Children of the Master

by Andrew Marr

  Davie felt irritated. He’d got here on his own merits. He’d built a decent business with his own hands. ‘I think I’ll take care of my profile myself, Mr Khan. That woman gets on my tits. Anyway, your own reputation isn’t so great these days, is it? And there was that piece about me in The Times. We may be simple folk in Glaikit, by your standards, but it went down well enough where it counts. My party chairman is purring.’ Damn. He was gabbling. He hadn’t meant to say so much. He hadn’t meant to be so rude. The rest of the room had fallen silent. The dyke woman was smiling at him. Probably she was laughing at him. She did have a lovely smile.

  But Khan held his eyes, and said in a soft, emollient voice, ‘Very good, Mr Petrie. A man who knows his own worth. Quite right. And right, too, about my own poor standing in this unforgiving world. I do my best to spread a little truth and light, and what does it profit me? Scoffers and cynics all around. Never mind. The piece in The Times was fine. Something we arranged, Mr Petrie – a little welcome present. But for goodness’ sake, it wasn’t aimed at your general management committee away up in Scotland. They don’t matter a damn. Any Labour MP who’s worth his salt is hated by his local party chairman. What matters is what people down here, your colleagues in the party, the gentlemen of the press and the pollsters, make of you. And the truth is, in your case, they make nothing. They haven’t the faintest idea who you are. And meanwhile we have the problem of certain journalists who are not impressed by you, Mr Petrie.’

  ‘Who? And by the way, am I the only one here without a drink? And how do you know all this anyway, Mr Khan?’

  ‘It’s a bore to say so, but it’s actually Sir Leslie these days. There’s a nasty little gossip columnist trailing about. He was going to do a story last week about your drinking problem. Well, we killed that. What is a drinking problem, anyway? For most people, it’s wanting a drink in the morning; or as they used to say, drinking more than your doctor. But for a politician, a drinking problem happens as soon as somebody says the words, forms the thought. So be careful, Mr Precious Commodity. Even we can’t kill everything.’

  Petrie flushed. He knew it was true about the drink. Back home, the nauseating memory of his father’s boozer’s breath, and the cloying atmosphere of deal-making and backscratching among the local power brokers, had kept him well away from Scotland’s most obvious and traditional temptation. But here in London, things were different. With the prospect of only the empty flat ahead of him, he was conscious that a few times he’d been the last man out of the Members’ Bar. Then in Dolphin Square, after the call to Mary, he’d been polishing off half a bottle of vodka more nights than not.

  He was still, he felt, in control. There had only been two moments that worried him. Once, he’d been in the flat. It was late. There was some music on. He’d been trying, but failing, to have a wank. Then he heard a noise behind him. He’d spun round, and there was his father, Big Bob Petrie, standing there and leering at him. Davie had shouted an obscenity, dropped his glass, then gone to the kitchen and downed several pints of water before he calmed down. Well, the meaning of that was obvious enough; no need to ask a shrink about it.

  The second incident, unfortunately, had been in public. He’d been drinking at the Sports and Social Club bar in the bowels of the Commons when he’d thought a fat Tory fucker was laughing at his accent. The man was like a giant haemorrhoid, bulging and pink. Voice like a marching band. ‘Don’t mind me, Jock,’ he’d said. Davie had raised his fist. ‘Wouldn’t do that, if I were you,’ a heavily built Tory in a military tie had said. ‘Bunter here was in the SAS.’ Davie had cursed, and thrust his face nearer to the haemorrhoid’s. But he didn’t want a broken nose, and had allowed himself to be gently man-handled away by a Labour whip. Remembering it now, he felt a hot flush of humiliation. That was what the journalist must have heard about.

  For the rest of the evening Davie was uncharacte‌ristically quiet. They sat down to a supper that must have been cooked and brought in from outside, fragrant, creamy and immaculately served. Posh girls in long skirts brought three delicious courses – little segments of pink and green and yellow in sauces that were tart and sweet at the same time, and like nothing he’d ever tasted before. The wines had intimidating labels – swirly letters, drawings of castles – and Davie was self-consciously careful to take only a little. The conversation, despite his earlier embarrassment, was excellent. The reputations of most of the current Labour leadership were shredded. Grimaldi, according to some slanderous whisperers, had family money hidden offshore, and was looking for a way out. And there had been an affair with the editor of a women’s magazine. She’d lost her job, and might be prepared to talk. Fascinating insider information about who was going to be offered some of the still-vacant junior ministerial posts was idly dropped.

  Khan leaned back and told some wonderful, indiscreet stories against both himself and the Master. These days they were both running international consultancies in competition with each other; their alliance wasn’t quite as firm as it had once been. An indiscreet email from a would-be lover, leaked to the Guardian, of all places, had described the Master as having a particularly firm ‘butt’; Khan told the table he had been the first to spot this, many, many years before: ‘I have been following those two particular hard-boiled eggs all my political life.’ What was the Master really up to? Stories circulated around the table, as the laughter grew louder and the evening more relaxed.

  When the wine was finished and (to Davie’s disappointment) whisky, not brandy, had arrived, Davie was led off by his host to a pair of armchairs. He was inclined to treat Alex Brodie, with his chiselled face and thick mop of white hair, more seriously than he took Sir Leslie Khan. It was Brodie who had taken some of the early, brutal decisions which had mitigated the first effects of the disastrous financial crash. Famously pessimistic, he had blotted his copybook briefly by accurately describing the looming world financial disaster, and the change in the political atmosphere it would mean. These days, perhaps to his own surprise, he was looked upon as an elder statesman, a wise counsellor on all things financial. Brodie had stood by the Master from the beginning; of all that group of centrist revolutionaries, he was the only one whose reputation stood higher now than it had in the 1990s. He was a fervent pro-European who had, it seemed, dedicated his later years to campaigning for Britain’s re-entry. Petrie felt this was a doomed cause, but he admired the man nevertheless.

  Having declined the whisky, Davie was sipping a glass of water. Brodie gestured at it. ‘Good move. Khan’s a vicious sod, but he’s right about that. I should know. It’s so damned easy in this trade – all those dinners and suppers, and all those long nights. All that stress. But everyone notices. Everyone’s watching. I remember’ – and he named a former party leader – ‘used to make a big deal about how he only drank half-glasses of wine. Yes, but two dozen of them in a sitting. I once counted. You’re going to have to get used to spending whole balls-aching evenings nursing just one glass. If you don’t, you’re finished, believe me.’

  ‘Aye well, Mr Brodie, you’ve got me there. He didn’t need to say it right out in public like that, mind, but I’ll tak’ tent, as we say at home.’

  ‘Good man, Petrie. Good man. You can take a friendly word of criticism. That matters. So let me risk your ill favour just a little further. Murdoch tells me you’re an ambitious man. Right?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Right, then you need to get marching. Committee posts aren’t enough. We need to get you onto the front bench.’

  ‘The front bench? Chrissakes, I’m barely in the door.’

  ‘Somebody has to be first. Might as well be you. As I say, we have great hopes for you. But you waited a long time before your maiden.’

  ‘Yes. I thought it better to make the right speech later than the wrong speech sooner.’

  ‘Agreed. Jolly good it was, too. But, forgive me, a chap in your position has to go further. You’ve got to make people sit up and pay attention, by telling
the House something they don’t expect from you. They’ve got you down as a local man of a certain eloquence, who’ll probably eventually become a competent junior minister. Well, that’s not enough for us, and it shouldn’t be enough for you. You need to get back into the chamber and intervene on something. In politics, every day that you don’t make people think about you is a wasted day. Nine-tenths of MPs never realise that. So get back in there, and shake them up. Make the right people angry.’

  ‘Hmph. That’s simple enough, then. Any ideas?’

  ‘Trident. What do you know about Trident, Mr Petrie?’

  ‘Four submarines. Fucking expensive. The Nats want to kick them out of the Holy Loch. So do most of the Scottish people. They’re controlled by the Americans anyway, really. The real threats these days are from religious nutters and climate change – and a great big bugger of a submarine with great big buggers of nuclear missiles on it is bugger-all use against any of that. So, aye, Trident then. I’m agin it. Spend the money on hospitals and pre-school education. There’s no such thing as a strong power with a weak economy. So that’s my theme, then? It’s no’ very obvious material for comedy, Mr Brodie.’

  ‘Not quite, Mr Petrie. That’s exactly what I would have expected you to say. You’ve said it pithily and with some passion, but it’s what everyone would assume a newly-elected Labour MP from Ayrshire was going to spout. That’s Bob the Builder’s speech. No, the speech you’re going to make is in favour of Trident, calling on the government to bring forward its modernisation schedule and making the case for a new submarine to replace the oldest one.’

  ‘You must be mad.’ Petrie had a vision of Granny Stalin in full flow at his GMC, calling for his resignation.

  ‘No, I’ve just been around for a while. Think about it. Trident keeps Britain at the international top table. Who cares about that? Fair point. But it brings huge numbers of jobs to Scotland. Your Scotland. It means we maintain a level of engineering and technical expertise we wouldn’t have without it. That point you were making about rebuilding our industrial economy? Now the Iranians and the Saudis are in the nuclear club, you can never tell what we’ll need it for. But deterrence means more these days, not less. And above all, Mr Petrie, it’ll get you noticed. Not just here, but in Washington.’

  ‘Washington?’

  ‘Washington. No successful British prime minister since the Second World War has operated without the approval of Washington. Look what happened to Wilson. In pure party terms, remember Neil Kinnock.’

  ‘They’ll bloody lynch me. The comrades, I mean.’

  ‘So that’s how you start your speech. You talk about how nervous you were before your maiden speech, how long and hard you thought about the right subject. And then you say something like this: “Unfortunately for me, Mr Speaker, today I seem to have chosen a subject which will – probably literally – result in me being ripped limb from limb by the time I have finished. My leader, the prime minister, is not exactly known for physical violence – cue knowing laughter – but there’s always a first time. If there are any doctors in the House, can I crave your permission, Mr Speaker, to have them on standby for the next twenty minutes?” That kind of thing. You’ll get them listening, and at least half of them will be on your side.

  ‘Then you carry on, talking about your constituency. There used to be engineering up your way, didn’t there? Bus fabricators, marine engines. So talk about Scotland’s great tradition as a nation of engineers and inventors, shipwrights and designers. A local builder’s not quite in the same league, you admit. But you hold up your hands again, and talk about all those years of hammering, sawing, wiring and plastering. You’ve already reminded all those soft creatures around you that you come from the real world, and that you have a strong sense of history.

  ‘By now they aren’t laughing. They’re beginning to listen to you closely. So you talk about the Israeli nuclear programme – the Labour left hates that more than anything else in this wicked world. And then you talk about the Iranians, the Saudis, the North Koreans, and so on. Then you pause. A dramatic silence, just long enough to get the speaker staring at you and the Tories wondering if you’ve lost it. You tell them you have new information to share with the House. By now they’re on the edge of their seats. The Commons never gets to hear anything first. Palm of your hand.

  ‘So you tell them that the new Egyptian government has accepted an offer of nuclear advisers and limited quantities of enriched uranium from Saudi Arabia. You can’t disclose your sources, but you’re sure the foreign secretary will confirm the gist of this to the House in due course. Up in the press gallery, a couple of them have already dashed out to phone their desks. You conclude your speech by saying that in a dangerous world it’s not right to allow our skills, built up over many decades, to rot away; and it’s not right to send the message that Britain is turning away from her allies. That will be taken as a direct attack on Grimaldi, of course. But you don’t mention him. The words “the prime minister” never pass your lips. Mention Tory leaders instead – Neville Chamberlain, Stanley Baldwin – and the complacent decay of the British military during the 1930s. Then swing around and launch a full-frontal attack on the coalition and the Conservatives for underfunding defence. Paint our side as the patriotic side. Pretend, at least, to get really angry. You’ll make a splash, I promise you.’

  ‘Jesus. That’s not bad.’

  ‘It’s bloody good. A veritable warrior of a speech. An Amazon to follow the maiden.’

  ‘But what about that stuff about Egypt? I’ve never heard of that.’

  ‘A little gift from us. It’s absolutely true. The Egyptians are gearing up. They’re way behind, but they’re starting. Making it public, and in the House of Commons of all places, will greatly embarrass the Foreign Office. They’ve known for months, but they’re keeping it quiet. Twitter will go bonkers. Your name will be everywhere.’

  ‘And when am I supposed to do this?’

  ‘There’s the defence estimates debate next week. If you get in an early request to the speaker, he can hardly refuse you; your maiden went well.’

  ‘I’m no’ a bad word-spinner, but Jesus, Mr Brodie, I wish I’d taken notes. I’ve mebbe had a glass too many.’

  ‘No need for that, Mr Petrie. Call me Alex – and I’ll call you David, by the way. Here –’ and the cadaverous former chancellor handed over a dozen or so immaculately typed pages.

  ‘Everything you need. Word for word.’

  ‘But who …?’

  ‘We. Us.’

  ‘The debate’s just a few days away. Shouldn’t we get some press interest going?’ said Davie, struggling to get some of the initiative back.

  ‘Don’t worry about that. Parts of your speech have already been released, with an embargo of course, to the PA. I’m afraid it will be interpreted as a direct attack on the woeful Grimaldi. We haven’t released the bit about Egypt. Let’s save that for the day itself, shall we?’

  Staggering out into the cool night air, David Petrie considered a taxi. He had only the dimmest idea of how to get from Kensington back to Pimlico, but his head was buzzing so insistently that he decided he needed to walk. At this time of night, although the roads were still busy, the pavements were almost empty. Even so, it took him nearly an hour. His knees and ankles had turned to rubber, and Mary was asleep when he phoned her.

  ‘Evening. Sorry. Sorry.’

  She groaned, and put the phone down on him.

  Pebbleton

  The political life is a life of sacrifice, mostly by those who love us most.

  The Master

  Damn. Sheer vanity. Angela should have pulled on wellies for her rendezvous with the village shop – with, not at, because the village shop was a battered white van that made its way to Pebbleton each morning from Drake, Easter Saltley and Waterthorpe. Instead, she was wearing her Edwardian-style lace-up boots, in a soft yellow leather she particularly loved. Well, she was paying for it now. The water gurgling off the fields through the
village had penetrated to her feet. There would forever be little white tidal marks from the boots’ toes to their ankles, and however much she scraped and polished, they would never go away. The boots were ruined. Bought many years ago in a small shop in the York Shambles, she’d never be able to replace them. Damn. Damn the rain. Damn Caroline.

  But as she walked down the hill from the vicarage to the main street, Angela found it impossible to maintain her ill-humour. There was something glorious about knowing such a lovely place so well. The matching estate cottages, with their neat brick patterning, built by an improving landlord before the First World War, didn’t have a single occupant Angela didn’t know, or at least know about: tough farm labourers now long-retired; the district nurse; the local historian, who’d once been a big shot on the council. She knew about their failures, their lost children and brutally truncated careers; and she knew about their successes, the chief of which, she always thought, was the daily bravery of simply keeping buggering on.

  Sometimes Angela feared that her religion was intermittent, but this morning she felt a breath of love for the lives going on behind the brick and pebble-dashed walls, these good people. God’s love; God reminding her. And, slowly but surely, she was bringing them back to the church, whose echoing stone nave had been so sparsely filled in her first months here. The intimidating Lady Broderick had become a friend; and she had followed Lady Broderick’s advice. Good old hymns with good old music. The Book of Common Prayer. The King James Bible. Short sermons with a few jokes in them and a strong moral point. She hadn’t got Caro’s way with words, but she worked hard on those sermons, and found it a pleasurable task. It was hardly a miracle cure, but it had worked. And the more people who came to church – at first shyly, gathering in the pews towards the back, but then coming out of themselves – the more she came to know and understand this community. She began to feel she was rooted here, like a strong tooth in a jaw. One of her boys was at the local school. The other was, at this moment, getting off the bus in the nearest big town, Exchester, where he had made new friends. Was this ‘home’? It was beginning to feel that way. Every lane, every field, every smell, every passing conversation carried a message.