Children of the Master

by Andrew Marr

  The snarl of a terrier – a Westie called Rosa, with a nasty nip – greeted him as the door opened.

  ‘Aye, aye,’ said Mrs Cook. ‘Thought you’d be round. Fancy yourself as a politician now, do you, wee Davie?’

  The pictures in her crammed, overheated front room told a very different story from those in the house he had just left. An anti-apartheid poster from the 1960s; a framed appeal for support for miners’ wives and children from 1982; and a tinted portrait of Keir Hardie – probably worth a bit. The only personal photograph Davie could see showed an unappealing young woman, her face as expressionless as a bar of soap, wearing steel spectacles. This would be the daughter, Bunty. She was, as they said round here, affectionately enough, ‘a big daftie’ – not necessarily educationally subnormal, but profoundly dim. Not much scope for idle banter there.

  But Elspeth Cook turned out to be not quite what Davie had expected. ‘Right now, you’ll sit down there. You and me have to have a good talk. I’ve got a new batch of potato scones, and a big boiling of tea. So park your arse and prepare yourself for fearsome Granny Stalin.’ She grinned broadly.

  A few minutes later, after they had polished off some warm scones dripping with butter, she got down to business. ‘See, Mr Petrie, I’m one for the workers. That’s the basis of my socialism. Two sides: us and them. You may think that’s a wee bit simplistic, but the more I look around, the more it makes sense. I’m no communist, and I’m certainly no Trot. I know change takes time. But what I can’t quite get my head around is why, though you’re a nice-looking boy, right enough, I should vote for a boss as our next candidate, rather than young Pat Connelly, who’s a worker after all. One of us.’

  ‘Well, I’m scarcely a boss. I started laying bricks for my dad. There isn’t a job – electrics, plumbing, joinery, plastering – that I can’t do better than most of the lads on the sites. All I’ve done is work hard and give work to local men and women who need it. I’ve always been on the side of the underdog. What’s so wrong with that?’

  ‘Come on, son. The way I hear it, you’ve been sucking up to the councillors and officials for years, just like your dad, and cornering a nice wee profit all round this town. You pay your men the minimum wage, but no’ much more. It’s a great big new hoose you’ve built for yourself. No’ objecting, mind. But you’re hardly a proletarian, darling, are you?’

  Davie put his case again, with all the eloquence he had. He made a lot of eye contact, and they had some good laughs, but at the end the redoubtable Elspeth seemed unmoved.

  ‘I’ll be honest, pet, I like you more than I thought I would. But I’m voting for Pat Connelly, and I’ll be telling the rest of the comrades to do the same.’

  Davie walked back up the road – he’d deliberately taken the bus rather than driving – and reflected on the size of this blow. Granny Stalin was much loved hereabouts. She was a real character, a good woman. There must be a way in.

  As he stared idly through the bus’s grimy windows at the familiar chip shops, charity outlets and a derelict-looking estate agent’s, Davie remembered something Murdoch White had said the previous evening. ‘See, the simplistic view of politics is that it’s all about blackmail and arm-twisting – find a fellow’s weak point, scare the living daylights out of him, and you’ve got him for life. Well, in my experience that’s sometimes true, but it’s only part of the story. Friendship and guilt work even more strongly. Do a guy a favour, and you’ve got him for a year. Make him do you a favour, and you’ve got him for ten. A branch party isn’t just a collection of individuals. It’s a family, a tiny tribe. And like any family it has its feuds and its leaders. All you need to do is understand the feuds, and make your mark with the tribal leader.’

  Elspeth Cook was certainly the tribal leader. He couldn’t let her go. So when he got off at the stop by the council chambers, instead of heading straight to the Wallace, he went in.

  Bunty. She wasn’t handicapped, just good, old-fashioned, stupid. He knew she had a job, of a kind, at the council. Works? Administration? He’d often seen her pale, round moon of a face, with two expressionless currant eyes and a limp, wet mouth that never closed, behind her formidable mother at branch meetings, at the GMC, even at conference.

  ‘Can I do this? Can I really go this far?’ he asked himself. But he had no choice.

  He found her quickly enough, sitting behind a Formica desk, staring dully at a computer screen.

  ‘Hello, Bunty. Remember me?’

  Bunty stuck a fat white forefinger into her mouth, licked it slowly, then took it out and drew it across her jumper. A little lump of goo sat at the edge of her mouth.

  ‘Aye. You’re Mr Petrie, right enough. Or you were yesterday. I’m no’ stupid, you know.’

  ‘I know that, Bunty. Now, I need to ask you something. It’s possible that in a little while I may become an MP and go down to London. If I do, I’m going to need a personal assistant. More than a secretary, somebody to look after the constituency work and keep an eye out for me. I’d like it to be you.’

  ‘Would I live in London?’

  ‘Aye, Bunty, you would.’

  ‘And would I live in a flat? By myself?’

  ‘Aye, Bunty, you would.’

  ‘And would I have money to spend – on food and stuff? And go about?’

  ‘Aye, Bunty. Not a lot. But aye.’

  ‘And Mr Petrie, would the work be difficult? And would you get cross at me?’ She coloured.

  ‘No, Bunty, it wouldn’t be hard. And I wouldn’t get cross with you.’

  ‘OK, then.’

  They shook hands, and he turned to leave, satisfied with his brilliant stroke.

  Bunty spoke again. ‘Mr Petrie, my mum will be dead happy I’ve got a chance at last.’

  ‘I’m sure she will, Bunty, I’m sure she will.’

  ‘Mr Petrie, are you doing this just to get my mum to vote for you?’

  ‘Certainly not, Bunty. I’ll just need someone I can trust down there.’

  He didn’t suppose that Elspeth Cook would be fooled for a moment, but the strongest binding force on the planet is a mother’s love, and she might just go for it. But one further touch was needed. He dialled Elspeth’s number, told her what he’d done, and insisted that it shouldn’t affect her decision to vote for Patrick Connelly.

  ‘I’ll vote for who I bloody want to, you cheeky young man,’ she replied. ‘And as I’ve told you, that’s Pat Connelly, right enough.’

  So Davie had lumbered himself with Bunty Cook. If he did ever get elected he’d have to look at her every day, possibly for years. The sacrifices he made …

  But although Elspeth Cook continued to proudly speak up for the bus driver Connelly, what she said to her friends about Davie Petrie won him votes across the local party. Later, he would reflect that she had probably won him the nomination.

  The Wallace was a proper bar. There was a television – only for the football – and although smoking had been banned for years, the walls and ceiling were still stained a dirty yellow-brown, a memorial to the lungs of generations of long-dead drinkers. The barman was young and truculent, a Nationalist who made himself deliberately offensive to the overwhelmingly Labour-supporting customers. They, however, approved of his rudeness – a proper man should never hide his views. The Wallace had been the favoured haunt of the railwaymen’s union and the Transport & General long before it was inherited by Crusade, whose small offices were only a street away. The district organiser, Douglas McGuinness, a tall, white-bearded Irishman who claimed to be a direct descendant of Wolfe Tone, was drinking with Murdoch White. He looked up as Petrie entered.

  ‘So, this is your laddie?’

  ‘Not my laddie, Douglas,’ said White. ‘Davie Petrie here belongs to nobody. It’s just that I can spot a winner. I know Pat Connelly’s one of the boys, but you might think about a little side bet, just in case.’

  The days of the union block vote being wielded like trumps had passed during the long Ed Miliband rumpus
. And indeed, as the former leader had hoped at the time, many individual trade unionists had joined the Labour Party in their own right. But in Glaikit, as in many constituencies, the habit of union solidarity died hard. Shop stewards and ordinary paid-up members would come into the Wallace and scan the union paper to find out what the leadership thought. Crusade had an authority in the town rivalling that of the Kirk itself. Who was their boy? What did Douglas McGuinness want to happen?

  Murdoch White had used the past hour well. Luckily, Davie had always encouraged union membership among his employees – one eye to the future – and had spoken up in the past against New Labour in ways they appreciated hereabouts. Most of the Crusade members, when it came to the general management committee, would vote for Connelly first; but it would be closer than predicted, and many would happily switch to Petrie.

  And so the first days passed. White and Petrie had drawn up their lists, and went around the town ticking off addresses. Lines and arrows connected one member with another. Sometimes White told Petrie to ‘cast a wee bit of bread’. So Davie would tell the church minister who took the minutes for a particular branch that, for instance, he’d once been on holiday with Douglas Alexander. Then they would monitor where the story appeared. Who was talking to whom? Another arrow would be drawn on the chart. Eventually they ended up with a swirling, dynamic and relatively accurate picture of the secret life of Glaikit – the rivalries, the alliances, the drinking buddies and the unofficially extended families. Davie found it all infinitely more interesting than the mundane business of fixing councillors and knowing who’d take a backhander. Though those furtive little felonies also helped to bind in a few who prided themselves on their independence.

  A fortnight before the final selection meeting, Davie was beginning to allow himself to hope. He had given up drink – apart from the occasional obligatory pint with potential supporters – and was eating less, and all the pounding of the streets had made him fitter than he had been for years. But there were two big problems left. First, Labour rules insisted that at least one woman should appear on the shortlist. And second, the London carpetbaggers were pretty damn impressive.

  Murdoch White had clear views about how to deal with the woman problem. ‘In effect, we need to run a couple of our own people. Good enough to be plausible, but not good enough to win on the night.’ So they talked up a primary-school head teacher with a good party record whose whining, nasal voice and invincible self-belief were simply intolerable. And among the candidates from outside the constituency there was one outstanding woman. She was, in a small way, a celebrity cook, and quite well known from the television. A handsome mother of two, she had worked publicly for the Labour cause for years before declaring her hand. To Petrie’s surprise, White was very keen to get her through the nomination process.

  ‘But she’s damn good,’ Petrie protested. ‘I’d vote for her myself.’

  ‘No you wouldn’t, don’t worry.’

  White drove over to her house himself, right across Scotland to East Lothian. He introduced himself, and told her not to worry about the black spot on her record – that she had sent her children to a private school, even though there was an excellent comprehensive on her doorstep.

  ‘The party’s changing, and fast. We just want the best possible candidates. So the main thing is, be honest. Tell the whole truth. They’ll respect you for it.’

  And so, on the night of the open meeting, when she was asked the traditional last question – ‘Is there anything in your past that would embarrass the Labour Party if it became known?’ – she did tell the truth. All of it. And the pile of ballot papers with crosses against her name was embarrassingly small.

  On paper, two good women had very nearly been chosen for Glaikit. In reality, neither had ever had a chance. That left the southerners, and Connelly.

  There was one last incident before David Petrie’s coronation. Murdoch White had had a brief conversation with the schoolteacher ‘Smelly’ Smedley.

  ‘Just a wee word in your ear about what young Callum Petrie’s been saying. And I’m afraid he’s not the only one. It’s not a big problem, Mr Smedley. It’s just one of those silly things. This could get right out of control if the head teacher had to be told. We don’t want to make any trouble. We just want Davie to get his chance.’

  Walter Smedley was in his early sixties, and lived with his elderly mother. Divorced with a daughter long gone, no one knew where, Wally had let himself go, if only on the outside. He was an intellectual. That was no problem. The problem was, he looked like one. His clothes were always slightly stained. His shaving had become erratic, giving his great head, an object that seemed crudely carved from sandstone, like Samuel Johnson’s, an awesome ruggedness. His almost supernatural talent for teaching now flickered only intermittently. Living with his books, he spent sleepless nights and long days caring for an angry, half-blind old woman who no longer knew who he was. The private truth was that Walter Smedley was almost a saint.

  To Murdoch White, with his famous face, Smedley said nothing – merely nodded his long head. But the following day he visited the Petries’ house after school. With his mother by his side, Callum was asked to repeat what he’d said about the teacher, ‘to my face, boy’. The boy flushed, began to whimper, and tearing himself from his mother, ran upstairs.

  Wally Smedley turned to Mary. ‘I wish, Mrs Petrie, that I had not had to put you through this unpleasant experience. And even more, I wish that your husband was here. What I have to say I would have preferred to say to him. But I’m not going to demean myself by chasing around town, trying to find that –’ He stopped himself.

  He didn’t look well, but he continued. ‘You may know that Mr Murdoch White, who I gather is working for your husband, and indeed living in this house, has approached me with a very unpleasant story about myself. I don’t blame Callum, or any of the boys – they are only boys, after all – but Mr White has threatened me that he will spread a disgusting and slanderous untruth.’

  Mary held up a hand to protest.

  ‘No, Mrs Petrie, it is worse than that. Please give me a moment. Mr White has implied that unless I back your husband as our parliamentary candidate, he will go to my headmistress, who is a kind but foolish woman. He appears to think that I have rather more pull in the local Labour Party than I do. If he does spread this horrible story, then I’m sure it must be clear to you that whatever the truth of it, my life will be ruined. I have my mother to think of. You’re an educated woman: you may know your Yeats, Mrs Petrie. He famously lamented that the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. Good men, weak; bad men, strong, you see. Callum is welcome in my class at any time. He is a clever boy, and I will do my level best by him. But my message to your husband is that I will not, under any circumstances, support him. He didn’t even have the courage to blackmail me to my face, like a man. Tell him, I am my own man still. I have nothing to apologise for. Gossip – and be damned.’ And Mr Smedley, his balding head still streaked with the rain, belted up his mackintosh, turned on his heel, and left the house.

  Mary, shaken and impressed, called David to tell him what had happened. He had just been addressing some local Fabians with Murdoch, who said tersely, ‘Well, we must act.’ They went together to the school. As they were waiting for the headmistress to see them, they shared that day’s Guardian quick crossword.

  Wally Smedley had, it turned out, the most beautiful copperplate handwriting.

  I could not leave her, you see. But thanks to Mr White, I had to. How could I have stayed? It’s all too disgusting, too humiliating – and all completely untrue. Walter Smedley.

  He had killed his mother with a shovel, a single blow to the back of the head. Then he must have written his note and left it on the open bureau, before walking into his garage and hanging himself with a length of hosepipe.

  The local press treated it as a tragic mystery, and speculated that Smedley had been driven to the edge by the long year
s of caring. A policeman interviewed Murdoch White, and concluded that the note meant nothing.

  Mary and Davie had glanced briefly at one another and tacitly agreed that this was too deep, too dark, to talk about. Later, in the kitchen, Murdoch addressed what had happened. ‘No man ever led other men without doing harsh things. What happened was nobody’s fault; and I for one believe your son.’

  In bed upstairs, Callum told his dinosaur, ‘I just made it up, I don’t know why.’ He was quiet for a while, but soon pushed the whole matter behind him, and was once again the cheeky, happy little boy he’d been before.

  The selection meeting was perhaps the most exciting few hours of Davie Petrie’s life so far. Coached by Murdoch, he made a belter of a speech. Nothing against any of the folk who had made the journey up north, he told the crowded and overheated room, ‘but is this the kind of town so thin in local talent we have to hire outsiders? Folk who’ve never known how cold it is on Glaikit Glen playing a wee bit fitba. Folk who’ve never been bawled out for backsliding by our own Granny Stalin. Folk who, for whatever reason, couldn’t get chosen in their own backyards, so they’ve come up here to our backyard.’

  For each of the incomers he had a carefully prepared line of attack, the result of many hours spent in front of a computer screen over the past weeks. The man from the leader’s office had once written a column for the New Statesman in which he’d said that if he’d been a Scot he’d have voted for independence in 2014. Davie read out the whole paragraph, and was gratified by the hissing. ‘He’s no’ even a Scot, mind, yet he’s a Scottish Nationalist!’ Another, now working for a trade union in London, turned out to have been briefly a member of the Federation of Conservative Students. Two down. As to Patrick Connelly, the depressed-looking bus driver who was his main local rival, Petrie offered the hand of friendship. ‘You all know Pat Connelly. He’s carried you up and down this constituency – aye, and your kids too – and I stand here and I tell you that we may be opponents, but that he is a reliable and a decent man. He’s no’ the most cheerful fellow, perhaps, but we could do a lot worse.’