charge of delegate liaison,’ Owen says. ‘I was pretty tense about it.’

  ‘Important job?’

  He grunts. ‘I certainly thought so. Yes. We needed to get a clear message out to the voters that we were going to protect their mortgages, their savings, their bank accounts. I had to keep nonsense resolutions off the floor and make sure Gordon and the Cabinet knew which way the votes were going.’ He remembers the rushed, intense conversations backstage, open only to those with an access-all-areas pass. The long trestle tables set out for the journalists slithering with cables, the huge silver flight cases of audio and video gear, the sound guys – they were all men back then, dressed in black and wearing headsets.

  ‘And you got Phil Bickford a room for his pamphlet launch too?’

  He nods. It was a broom cupboard really, but at least it was in the secure zone.

  ‘Did you see much of Jay then? During the conference.’

  Owen pauses. ‘As I said, Ms Lefiami, I was very busy.’

  She finally closes her pad and leaves him to his remaining emails just after nine. By the time Owen gets back to the flat he rents on the edge of Vauxhall, he is wrung out. Chloe Lefiami had stayed scrupulously polite throughout their meeting, but some of her questions made him uneasy. And it wasn’t over yet. She’d be back, she promised with a slow blink, at some point in the future, to discuss the run-up to Glastonbury. He can’t think about that, his conscience feels like it is clotting and souring.

  Owen lets himself into the lobby of his building and checks his mail. Junk mostly. All the important stuff goes to the constituency office or his pigeonhole in the House.

  He looks at his watch. Too late to eat anything, too early to go to bed. He takes the stairs to his flat on the second floor. Small, but well laid out and he has a desk by the window where he can work and look out at the magnolia tree bravely fighting the traffic fumes on the road outside.

  He’s there an hour later, still typing out replies to his constituency agent, when the door buzzer goes. He checks there’s nothing in his diary, then goes to the door and picks up the answer phone. A middle-aged face, freckled and with thinning sandy hair, blinks into the camera.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Owen, Hi! It’s Greg! I saw your light was on and wondered if you fancied a night cap.’ He holds up a bottle of whisky alongside his face so Owen can read the label. Talisker. A single malt and not easy to get these days.

  ‘Come on up.’

  He presses the door release, then goes to open the windows, get some air circulating. Seconds later he hears the hum of the lift. Greg Griffen. Not a man to take the stairs. Greg was one of the MPs who thought he had a job for life, then got hoofed out of parliament in late 2019. Owen hasn’t heard anything of him since. Does he want back in? Owen is beginning to get calls from former MPs looking for a chance to stand at the next election.

  He tells them all he can’t help them, that it isn’t his job anymore. He is just a backbench MP trying to look after his constituency, keep up with committee work, but they press and he offers advice, his gut instincts, a few names of possible campaign donors, then returns to his own work. If Griffen is prepared to part with a bottle of Talisker for that sort of advice, Owen isn’t going to drive him away.

  He opens the door as Greg emerges blinking from the lift and stands aside to let him in.

  ‘Nice place. Handy location,’ he says. He sees the windows are open and takes off his mask.

  Owen nods, hangs up Greg’s coat and fetches glasses.

  ‘Just passing by, did you say?’

  Greg hands over the bottle and Owen wipes it, then cracks the seal and levers out the cork with his thumbs.

  ‘Passing by on purpose, to be honest,’ Greg replies and watches without saying any more as Owen pours the drinks.

  There are armchairs either side of the fireplace. Straight-backed ones he and Christine found in a Bermondsey flea market during their brief engagement. She pointed them out and he paid for them. They are still the nicest things he owns.

  And now they are settled. It’s like being in a corner of the Commons library. The drinks, the chairs.

  ‘What can I do for you, Greg?’

  Greg sips his drink. ‘Why did you resign as a parliamentary private secretary, Owen?’

  Owen savours the drink. ‘It’s one of those times, Greg, when the official story is actually true. I disagreed with the leadership about Article 50.’

  And God knows it had cost him. Fighting ‘enemy of the people’ stories on the constituency Facebook groups, making his point again and again that followi
ng the will of the electorate on Brexit didn’t mean he thought it was right to chain negotiators to an arbitrary timeline. Maybe it had helped, staying in the argument. He’d kept his seat after all when people like Greg had lost theirs.

  ‘A man of principle?’ He wears a sceptical smirk.

  Owen doesn’t reply. He believes the last two years have proved him right. But then everyone else says they’ve been proved right too and who can pick apart the damage after the virus anyway?

  He drags his memory. Someone has said something to him about Greg in the last few weeks and it wasn’t about him looking for a seat again. Owen feels his brain wake up. The deadening mental effect of the inbox slowly cleared by the peaty flavour of his drink. He looks more closely. Greg is wearing a suit. All his clothes, shoes too, the coat he was handed on the way in look like Savile Row. Not to mention the whisky.

  ‘So what are you doing these days, Greg?’

  Greg widens his eyes. ‘Ah, I’ve crossed to the dark side! Maundrill Consulting took me on in early 2021, all those years toiling on committees paid off in the end. I’m in public affairs.’

  ‘A lobbyist. Doing well, then?’

  He nods. ‘Became a director six months ago. We work across a lot of different sectors, putting our clients and their projects together with law makers.’

  Boom time for lobbyists. The legislation passed as the economy ground to a shuddering halt in 2020 had been rushed, a thousand unintended consequences, and the business of the current parliament is to try and sort it out. The inquiries into the actions and reactions of the government have begun, but everyone is still scrabbling to keep up. The virus, Brexit, the ructions and reactions as the voters discover that things can still get worse. The government squeezes where it can, while fighting a rearguard action on targeted taxes.

  Owen puts down his glass. He’s tired. He needs to sleep.

  ‘So?’

  Greg nods. ‘It’s simple, really. I heard you tabled a question about the commercial use of NHS data. The upcoming consultation. Some of my clients are the pharmaceutical firms who used that data to save thousands of lives. They wanted me to see, quietly, if you had any particular concerns and to put your mind at rest. I understand their friendly overtures have been rebuffed. And a little bird told me you’d raised the matter with the Select Committee too.’

  ‘Those committee discussions are supposed to be private, Greg. I’m sure you remember.’

  Greg is completely unruffled.

  ‘Christine Armstrong put you up to this, didn’t she? I hope you’ve bothered to ask her why. The woman has a bee in her bonnet. You know how it can happen to people who have lost their seats. Some,’ he points to himself, ‘manage to find fulfilling work and thrive. Others, like Christine, spend their time packing delivery boxes in the back of their husband’s little delicatessen and fume about perceived injustices. Past glories. Find a crank to hang their frustrations on, an old boyfriend to manipulate.’

  The injustices were real, and Christine did the marketing for her husband’s successful shops. Like every story, it’s all about how you tell it.

  ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

  He swills his drink. ‘Isn’t it time you got back in the swing of things, Owen? A few speeches to the right groups, a word in the ear of the leadership from some of the party’s biggest donors. You’re wasted off the front bench.’

  Yes, he still has ambitions. Then he catches the satisfied look in the eyes of this man whose constituents chucked him out on his ear. He pushes his drink away. ‘I’m not interested in any favours from you, or your clients.’

  ‘That’s a shame, Owen.’ Greg brushes some imaginary speck of lint off his lapel. ‘But do think on it. Withdraw the question. Don’t push it on the committee. The consultation will happen in due course, when we have our ducks in a row. No need to make a fuss just now.’

  Owen stands up. ‘Great to see you, Greg. Now sod off.’

  ‘You are still unnecessarily combative, aren’t you? Sit down, Owen.’

  Owen doesn’t.

  ‘We just want to consult, quietly, with interested parties in order to present the case for the commercial use of the NHS data, so in this age of fuck-ups and missed opportunities we do something right for this country. You pushing for this consultation now draws attention and confuses matters.’

  ‘Were you always this patronising? How the hell did you get elected in the first place?’

  He arches his eyebrows. ‘You helped me immensely in 2010. Got me another nine years. Which is why I am bringing you a bottle of very fine whisky and an olive branch.’

  ‘What are you hiding, Greg? The sooner we have this consultation the better. I chased for an answer yesterday, and unless I get an answer I will raise it as a point of order with the Speaker.’

  ‘You’ve always been a bit resistant to our sector, haven’t you?’

  ‘Lobbyists and special interests? Of course I have.’ He recognises the name of Greg’s company now. He has turned down a few invitations from them over the last month or two. Private openings, a couple of invitations to speak at regional conferences. Pam had told him they looked more like influence sessions than legitimate policy forums and the fees offered had made him uncomfortable, so he had told her to say no.

  ‘Luxury of having a safe seat, I suppose.’

  ‘I like to know where the money is coming from, Greg.’

  ‘Fine.’ Greg opens his briefcase and pulls out a thickly filled cardboard folder. Places it on the side table next to his glass. ‘Withdraw your question or the story about poor Jay and the campaign you ran against him in 2009 will break. And trust me, Owen, however bad you think it might be, it will be much, much worse.’

  Owen thinks he must be getting stupid. Whispers in the corridors about an exposé of what happened to Jay, the leadership investigation, now Greg’s visit. The pieces fit together snugly. ‘This so-called freelance journalist, Barns, works for you.’

  ‘Let’s just say we collaborate on a regular basis. I wanted to get a little something cooking when you began to show how unfriendly you could be. And then I remembered poor Jay. Wasn’t much reported on at the time, was it? I suppose you were all nonentities then. But not now. Not to mention how much bad behaviour we tolerated in those days. So yes, I asked him to get the ball rolling, fed him a few truffles and left him to dig up a few more in the tangled roots of Westminster. He’s already got enough to get the editors at the Chronicle salivating, but I told him to hold fire until you and I had a chance to catch up. And now I have this for him too.’ Owen looks at the file and Greg sees it. ‘I can stop the story, Owen. If I instruct him to, Barns will tell the Chronicle there was nothing there after all. Just unsubstantiated rumours. Click of my fingers and it’s gone, then the inquiry will wither away too. Just withdraw the question.’

  Owen feels sick. ‘What’s in the folder, Greg?’

  ‘I won’t ruin the surprise, Owen. But if I let Edward Barns publish what is in it, your career, such as it is, will be over.’

  He fetches his coat, and lays it carefully over one arm, picks up his briefcase and opens the door into the corridor. He replaces his mask, then looks back.

  ‘Just read the file, Owen. And enjoy the whisky.’

  The door closes behind him. The lift hums in the hall.

  For a moment Owen stays exactly where he is. Then he grabs the bottle of whisky off the sideboard and carries it to the open window.

  ‘Oi! Greg!’

  Greg is just letting himself through the metal gate and onto the pavement. Owen hurls the bottle so it smashes on the pavement in front of his feet. Greg skips backwards but his expensive shoes get splashed anyway.

  Owen slams down the window and yanks the curtain shut. That was stupid. Felt good, though.

  What had Christine got him into? He’s been in politics all his adult life and no one’s really tried to blackmail him before.

  He’s bone tired, but there’s no point putting it off.
He picks up the cardboard file and switches on the reading light. It takes him a moment to realise what he is looking at. After fifteen minutes of reading he wishes to God he had the Talisker back.

  He is holding the complete medical records of Jay Dewan, from childhood to the summer of 2009. Owen has seen files in GPs’ offices before – fat envelopes of forms and reports on different-coloured cards all shoved in together with copies of letters, notes and referrals. The file left for him doesn’t look like that. It is perhaps seventy pages, crisply printed, stacked together in a solid block – but it contains the same material as those bulging folders behind the receptionist’s desk. All the unwieldy and differently shaped forms and cards have been scanned – long file names on the bottom of each page – so even the sections that are handwritten have a machine-like smoothness. You can smell the expensive ink on each crisp sheet.

  Lists of Jay’s childhood immunisations and ailments, a broken arm when he was ten, his appendix out at eighteen. The regular struggles with his asthma. Not much for Greg to hold over Owen’s head there. Then – towards the end – he comes across a stack of pages in looping but legible handwriting, scanned from an original and printed out. Owen is tempted to skip over them at first, still wondering why Greg thought news of Jay’s broken arm would matter to Chloe Lefiami, or to him. Then he sees his own name. And Phil’s. These are, he realises, looking back through the stack, his mouth going dry, detailed notes from Jay’s sessions with a counsellor, starting over Christmas 2008 and into the spring of 2009. These wouldn’t be in those standard folders. They would have had to have come from the counsellor’s own records, but here they are, between prescriptions for antidepressants and inhaler refills. He hears Jay’s voice lift off the pages and he can’t believe what the voice is saying.

  If Greg hands this over to his pet journalist, Owen’s career will be over.

  Chapter 8

  Saturday 20 September 2008