The Final Cut

by Michael Dobbs

  'Contain yourself, Diggers,' Brynford-Jones interjected. 'Nothing lasts forever.'

  The editor and lobbyist enjoyed the banter, but Makepeace's mind had drifted elsewhere. He was gazing down onto the floor of the auditorium where Urquhart, surrounded by enthusing acolytes and attended closely by Geoffrey Booza-Pitt, was replacing his handkerchief.

  'Everything pukka, Tom?' Brynford-Jones enquired.

  'Yes, of course. Just thinking how right you were. You know. About how nothing lasts forever.'

  The red-leather box lay open on the back seat, papers untouched. The Minister had fallen asleep as soon as they reached the motorway - it had been a heavy working dinner and the old boy's stamina wasn't what it once was. He was snoring gently, mouth ajar, slumped awkwardly to one side. Should've worn his seat belt. The driver studied him carefully in the rear-view mirror for some time before deciding he could risk it. Cautiously, while ensuring that the Jaguar's engine maintained its constant soothing cadence at a steady eighty-three miles an hour, he reached for the volume button of the radio. They were just about to kick off at Upton Park and the next ninety minutes would decide an entire season's effort. He didn't want to miss it. He paused as through the drizzle ahead emerged the rear lights of an old Escort, still trying to prove it was all TRi and not knackered to death. The Escort's youthful driver cursed; the rotted rubber of his wipers had transformed the motorway into a smear of confusing messages and he was straining to make sense of the scene ahead. He had no eyes for what lay behind. The Minister's driver decided not to risk waking his passenger by braking suddenly, not with the match about to start. He drew over to the middle lane to pass the other vehicle on the inside.

  Some events in life — and death — lie beyond reasonable explanation. Afterwards men of learning, experience and great forensic ability may gather to offer their views, yet all too frequently such views serve less as explanation than excuse. Sometimes it is as easy to accept that there are moments when Fate rouses herself from an afternoon nap and, sleep still heavy upon her eyes, points her finger capriciously and with chaotic intent. For it was just as the Minister's driver was leaning towards the radio button once more, less than six feet to the rear and on the inside of the other vehicle, that the Escort's rear offside burst. Fate. It swerved violently in front of the Ministerial limousine whose driver, one-handed, snatched at the wheel. The Jaguar hit the central reservation and turned a full, elegant circle on the damp road before crossing the hard shoulder and disappearing down an earth bank.

  It came to rest against the trunk of an elm tree. When the driver recovered from his shock he found the Ministerial box battered and torn on the front seat beside him. And so was the Minister.

  'Francis Urquhart, peacemaker?' Brynford-Jones made no attempt to hide the incredulity in his voice and he stared closely at Makepeace to gauge the reaction.

  'We live in an exciting new world, Bryan. Anything is possible.'

  'Agreed. But Francis Urquhart?'

  They had stood in line with the other guests on the stairs of Downing Street, waiting to be greeted formally by the Urquharts before being introduced to the Presidents of the divided Cypriot communities. The previous day, on the neutral territory of the ballroom of Lancaster House and under the public eye of the British Prime Minister, Turk and Greek had agreed the principles of peace and undertaken to settle all outstanding details within three months. The Confederated Republics of Cyprus were about to be born, conflict eschewed, the Right Honourable Francis Urquhart, MP, Acting Midwife, Peacemaker.

  Now came celebration. The powers that be within the land had been gathered together in the first-floor reception rooms of Downing Street in order that they might offer thanks to peace and to Francis Urquhart. It was a levelling, for some almost humbling, experience. No matter how wealthy or well-known, they had been treated alike. No cars, no eminence, no exceptions. Stopped at the wrought-iron gates barring entrance to Downing Street from Whitehall. Scrutinized by police before being allowed to walk with their wives the full length of the street to the guarded front door. Being made to wait while their coats were exchanged for a wrinkled paper cloakroom ticket. Five minutes spent in line shuffling piously up the stairs, step by single step, past the portraits of former leaders, the Walpoles, Pitts, Palmerstons, Disraelis, Churchills, and the one and only Margaret Thatcher. 'To those we have crucified,' Brynford-Jones had muttered. Then the formal introduction by some red-coated alien from another galaxy who seemed to recognize no one and had great trouble with pronunciation. 'Mr Bimford-Jones' had not been impressed, but then he rarely was.

  'It must have been like this at the Court of Versailles,' he offered. 'Just before the tumbrils arrived.'

  'Bryan, your cynicism runs away with you. Great changes require a little ruthlessness. Credit where it is due,' Makepeace protested.

  'And are you ruthless, Tom? Ruthless enough to snatch old Francis' crown? Because he's not going to hand it over for Christmas. You're going to have to snatch it, like he did. Like they all had to. Do you really have what it takes?'

  'You need luck, too, in politics,' Makepeace responded, trying to deflect the question but showing no anxiety to finish with either the conversation or the editor.

  'Men should be masters of their own fates.'

  'You know I'd love the job but the question doesn't arise. Yet.'

  it never arises when you expect it. You want to achieve great things, you grab Fortune by the balls and hang on for the ride.'

  'Bryan, at times I think you're trying to tempt me.'

  'No, not me. I simply present ambition to a man and see if ambition tempts him. I'm strictly a voyeur, the prerogative of the press. The dirty work I leave up to you guys - and girls!' he exclaimed, reaching out to grab the elbow of another guest as she edged through the throng.

  Claire Carlsen turned and smiled, her face lighting up in recognition. She was also an MP, at thirty-eight a dozen years younger than Makepeace and the editor.

  'And what have you done to earn your place amidst this glittering herd?' Brynford-Jones enquired. 'I thought nobody below the rank of Earl or Archbishop was allowed at this trough. Certainly not a humble backbencher.'

  'It's called tokenism, Bryan. Apparently professional middle-aged moralizers like you like to have a bit of skirt around to remind them of lost youth. You know, slobber a bit and go away happy. That's the plan.' The smile was warm but the autumn-blue eyes searching. She was tall, almost eye-to-eye with the rotund editor who enjoyed the glint of evening sunlight shining through her blonde hair.

  Brynford-Jones laughed loudly. 'You're too late for confession. I've already owned up to being a voyeur and in your case I'll happily plead guilty. If ever that husband of yours throws you out, you'd be more than welcome to come and stir my evening cocoa.'

  'If ever I throw that husband of mine out,' she corrected, 'I'd hope to be stirring more than cocoa in the evenings. Anyway, what have you two been plotting? Strippergrams to the Synod, or something frivolous?'

  'I was enquiring whether our friend here has what it takes to succeed in politics, the necessary qualities of energy and ambition to become the next Prime Minister. Would you lay money on him, Claire?'

  She arched an eyebrow - she possessed a highly expressive face and, when relaxed, an aura of refreshing mischief. In response to Brynford-Jones' invitation she examined Makepeace as though for the first time, the end of her nose puckered in si cpti-cism, seeming to reach some conclusion before deliberately throwing their attention in an entirely different direction.

  'If energy and ambition were all, then our next leader is surely standing over there by the window.'

  'Not our Geoff? I'd rather emigrate,' the editor chuckled, irreverent though not entirely incredulous.

  They turned to follow her gaze. In the bay of a grand Georgian window overlooking the garden, the Transport Secretary had pinned the Governor of the Bank of England against the elegant drape.

  'Liquid engineering,' Claire continued. 'He h
andles it so smoothly the Governor won't even realize when he's been set aside for the next name on the list.'

  'Our Geoff's got a list?' the editor enquired.

  'Surely. Typed on a card in his breast pocket. He has an hour here, so he asks for a copy of the invitation list beforehand, sees how many people he wants to impress or to harangue, then splits his time. Six minutes each. Digital precision.'

  In silence they watched as Booza-Pitt, without pause for breath or apparent reference to his watch, took the Governor's hand and bade farewell. Then he was moving across the room, shaking hands and offering salutations as he passed, but not stopping.

  'Chances are he'll end the programme with somebody's bored wife,' Claire continued. 'It's a regular routine, particularly since he separated from his own wife.'

  'His second wife,' Makepeace corrected.

  'Fascinating. The man goes up in my estimation,' Brynford-Jones admitted. 'Which, I'm forced to admit, still doesn't take him very far. But how do you come by all this delicious and wicked information?'

  She pursed her lips. 'You know how we girls like to gossip. And you don't think he types his own list, do you?'

  The editor knew she was mocking more than Booza-Pitt. He noticed how steady the blue eyes remained throughout her conversation, examining, judging. She didn't miss much. He suspected she used men much more than was used by them. Her clothes were expensively discreet from some of Knightsbridge's most fashionable couturiers, her sexuality unobtrusive but apparent and all her own, his desire for her growing by the minute. But he suspected she was not a woman to cross, or to fall for one of his customary 'would you like to discuss your profile over supper' ploys. It would be a mistake to miss the woman within by merely tracing over the superficial packaging.

  'I believe I should talk to you more often, Claire,' he offered.

  'I believe you should.'

  'Aren't you the Booza's parliamentary twin?' he continued, ‘I seem to remember reading somewhere. You both came into the House together, what -seven years ago? Same age. Both wealthy, darlings of the party conference. Both tipped to go far.'

  'If only I had his talent.'

  'Foreign Secretary, d'you think, in a Makepeace Cabinet?' He turned back to his original target.

  Makepeace paused, as though to emphasize his words with elaborate consideration. 'Not in a million dawns,' he replied softly. 'The man wouldn't recognize a political principle or an original idea if it were served up en croute with oysters.'

  'Ah, at last! A breach in your famous collective

  Ministerial loyalty, Tom. There's hope for you yet,' the editor beamed, delighted to have discovered a point of such obvious antipathy. He turned to Claire. 'I feel an editorial coming on. Although to tell you the truth, my dear, I'm a little worried by all his talk about principles and original ideas. It's not good for an ambitious man. We're going to have to work on him.'

  She laughed, a genuine expression full of white teeth and pleasure. 'You know, Bryan, I think we are.'

  Civilian Area, Dhekelia Army Base, British Sovereign Territory, Cyprus

  'Greetings, my Greek friend. Welcome to a humble carpenter's workshop. What part of Allah's bounty may His servant share with you?'

  'Sheep. Seven of them. A week on Friday. And not all fat and sinews like your wife.'

  'Seven?' the Turk mused. 'One for every night of your week, Glafko. For you I shall endeavour to find the most beautiful sheep in the whole of Turkish Cyprus.'

  'It's Easter, you son of Saladin,' Glafkos the Plumber spat. 'And my daughter's getting married. A big feast.'

  'A thousand blessings on the daughter of Glafkos.'

  The Greek, an undersized man with a hunched shoulder and the expression of a cooked vine leaf, remained unimpressed. 'Chew on your thousand blessings, Uluç. Why was I five shirts short on last week's delivery?'

  The Turk, a carpenter, put aside the plane with which he was repairing a broken door and brushed his hands on the apron spread across his prominent stomach. The sports shirts, complete with skilfully counterfeited Lacoste and Adidas logos, were manufactured within the Turkish sector by his mother's second cousin, who was obviously 'taking the chisel' to them both. But the Greek made a huge mark-up on the smuggled fakes which were sold through one of the many sportswear outlets in the village of Pyla, in a shop owned by his nephew. He could afford a minor slicing. Anyway, he didn't want a damned Greek to know he was being cheated by one of his own family.

  'Shrinkage,' he exclaimed finally, after considerable deliberation.

  'You mean you've been pulling the sheet over to your side again.'

  'But my dear Greek friend, according to our leaders we are soon to be brothers. One family.' His huge hand closed around the plane and nonchalantly he began scraping at the door again. 'Why, perhaps your daughter might yet lie with a Turk.'

  'I'll fix the leaking sewers of hell first. With my bare hands.'

  The Turk laughed, displaying black teeth and gruff humour. Their battle was incessant, conducted on the British base where they both worked and at various illicit crossing points along the militarized buffer zone which separated Greek and Turkish communities. They could smuggle together, survive and even prosper together, but that didn't mean they had to like each other, no matter what those fools of politicians decreed.

  'Here, Greek. A present for your wife.' He reached into a drawer and removed a small bottle marked Chanel. 'May it fill your nights with happiness.'

  Glafkos removed the top and sniffed the contents, pouring a little into the open palm of his hand. 'Smells like camel's piss.'

  'From a very genuine Chanel camel. And very, very cheap,' Uluç, responded, rolling his eyes.

  The Greek tried to scrape off the odour on his shirt then examined the bottle carefully. 'I'll take six dozen. On trial. And no shrinkage.'

  The Turk nodded.

  'Or evaporation.'

  Uluç, entered upon another hearty chuckle, yet as quickly as it had arrived his pleasure was gone and in place a grey cloud hovered about his brow. He began stroking his moustache methodically with the tip of a heavily callused finger, three times on each side, as though attempting to smooth away an untidiness that had entered his life.

  'Wind from your wife's cooking?' Glafkos the Plumber ventured.

  Uluç the Carpenter ignored the insult. 'No, my friend, but a thought troubles me. If we are all told to love one another, Turk and Greek, embracing each other's heart instead of the windpipe - what in the name of Allah are you and I going to do?'

  As individuals most were modest, middle class, often dull. And proud of it. Collectively, however, they shared a blood lust of animalistic intensity that found expression in waves of screamed enthusiasm which were sent crashing across the court.

  'Changed, hasn't it?' Sir Henry Ponsonby mused, his thin face masked by the shade of a large Panama. He didn't need to add that in his view this could not have been for the better. As Head of the Civil Service he took a deal of convincing that change was anything other than disruptive.

  'You mean, you remember when we English used to win?'

  'Sadly that's ancient history of a sort that isn't even part of the core curriculum anymore.' He sniffed. 'No. I mean that every aspect of life seems to have become a blood sport. Politics. Journalism. Academia. Commerce. Even Wimbledon.'

  Down on the court the first Englishman to have been seeded at the All England Tennis Championships for more than two decades scrambled home another point in the tie-break; a further two and he'd survive to fight a deciding set. The crowd, having sulked over the clinical humiliation of its national hero throughout the first hour and a half, had woken to discover he was back in with a chance. On the foot-scuffed lawn before them a legend was in the making. Perhaps. Better still, the potential victim was French.

  'I may be an academic, Henry. Even an international jurist. But deep inside there's part of me that would give everything to be out there right now.'

  Sir Henry started at this unan
ticipated show of emotion. From unexceptional origins Clive Watling had established a distinguished career as an academic jurist and steady hand, QC, MA, LLB and multiple honorary distinctions, red-brick reliable, a man whose authority matched his broad Yorkshire girth. Flights of physical enthusiasm were not part of the form book. Still, everyone was allowed a touch of passion, and better tennis balls than little boys.

  'Well, that's not exactly what we had in mind for you, old chap,' Sir Henry began again. 'Wanted to sound you out. You know, you've established a formidable standing through your work on the International Court, widely respected and all that.'

  Another point was redeemed for national honour and Watling couldn't resist an involuntary clenching of his fists in response. Sir Henry's thin red line of lips closed formation. The mixture of tension and heat on Number One Court stifled any further attempt at conversation as the tennis players squared up once more.

  A blow. A flurry of arms and fevered shouts. Movement of a ball so fast that few eyes could follow while all hearts sailed with it. A cloud of English chalk dust, a cry of Gallic despair, and an eruption of noise from the stands. The set was won and from the far end of the court came the sound of hoarse voices joined together in the chorus of 'Rule Britannia'. Sir Henry raised his eyes in distaste, failing to notice his companion's broad grin. Sir Henry was a traditionalist, unaccustomed to expressing emotion himself and deprecating its expression by others. As he was to express to others in his club later that week, this was scarcely his scene. They were forced to wait until the inevitable Mexican wave had washed across them - good grief, was Watling actually flexing his thighs? - before being allowed to resume their thoughts.