Goodfellowe MP

by Michael Dobbs

  Then there was Sammy.

  He could not stifle a sharp intake of breath. The clothes themselves, designed by Samantha and made up by other more skilled seamstresses, consisted of carefully flared trousers which began three inches below her navel and had laces down the thigh. Her shoes had huge heels which made his blistered feet weep in sympathy. Three inches above the navel began a crop-top which outlined a figure that had become undeniably soft and feminine. At that moment and for the first time he realized that his little girl, so innocent in school uniform and shapeless jeans and jumpers, was growing up all too fast. It made her unfamiliar; he was suddenly afraid he was losing her. A large waistcoat of patchwork velvet finished off the clothes. Above, around her neck, was a gap where her mother’s locket might have been.

  So far, none of this was exceptional apart from the effervescence and simple sense which had gone into the effect. What caused further intakes of breath from all around – not just from himself but most noticeably from Miss Rennie – were the deeply personal accessories. The spikes of brilliant orange where before had been soft auburn hair. Purple lips. The bared left shoulder from which sprouted the tattoo of a rose in bloom. And another gap, between halter and hipsters, where a gilded chain encircled her hips and threaded up to an all too obvious gold ring that had been pierced straight through the flesh of her navel.

  The cameras were beside her now, following her confident strides up and down the catwalk. She appeared heedless of the stir of unease from parents in the audience, perhaps even relishing it. Yet in the farther recesses of the hall something else stirred. Approval and applause began to break through like spring daffodils, cautiously at first, then more abundantly and with greater confidence until they had spread inexorably through the carefully planted rows of chairs and were swirling around the foot of the stage. The cameras turned on the audience, which began to respond, elders matching the enthusiasm of their offspring.

  But not Goodfellowe. He remained immune to the infection sweeping through the hall. This was his little girl, barely out of braces and bobby socks. Or was it? She seemed strangely unfamiliar, unknown to him. ‘What on earth do you call that … that …’ – words failed – ‘grunge?’

  ‘You’re out of date, Mr Goodfellowe. That’s definitely post-grunge,’ Miss Rennie offered without a trace of humour, but joining in the applause as the cameras panned towards her. It was the only way. Apparent enthusiasm. The honour of the school was at stake.

  Cameras appeared to be everywhere that week.

  It was Friday, mid-afternoon, and Goodfellowe was driving – more correctly being driven – back to Marshwood. One of the few blessings of being stripped of his licence was that the Member for the neighbouring constituency, Lionel Lillicrap, was a colleague of long standing and had been more than willing to help with lifts. In fact, Lionel was the only blessing which arose from that sorry episode – apart from the fact that he could drink without damnation for at least another eight months.

  Goodfellowe and Lillicrap had entered the House together, twelve years earlier, sharing in the early days both ambition and a Commons office, yet it had been Goodfellowe on whose brow the laurels of early promotion had fallen. Indeed, he had been the coming man. He was granted grudging respect by his civil servants and, more grudgingly still, by his colleagues, and it was agreed by consensus that Goodfellowe had far to go. Cabinet Ministers engaged in backstairs battle in order to secure his services as their Number Two, regarding him as a rock in the stormy legislative night. They reserved for Goodfellowe the highest parliamentary accolade, that he was ‘a safe pair of hands’. As he hacked his path through the Ministerial jungle his diary had struggled to fit in days in Davos and weekends in Washington. An invitation to sit around the brown-baize Cabinet table seemed an inevitable next step.

  It had been the trip of a lifetime and as companion on that trip he had taken Lillicrap as his PPS. Rising Ministers are allowed Parliamentary Private Secretaries, ambitious men and women who are willing to engage in the most menial of tasks around the House on behalf of their masters, pouring drinks, running errands, taking in dirty parliamentary laundry, carrying their Minister’s papers in the hope that one day they will be able to carry such papers in their own right. One foot on the ladder, yet with the other still stuck in the cloying mud of the backbenches. If it had been innately irksome for Lillicrap to watch his contemporary speed ahead of him, at least he was grateful for the opportunity to follow, and he took reassurance from the fact that he was fully five years younger than Goodfellowe – he had time on his side.

  And time within the Palace of Westminster has an uncanny ability to produce the perverse. Goodfellowe’s resignation in order to attend to his pressing family problems generated considerable sympathy, but political careers are built on today’s ambition rather than yesterday’s sorrow. The rising star had turned to burnt-out meteorite and cold, cracked rock. Now Lillicrap was in the ascendant, a Government Whip – ‘a rack master’, as Goodfellowe had once observed, ‘with access to all the instruments of parliamentary torture’. ‘Not at all,’ Lillicrap had countered with a smile, ‘merely a parliamentary social worker, a shoulder for troubled colleagues to cry on.’

  And Lillicrap had honoured the claim. It was he who had helped with the loan to keep Goodfellowe’s battered head above water, and also with the CPF consultancy through which he intended to pay it off. A Whip’s work, but also the service of a colleague and friend.

  ‘What are the chances of finding another consultancy, Lionel, d’you suppose?’ Goodfellowe enquired. They had just passed the tiny aerodrome at Fyfield on the A303 and were about to enter the stretch of single-lane carriageway that gets choked on a Friday afternoon unless you manage, as they had, to make an early start.

  ‘Thought you’d been a bit quiet. Broody. Want another, do you? But I thought you hated having to accept the last one?’

  ‘Needs must. I’m still in the middle of a war zone and getting shot at from all sides. You’re right, I dislike the idea intensely. But I have Sammy to think of. Anyway,’ he added, attempting to make light of it, ‘I may have to buy myself a new bike.’

  ‘What happened to Old Beryl?’ Goodfellowe had once complained of how the saddle of his bike constantly bit into him. Lillicrap had promptly named the beast after the other main rectal discomfort in Goodfellowe’s life.

  ‘Got demolished. Outside Charing Cross police station. It’ll play hell with the crime figures.’

  ‘Something for which I hope you’ll be apologizing personally to the Home Secretary. But in any event I suppose we’ll have to help. Can’t have you failing to get to the House. Missing any more votes.’

  ‘Ouch.’

  ‘Sorry. Chief Whip’s told me to rub it in a little. A lot, actually.’ Lillicrap was juggling the steering wheel with his knees while opening a bag of Liquorice Allsorts at sixty.

  ‘Thank him for me.’

  ‘If you want our help with another consultancy, that practically puts you on the payroll, old chum.’

  ‘I wouldn’t sell my soul for a palace, Lionel, yet you expect me to sell it for a caravan park?’ Goodfellowe sounded prickly. He declined the proffered Berty Bassett.

  ‘Look, there’s a way out of all this. Something which would help both you and me, get you back into everyone’s good books. You know we’ve got the new Press Bill coming down from the Lords any day. It’s Heritage Department fodder so I’m the lucky Whip in charge of it. I want you on the Standing Committee. Helping me out.’

  ‘You mean doing your donkey work.’ Goodfellowe hoped he didn’t sound churlish. Being pushed around, however tactfully, by his former PPS would take a little getting used to. Their relationship had been turned on its head and he had his pride. In any event, slogging away on the Standing Committee, examining the entrails of the Press Bill inch by mucky inch, failed to fill him with any enthusiasm.

  ‘It’s not likely to be too much work: the Bill’s got to go through by the summer recess. Of course, t
here are any number of more tedious committees you might be put on if the Chief gets his way.’

  Goodfellowe groaned.

  ‘Come on, Tom. Help me out. And help yourself, too.’

  They were on Salisbury Plain and through the window Stonehenge was beginning to turn to ochreblue shadow in the late afternoon mist. Goodfellowe always found the simple Welsh-hewn megaliths a sight to rouse his spirits, a symbol of hope that pushed the urban clutter and confusion of London far from his mind. Four thousand years ago they’d dragged those huge slabs across hundreds of miles of hostile countryside with nothing but their hands, ordinary men with exceptional dreams who wanted to change their world, to build a monument that would stand and survive as a beacon of hope not only in their dark Neolithic age but in times that were to come. Which presumably was why the faceless men who decide such matters were planning to bury this majestic stretch of the A303 inside a tunnel, pouring the British motorist and his money down a sightless black hole while reserving the inspiration for the exclusive enjoyment of Japanese tourists.

  ‘Bollocks.’

  Lillicrap, still pondering his Standing Committee, took Goodfellowe’s conclusion as acceptance of his request. ‘That’s great. It’ll be fun working together again. Tell you what, I’m going shooting in Scotland again this summer. Glorious Twelfth and all that. Come if you’d like. Do some damage to the grouse and the malt. We could celebrate our hard work together. Slaughter and swill. Bring Sam, too.’

  ‘I’m not much of a shot, Lionel …’

  ‘No matter. There’s miles of good fishing or even walking.’

  ‘Truth is, I think it may be a little beyond me. Even with a new consultancy.’

  Lillicrap grinned reassuringly. ‘Don’t worry too much about that. Look, I’ve been shooting on the same estate ever since I got into Parliament. They. owe me a few favours. I can get you a very good deal. Believe me, the money will be no problem.’

  ‘We’ll see.’ Money was always a problem, but that concern paled into insignificance next to Sammy. She would go ballistic if he announced they’d be spending their summer turning Perthshire into an alfresco abattoir. She would be more likely to arrive with a picket line than a party frock.

  Lillicrap popped another handful of liquorice and put his foot down to clear a milk tanker which was struggling along the single carriageway. The Range Rover didn’t even complain, eating up the distance – as well it might at almost fifty pence a mile, courtesy of the Members’ mileage allowance. A hundred pounds travelling to, and a hundred pounds travelling fro, every time Lillicrap visited his constituency. Goodfellowe had known some MPs to travel three and four up with each of them putting in a claim. Pity was they didn’t offer a bike allowance. Maybe he’d suggest one, on health grounds.

  It was a few miles beyond Stonehenge that they came across the accident at the roundabout. A B-reg Fiat filled with students on their way to a frolic in Exeter had entered the roundabout too fast and had failed to make the final corner, clipping the kerb and leaping straight into the trunk of an ancient ash. The bonnet was up and crumpled, the misshapen windscreen had evil smears of something dark and dribbling on the inside. Blue steam wafted from the engine compartment. Two of the doors had been forced open by the impact and from one a young man was trying to crawl, dragging himself by a single arm, the other lying awkward and useless by his side. Already three drivers had found excuses to pass the scene, slowing only to spy. The driver of a veal lorry approaching from the other direction had shown more concern and had slowed but was in difficulties finding a safe place to park.

  Goodfellowe indicated the grass verge, scarred and chewed by the Fiat’s desperate tyre tracks, and Lillicrap gently eased the Range Rover over the kerb, flicking on his hazard lights as he did so. ‘Call the rescue services,’ Goodfellowe instructed, leaping out.

  The smashed car had four occupants. One was sitting on the verge, head buried in his hands, another two lay unconscious in the front seat while the fourth was still trying to claw his way from the back, his only good hand reaching out imploringly as he saw Goodfellowe approach. Steam – or was it smoke? – continued to pour from the engine. The ignition was still on, whining, sparking electric blue and yellow in warning. Something acrid burnt in the back of Goodfellowe’s throat as he approached. He reached across and had to battle with the twisted key stuck in the ignition before the system fell silent. He had also succeeded in smearing blood from the collapsed steering wheel across the sleeve of his jacket. Beside him, the driver appeared to be in a bad way, his facial injuries weeping horribly. Better not touch him, best to wait until the emergency services arrived. The driver of the cattle truck was wrenching at the far door, trying to get to the other front-seat passenger, who was beginning to stir. Goodfellowe turned his attention to the pleas from the back. The student’s right collar bone and probably his arm were fractured. He had dragged himself halfway out of the door but could go no further, every effort twisting his face with pain. He raised pleading eyes to Goodfellowe.

  ‘Help me.’

  Goodfellowe dropped to his knees to give him some support and as soon as he had reached around the student’s chest the boy seemed to give way, falling into his protector’s arms. Slowly, with considerable difficulty, Goodfellowe eased him out of the car and onto the grass.

  ‘They’re coming!’ Lillicrap called from the Range Rover. He threw across a car rug.

  The boy was shivering, his teeth chattering with shock, yet a sudden energy seemed to take hold of him. With his good hand he clutched urgently at Goodfellowe, drawing him closer. ‘Are you p-p-police?’ he whispered, stammering. There was blood in his eye, Goodfellowe wiped it away with the boy’s own ripped shirt-sleeve.

  ‘No. They’re on their way.’ He meant it to sound reassuring but the boy seemed only to grow more agitated.

  ‘Please. A favour. In my shirt pocket.’ His crooked arm tried to inch towards the pocket, but the pain made him seize. ‘Please.’ He was sobbing.

  Goodfellowe’s fingers probed inside the pocket and emerged clutching a small plastic bag of what looked a little like green tobacco.

  ‘Grass. Only enough for a couple of smokes. Bin it for me? Before the police get here?’

  Goodfellowe hesitated.

  ‘If they find it on me … Please.’

  The student made another desperate attempt to reach the bag himself but the pain was too much. He sank back, teeth cracking, a look of despair glazing over his bloodied eyes.

  Goodfellowe held the drug in the palm of his hand. He had grown old with the ethical certainties which were regularly laid out for inspection at Westminster, but there was another world outside the palace precincts where the moral insights of politicians had a habit of vaporizing on contact with reality. So the drug was illegal. But it was soft. The boy, knowing it was illegal, had taken the risk. Just like Jya-Yu. And like Jya-Yu, he had lost. Punishment was due, but wasn’t this accident punishment enough? Yet for Goodfellowe to conceal the drug would also be wrong. And yet, and yet … the boy was only Sammy’s age.

  Hell, before he’d become one of the country’s great moral authorities Goodfellowe had tried the stuff himself. At university. A Sixties’ child, like all the rest. He shoved the bag in his pocket.

  It was at this point that Goodfellowe looked around to see if anyone had spotted the exchange. He noticed Lillicrap still standing well back under the protective cover of the Range Rover. ‘Give me a hand,’ Goodfellowe asked, trying to shift the lad. Lillicrap ventured over with reluctance, stepping toe-first through the churned grass as though practising ballet steps.

  ‘Better wait for the emergency services, perhaps.’ He sounded distracted. ‘I’ll get my fire extinguisher, just in case,’ he offered, and made to return to the Range Rover.

  ‘Come on, Lionel, just help me make him a little more comfortable.’

  The image of the self-assured Whip was beginning to slip. ‘Look, Tom, perhaps it’s better if we left this to others. We’ve no
medical experience. Might do more harm than good.’ He lowered his voice, looking at Goodfellowe’s soiled hands. ‘Have you thought of AIDS?’

  ‘Bugger AIDS. These boys need help.’

  ‘And it’s coming.’ Already they could hear the sirens in the distance, trying to force passage through the tangle of traffic which had spread in every direction. ‘We’ve both got engagements to get to – and look at the state of your trousers.’

  For the first time Goodfellowe became aware that he was kneeling in mud. ‘I’m staying until the ambulance gets here.’

  It was a good ten minutes before the rescue services arrived and the student had agreed to let go of his hand. As Goodfellowe wiped his own damp brow and straightened up he realized Lillicrap was right. He looked a mess and felt worse. He needed something absurd to lift his spirits.

  He found it at the edge of the roundabout. Lillicrap, now in his shirtsleeves and clutching his stained car rug like a battle trophy, had completely lost his coyness and was giving an animated interview to a passing local television crew. Goodfellowe laughed until the tears poured down his cheeks.

  Much later, when the laughter had been forgotten and they had struggled for more than two hours to fight their way through the ensuing jams, Goodfellowe arrived long after time for his constituency function – to be met by Miss Hailstone. She was always an extraordinary sight. Her lips gave the impression of being cut from cheap wellingtons. They were the colour of bright red plastic and squeaked absurdly as they moved. Her hair had grown prematurely orange and was swept back in a style that defied both gravity and fashion, and which, combined with an extravagant bust, created the impression of a man o’ war casting around in search of fresh winds. She was under full sail as she headed directly for Goodfellowe.

  ‘Mr Goodfellowe …’ – she was always excessively formal when firing salvoes – ‘I thought I’d made it sufficiently clear how important this evening was so that even you couldn’t misunderstand. Don’t you want to get re-elected? You really might have made the effort. Some of our most important supporters have already left and – good grief, man. Just look at you!’