Children of the Master

by Andrew Marr

  ‘I telt him that as far as I could tell, you were gonnae make a speech about black ladies’ bits. I said it seemed a bit rude, but it was OK because you hadnae written it yourself.’

  ‘Bloody hell, Bunty. Why did you say that? The whips’ office hate me enough already. Anyway, I write my own bloody speeches. I do my own heavy lifting.’

  ‘Sorry, Mr Petrie, but it just looked to me as if that speech had been all neatly typed out by somebody else. You’ve been sitting there for hours pretending to work on it, but you’re not doing anything, really, are you Mr Petrie? I don’t think you’re very interested in black ladies’ bits.’

  ‘This is about cruelty and civilisation, Bunty. Not that I’d expect you to understand.’

  Bunty sniffed and helped herself to another throatie. Petrie had noticed that she had settled in to her new role in a far more relaxed way than he’d expected. She didn’t seem intimidated, or much impressed, by anything at the Palace of Westminster. Now she resumed the conversation he was finding so irritating.

  ‘Shall I tell you what I think, Mr Petrie?’

  ‘Go on, Bunty.’

  ‘I think it’s not about cruelty and civilisation. I think it’s about shafting that Mrs Phillips. I think you’ve been – what do they say? – put up to it, Mr Petrie. Am I no’ right?’

  Petrie flushed. What was it with this girl? Had he made a terrible mistake in bringing her down here? She certainly wasn’t stupid.

  ‘This has nothing to do with shafting Mrs Phillips, Bunty, except in so far as she has put her name to a ridiculous and damaging idea which I am determined to shoot down. I’m quite capable, thank you very much, of making my own decisions and writing my own speeches. Perhaps you wouldn’t mind explaining to me why you don’t think I am?’

  This wasn’t, he reflected, the kind of conversation he had ever envisaged having with his PA. But Bunty kept going.

  ‘Oh, I know you’re a very clever man, Mr Petrie. My ma told me that. She said I had to keep a good eye on you. But see, that piece in the newspaper was really all about that Mrs Phillips. And the girls down in the Portcullis café – I say girls, but it’s blokes too, all the young folk who work for the MPs – we get together, you see, and we have a wee blether, and everybody says, Mr Petrie, that you could be going right to the top. But so could Mrs Phillips. The party’s goan to have tae choose. So the girls think, and the boys think, that it’s either her or you. I think it’s going to be you, Mr Petrie. Because I think the powers that be are on your side.’ She pushed the sweet round her mouth, making first one cheek bulge, and then the other. ‘Somebody else wrote that speech. I’m no’ completely dumb. And by the way, that girl you fancy’s been asking around after you. She wants to see you again.’

  ‘I don’t know who you mean.’

  ‘That girl you thought was a TV researcher, Mr Petrie. You liked her well enough to buy her a drink the other night. She said you were looking at her bosoms. But she doesnae work on the telly. She works for the old prime minister – the one they cry the Master. She’s really nice. She’s called …’

  ‘Yes, well, I’m sure she’s a very nice girl. And yes, I may have committed the major sin of buying her a drink. But I’m a married man, and whoever she works for, she doesn’t work for me. In any way.’

  ‘Oh, well that’s good news anyway, Mr Petrie. My ma was getting a bit worried. For Mary, like.’

  ‘You mean to say, Bunty, that you’ve been passing gossip about my private affairs back to your mother in Glaikit?’

  ‘Oh, aye, sure thing. Ma said she knew you were trying to butter her up like a hot scone – getting me this job and all. But she said it didnae matter, because we talk every day. And she said if you started to misbehave, the constituency would get to know about it straight away, and she’d have you by the short and hairies.’

  ‘Short and curlies, Bunty. Short and curlies.’

  ‘Aye, well. Them too.’

  Public Servants

  The good politician, presented with a pair of somebody else’s shoes, will grow his feet.

  The Master

  In the days after he kissed hands with the king and accepted the premiership of Britain, the new prime minister had had dozens of meetings. He had met the chiefs of the Defence Staff, the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, his new chancellor, the governor of the Bank of England and the American ambassador. Oh yes, and he had had his photograph taken by the government’s official photographer, an image that would be on file and would be used all around the world. Alwyn Grimaldi, in his trademark cream suit and scarlet tie, seemed to stand a little awkwardly in front of the cream marble pillars in the Downing Street drawing room. His Welsh-Italian heritage was made flesh in a narrow skull with darkish skin and prominent, bushy-black eyebrows. He was smiling, but not happily.

  Over in the government whips’ office in the House of Commons, they had loyally framed and mounted Alwyn Grimaldi.

  ‘Clown,’ said the chief whip.

  ‘It runs in the family,’ said his deputy.

  A schedule of emergency spending cuts, presented by the chancellor earlier in the week, was now in the hands of the whips. It would be part of their job to force these revised estimates through a House of Commons in which they had almost no majority. Since the election results had been declared, the chief whip had been reading his way through the memoirs and histories of the Callaghan Labour government of the late 1970s to see how it had been done then. He was not reassured. A litany of brutal threats, blatant bribery and outright deceit had only just kept that government going. Dying MPs had been stretchered into the House so they could be recorded through the Aye lobby; road bridges, power stations and pipelines had been promised to buy off wavering MPs. And in the end, of course, the whole rickety structure had crashed down anyway, leaving Margaret Thatcher to stride through the wreckage to her first devastating victory.

  The chief whip had been reciting some of this ancient history to his deputy. ‘Someone wrote a play about us, you know. Back in the early 2010s. It was on at the National Theatre. The whips – it made us out to be heroes, despite everything.’

  ‘Well, that’s something. It’s a bloody impossible job, but at least if you get a bit of recognition …’

  ‘Trouble is, back then the whips were saving big people – Callaghan, Healey, Shirley Williams, even Tony Benn. We’ve got a cabinet of midgets by comparison. Think of them. They’re all thirty-somethings straight out of think tanks, or they’ve worked as researchers or whatever. No real jobs, no real grasp of the country around them.’

  It was a familiar moan, but the deputy chief whip felt it was spot on. ‘And the troubles we’re facing now are just as bad as they were in the 1970s. Maybe worse. There’s the deficit. The pound weak as fuck. Now we’re out of the EU, the Americans are calling the shots more than ever. And the country’s just … grumpy. Even the weather’s against us – the floods, the coastal battering, the summer droughts. How long before extreme weather produces extreme politics?’

  ‘At least there’s one thing we don’t have to worry about so much right now. The party’s more united than it used to be. The Tories and the Lib Dems are knackered after all those years of power and feuding. We’ll get our majorities – most of the time. Grimaldi’s new. The boys and girls will give him a chance.’

  ‘I’m not so sure.’ The chief whip gestured at the photograph. ‘There’s something brittle, something thin about him. That ridiculous suit, that scared-looking smirk. You know how things are. We build them up and then we knock them down, cut them off at the knees. I don’t think our great leader has a very long career ahead of him.’

  ‘Well, he has to stand up to the Yanks. That’s the first thing. They want this new defence, trade and intelligence agreement. If Grimaldi told them to get stuffed, the party would back him every inch of the way.’

  ‘If?’

  ‘Oh, I know. He’s a clown, basically. But we have to give him a chance.’

  The same ph
otograph of Alwyn Grimaldi was on prominent display at 35, rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris, the palatial eighteenth-century home of Napoleon’s sister Pauline, otherwise known as the Princess Borghese. Grabbed from the Bonapartes by the Duke of Wellington, for more than two centuries it had been the British embassy. Its Yellow Room, its Blue Room and its splendid Red Room, with Pauline Borghese’s grand golden bed, retained a sense of Napoleonic splendour, tucked away and under the control of the old enemy, in the heart of Paris. The current ambassador, Sir Anthony Bevins, enjoyed everything about the posting that his predecessors had loved so much – the view overlooking the little private lawn, the wonderful parties, the invitations to the opera, and the many splendid restaurants nearby.

  But Sir Anthony was a worried man. There was a cloud in the sky, growing steadily more menacing, that had not confronted previous ambassadors. Now that Britain had left the EU, the British rated less here. At the Elysée Palace down the road, questions had been asked about whether such a modest little nation, no longer in the Union, really needed quite such a splendid embassy.

  ‘It’s all a little … 1945, don’t you think, Ambassador?’ the French president’s press secretary had muttered to Bevins at the cocktail party he’d thrown to celebrate the king’s birthday. ‘All this … grandeur Britannique.’ The Brazilians and the South Koreans were both looking for new accommodation.

  That wouldn’t have worried Sir Anthony, had not similar noises been coming from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London – itself housed in a grand enough building. It couldn’t be denied that the Paris embassy was exceedingly expensive. Now that so much of Britain’s relations with Europe were conducted via Brussels, was it really a good investment any more? The British newspapers had withdrawn from Paris; the BBC had retreated too. The embassy felt embattled. During his last visit to London, Bevins had deflected the suggestion of downsizing with an airy wave at the gigantic staircases, huge paintings and echoing corridors of the FCO. Something very similar, he pointed out, could be said about that place. But very soon he’d need a more serious response. These days, the real work was done by Number 10 and the Secret Services. The Grimaldi government was pushing through new cuts all round. The permanent secretary had summoned him back to London for a face-to-face. It was all, undoubtedly, ominous.

  So Sir Anthony, uneasily aware that he needed all the friends he could get, had been delighted when the former prime minister whose friends called him, perhaps partly in jest, simply ‘the Master’, had said he needed a discreet base where he would not be bothered or spotted. He had asked to use the embassy – unofficially, of course. Since the Master and his old coterie often stayed in the Borghese Palace when they were passing through Paris, nothing could be easier.

  On a brisk March morning, then, the Master stood, almost like an eighteenth-century monarch, greeting his loyal lieges. There was Sir Leslie Khan, beautifully dressed in a blue alpaca coat. With his nineteenth-century beard, the Master thought, he suited Paris. There was Alex Brodie, the rumpled, rather grey-looking former chancellor; foul-mouthed Murdoch White, down from his island, grumbling about his complicated journey; and Sally Johnson, the former party chair. In the old days she’d been dressed by Marks & Spencer’s. Today it was Givenchy.

  Sir Anthony ushered them in, ordered coffee and cakes bought in from Fauchon, had a few words with the Master about the threat to the embassy and was encouraged by his exclamation of shock; and left them to it, as he was expected to do.

  The Master, far from being diminished by his long years out of power, seemed fitter than ever – lean, tanned, with a full head of grey hair – and brimming with energy and confidence. All that money had lacquered him, like a honeyed gloss. He was wearing jeans. Worse still, they had been freshly ironed.

  ‘Guys! Hey! Thanks for coming. You’ve all got a bed made up here, and I’ve booked us a table at the Bristol this evening. Now then! London, guys! We have half a dozen people in place, all of them good, all of them new. I’m afraid the government itself is despised. They’re all kids. They mean well, but no … intelligent observer … thinks they’re up to it. Alwyn – well, you probably remember Alwyn from his days as a researcher in Number 10. Nice kid back then. But he still is. Thanks to you – you in particular, Murdoch, and you, Leslie – we have a couple of excellent contenders. Guys! Our problem is that it’s still too early for them. We have to hothouse them’ – the former leader palpated his fingers as if he were trying to cast a spell – ‘and force their political growth, so they’ll be ready.’

  Sally Johnson, always famous for her ability to prick the Master’s exuberant optimism, swallowed the last of an immaculate vanilla macaroon, licked her lips like a cat, and interrupted. ‘Small problem. I mean literally a small problem – he’s only just over five foot high. But there’s, already, as it were, a prime minister. And much as it may amaze us all here, the man won an election.’

  The Master appeared not to have heard her. He got gently to his feet and walked to the window. He looked out at a cluttered private courtyard, making it seem as if he were gazing at a Glorious Future. Being in Paris helped, but he was good at that kind of thing.

  ‘We are back. I am back. That is the point, and we must never lose sight of it. When we choose to bring Alwyn’s splendid service to his country to a suitable conclusion, he will be ready to go. And we will be ready. And at least one of our young protégés will be ready. I am relying on you to make sure of that. Take courage, and look around. There is more real political talent in this room than in the whole of Westminster.’

  And then he turned tetchily on Sally: ‘I can’t be expected to think of everything myself.’

  Leslie Khan had been playing with a small cigar. He had pulled it out of his breast pocket, taken off the cellophane, spent quite a long time biting off one end, and was now rolling it between his fingers and sniffing it. Smoking was strictly forbidden in the embassy, as it was in every public building across Europe, and the others were fascinated by what he would do next. Leslie had had no intention of lighting the thing, however; it was just a way of getting attention before he spoke. A little trick. A tiny little trick.

  ‘Master, colleagues. We must not lose sight of the bigger picture. None of us are here to further our own careers; we all know that politics without principle and a clear line forward is an empty game. This is about the future of Britain. After all our sterling work back in the 1980s and 1990s, Britain is again alone, cut adrift from the main currents of the modern world. We could have given up. We have villas on the Côte d’Azur, and comfortable yachts – or we have good friends who have those things. But we have all chosen the harder path. So, I repeat, let us not lose sight of the bigger picture.’

  The Master, listening intently, nevertheless felt it was time for him to pick up the thought. He smoothed his upper lip as if there were a moustache on it, and patted Sir Leslie on the sleeve.

  ‘The bigger picture. The harder path. Exactly, Leslie. I think we all feel a calling. I know I do. How often have I looked upwards, enjoying a meal or a holiday, and said, “Lord, take this cup away from me. Hey! C’mon, Big Man, bother somebody else.” But will He listen?’

  Alex Brodie was covertly rolling his eyes and making little revolving gestures against his temple with his forefinger. The faintest smile hovered above Sir Leslie Khan’s beard. The rest of them kept their faces straight.

  ‘I know that, perhaps satirically, people call me the Master. They would be better to call me the Servant. Are we not all servants, after all – even you impious hoodlums, sniggering behind your hands – the servants at least of your country and your own political destinies? But, guys, the Americans, I’m afraid, have muffed it rather. I said as much to Hillary recently. By linking the new World Bank loan to a fresh agreement on military and intelligence cooperation, they have contrived to look like the bullies of Britain, rather than our natural and closest allies. Ever the optimist, I always thought that Alwyn Grimaldi and the rest of the … socialist
kindergarten … would fold. But it looks as if they won’t. So we have to ensure that our people start to get things back on track, first with the Americans and then with our friends in Europe. If not, our host’s understandable anxiety about his pleasant surroundings here will be the least of it.’

  The Master shook his head. ‘The ambassador is an awful old fool, guys, I’m afraid. If I had my way I’d close this place down myself. He is the old Britain we were trying to get away from. It’s useful, of course, that he’s such an old softy. Now, as to the Americans and all that. We have to choose our time well. Grimaldi’s government can’t survive many months with such a tiny majority, but we need to inherit a government that’s worth inheriting. In the short term, we need to prop it up. Leslie, Alex – use your excellent contacts with the Liberals and the pro-European Tory rump to make sure things don’t collapse too quickly. We’ll get our people into junior jobs. Then we’ll need a resignation or two. Then the PM himself. Lots to do.’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘Lots to do.’

  But before that, the former cabinet colleagues enjoyed a leisurely day in Paris. They strolled in the Tuileries, tolerating the odd stare from British tourists. The Master took Murdoch White, who had a good collection of Scottish paintings, into the Orangerie to see Monet’s Nymphéas – ‘The only good paintings of time actually passing in the world.’ (The Master was full of surprises.) Leslie Khan, for his part, had always wanted to bed Sally Johnson. Today, thinking of her expensive underwear and her exquisite little room at the embassy, she acquiesced with a cheerful smile. Later, they all went for supper at the Bristol. They ate sea urchins from cold Norwegian waters, and the hindquarters of hares from the Pyrenees. Life, even in 2019, even for exiled British leaders, could occasionally be tolerable.

  Back at 35, rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, the ambassador was sitting at his ornate desk in his ornate room, wearing a pair of utilitarian plastic headphones. He was pausing, then playing again, a recording on his private laptop. Sir Anthony Bevins smiled his thin smile. Perhaps, after all, there was a way of demonstrating to those in power that the British embassy in Paris remained a useful asset. ‘Awful old fool though I may be.’