The House

by Tom Watson

  Shortly after the all-women shortlist for Coventry East was announced, they were unofficially a couple. Got quietly engaged soon after the tragedy at Glastonbury, and married before the 2010 election. Kieron was at Owen and Christine’s engagement party as Georgina’s date.

  He takes the glass.

  ‘Fancy a turn in the garden?’ Kieron says hopefully.

  Owen nods and as soon as they are outside Kieron produces a cigarillo from his top pocket and lights it.

  ‘Not permitted in the house,’ he says. ‘But you’re not married, are you? Free spirit!’

  ‘I never smoked,’ Owen replies. ‘What are you making? Smells good.’

  ‘Fish pie,’ Kieron says. ‘One of the specialities de la maison.’

  Kieron smiles a lot more than he used to.

  ‘So has Chloe Lefiami been to see you?’ Owen asks.

  Kieron bobs his head, taps ash off his cigarillo and carefully rubs it into the lawn with the toe of his shoe.

  ‘Getting our stories straight, are we? Well. Yes. She talked to Georgina at length, apparently. I did a written statement, but I mean, I barely knew the lad. Just some half-Tory smart arse. Too many of those buzzing around then to tell the difference between them.’

  He suddenly snaps to attention, takes a long pull at his cigarillo and takes the stub to an ornamental ashtray hidden under the bird bath. Nothing wrong with his hearing. He’s pushed it back into its hiding place with his foot before Georgina appears in the centre of the glass doors and thrusts them open. As soon as she notices Owen, her face is transformed by a broad smile.

  ‘Owen! What are you doing here?’

  He walks down the slope of the lawn and crosses the narrow patio area. She blows him a kiss, and he holds his hand across his chest and bows.

  ‘I was just passing by and thought I’d stop by on the off-chance to congratulate you.’

  ‘You doll. And thanks for the advice.’ Her eyes flick over his shoulder. ‘What’s for dinner? I haven’t had a chance to eat all day.’

  ‘Fish pie,’ Kieron says.

  ‘Not again. Fine. Owen, stay and eat with us. Why did you open the red if we are having fish? Honestly. I think you are getting dotty in your old age.’ She kicks off her shoes and bends to pick them up. ‘I’m going to get changed.’

  Kieron follows them into the kitchen again. ‘I’ll put the beans on. Ready in two ticks. Kids would love to say goodnight.’

  She glances at her watch. Thin strap, antique by the look of it.

  ‘Oh, they are probably asleep, and I just can’t take story time this evening.’

  Owen wonders if he should refuse the invitation to dinner, but he’s hungry and something about being in the old house is stirring and shifting his memories.

  It’s like the only school reunion he went to just after he was elected. He’d thought his recollections of school were complete, clear, but it turned out all he had were the memories he shared with friends, the stories they retold to each other in the years afterwards. Seeing all those other faces, being back in the school hall itself, had brought back a dozen other incidents, dramas, teenage tragedies and victories he hadn’t thought of for years. It was unsettling, rediscovering your past like that.

  And it’s happening now. He can see Jay more clearly than he has for a long time; the quick bark of his laughter, the nerdish enthusiasm they shared for The Clash, late-night arguments – with Phil acting as referee – on the exact degree of veneration or respect that should be accorded to different American Blues musicians. Owen feels a shock in his nervous system. It was Jay who introduced him to the music of Robert Johnson, the man who sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads in return for his supernatural talent. Owen still listens to those recordings all the time but his mind had cut the connection to Jay. It reknits, somewhere deep in his brain, as he watches Kieron top and tail fine green beans on a thick oak chopping board.

  Georgina comes back into the room in yoga pants and a loose snow-white hoodie. Kieron abandons the beans to fetch her a glass and fill it from a bottle in the fridge. She sips, shrugs, then spreads her fingers wide on the table top and looks at Owen.

  ‘Tell me everything.’

  Ten minutes later they are in the thick of it, talking about the front bench, the quirks of individual ministers, who is up and who is down. She’s witty about her colleagues, sharp without being cruel and frank about those she likes, more circumspect about those she doesn’t. Owen feels his burdens eased as they settle into the back and forth. He makes her laugh.

  Eventually, Owen realises he’s eating and breaks off to compliment the chef. Kieron thanks him.

  ‘Well, he’s got the time to be a chef now, hasn’t he?’ Georgina says. ‘Though it would be nice to have something other than fish pie occasionally.’

  Kieron continues to eat in silence. Owen tries to remember what Kieron is doing now. He got shunted out of the frontline after losing the election for the general secretary.

  ‘How is life in the Union?’ Owen asks.

  ‘Fine, thanks, Owen,’ Kieron replies, but doesn’t say any more and concentrates on his food.

  ‘Not that running the legal department allows you to shape Britain’s industrial future,’ Georgina says. Kieron doesn’t react and Georgina watches him for a few seconds before turning to Owen again.

  ‘So is being here bringing it all back? I have to see Lefiami again next week. She has more questions, apparently. All I need at the moment. Don’t suppose you’ve managed to squash the Chronicle story?’

  ‘No, but you shouldn’t have to worry too much. According to my sources, Phil is the one who saw the light, I’m the bad guy and you are the survivor.’

  Her head flicks up and she looks at Kieron. He keeps eating and something about her expression makes Owen look away. He drinks his wine, suddenly uncomfortably sober.

  ‘I was remembering what a fan of music Jay was,’ he says at last. ‘I’d forgotten that.’

  ‘Oh yes, president of the Blues Club at Oxford,’ Georgina replies, her expression easy and open again. ‘Nearest he’d ever get to a Blue of course.’

  ‘Well, there was his asthma,’ Owen replies mildly. ‘Not much chance of being an elite sportsman, given his condition.’

  ‘God, yes, always searching for his bloody inhaler! Used that to get out of a dozen fights he was losing in seminars at Oxford. “Sorry, just a moment.” Breathe out. Breathe in. Inhaler. Hold your breath. It gave him thinking time.’ She catches herself and stops. ‘Is it going to be bad for you?’

  He swallows. ‘Yes. Jay thought I resented him. And keeping him off the candidate lists all that spring doesn’t look good.’

  ‘Yes, perhaps you shouldn’t have done that,’ Georgina says, twisting her glass and looking at the patterns of light scattered through it and across the table. ‘He was frightened of you, you know.’

  ‘What?’

  She shrugs. ‘You can be intimidating, Owen. Lots of people say so. I mean, I know you are just expressing your opinion, but it can come across a bit rough.’

  Owen puts his knife and fork together. ‘That’s bullshit. Jay wasn’t frightened of me. We were friends.’

  ‘Oh, I think he was. I remember you ordering him out of the room when he was having a go at me once. And we all know you can … shall we say snap?’

  The wine starts to turn sour in Owen’s mouth. Edward Barns doesn’t need to try and get quotes out of his researcher, Edward could just call his old friend Georgina.

  Georgina waves her hand, like she’s shooing away a fly. ‘But let’s forget about all that! I want to tell you about the three worst ideas my policy team have come up with since the Budget. Honestly, I know they are technically brilliant, but they have all the political sense of a spoon. Earth enrichment audits, for crying out loud. I told them, worms don’t vote, but they’d been plotting with Clifford’s lot in the shadow environment team again, getting themselves worked up.’

  Owen wants very much to forget ab
out Jay. Just for a minute.

  ‘Call it investing in Britain’s farms. Regenerating the soil – supporting farming communities. Spin it as patriotic. And remember, if you do Clifford a solid now and get it into the Manifesto Budget … ’

  She purses her lips. ‘Yes, he’ll be a useful ally when we are in government. Well connected, not too ambitious.’

  ‘Are you so sure you’ll win?’ Kieron says. He eats like a bird, pushing up a mix of pie and beans onto the back of his fork.

  ‘Of course we’re going to fucking win,’ Georgina says, and Owen believes her.

  Chapter 24

  Owen refuses dessert, makes his farewells and walks home. The notes in Jay’s file repeating in his head. He can hear them in Jay’s voice.

  He tries to think it through: what’s the worst that could happen? He could be scapegoated by the party and press – have any other skeletons they find in the back of the closet in Charlotte Street lashed to his back and then be driven out into the wilderness. Scapegoat or sacrificial lamb? What would life be outside politics? He can’t conceive of it.

  His phone buzzes.

  He doesn’t recognise the number but when he answers it, Greg’s voice at the other end seems inevitable.

  ‘Owen!’

  ‘Greg. How did you get this number?’

  He presses the button on the pedestrian crossing with his knuckle, the traffic eases to a halt and he crosses to walk back towards his flat along the river, his back to the Houses of Parliament. ‘I still have friends around the place,’ Greg replies. ‘Quite a few, as it happens, and making new ones all the time.’

  ‘How nice. What do you want?’

  ‘You owe me a new pair of shoes, by the way. That lovely single malt didn’t agree with the leather. But there we go. I called to ask what you thought of Elsie Collins? I do not understand why young women disfigure themselves with tattoos. Not the sort of thing which goes down well in middle England, that look. And she is rather highly strung.’

  Owen wonders if he is being followed.

  ‘I have nothing to say to you, Greg.’

  He sighs. Owen hears it as a hiss on the microphone and steps sideways to avoid a pair of young women taking selfies with the Thames in the background, its surface rippled with lights.

  ‘Withdraw the question, Owen. It’s perfectly clear how this is going to play out. Suppose you support the Collins family. What then? First, before you can finish typing a press release Edward will publish the story, complete with tragic Jay’s own words. What a story!’

  Owen stops, leans on the stone wall between him and the river. He finds he is staring at Millbank Tower and has a flash of himself there when he was just a teenager, overwhelmed by the fact he had found a place at the centre of things. Greg is still talking, and Owen can’t stop listening.

  ‘Perhaps your friends agreed it was for the greater good, but it was you who made the calls, wasn’t it? You who let it be known that Jay was not a candidate favoured by the party that year. Not them. Your boss didn’t know anything about it, did he? And even if you did drag dear Georgie and Phil into it, Georgina is the star of the week, and attacking Phil – saying he agreed with you keeping Jay off the lists – I mean, that will look a bit pathetic it, won’t it? You made the calls.’

  He is right. Owen’s spent the last thirteen years trying to forget about it, but bloody Greg is right.

  ‘Dangerous talk, Owen. People remember that. Of course they do. At the time, given how Jay was and what happened, perhaps they all shrugged and thought you were right and got on with their lives. There was an election to lose, after all. But now? Seems a bit different. Imagine if Edward finds out exactly who to call. I hope you noticed Jay rattled off a useful list of the seats he’d applied to. Drove him to distraction, didn’t it? Those constant rebuffs?’

  Owen stays as still as he can. Truth. A line from a poem floats through his mind … cold and true … like a gun quite close to my head … Yes, he did make the calls. Georgina’s words in the kitchen, spoken over her glass of wine, come back to him. ‘Maybe you shouldn’t have done that … ’ not ‘maybe we shouldn’t have done that … ’ Maybe you.

  He is on his own. He tries to rally himself.

  ‘Whatever you do, Greg, it doesn’t change the fact the sale of access to NHS data needs to be the subject of a public consultation. And the allegations of the Collins family should be heard. People aren’t stupid. They can understand I was a shit, and know that the questions I’m raising are still valid.’

  Feels good saying that. He almost convinces himself for a second.

  ‘Really? Are you quite sure? A marked man, trying to claw back a little glory – or flailing about as I’m sure various columnists will put it – by supporting this damaged girl and her sad story about her crazy brother. A fantasist and a non-issue. My story is better. You have read the files that Christine left for you?’

  So, someone is watching them.

  ‘Not much there, really? Do it tonight, Owen.’

  Then he hangs up.

  Owen puts his phone back in his pocket and turns off Albert Embankment and down Tinworth Street. A train rattles over the bridge as he passes below. Nothing Greg has just said is wrong. The case is weak, he’s told Christine that himself. And he is on his own. He gets back to the flat and sits in his preferred high-backed chair, takes his iPad out of his satchel and opens it up. Stares at the black mirror of the screen.

  No point in dragging it out.

  Owen wakes the screen and logs in to the system. It’s not a particularly well-designed site, the parliamentary hub. Like parliament itself, it’s been patched up and repurposed a dozen times, and because MPs are, nowadays, a bit gun-shy about spending money on themselves as a rule, it’s been patched up cheaply. It works though, and Owen has used it often enough to be able to navigate to the right page.

  A drop-down menu next to his question. A simple tap with his index finger. The confirmation box comes up.

  YOU ARE ABOUT TO WITHDRAW QUESTION

  08348. DO YOU WISH TO PROCEED?

  He knows when he’s beat. He clicks ‘yes’. The screen updates.

  The box of files from Elsie Collins is still on the worktop. It looks like a rebuke. He doesn’t feel any sense of relief, no sense that from now on the past can stay in the past. He puts Robert Johnson on the stereo and listens. His voice is rough and sweet at the same time and Owen sees Jay, back in the good times, a beer in one hand, dancing in the kitchen of the old house, and his grief returns in a wave.

  Chapter 25

  Friday 11 March 2022

  Phil gets up at six to work out in the hotel gym, then has breakfast and reads the papers in a discreet corner of the dining room. One of the advantages of a constituency in Marlow is that he can usually get home even during the week. When he can’t – and between the Budget and the sudden interest everyone is showing in him, that’s been a few nights recently – he uses the special MPs rate at the Park Plaza. He misses home. He misses the kids. He scans the newspapers, then the emails from the press office Ian has marked as must reads.

  Phil doesn’t feel his government is worn out, exhausted of ideas in the way the Labour government was in 2010. But then, it’s not like one Conservative Party has been in power for the last twelve years, more like three different groupings who all happened to wear blue rosettes. Cameron, Mr Austerity and Responsibility who threw the country into the sacrificial fire of Brexit, then May the non-government of paralysis, then this lot. The government of charismatic individualists on epic adventures. This lot. His lot, he reminds himself. His colleagues, his party.

  He sighs. Talking to Lefiami has shoved him back a decade. He has to be careful; he thinks of his wife saying it, a warning look on her narrow, intelligent face. Your socialist roots are showing, Phil. He scans the front page of the Financial Times. Qualified support, but confusion and scepticism over various of the initiatives announced in the Budget. The tax avoidance campaigns are being compared to searching
down the back of the sofa for coppers when the rent is due.

  That’s not the only thing the government is doing, for crying out loud. It’s all about balance. Asking for a little ground here and there. Taking advantage of the commercial opportunities available. Phil believes in moderation, evolution not revolution. He believes in the Chancellor too, which makes a pleasant change. Once the population has got over its impatience with Brexit, its fear of the virus – a reliable long-term vaccine has to come this year, surely? One that people will trust? – they’ll see this is the best way to build their way back out of this murderous slump. Cameron’s way, really. Social responsibility, not state control. That was the line in Cameron’s speech which got Phil in 2008. It resounded deep within him, like the voice of a loved one.

  Phil remembers mouthing along with the words of ‘The Red Flag’, hating it, hating the self-satisfied faces around them, becoming convinced between his second punch and a Greek meze that the people around him, who still held such sway over the Labour Party, were out for themselves, ready to loot the country at its lowest point to prop up their own power, feather their own nests. That was before the expenses scandal, of course. He remembers them crowing over that. Christ, and he thought the banking collapse was the lowest point. He’d had no bloody idea how bad things could get, and still somehow stagger on.

  He’s staring at his iPad Pro, seeing but not seeing, when he notices another email. It’s an automatic forward from an old, very old, private account. Owen McKenna. Owen McKenna wants to speak to him.

  His mind flickers, Owen singing along at the party with his arm round Christine’s waist. Then Glastonbury, the horror, mirroring Phil’s own, as the music rocked across the camping site, the grief and confusion under the silent flashing blue and reds of the police and ambulance. Owen in the lobby last week with that grin plastered over his face. Phil didn’t need to wipe that smirk off his face after all. Looks like Chloe Lefiami has done it for him.