Sidetracked

by David Harley

  ‘You might be right.’

  Their eyes locked. This time she let him kiss her.

  Breathless, his head spinning and his heart pounding, he drew her towards him and held her tight.

  At last. As the charge hit him, she felt so soft and luscious and inviting. He thought he had inoculated his weaker side against the risks of passion and pain, but apparently not. The timing and the context weren’t perfect, but he wouldn’t let that get in the way. Unbelievably smart and tender, all at once.

  As they undressed in the bedroom he never took his eyes off her. He saw the reflection of their naked bodies and the dancing shadows across the room in the mirror behind her.

  ‘Why did it take you so long?’ she whispered as they lay next to each other in the bed.

  ‘I must have always known,’ he said.

  ‘Well, we finally made it, that’s all that matters,’ Sam replied, head tilted on one side, giving him that look. ‘We’d better make up for lost time.’

  They started tentatively and then came together in an explosive, mind-and-body cleansing sense of release, unlike anything he had ever known. In the space of a couple of hours she had reset his life. As he stared in wonder at her sleeping face, he couldn’t believe his luck.

  Several hours later, he heard the sound of his phone vibrating from inside his trousers, which lay in a heap on the floor by his bed. At that time of night, it could only be Jenny. He stretched out his arm and managed to switch it off, without disturbing the rhythm of Sam’s breathing beside him.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  When he woke up shortly before six the following morning, feeling Sam’s smooth warm skin alongside him, he gave a half-sigh, half-groan of pleasure. For a few semi-conscious seconds, the day was bursting with promise and he was at one with the world. Then he glimpsed in his mind the tidal wave of frenzy that was roaring down the hill towards him: once he had made his decision, there would be no escape. He would have to deal with whatever they threw at him. Sliding out of bed and padding to the bathroom that morning would be the last time for months that he did anything slowly and entirely of his own volition. From now on he would be living under the relentless glare of the prying press – as well as fending off the dark forces of the state. Goodbye to the world he had known all his life, hello to …what exactly?

  He quickly showered and dressed, and whispered goodbye to Sam, stroking her hair and telling her there was no need to hurry. They would see each other later at the meeting. He left a spare set of keys on the kitchen table, and a note asking her to lock the front door. As he dodged round the bleary-eyed commuters on the way to the tube station, he wondered how long the light-headedness would last.

  He was the first to arrive that morning in the new open-plan office, which occupied two thousand square feet of a converted attic in Tufton Street, with a partial view from the window of the two western towers of Westminster Abbey. By seven thirty, all the members of the campaign team had arrived and were hard at work, claiming desks, installing computers, experimenting with the printer and the coffee machine. Sam was one of the last to arrive, and brought Matt a coffee. When he looked up and thanked her, she raised a finger to her lips and sat down a short distance away.

  Fifteen minutes later they were all seated around what Rob had already named the ‘boardroom table’, which they carried from where it stood against one of the side-walls to the middle of the room. As the team members took their seats, Matt greeted each of them in turn. He had invited the twenty people he relied on and trusted most. In addition to Rob and Sam, the participants represented the Alliance’s core target groups – trade unions naturally, but also community action groups, small businesses, public service workers, students, IT start-ups, creative industries, NGOs, faith organisations and charities. They formed a credible coalition of interests from sectors of society that opposed the nationalists and all they stood for. They were all people who were known and respected in the communities where they lived and the areas where they worked.

  Matt needed to have around him a team of people that wouldn’t snap or snarl or panic when the crisis hit, and who believed in what they were doing. What they were planning to achieve together would be the greatest challenge that any of them, Matt included, had ever faced. The twenty stalwarts present that morning were the inner core, the backbone of the movement. He hoped he had chosen well.

  Two of his favourites were Bernadette Poignant, who came from Brittany and had set up her own environmental NGO, and was both passionate and principled in everything she did, and Ahmed Khan, the leader of the students’ union in the local university, who had the air of authenticity and easy charm of a natural networker. What Bernadette and Ahmed also had in common was that they were each brutally frank. Matt knew that any bullshitting on his part would be detected within seconds, and appreciated their readiness to challenge his ideas.

  ‘You’re wrong,’ Bernadette had told him the other day, when they had been discussing ideas for a new housing policy. ‘And you have a tendency to talk too much.’

  Ahmed had just laughed, refusing to take sides.

  ‘Don’t worry about her,’ he said eventually, noticing Matt’s flicker of irritation. ‘She means well, but she’s not very diplomatic. Or modest. After all, she’s French.’ Ahmed ducked as Bernadette pretended to slap his face.

  He looked around the table, checking that everyone had arrived, making eye contact with each of them. After calling the meeting to order, Matt gave each person present a series of tasks – setting up a legal structure, proposing a procedure for electing officers, organising a membership drive, fundraising, events planning, or buying advertising space. Matt himself would oversee policy; Rob would be responsible for general organisation, and Sam in charge of media and communications.

  ‘Before you start work, there’s something I want to tell you,’ said Matt.

  He felt twenty pairs of questioning eyes boring into him.

  ‘I’ve decided to put myself forward to run against James Crouch in the general election, in the constituency of West Thameside, which he currently represents – hopefully for not much longer.’

  As the news sank in, the initial expressions of surprise were cancelled out by a short burst of clapping, led by Ahmed. Rob sat stony-faced, the only one present that didn’t join in.

  ‘Obviously, like every other Alliance candidate, I expect to go through the proper selection procedure – which we have to adopt as soon as possible - so I’m not taking anything for granted. But my aim is to stand against Crouch on his home turf, so that our movement as a whole can benefit from the resulting publicity and media coverage. I wanted you to be the first to know.’

  ‘You don’t hang about,’ said Rob, sitting down next to Matt, as the others went back to their desks. ‘We need to talk about this – you’ve just signed up for a humiliating defeat. You should have consulted me first. Whoever gave you that idea?’

  ‘It just felt like the obvious thing to do,’ Matt replied. ‘Anyway, my decision’s made, and if I obtain the nomination, I’m going to fight to win.’

  In the days and weeks that followed, whatever he did and wherever he went, the pace quickened and the pressure mounted. Incessantly buffeted about by the need for rapid-fire decisions and real-time reactions, continuously moving from one stage to the next, he had no time to question the purpose of it all. He was insane, he would tell himself after a particularly long day, completely insane, to be fighting on two fronts at the same time – the constituency battle against Crouch which he knew would soon become personal and venomous, and the nationwide campaign to win votes and seats for the Save Our Country Alliance. There were no bounds to his optimism and commitment to the cause, but the limits of his mental and physical resilience were being tested as never before. During those moments when the debilitating sensation swept over him that he was no longer in control of his life, he shuddered and forced himself to keep going.

  In his mad dash for power and glory and against time, th
e precondition for success was setting up a dynamic and finely tuned organisation, comprising statutes, troops, resources, donors, advertising, a website, permanent media presence, airtime, policies – preferably costed – and a good measure of luck. The American politician Mario Cuomo had once said, “You campaign in poetry, you govern in prose”. As he struggled to sort out all the essential practicalities, Matt’s new life was still short on poetry and emotion. Fired up and frustrated, he longed to reach out to the voters and start campaigning. He didn’t dare think the prospect of power might be an illusion, or a threat to his sanity. He would soon find out.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  His selection as parliamentary candidate could not be guaranteed in advance, and might backfire, but his better angels told him he had to accept the risk and lead by example. Two weeks later, scrupulously respecting the newly established procedure, a hustings meeting was held in the local adult education centre.

  Each of the three candidates was asked to speak for ten minutes and then to answer questions. Matt’s two fellow would-be nominees – Fran Williams, a shy history teacher and climate change activist, and George Simpson, a local businessman and former Labour moderate – gave performances that were solid but failed to set the room alight.

  When it was Matt’s turn to speak, he tried to move the proceedings up a gear, without sounding too full of himself. He stood behind the lectern, without any notes, his eyes scanning the hall as he tried to capture the audience’s attention.

  ‘What this constituency decides in this election will determine the future of our country. Change begins here in West Thameside. If you nominate me as your candidate, I promise we’ll make history together. Voting to re-elect James Crouch will bring our country one step closer to becoming a dictatorship. Voting him out will send a message of hope all over England that it’s time for a change. Over the past five years, he’s betrayed his constituents time and time again by serving his own interests, instead of defending yours. He’s out of touch and he has to go.’

  As the applause began to grow, Matt reeled off a list of specific policy proposals for investment in local infrastructure – in schools and hospitals, care homes and transport; setting up community land trusts to build affordable housing with rents set at the average wage in the surrounding area; ending the abuse of property rights; promoting a sharing economy, based on mutualism and ethical practice, with new forms of finance and crowdfunding; reforming the tax system to make the local economy grow and create decent jobs for school leavers and apprentices with decent pay - everyone should receive at least the living wage.

  He saw Rob at the back of the room flapping his right hand, as if to tell him to slow down or, more probably, to go easy on the uncosted promises. He had just begun to draw his speech to a close, confident that the nomination was in his grasp, when the trouble began.

  A group of half a dozen well-built men, all in their late twenties or early thirties, stood up at the back of the room, and began shouting out a barrage of questions, without waiting for the chair to give them the floor. Matt guessed they were from the English Patriotic Front, and were playing the old Momentum trick of creating a disturbance to destabilise the meeting and then challenge its legitimacy. He would calmly wait to hear what they had to say, and then try to turn the incident to his advantage.

  The questions and taunts came in quick succession, all directed at Matt, following by crude chants.

  ‘What did you ever do for us? … Why vote for a fucking lobbyist? … Never done an honest days’ work in his life … Why should we trust you? ’

  Then in unison, pointing their fingers at Matt, they began chanting ‘He’s the same as all the rest - out, out, out’, repeating the refrain over and over again. The chair of the meeting, a local GP called Richard French, told them to be quiet but they paid no attention. Gradually the rest of the room turned against them, and under a barrage of boos and jeers they finally stopped and sat down.

  Unperturbed, Matt stepped forward. He addressed the hecklers directly.

  ‘You’ve every right to express your views, and to be suspicious of politicians. They’ve had a bad record these past few years. The question you have to ask yourselves today is not whether I’ll be any different from the others. The real question is “do you trust your own judgement?” Only you can answer that question. Now take a good look at the three candidates before you, think back to what we each said, and decide which of us would be best for you and your family and our community. Decide in your heart and your head what’s best for your future. It’s your free democratic choice. Don’t waste it.’

  The hecklers remained silent while the rest of the room applauded. When Richard French announced the result, Matt had received over eighty per cent of the votes cast by the three hundred SOCA members present, and was duly proclaimed parliamentary candidate. The public battle could now commence.

  His first press statement as candidate, in which he branded Crouch as ‘the symbol of everything that’s wrong with English politics’, had already been sent out. At the back of the hall, Sam was briefing three local journalists. Later that night, the first online articles would appear: even if Crouch remained the overwhelming favourite to win the seat and serve another term as MP, it was now clear he would not be re-elected unopposed or without a fight.

  As people came up to congratulate him, the group of hecklers disappeared through the rear exit. After Matt had finished shaking hands and thanking his supporters, he went over to where Rob was standing with some of the union stewards.

  ‘Where did that lot appear from?’ Matt asked.

  ‘No, idea. Not on our radar screen. Someone must have sent them – I expect they’ll be back.’

  As Matt walked home to his flat through the dark streets, he told himself he would take the rest of the evening off, after this first modest victory. He already pictured himself messing about about in the kitchen, and pouring himself a glass of wine. He would rustle up something that would pleasantly surprise Sam, and after supper they would analyse together the events of the day and plan their next success, before going to bed.

  He looked up at his living-room window, and thought he saw a quickly passing shadow. Perhaps it was the reflection of the upper branches of the cherry tree that stood on the other side of the road, as they swayed in the wind. In any case, the shadow was no longer there. He saw two heads in the front of a grey Hyundai parked opposite, whom he assumed was his security detail. The arrangements had become more flexible as Trafalgar Square had receded into memory and there had been no further signs of danger. He went inside the main entrance and walked up the stairs to his flat on the second floor. He thought again of Sam’s broad when the result of the vote was announced, as he rummaged in his jacket pockets, looking for his keys.

  Then to his horror he saw that he didn’t need them, because the door was wide open.

  His heart thudding, he searched his mind for an explanation. Surely Sam must have closed and locked the door when she left that morning? If someone had entered during the day, might they still be there, waiting for him? The hallway in the flat was pitch dark, the only light coming from the landing outside. The inner doors to the living room, his room and the bathroom looked firmly closed. He stayed motionless and silent, straining to pick up a giveaway sound from inside, but could hear nothing. Without yet moving forward, from outside he extended his arm round the door to locate the light switch.

  He pressed the switch and the narrow hallway, never particularly welcoming, was suddenly bathed in bright light. Still leaving the front door ajar, he gingerly opened the door to his bedroom: the cupboard was shut, the drawers closed, everything seemed as it should be. Nobody had broken in - there must have been a problem with the door. He would get it fixed in the morning. Relieved but still shaken, he went into the living room and turned on the light.

  The glass birds were still in their place on the shelf above the fire, but something was missing. He took two paces forward, and then stopped. On the car
pet in the middle of the room lay a little pile of shattered glass and empty frames, and on top of it the remains of his photos of Sophie and Jack. They were his favourites that he waved at every time he came home, and that made him feel a little less lonely even as he missed them. Simple childhood scenes: Sophie playing on the beach, Jack with his first cricket bat, the two of them together taken with Matt and their old dog Barney.

  He knelt down and saw that each photo had been ripped in two: the children’s eyes had been blacked out and the rest of their faces smeared with red paint.

  Stunned and sickened, he ran to the window, but the car with the security guards was no longer there.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The prime minister had a pained expression. Penfold knew only too well what that look usually meant.

  ‘I can’t believe you let him become a candidate. And on my home turf – the cheek of it! If you’re so keen on promoting Mr Barker’s career, why don’t you hand him the keys to Number Ten right away and be done with it.’

  ‘But he’s nobody, Prime Minister. Totally unknown in the constituency. No one will vote for him. Whereas you’re universally admired and respected, with a long record of outstanding service. You’ll win by a landslide, just like last time.’

  ‘Just because you screwed up doesn’t give you a licence to bullshit me. I don’t take him seriously either, but I want to be spared any embarrassment. The point is that your friend Mr Barker – ’

  ‘- That’s unfair, Prime Minister. He’s not my friend, and we’ve been actively trying to prevent him from standing against you. Yesterday evening, immediately after his nomination, we organised a discreet break-in to unsettle him and make him think again.’

  ‘Which from all accounts was a total failure. Next time you should be a little less discreet and a lot more effective. The point is that he’s only been standing for one day, and he’s already accused me of widespread corruption and abuse of power – not surprisingly, the press are lapping it up. I counted on you to protect my good name. I’m disappointed in you. What do you intend to do about it?’