The House

by Tom Watson

  He thinks of Jay dancing in the kitchen, then of how it might feel to be passing him in the corridors on the way to vote, serving alongside him.

  She clicks off the microphone. ‘Is that too much, Pam?’

  A second’s hesitation. ‘No, it’s good, boss. I’ll write it up.’

  Another alert pings on his screen.

  ‘Hang on, there is something from Sabal on the Guardian live blog.’

  She comes round the desk and looks at it over his shoulder. A photo of Sabal outside his house in Hampstead and below it, indented and in italics, his statement. ‘Owen McKenna visited me yesterday, and in the presence of Chloe Lefiami, QC, who has been leading the investigation into my son’s case for the Labour Party, he gave a full and frank account of his friendship with my son. He then accompanied me to Broadfields Manor where my son is in permanent care. I am grateful to Owen for offering such a full account of the events, and though my family and I live with Jay’s tragedy every day, we feel an increased sense of acceptance and peace. Jay’s sister and I will remember Owen in our prayers with gratitude.’

  Owen’s throat closes up and Pam rests her hand briefly on his shoulder.

  ‘You called him,’ she says, ‘told him what was coming.’

  ‘I had to warn him. Still incredibly generous of him to come straight out with a statement this evening.’

  She’s looking at her phone again.

  ‘Yes! Statement in support from Phil Bickford!’

  ‘Really?’ He thinks of Phil’s face as he left the Chapter House. ‘Qualified support?’

  Pam shakes her head as she reads. ‘Nope. Short and punchy. “The account in the Chronicle is totally at odds with my recollections of the events of 2008 and 2009. Whatever my political differences with Owen McKenna, I never saw him display any signs of homophobia or racism and I believed, and still believe, that he always tried to protect Jay as well as his party during a difficult time.” Then some stuff about his faith in the Labour Party’s own investigation. Blimey, his lot won’t like that. It’ll make it much harder for the Tories to put the boot in. Wow. He could have just stayed quiet! What’s he up to?’

  Owen stands up, thrusts his hands in his pockets and turns away. That’s why you should have a window in your office, gives you somewhere to stare when your brain is churning and you can’t look the people you are with in the eye. The icy blast of the air-conditioner tightens his skin.

  ‘It’s possible he might just think it’s the right thing to do.’

  ‘This is still Westminster, isn’t it?’ Pam says. ‘I didn’t skip into a parallel universe when my phone overheated?’

  ‘OK. I don’t know what he’s up to.’ He turns back. ‘It helps, though, doesn’t it?’ He hears the appeal for reassurance in his voice.

  ‘Bloody right it helps! And all of this within an hour of the story breaking. It means tomorrow’s papers will have to include these quotes too.’

  ‘Get that statement out sharpish.’

  ‘On it.’

  As soon as the statement is out, Owen sends Pam home in a cab, instructing her firmly to keep her phone off until the next morning, and summons another to get him back to his flat. He sees the pack on the pavement outside under the street lights. The broadcasters won’t have sent crews to his house. These are the stringers and freelancers hoping for a shot to sell, a quote. A few seconds of video to flog to the news sites for a hundred quid. Or a grand if he loses his temper.

  ‘Good luck, mate,’ the cabbie says, pulling up on the road alongside a couple of parked cars.

  Owen breathes deeply, steps out. They start screaming his name.

  ‘What’s wrong, tough guy? Give us a smile!’

  ‘Do you hate gays, Owen?’

  They are all men. There’s a cluster of them between him and the door.

  ‘Did you beat up your girlfriend?’ Just keep moving, he tells himself, head down slow and steady. He has the key in his hand.

  ‘What’s up? Sad because your little gay friend’s a cabbage?’

  He looks up, his face suffused with loathing, towards the voice and hears the fluttering of the shutters.

  The key feels heavy in his hand; he tenses his muscles. This is the closest he’s come to throwing a punch in more than a decade. He can’t. It’ll ruin him and make the man who gets the shot a small fortune.

  ‘Watch out, lads, I think he’s going to blow. Was it because I said “cabbage”? You sorry for the cabbage?’

  ‘Owen?’

  The door is opened from the inside and the man from the neighbouring flat to his is beckoning him in. Owen staggers through the crowd, the adrenaline running through his veins turning toxic. He should have slept in his fucking office. Christ, if his neighbour hadn’t been there he wouldn’t have got the key in the lock. His neighbour slams the front door on the pack. They go through the lobby to the bottom of the stairs.

  ‘Thanks … Sorry, I don’t even know your name.’

  ‘I’m Matt. Shall I call the police?’ he asks. ‘Get rid of them?’

  Owen feels the shaking exhaustion that comes after an adrenaline spike and they start to climb the stairs, slowly.

  ‘No point. That lot – they’ll keep coming back until the story dies. Sorry, if they’ve been bothering you.’

  They start up the second flight. ‘Fuck, don’t worry about me,’ Matt says. ‘I’ve never seen the like. They were ringing on all the doorbells. Someone let one of them in an hour ago and he was banging on your door. I told him to clear off.’

  Owen pauses as they get to their landing. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘It’s OK. Swear, I never had any idea what they could be like. I mean, you see it on the news, but up close like this? It’s freaky.’ He pulls himself together. ‘Anyway, you must be shattered. If there’s anything I can do … ’

  ‘You already saved my life coming down and opening the door. Well, my career at any rate. I nearly lost it out there.’

  Matt still looks shaken. ‘Sure there’s nothing else I can do?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Don’t let the bastards grind you down, I guess.’ He gives Owen a half-wave and lets himself back into his flat.

  Owen opens his own door and shuts the curtains before he turns on the light. The fresh bottle of Talisker that Greg left on the doormat is now sitting by the sink. Owen grabs it and pours himself a large measure. Imagines what that picture they took will look like on the front pages tomorrow. He lifts the whisky to his lips, but he can’t bring himself to drink it. He pours the damn thing down the drain. Watching it swirl away is comforting. He empties the rest of the bottle after it. What will the leadership do? Yes, he has Sabal’s statement and Phil’s, but the story had Jay’s actual words accusing him. And the policy is zero tolerance.

  He calls his family, texts Sabal to thank him. Talks to Marcie, his constituency agent, and to the chair of his local party, then to Liam, who is supremely confident the news will be chip wrappings tomorrow. ‘And if not, my brother is on the lookout for truck drivers. Get your HGV licence and you’ll be sorted.’

  Anna sends him a text, just sending her love, so he calls her too, and by the time they hang up she’s offered to buy him dinner as soon as he has a free evening. He wonders, hopes, if now she’s seen the worst that can happen, the press doesn’t horrify her as much as it did. Dangerous stuff, hope.

  The story is out there in all its foul and slippery glory, but so is Sabal’s statement, so is Phil’s and so is his. He turns on the stereo. Not much chance of sleep, but he won’t torment himself reading the overnight reactions to the story. He wonders if there is a stereo in Jay’s room at the care home.

  Thinking of Jay steadies him. Whatever he is going through, he is where he always wanted to be – in the middle of things – while Jay is there. A home like that has to have a way to play music for its patients. He starts thinking of the music Jay might have missed and starts working on a series of playlists, one per year. It absorbs him the way only music a
nd politics can, as his mind picks quietly at the past and present.

  He tries to tell himself, sitting there, that he doesn’t care. Even if he finds he’s not an MP anymore, after this, so be it. He needs to able to look in a mirror. But he does want to be an MP, be part of a new Labour government. He wants that very much. This is his blood and bones, politics. The sport and struggle of it, the battle to get something done, to leave some significant mark. If people are turning against him, buying into the idea of him as a thug, then the rest of his life will focus on playing and replaying this moment. He won’t even have the shock of the fall to wipe it out.

  It’s out of his hands. He opens his email and taps out an email to Phil’s old address.

  Thanks, you Tory bastard. This time he doesn’t delete the footer that includes his mobile number. The reply comes back almost immediately.

  You’re welcome, Labour scum. Now get some rest.

  Chapter 40

  ‘Are you insane?’

  ‘Good morning, Ian. Hope you slept well,’ says Phil.

  ‘I didn’t,’ Ian replies. ‘I’ve been working on this rant all night, so now I’m asking you how, when you are vulnerable, when the Secretary of State has his knives out for you and all the Brexit fanatics in the Cabinet are looking for reasons to mistrust you, you send out that statement in support of Owen McKenna! He is everything we hate most about the left! We were shaping up for another nice bit of Labour bloodletting and you handed them a bandage. So I think you must be insane. Are you insane?’

  Phil glances at his watch. He guesses his breakfast meeting is waiting in the Central Lobby and Ian is keeping his visitor waiting just to yell at him. He’ll have to give him an answer just to be allowed to get on with his day.

  He thinks of seeing Liam Holdsworth outside Owen’s offices. Owen must have tracked him down, got him a job. He is beginning to remember that under his persona of a tough, take-no-prisoners political operator, Owen has a strong sense of right and wrong.

  ‘Politically speaking, probably yes, I am insane. I told the truth. Now if you’ve got that out of your system, could you show up whoever is waiting to see me?’

  ‘If you’re going to start telling the truth on a regular basis, I better start looking for a new job.’

  And with that he stalks out of the room. Ian is right, Philip was in a dangerous position before and he’s just made it worse.

  Chapter 41

  Sunday 28 June 2009

  Phil can’t stop his leg shaking. In the end he stands up and walks in tight circles around the rows of bolted-down plastic chairs in the waiting room.

  ‘Oh, sit down!’ Georgina says. ‘This is worse than the jiggling.’

  He does, next to her. ‘Georgina, that case they found in the squaddie’s tent? That was Jay’s, wasn’t it? I saw it while Owen was giving him mouth-to-mouth.’ She ignores him. ‘Georgie? What did you do? That poor guy!’

  ‘Shut up, Phil! He hit a policeman.’

  ‘Why in God’s name did you throw it into his tent?’

  Finally, she looks at him. All the flower-girl sweetness has disappeared. She seems older, sharper, the skin drawn tight across her cheekbones. ‘I’m going to be selected for the Coventry East seat. I will not let Jay screw that up.’ Phil hasn’t seen this look in her eyes before. He does not like it. Then her expression softens. ’And I did it for Jay! You think he’ll get another job, a chance to restart his political career, with a possession charge?’

  ‘What about the soldier?’

  ‘I didn’t know that stupid policeman was going to look in the wrong tent.’

  ‘This is wrong, Georgie. Tell the truth or I will.’

  ‘The truth? I’ve never seen that case before. No idea how it got in that man’s tent.’

  ‘But you just said … ’

  ‘You’re going mad. I can’t even remember what happened, really, I’m so upset. But I know I’ve never seen that case.’

  She is holding his gaze while she says it, and Phil feels something strange under his skin, a creeping rippling sense of fear.

  The double doors into the depths of the station open with a slight rubbery sucking noise. Owen comes into the waiting area, a policewoman following him.

  ‘Miss Maxwell? If we could have a word.’

  ‘Never seen it,’ Georgina hisses through her teeth as she bends down to pick up her bag. ‘Think about it, Phil. Your career, Owen’s, mine, Jay’s. All on the shit heap because of something you are just making up in your own head.’ She stands up and smiles at the policewoman. ‘Hi! Yes, of course, just coming.’ Then she turns towards Phil and hisses, ‘He hit a policeman. Keep your mouth shut.’

  Owen calls Christine while Georgina is giving her statement. She answers, her voice thick with sleep, and snaps into wakefulness and shocked disbelief. They can’t talk long and maybe that’s a good thing. After the policewoman, Owen thinks Christine’s sympathy might break him entirely. The office is trying to call him. They tell him Jay is in intensive care, that Jay’s parents have been notified and are on their way to the hospital. They read him a short statement saying Jay Dewan, until recently an advisor to the Treasury, was taken ill at Glastonbury with what appears to be a severe recurrence of asthma. They all wish him a full and speedy recovery and send their sympathies to the family.

  ‘Sounds fine.’

  ‘No need to mention your names in connection with this now. We’ll see what happens.’ The Senior Press Officer sounds like a Captain in a World War Two film, Owen thinks. All that assurance. ‘Now, anything else I should know?’

  Georgina is ushered back into the waiting area and the policewoman asks to speak to Phil. He stands up as Owen replies.

  ‘An ex-soldier in the tent next to ours got into a fight with a policeman while Jay was being taken away,’ he says.

  Owen looks between Georgina and Phil, trying to read their expressions, the phone still pushed to his ear. They are still. Georgina gives the tiniest shake of her head.

  ‘Were any of you involved in any way?’ The Press Officer’s voice is sharpened.

  Owen feels crushed by it all. He sees the squaddie on his knees, his arms held behind his back.

  ‘No, we talked to him earlier in the day, but we weren’t involved.’

  ‘Thank God for that,’ the officer says and hangs up.

  Chapter 42

  Wednesday 16 March 2022

  Owen is back at Portcullis House by eight the following morning. A couple of shouted questions on the street which he ignores, but he’s too early for the main press pack. Pam is there before him.

  ‘How are we doing?’ he asks her.

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t look at Twitter if I were you. Or the comments section below the articles. The Daily Mail loves it. The Guardian and BBC News are sounding more cautious, though.’ As good as he could expect. ‘You doing any interviews? Everybody is asking for you.’

  ‘Nope. Just tell them we’re awaiting the conclusions of the Labour Party’s own investigation, and don’t have any further statement at this time.’ He pauses. ‘If Charlotte calls, though, tell her I’m grateful for Sabal’s statement.’ She makes a note. ‘Anything for us from the Leader’s Office yet?’

  ‘Nothing more since the statement in the article.’

  ‘What about Georgina?’

  ‘I haven’t seen any comment from her.’

  Pam leaves and Owen stares into space, then picks up his phone. Georgina had wanted him to damp down the story, kill it, and he had let it blow up in their faces. He hadn’t even warned her.

  Debra must be wrong. Georgina couldn’t have known what Kieron had done, but now Debra is talking to a solicitor. The sort of shit Owen has just ploughed through is likely heading for Georgina now. He calls her and she picks up straight away.

  ‘Owen! What do you want? There’s nothing I can do about our bullying policy, you know.’

  ‘It’s nothing like that. Look, Georgie. I’ve been thinking about Jay, what he was saying at Glasto
nbury, about Kieron. Do you remember the name Debra Brooks?’

  Her voice becomes less sharp. ‘Vaguely. Oh yes, she and Kieron had some disagreement about her contract, I think. Odd woman. Why?’

  ‘I thought you should know, I introduced her to Chloe Lefiami.’

  Georgina doesn’t say anything at all for a few seconds. ‘I see.’

  ‘Chloe doesn’t have any authority over the Union, of course. But she’s taking Debra to talk to a solicitor about getting round the NDA she signed. Some of things she said, Georgina … ’

  ‘“Chloe” is it now? Look, I have a meeting. Thanks for the heads-up. Take care.’

  She hangs up and Owen stares at the handset. Proud feminist, champion of women. She couldn’t have known. But if she didn’t know what Kieron did, why in God’s name hadn’t she asked what Debra had said?

  *

  He tries to sort out the wreckage of his diary and go through his email. His second cup of coffee is cold when his phone twitches to life with a number he doesn’t recognise. He shouldn’t answer it, not today, but he takes the chance.

  ‘Yup?’

  ‘It’s me.’

  ‘Phil?’

  ‘Got it in one. How are you doing?’ He sounds like he means it.

  ‘I’m hanging in there.’

  ‘Good. Look, I’ve got something to say to you, and in an ideal world I’d say it to your face, but I don’t think I can swing a private meeting today. That said, I’ve just left a committee meeting in Portcullis House, I’m grabbing a coffee at the Despatch Box and I can feel your lowering presence in the building.’

  ‘I’ll come down. How’s the sell-off of the NHS going today?’ Owen stands up from behind his desk and walks out of his office. ‘And thanks again for the statement.’