“Need to get you ready now, sir. Here’s the suit, is it…?”
I’m helped to the bathroom. My hair is slicked and combed, my face is washed and shaved, my armpits are dabbed. The process of dressing is more like armouring a knight of old; it would be easier if we had pulleys and winches. But still we get there, these hotel people and I, moving along shifting avenues of pain as the light from the television plays over us. I have my left arm in the sleeve of my suit jacket and the right cradled inside. After few skilled snips and stitches, the thing hangs as if made for someone wearing a sling.
A chauffeur stands in the doorway now. “Time we had you out of here sir,” he says, a clipboard resting in the crook of his elbow. Darkness is welling as the television flares, casting shadows across walls and carpets. Saint George glitters colourless as he prays, the forest around him is frosted white as music sways through the air—something triumphal by Coates or Elgar—and the television screen fills with a fluttering union jack. I nod that I’m ready, and cross the floor to leave this room. The air seems to drag, and it feels as if history still awaits me. Then the music from television cuts short and the light begins to change. I turn back towards the screen.
John Arthur sits at his desk in his Downing Street study. His eyes are black pools in the moment before the dancing electrons settle in the camera; his silver hair dazzles like wet sand; his flesh is corpse white. Odd premonitional pounding fills my head before the image subsides and he becomes the person we all think we know.
“As most of you probably know by now,” he begins, leaning forward slightly, arms on the desk, the small sheaf papers to which he’ll never refer in front of him, “today is a special—indeed almost a sad—day for me personally. As well as celebrating Admiral Nelson’s famous victory at Trafalgar with all the majesty our Nation can muster, I must also celebrate my own fiftieth birthday. Those of you who have done so already will probably know what that means, but for the rest, I should say that it’s a time for looking back as well as looking forward. To take stock of our progress through this remarkable and difficult century…”
A nostalgic and a personal note, then, to begin with. It must be said, though, that John Arthur doesn’t look fifty. He doesn’t look any age at all. He looks as though he belongs on the screens, deep inside the television, buzzing in the wires, whispering along the airwaves, and that he could go on forever.
The chauffeur touches my good arm, my good shoulder. Really think we should be going now… he whispers, peppermint and nicotine on his breath. I’m still looking back at the television screen as he steers me gently into the corridor, trying like the rest of the world to trap and hold a little of John Arthur’s light. But his voice remains with me as we move along the corridor towards the lift. Crackling from speakers hidden in the New Dorchester’s ceilings, growing fainter in the lift, then booming loud as we cross the empty main atrium, John Arthur speaks of recent developments.
“…but India must always remain vigilant. Here in Britain and in neighbouring Europe, we must be vigilant also…”
The phrases swarm around me, turbulent and strange. Does he mean we and Europe should be vigilant about each other, or vigilant together? Outside in the dusk, as a solitary commissioner holds the flashing glass doors and salutes us, the car that awaits is long and black, and the grinning radiator is fronted by a Bentley’s flying B.
I sink down into soft hide as the New Dorchester slides away. Despite everything, I feel a gathering sense of excitement as, warmly beside me, John Arthur’s voice murmurs on the car radio.
“There are signs—indeed, alarming signs—that in Britain itself, this very island, we must prepare for troubles to come. I heard only this morning that Presidents De Gaulle and Von Papen have signed a treaty that draws even closer links between their economies and also those of the Low Countries, and unites their military forces into what is effectively one vast European army…”
The French-and-German-threat has been a favourite theme in the popular press, but now John Arthur is giving it his own approval, and a name: Europe. I stare at my chauffeur’s close-cropped neck as we drone across the empty tarmac of Westminster Bridge, wondering; does he hear those guns, the same grinding engine of history that fills my bones even in this cushioned womb? Much though we British relish the threat of war, and the swift victories or international climb-downs that inevitably follow, there is always a strange sense of shifting values when a fresh enemy is declared. And our main ally in this can only be Stalin’s Russia, with Spain, perhaps Italy…
I try to think of what this new Europe might look like, scholarly lines of thrust and defence that can be put on a map one day. But the whole idea is ridiculous—it ignores the slaughter that would take place first, and the fact that such a conflict would drag in America and the Colonies, China, expansionist Japan. Even more than the War of 1914–18, it would be a World War.
We drive along Whitehall as the speech ends in a typically softly-spoken and wistful finale. All this talk of war seems like a dream as we pass the great glowering facades of the buildings of state where, tonight, for once, no lights are shining. There are brief glimpses down side roads of the eerily empty London streets before we reach Downing Street itself, and the car murmurs in without pausing as the iron gates slide open. The driver turns off the radio and stops the engine. Then my door opens, and a firm hand grasps mine as I climb onto the pavement. One side of Downing Street faces the huge mock classicism of the Foreign Office. On the other stands a tall but dowdy greybrick terrace of a kind that you wouldn’t spare a second glance if this were any other street in England. The old Whip’s Office at Number 12 is now the National Headquarters of the Empire Alliance, and the traffic and the tourists are kept back by those iron gates, but little else has changed here with the advent of Modernism. A London constable still stands guard at the polished black door of Number 10, just as he has done since Peel introduced them.
He’s number D4528, I see, as I pause on the steps whilst the door is opened. He doesn’t even wear a gun. Inside, the air smells disappointingly municipal—a bit like Oxford—of beeswax and floor polish and fried bread and half-smoked cigars; slightly of damp, even. A surprisingly large tiled entrance-way set with an impressive Adam fireplace leads into an even larger hall formed around a curving staircase. The walls here are hung with the portraits of previous PMs. Historian that I am, I spot Gladstone, Disraeli, the Pitts older and younger, and many others. There’s even John Arthur himself, although he looks nearly insignificant rendered in oils. The camera does him far more justice.
There are voices. Other people are wandering. Almost in panic, I look around, and glimpse Father Phelan’s grizzled head and one or two of the other nobodies I’ve come to recognise during my stay at the New Dorchester. I’m back on the tracks of the itinerary that had always been intended for me—6 o-clock, PM meets and greets—I’m here, and nothing has changed. It’s as if the pistol, this hand, never happened. I’m almost glad, in fact, that the pain’s still here to remind me that things could have worked out differently. Swallowing another of the tablets that the hotel steward placed loose in a small inside pocket of my suit, I wander through to an elegant room of wood panels and mirrors, then along a gilded corridor where glowing clouds and cherubs cavort towards double doors that open out into the Downing Street gardens.
Seen from the back, with its tall windows, pillars, its wrought iron and its domes, Number 10 now looks more like what it is, which is a small stately home tucked into a quiet side street in the heart of London. The transformation from that terraced front is so much like all the other shams of Modernist Britain that I have to remind myself that the building has been this way since Walpole refurbished it in the 1730s. No wonder John Arthur is happy here. No wonder no one has ever wanted to leave.
The sky has that grainy darkness that often seems to gather above London. The willows in the garden slump limp and pale grey; the rose bushes are crumpled fists of paper. Paraffin lamps are carried out an
d placed at intervals, shining on the guests as they move amid the mossy urns and statutes, glinting over the mirror-black waters of the ornamental pool. As they mill and chatter in the hushed tones of visitors to a consecrated building, I tread the gravel path between the lawns leading to the deeper darkness beside the garden’s outer wall.
A small stir arises, followed by ugly lightning blasts of flashbulb, before the autumn evening re-asserts itself and a grey-haired man of slightly less than average height moves easily amid his people; one to the next, shaking hands. From where I now stand, their voices reach me as wordless calls; cries, murmurs, exclamations.
The scent of damp turf and old brick floods over me in this gloomy overshadowed place as the stars prickle above London. My right hand begins to throb, and I swallow more tablets, chewing them first so to get their sour chalky taste, their bitter reality. I’m alone here. There’s no one to notice me. John Arthur’s shirt looks incredibly white as he moves, smiles, touches; still filled with the moonlit glow that he radiates on television. The lanterns and the few remaining flowers seem to brighten as he passes them, moving further out to greet the shyer members of his congregation. I imagine my last moment of history as I step towards him from these deeper shadows and he smiles with the warmth of recognition that all politicians have. Then the feel and the sound of the gun. Bang bang. I can imagine the smell of it too, hanging grey in this grey air, drifting luminous in the lamplight, embroidered with gasps and shouts and screams. Blood flowering blackly within the white of his shirt. His eyes fixed on mine, knowing and unknowing as he falls back. Forever unchanging.
John Arthur seems to glance in my direction as I stand hidden against the dark mass of the ilex tree. But there’s still a tropical Bishop for him to joke with. Then Father Phelan who, doubtless pumped up on whisky, assumes that arms-up stance you see in old boxing posters. John Arthur, all laughing reluctance, mimics him for a moment and a flash bulb whitens their faces. The small crowd around them are smiling. Phlegmy Irish laughter—surely a rare sound these days at Number 10—briefly crackles in the air.
Already, discreet KSG minders are shepherding some of the guests back into the house after their brief moment of glory. The garden slowly empties and the voices grow fewer and quieter as damp darkness thickens. Far overhead, a plane is mumbling. I’ve seen almost all I want to see as the last of the guests troop back in through the lighted square of the doorway and John Arthur, arms behind his back now, white cuffs showing, looking a little tired, prepares to follow them.
Then he turns and glances back. He takes a step towards the darker reaches of the garden. Then another. And I, feeling some impelling force behind me in the night, take a step forward, too. And then again. Towards him, towards John Arthur, hearing the sea-shoosh of my feet on the gravel as my head begins to buzz. It’s almost as if I’m still being pushed forward into this moment by some force of history.
We meet in the middle of the garden, at the very edge of what remains of the light.
“It is you, isn’t it?” John Arthur shakes his head. His voice, his whole posture, belong to a far younger man. His hands flutter white as the strange roaring fades in my ears. More than ever now, I am walking along pathways of dream. “I’m sorry about that business with your name… You know, I wrote that maiden speech after midnight. I was exhausted, but I thought you deserved a mention. I’m truly sorry I got it wrong.”
“Most people just use my surname now. In Oxford, that’s the way it’s done… No one would call me Griff, even if that still was my name. To everyone, I’m just Brook.”
He smiles at that, although a little sadly. Then he glances around the dark garden, as if to check that we’re alone. One suited minder stands at the doorway into the house. Another has walked halfway up the path towards us. John Arthur’s eyes flicker down to my sling.
“That was done yesterday,” I say, my voice more unsteady than I’d intended. “Your people did it to me when they took away the gun.”
“No,” he shakes his head, his gaze fixing mine so firmly that a tremor runs through me, his irises dancing bright and alive. “It wasn’t my people, Griff. You were arrested without my authority. You don’t have to believe me, but I didn’t mean for any of this to happen, Griff. It wasn’t any kind of…”
Griff. He searches for a word. Griff. A blackbird sings briefly from a bush, but otherwise there is earthy darkness, an implacable sense of silence.
“…Any kind of trap. I heard that you were ill and I wanted to see you. I’ve always wanted to see you, but now at last seemed like the right time. That was all. No one told me about…” He swallows audibly, running his hand back though his sleek grey hair. It’s a fair impression of distress, and I believe John Arthur now as much as I’ve ever believed him. “No one told me about the gun until word came to me that you’d been arrested yesterday evening. As soon as I heard, I ordered your immediate release.”
I study him. What am I supposed to say? There was, after all, the phone that summoned Reeve-Ellis just as PC T3308 prepared to raise his gun—so something must have happened. Or perhaps it was all just another part of the same game. Or a different one.
“Haven’t got long to talk now Griff,” John Arthur says, and points towards the house with his thumb. “They’ll soon want me back in there.”
“I thought you made your own decisions.”
He laughs at that. The sound is light, bitter, careless. “Whoever told you that?” Then he shrugs and shoves his hands into the pockets of his suit. It’s a typical gesture of his; we’ve all seen it a million times. “My life isn’t my own, Griff. But, look, I’ve been thinking about you these last few months. I suppose I miss the personal life, the things that were…” He looks away from me. Once again, his face fills with a kind of sadness. We are standing barely a pace apart now, yet I cannot hear him breathing. Neither have we touched; for, despite Father Phelan’s foolish intimacy, John Arthur is notoriously wary of physical contact. He gives off a faint chemical smell that comes I suppose from the television make-up he must have recently been wearing. He looks grainy and grey with the great house now glowing behind him. Still less than real.
“In a few minutes I’m going to have to get back in there and talk to that screeching hag—what’s her name?”
“Gracie Fields.”
“I’ll have to sit smiling for half an hour whilst she wishes me good health from all the nation and presents me with a china plaque all the way from Burslem. And after that… After that…” His brow furrows, as if the prospect of the evening requires great intensity of thought. “After that, I’d like for us to talk, have a drink. We could go somewhere, Griff. Just you and I. I could shake off all of this for a while…”
With that, he turns and walks back towards the house. His manner is forgetful as the deepening night air parts to receive him. There are many stars kindled overhead now; the night will be crisp and clear. Shadows that I hadn’t noticed before separate from the trees and the ancient walls and move towards him. A cigarette flares as they cluster and quick, deferential voices murmur. One of the shadows moves towards me. Others seem to blur behind him. I almost want to run.
He’s dressed in a KSG uniform, is the shadow that approaches me, although I can’t properly make out his face. He could be anyone, anything. We’re all just ciphers here. My head sways dizzily as I’m led back across the soft turf of these Downing Street gardens towards the house.
“It seems, Mr. Brook,” his voice says as the lamps are put out and the warm windows beckon, “that you’re set to be with the PM for the evening…”
I murmur and nod.
I don’t believe anything.
18
JOHN ARTHUR IS SILENT as he drives swiftly along Horse Guards Parade and then on through clear barricaded side streets, past police road blocks and the edges of the crowds that are gathering along the Embankment for the vast fireworks display to come. No one turns to stare. The speeding, blank-windowed official car is commonplace in Modernist Br
itain.
“You enjoyed the show?”
“The show?” I look over at him.
He shakes his head, the lights forming and re-forming his face. “I mean all of it. These last few days…”
“I was hardly paying much attention.”
“Of course.” He pushes the car faster. “You were here to kill me…”
Drunk and jolly Tommies squat aside the lions as we pass Trafalgar Square, shouting down to their mates who are pissing or splashing merrily in the fountains. Everywhere, flags are being waved, people are leaning dangerously out from windows, couples are kissing deeply in shop doorways, lads are climbing lampposts. There will be deaths tonight. There will be conceptions.
“Look…” What do I call him? John? Francis? Sir? Mr. Arthur? None of his names belong. “I can’t plead with you. I’ve been through too much already. And I don’t mean,” I gesture vaguely at the car’s window, “just this…”
On through Covent Garden and across the Strand, then past the Inns Of Court. Fleet Street, with the front pages written and typeset—the news on this Trafalgar Day already made—is quiet, but we’re drawn to a halt by a knot of traffic around Saint Paul’s where there are flags and litter, twisted railings, and a man is vomiting onto the pavement. A taxi draws up beside us as we queue to get into Cheapside. Two women in evening clothes are talking animatedly in the back.
The Summer Isles Page 24