The Final Cut

by Michael Dobbs

  The Bishop was much in evidence, cloaked dark in the seat of honour and surrounded by a hard-working team of his theological students. Theophilos was well pleased. Even the occasional outbreaks of alcoholic excess brought on by the heat and the ready supply of beer he bore with paternal fortitude. For three hours Alekos and his supporting musicians stirred, scratched, tickled and whipped their passion; as the night grew deeper, he reached for the refrain of Akritas Dighenis, a tale of heroic defiance against the foreign foe, of cherished memories from the mists of time and, above all, of victory. They sang and swayed with him, lit matches and candles, their faces illuminated by hope in the darkness as the tears flowed freely from men and women alike. Alekos had them in his palm.

  'Have you forgotten?' he breathed into the microphone, his voice stretching out to touch every one of them.

  'No,' they sobbed.

  'Do you want to forget those who died?' 'No..

  'Who gave their lives for a free Cyprus? Some of whom lie buried in unknown graves?' His voice was firmer now, goading.

  (Later when he heard the reports, Hugh Martin was to wince at how Alekos in one emotional sweep had entangled together the subject of British graves with the Turkish invasion.)

  'No, no,' they replied, with equal firmness.

  'Do you want your homeland given away for British military bases?'

  He stirred the muddy waters of old hatreds like a shark's tail. In the darkness they began to lose their individual identities and become as one. Greek. Full of resentment.

  'Then will you give your homeland away to bastard Turks?'

  'No! Never!'

  'Do you want your sisters and daughters to be screwed by bastard Turks, like your mothers were when the bastards invaded our country?' His clenched fist beat the night air, his bitterness transmitting to others.

  'NO.'

  'Do you want your President to sign a treaty which says it's all right? All forgotten? All over? That they can keep what they stole?'

  'NO,' they began to shout. 'NO. NO. NO.'

  'So what do you want to say to the President?'

  'N-O-O-O-O!' The cries lifted through the Nicosia night and spilled across the city.

  'Then go and tell him!'

  The doors were thrown open and thousands swarmed out of the auditorium to find buses lined up to take them the two kilometres to the Presidential Palace, whose guards they taunted, whose gates they rocked and whose wrought-iron fencing they festooned with their banners. By the light of a huge pink Nicosia moon, the largest demonstration in the city since the election came to pass, and twenty-three unwise arrests ensured that the stamping of angry feet would continue to grab headlines for days afterwards.

  Like every other detail of the concert, even the encore had gone to plan.

  'Gaiters and gongs again tonight.' Urquhart sighed. He had lost count of the number of times he'd climbed into formal attire on a summer's evening in order to exchange inconsequential pleasantries with some Third World autocrat who, as the wine list rambled on, would brag about his multiple wives, multiple titles and even multiple Swiss bank accounts. Urquhart told himself he would much rather be spending his time on something else, something more fulfilling. But what? With a sense of incipient alarm, he realized he didn't know what. For him, there was nothing else.

  'I see they're pegging out the lawn for that wretched statue.' Elizabeth was gazing out of the bedroom window. 'I thought you'd told Max Stanbrook to stop it.'

  'He's working on it.'

  'It's preposterous,' she continued. 'In a little over a month you will have overtaken her record. It's you who should be out there.'

  'She wasn't supposed to lose, either,' he reflected softly.

  She turned, her face flecked with concern. 'Is all this Makepeace nonsense getting you down, Francis?'

  'A little, perhaps.'

  'Not like you. To admit to vulnerability.'

  'He's forcing my hand, Elizabeth. If I give him time to organize, to grow, I give him time to succeed. Time is not on my side, not when you reach my age.' With a silent curse he tugged at his bow tie and began again the process of re-knotting it. 'Claire says I should find some way of calling his bluff. Fly the flag.'

  'She's turning out to be an interesting choice of playmate.'

  He understood precisely what she was implying. 'No, Elizabeth, no distractions. In the past they've caused us so much anguish. And there are voices everywhere telling me I shall need all my powers of concentration over the next few months.'

  'People still regard you as a great leader, Francis.'

  'And may yet live to regard me as a still greater villain.'

  'What is eating at you?' she demanded with concern. 'You're not normally morbid.'

  He stared at himself in the mirror. Time had taken its undeniable toll; the face was wrinkled and fallen, the hair thinned, the eyes grown dim and rimmed with fatigue. Urquhart the Man - the Young Man, at least - was but a memory. Yet some memories, he reflected, lived longer than others, refused to die. Particularly the memory of a day many years earlier when, in the name of duty and of his country, he had erred. As the evening sun glanced through the window and bathed the room in its rich ochre light, it all came back. His hands fell to his side, the tie unravelled again.

  'When I was a young lieutenant in Cyprus' - the voice sounded dry, as though he'd started smoking again - 'there was an incident. An unhappy collision of fates. A sacrifice, if you like, in the name of Her Majesty's peace. Tom Makepeace today wrote to me, he knows of the incident but not my part in it. Yet if it were ever to be made public, my part in that affair, they would destroy me. Ignore everything I have achieved and strip me like wolves.'

  He turned to face her. 'If I give Makepeace any of what he wants, he will pursue the matter. If I don't, he'll pursue me. Either way, there is an excellent chance I shall be destroyed. And time is on his side.'

  'Then fight him, Francis.'

  'I don't know how.'

  'You've plenty of strings to your bow.'

  He joined her by the window, took her hands, massaged her misgivings with his thumbs, gently kissed her forehead. 'Strings to my bow. But I'm not sure I have the strength any more to bend the bloody thing.' He laughed, a hollow sound which she chose not to share. 'We must have one more victory, one more successful election behind us. The Urquhart name, yours and mine, written into history. The longest-serving Prime Minister this century.'

  'And the greatest.'

  'I owe that to you even more than I owe it to myself. I must find some way of beating him, destroying him - any way! And quickly. Everything I have ever achieved depends on it.'

  'And what then, Francis?'

  'Then perhaps we can think about stepping back and I can become an intolerable old man in carping retirement, if that's what you want.'

  'Is that what you want?'

  'No. But what else is there? Apart from this I have nothing. Which is why I'm going to fight Tom Makepeace. And all the others. So long as I breathe.'

  For Elizabeth it sounded all too much like an epitaph; she held him close in a way they'd not embraced for a considerable time, nuzzling into loose flesh and afraid she was falling into the deep pit of his empty old age.

  Suddenly he stiffened, measurably brightened. Something over her shoulder had caught his eye. The workmen had finished laying out the stakes - miniature Union flags, would you believe - and a large lawn mower was lumbering towards them. It approached hesitantly, its progress obstructed, forcing it to slow, to stop and swerve to avoid them. It did so with considerable difficulty, chewing up the neat turf and knocking over several flags as the gardener wrenched at the wheel. Clearly it was not a machine designed to mow in such confined circumstances. Urquhart observed all this with growing interest.

  'Anyway, my love, a great general doesn't need to bend his own bow, he gets others to do that for him. All he needs are ideas. And one or two have just come knocking at my door.'

  'Max!' he summoned.

&n
bsp; Ministers were trooping into the Cabinet Room where they found him at its far end, slapping his fist like a wicket keeper waiting for the next delivery, rather than in his accustomed chair beneath the portrait of Walpole.

  Stanbrook made his way over as the others milled around, uncertain about taking their seats while he was still standing.

  'Max, dear boy’ Urquhart greeted as the other approached. 'Our little conversation about the statue. You remember? Haven't signed the Order yet, have you?'

  'I've delayed it as long as I possibly could, F.U.' Stanbrook tried to make it sound like a substantial victory of Hectorian proportion. Then, more sheepishly, 'But I can't find a single damned reason for turning it down.'

  Urquhart chastised with a glance, then laid an arm upon his colleague's shoulder and turned him towards the window. 'There's only one reason for turning down such a worthy project, Max, and that's because they haven't raised enough money.'

  'But they have. Eighty thousand pounds.'

  'That's just for the statue. But what about its maintenance?'

  'What's to maintain with a statue, F.U.? An occasional scrub for pigeon droppings is hardly likely to run up bills of massive proportions.'

  'But it's not just the birds, is it? What about terrorists?'

  Stanbrook was nonplussed.

  'Home Secretary,' Urquhart called to Geoffrey, who came scampering. The others, too, began to draw closer, fascinated by what was evidently some form of morality play or possibly blood-letting of the new Environment Secretary - either way, no one wanted to miss it.

  'Geoffrey, wouldn't you say that a statue of our Beloved Former Leaderene situated just beyond the gardens of Downing Street would be an obvious target for terrorist attack? A symbolic retribution for past failures? Theirs, not hers. Let alone a target for the more obvious attentions of petty vandals and graffiti goons.'

  'Certainly, Prime Minister.'

  'And so worthy of steps to ensure its - and our -security. Twenty-four hours a day. Perhaps a specially dedicated video security system. How much would that cost?'

  'How much would you like it to cost, Prime Minister?'

  'Splendid, Geoffrey. To install and maintain - at least ten thousand pounds a year, wouldn't you think?'

  'Sounds very reasonable to me.'

  'Then, of course, there's the monitoring of that system. Twenty-four hours a day. Plus a visual inspection of the site every hour during the night by the security watch.'

  'No change from another twenty thousand pounds for that’ Geoffrey offered.

  'You see, Max. There's another thirty thousand a year that will have to be found.'

  Stanbrook had grown pale, as though haemorrhaging. 'I think the fund will just about run to that, F.U.'

  'But you haven't thought of the grass, have you? A surprising omission for a Secretary of State for the Environment.'

  'The grass? What's the bloody grass got to do with it?' Both his perspective and his language had collapsed in confusion.

  'Everything, as I shall explain. Come with me.'

  Urquhart flung open the doors to the patio and, like Mother Goose, led all twenty-five of them in file down the stairs, into the garden, through the door in the old brick wall, and in less than a minute had brought them to the site of the stakes. Startled Special Branch detectives began scurrying everywhere in the manner of cowboys trying to round up loose steers.

  'Away! Away off my grass!' he shouted at them. 'This is most important.'

  Security withdrew to a nervous distance, wondering whether the old man had had a turn and they should send for Smith &. Wessons or Geriatol.

  'Observe,' Urquhart instructed, hands spread wide, 'the grass. Beautifully manicured, line after line. Until...' - he made a theatrical gesture of decapitating a victim kneeling at his feet -'here.'

  They gathered round to inspect the scuffed and torn turf on which he was standing.

  'You see, Max, the lawn mower can't cope. It's too big. So you're going to have to get another one.

  Transport it here twice a week throughout the summer, just to mow around the statue.'

  'Take a bit of strimming, too, I've no doubt.' Bollingbroke had decided to join what was evidently a glorious new summer sport.

  'Thank you, Arthur. A strimmer as well, Max. The whole bally production line we have created to keep the green spaces of our gracious city shorn and shaven - disrupted! Put out of gear. Ground to a halt. For your statue.'

  'Hardly my statue,' Stanbrook was mumbling, but already there was another player on the field.

  'Chief Secretary, what would be the cost of a small mower and strimmer, their storage and transportation from said storage about fifty times a year, plus an allowance for all the chaos to the maintenance schedule which is likely to ensue?' He made it sound as if the centre of London was sure to grind to a halt.

  'I'd say another ten thousand,' a youngish man with lips which operated like a goldfish pronounced. 'Minimum.'

  'So that's ten, and ten, and twenty. Makes another forty thousand pounds, Max.' 'I'll tell the Society.'

  'Not just forty thousand pounds, Max. That's forty thousand pounds a year. We'll have to ensure that a fund is available to generate that sort of money for at least ten years, otherwise the taxpayer will end up footing the bill. We couldn't have that.'

  'Not when I'm just about to announce a freeze on nurses' pay,' the Health Secretary insisted jovially.

  'And where's the Chancellor of the Exchequer? His Prime Minister wants him. Ah, Jim, don't be bashful.'

  The Chancellor was thrust by many willing hands from seclusion at the rear of the assembly amidst a chorus of laughter.

  'Chancellor. A fund sufficient to generate forty thousand pounds a year for a minimum of ten years. How much are we talking about?'

  Jim Barfield, a rotund Pickwickian figure with a shock of hair which made him look as though his brains had exploded, scratched his waistcoat and sucked his lower lip. 'Not used to thousands. Throw a few noughts on the end and I'd have no trouble but. ..' He scratched once more. 'Let's say a quarter of a million. Just between friends.'

  'Mr Stanbrook, has the Society got a quarter of a million pounds? In addition to the eighty for casting said statue?'

  Stanbrook, not knowing whether to laugh along with the rest, to fall to his knees and kiss the grass or to crawl away in humiliation, simply hung his head. 'No graven images!' a voice from the west flank of Whitehall insisted. The others applauded.

  'Then it is with much regret...'

  He had no need to finish. The Cabinet to a man, even Stanbrook, applauded as if on the green trimmed sward of Westminster they had been watching one of the finest conjuring tricks of the decade. Which, perhaps, they had.

  He felt good. He had shown he was still the greatest actor of the age, it had been as important to remind himself as to remind the others. His view had been salvaged, the past exorcized. Now to exorcize the future.

  Claire ran into him as she was scurrying out of the House of Commons Library. She was clutching papers and he had to reach out to prevent her from toppling. 'Hi, stranger.'

  'Hello to you.' The voice was soft, the old chemistry still at work. Reluctantly Makepeace withdrew his supporting arm and let her go. 'Running errands for the boss?' he enquired, indicating the papers and regretting it immediately. Urquhart had already come too much between them.

  'Would it seem silly if I suggested I'd missed you? I've thought about you a lot.'

  'I'm sure that's true,' he retorted, hurt male pride adding a sharper edge than he'd intended. 'I suppose coming from an acolyte of Urquhart I should take such attention as a compliment.'

  She searched for his eyes but they remained elusive, darting along the corridor, falling at his feet, unwilling to allow her to inspect the wounds she had inflicted on him. He was acting more like a secret and bashful lover than when they'd shared something to be secretive about.

  'I'd like to think that we could still be friends,' she offered, and marvelled imm
ediately at her own hypocrisy. She meant it; she retained a strong sense of affection and respect for him, a man with whom she had shared so much. Yet she was also the woman who was trying to bring him to his knees. For the first time she began to be aware of how far she had moved, had strayed perhaps, from her own image of herself. She'd become two people, political animal as well as woman, in two worlds, one black, the other white, and the dark world where she stood in the shadow of Francis Urquhart was tugging her away from her roots and those she had loved.