High society

by Ben Elton

  ‘It does matter, Peter! It matters a lot right now, and what matters most of all is Cathy and Suzie.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘So what I need to know now and, believe me, Peter, everything depends on your answers being honest, is the nature of this relationship. What it was, what it is and what you intend it to be. You say that it’s not a love affair, that you had sex four times?’

  ‘I’m thinking, looking back, this is awful. Five. Perhaps five.’ In a way he sort of believed it. Did the detail matter? Not if the substance was honest, surely. He did not love Samantha…He had never loved her…and if perhaps he had thought in some insane moment of otherness that he did love her…if he had even said as much to her…on numerous occasions…well, he knew now, standing before the wife whom he was in danger of losing, that it had all been an illusion. Nothing more. Illusion.

  ‘You see, Peter. Right now I’d like to leave you.’

  ‘Angela!’

  ‘But I shan’t. There’s too much at stake in our lives, too much that honestly matters. A diversion now, a stupid scandal, would be just the kind of pathetic thing that people in this country would seize upon to avoid actually having to think about anything, and you are making them think, Peter. Besides, you’re too famous. Three months ago if I’d left you we probably wouldn’t have made the papers. The girls would have at least been able to watch their home break up in private. But now, my God, every one on the planet would know their business. I can’t do that to the girls, or to myself, quite frankly — ’

  ‘But, Angela, you mustn’t leave me anyway.’

  ‘Afterwards, who knows? I expect things’ll get easier. I’ll hate you less…But that’s why it’s so important that you’re honest with me, Peter. Is it over?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Would it have been over if I hadn’t discovered it?’

  ‘Yes! Yes, absolutely.’

  ‘Does she know it’s over?’ The tiniest pause was enough. ‘So it isn’t over yet, then. When will it be?’

  ‘It’s over now, Angela. It was before you found me out, I swear it. I’ve been agonizing about what a fool I’ve been and how to let Samantha know that we’ve been stupid and we mustn’t — ’

  ‘So you don’t think she’ll feel the same as you? You don’t think that it’ll be easy to get out of this? Admit it, Peter, she loves you.’

  ‘She’s fond of me.’

  ‘Peter. This is going to be very messy. If she loves you, she’ll fight.’

  ‘She doesn’t love me! She only thinks she does.’

  ‘Peter. You are in shit, we are in shit. These things can never be ended easily. But end it you must, and if I am to stand by you, you must swear to me now, from the bottom of your heart, that you will do it immediately.’

  NATIONAL EXHIBITION CENTRE, BIRMINGHAM

  The two Brummie teenagers were very, very excited.

  ‘I can’t believe ‘ow good these seats are! Only forty-eight rows from the front. That’s mental, that is.’

  ‘Well, Sonia queued all night the day before they went on sale, didn’t she?’

  ‘Don’t, it just makes me want to croi just even thinking ‘bout her. All them foreign women an’ ‘er sleeping on the floor, it’s disgusting.’

  ‘Did her mum tell you she’d written to the Thai royal family? No reploi yet, but I think it’s supposed to work sometimes.’

  ‘It’s just so weird. I mean, it’s like surreal or something…Thinking of her, in jail in Thailand! I mean, I can just close moi oies and see her, ‘ere with us, ‘having a laugh, ‘ear her voice…it’s loik…she went off for a week’s ‘oliday. We all said, ‘See ya, babes,’ and she just evaporated.’

  ‘That bastard at the Rum Slinger, ‘im what give ‘er all them Es. He said she’d be all roit.’

  ‘Yeah, but come on, Sal, would yow ‘ave done it?’

  ‘Don’t be sodding stupid.’

  ‘Exactly. Only Sonia would be that mad. That’s why she didn’t tell us what she were up to. We’d ‘ave stopped ‘er. Sonia was always mad, weren’t she?’

  ‘It was so nice of ‘er mum to give us her Tommy tickets, though.’

  ‘Well, she would have taken yow anyway.’

  ‘Rubbish, she’d have taken yow.’

  For a moment both of Sonia’s friends thought that they would burst into tears.

  ‘Actually, she probably would have taken some wanker of a bloke she’d met that day, wouldn’t she?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s Sonia…‘ang on, I think it’s starting. This is sow cool!’

  Tony, Tommy’s tour manager, was not often charmed by the women who sought access to Tommy, but Gemma was different. Quite apart from anything else, her brother had cerebral palsy, which was how she and he had been able to get past all the Exhibition Centre security and manoeuvre their way right up to the door of Tommy’s hospitality lig. Gemma knew that nothing unmans the vast bulk of a security guard better than a sweet girl with a disabled brother, and she had worked her passage well. Now she had only to get past Tony and she would be in.

  ‘Please, he’d just like to meet Tommy, that’s all. Just to thank him for such an amazing show and all the things he’s done for Comic Relief. Comic Relief have given some big grants to initiatives in the disabled community here in the Midlands.’

  Tony knew that Tommy actually took his charity work seriously when he was straight enough to think about it, and since the after-show party was hardly rocking he decided to let Gemma and her brother in. Til take you to him, but please don’t stay long. He’s too polite to disengage and so he gets trapped.’

  ‘We won’t. Promise.’

  They made their way through the crowd of liggers and fans, local DJs who’d supported the shows, record-shop bosses, a few Midlands celebrities, and local footballers and athletes.

  When Tony brought Gemma over Tommy was sitting behind his minders idly thinking about a song lyric…I’m too fashionable to pay for my drinks…I want to be seen, but not with you…If nobody’s photographing me, do I exist?

  ‘This is my brother, Gary.’

  Gary’s speech was quite severely impaired and the room was noisy. Tommy suggested that Gemma and Gary come to his dressing room. Gemma was aware enough of her good looks to see that Tommy’s hospitality was only partly driven by sympathy for Gary. Nonetheless, Tommy made a considerable effort to talk to him, discovering that he was studying civil engineering at Birmingham University but that the facilities for the disabled were by no means everything they could be.

  The three of them talked for about fifteen minutes, after which Gemma smiled at Tony, who was hovering at the doorway, and said that she and Gary must go.

  ‘No way,’ Tommy protested. ‘Let’s go back through to the party. Have another drink.’

  Gemma smiled. ‘Pretty amazing getting pressed to hang out with you, Tommy, but we don’t want to overstay our welcome and the late-night buses are crap.’

  ‘Bollocks to that. Have another drink, we’ll get you a car later.’

  ‘Well, that’s just stupidly nice of you, but in fact Gary has an exam at nine in the morning.’

  This was true, but Gary pointed out that Gemma did not. He was a good brother and reminded Gemma that, while he had to go, she could stay. It had become clear during the conversation that Gemma was at least as big a fan of Tommy’s as Gary was. In the end, despite Gemma’s protests, it was decided that Gary would take Tommy’s kind invitation of a car home and that Gemma would stay for a drink and the car would return for her later.

  ‘Or not,’ said Tommy, who was nothing if not forward.

  Gemma’s blush was the prettiest thing that Tommy had seen in as long as he could remember. The ridiculous bender that had followed his Brits adventures, the hectic rehearsals, the weeks on the road had all passed in a blur of beer-soaked, speed-driven, coked-up, acid-tasting nastiness, and now suddenly he was sitting in his dressing room with a real person. A nice person. Prettily dressed, but not trying to get laid. Adm
iring of Tommy, but not gushing or boring about it. Blushing sweetly at his naughty innuendos. What a change she made.

  That old cliche ‘a breath of fresh air’ fitted her perfectly. Tommy knew that he just had to shag her.

  THE HYATT REGENCY, BIRMINGHAM

  The Home Secretary was on fine tub-thumping form.

  ‘My friends. My comrades. Great issues require great men and great women to face them. This party has produced many such people but none greater, I suggest, than Peter and Angela Paget, whom you see beside me here tonight!!’

  The conference simply went berserk. A mile or two up the road at the NEC, Tommy Hanson himself had scarcely received a bigger reaction. Nonetheless, the Home Secretary thundered on above the tumult. He was not being left out of the loop for anyone. ‘Her Majesty’s Minister for Drugs! His wife and their two lovely daughters. A British family! A Labour Party family. A family who have together faced the worst that our ruptured and fragmented society can throw at them and yet have remained a shining example to us all. Together they embody all that we believe in when we employ that much misunderstood and misapplied term ‘family values’. It takes a man armed strong in honesty to pursue the course that Peter has taken, from being a lone voice in the wilderness to being the leader of a national crusade. Peter Paget is armed strong in honesty! His stake in the drugs war is his family, his beautiful daughters, his lovely wife! And there can be no higher a stake than that.’

  Sitting behind their parents, Cathy and Suzie Paget squirmed. They had agreed to accompany their parents to this conference, but they had not expected such star billing. They thought that the Home Secretary was a bit of a tosser. What was more, they knew that this had been their father’s opinion until he had been invited to join him in the Cabinet.

  ‘Friends, comrades, representatives from the worlds of business and the media. I give you the Right Honourable Peter Paget, MP, Minister for Drugs!’

  The cheering was thunderous. The whole ballroom shook with it. The entire audience rose to its feet in one great mass of cheering, waving humanity. And at the back, standing at the very back, amongst the people for whom no chair could be found, amongst the waiters and runners and the other parliamentary assistants, was Samantha, not waving, not cheering. Tears in her eyes.

  ‘Ah yes. Yes, indeed-ee-do,’ said a soft voice behind her. ‘The perfect family man…not.’

  The voice had spoken almost into her ear. There was no other way that Samantha could have heard it above the furore, so when she turned round her nose almost touched that of the speaker. A woman. A journalist, in fact.

  ‘Hello, Samantha. My name’s Paula.’

  ‘I know who you are. You’re the one who’s always so mean to Peter. What did you just say? What did you mean?’

  ‘Just that it must be very hard for you, all this, Samantha. Now that things have gone so well for him. To see him scuttle back to his wife like this.’

  ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

  Paula smiled. ‘You don’t have to lie to me, Samantha. I know, you see. Did he tell you he loved you? Of course he did. Lots of times, I expect…Look at him now. Whose shoulder is his arm round? Not yours, my darling, not yours.’

  Paula knew it was a risk to adopt such a direct approach with so little real information and no proof. But try as she might, she had been unable to get any further in her pursuit of Peter Paget’s private life. But when she had seen Samantha’s face just then, seen the pain that rippled across it as the Home Secretary eulogized Paget’s perfect family life, she knew that the proof lay with the girl and that the time was right to strike. Paula knew a besotted, jealous, agonized young woman when she saw one. ‘He’ll never leave her, you know. He’s used you, that’s all.’

  ‘I…I really don’t know what you’re talking about. Please go away. I want to listen to the speech.’

  ‘Fine, not a problem, I’ll go, but I’ll just leave you my card…If ever you want a sympathetic ear…‘ Paula produced her card. ‘Like I say, stay in touch, and if ever you want to start screwing him instead of his screwing you, I’m your girl.’ And with that Paula melted away into the crowd.

  Samantha hardly saw Paula leave. Her eyes were too wet with tears. It did not draw attention to her, though, as so many people in that hall had tears in their eyes. Peter was giving the performance of his life.

  ‘Comrades. The Home Secretary mentioned my family. He mentioned the fact that like many of you here today I have teenaged children. Two girls. But right now I should like to tell you the stories of three very different girls, three of the many stories I’ve encountered since first I began my campaign. Picture young Jessie, a teenaged runaway, gone to London because of abuse at home in Scotland. I met her at a drop-in centre at King’s Cross. A bright girl, beautiful, articulate and addicted to heroin. Addicted because the evil predator who took her in gave it to this innocent and vulnerable seventeen-year-old prior to pressing her into a life of prostitution. What a brilliant plan! Foolproof! Sanctioned by Parliament, no less! Jessie has no choice but to cooperate with her abuser, for he is her only source of heroin. She has no choice but to walk the streets because it is the only way she can hope to earn enough to pay the exorbitant prices that this illegal substance commands. For Jessie it is a case of either whore or steal! And for a small, frail, pretty teenager it is obvious where she is going to end up. In the backs of strangers’ cars, ladies and gentlemen. Yes. Many times a night. Courtesy of Her Majesty’s Government! The law is her pimp. Make no mistake. We here today are directly responsible for her plight. For we make the laws that create her abuser!’

  When the applause had died down, Paget continued.

  ‘Recently, burdened somewhat by my own private fears, the fears that have resulted from my accident with the addict’s needle, I returned to the King’s Cross drop-in centre. I was determined to see young Jessie again. I had some idea of explaining to her that we were now both victims of the drugs war and that perhaps we might draw strength from each other’s plight. I hoped that somehow or other I could provide a catalyst for her to seek help or perhaps return to Scotland and face her problems at home. Ladies and gentlemen, I am here to tell you that Jessie had disappeared. The people at the centre had not seen her for some time and nor had any of the other habituees to the centre who knew her. Where is she now? Nobody knows. She’s gone. Lost. Either dead or out there somewhere in the cruel night existing at the mercy of the underworld. Seventeen years old, ladies and gentlemen. Seventeen years old and lost to us!’

  Peter Paget turned and looked at his daughters. It was not a cheap trick for the cameras. Like all who listened to his speech, he could not help comparing the story he was telling to the good fortune that he himself enjoyed. Cathy and Suzie smiled at their father, no longer squirming and self-conscious but proud, proud to be part of something so important, so fundamental.

  ‘Let me tell you about another girl,’ Peter continued. ‘Sonia, a young woman from this very city of Birmingham. I know where she is. Oh yes, so do all of you who read the papers. She is currently rotting in a Thai jail! Eighteen years old, her life effectively over, and why? Because she was stupid? Yes, of course. Because she was criminal? That I don’t argue with. Sonia did a wicked and foolish thing, she agreed to smuggle drugs in exchange for a thousand pounds and a week in Bangkok. But Sonia was also bored. She was naturally adventurous, she was also extremely young and impressionable. She lived in a culture where she and all her friends took drugs every weekend, where the law was and remains entirely in disrepute. A joke, something to be ignored. She fell in with rich and cunning men, men grown fat on the profits of our stupid laws. They flattered her, gave her drugs, seduced her into their service. Promised her one thousand pounds from an operation that they knew would net them many tens of thousands! I should like to remind you here today that whilst we know where Sonia is, we don’t know where the men who entrapped her are. They, as always, have escaped. They, and all their comrades in crime. We rarely see them,
we never catch them, their power grows daily. They are invisible while the results of their wickedness — Jessie, Sonia — are all too visible! I have written personally to the King of Thailand and have hopes of obtaining mercy for Sonia, but she is only one, and her like will never be truly free until we remove the laws that promote their abuse.

  ‘Let me now mention the story of Natalie, a girl from Salford, another heroin addict. I don’t know her — she’s just one of many thousands of similar addicts who live outside the law. Her story was brought to the attention of the world simply because her boyfriend Jason, who robbed and burgled every single day to feed their mutual addictions, happened to steal from the home of a celebrity’s aunt. He was caught trying to pawn the pop singer Tommy Hanson’s Brit Awards, and when he led the police to the hovel he shared with Natalie, it was discovered that these two addicts had a baby, Ricky. A baby who was dying of neglect and whom the police arrived too late to save. The social services had been aware of Ricky and had attempted to help Jason and Natalie with him, but as the parents’ lives drifted further and further into direct conflict with authority they disappeared from view, taking their baby with them. Just another story. Just another statistic. Without the tenuous connection with celebrity, Natalie, Jason and Ricky’s story would never have been heard. On the subject of celebrity, I’d like to bring your attention to the life of one other young woman. Emily Hilton-Smith — you’ve all heard of her — she was a wild child, an ‘it’ girl. She’s here today, having come at my invitation.’ The eyes of the gathering and the lenses of the cameras focused on Emily, who was attending the meeting with her mentor from Narcotics Anonymous. Her glamorous clothes and perfectly smooth bronzed legs had already been the focus of much attention.

  ‘Emily wrote to me,’ Peter continued, ‘in support of my campaign. She explained that although she no longer took drugs and hoped never to do so again, she had been in their thrall for ten years. Ten years, ladies and gentlemen, and large quantities. Jessie, the King’s Cross heroin addict I was telling you about, told me that she had her first hit of the drug only months before we met. Sonia took Es only at weekends. I don’t know how long Natalie was addicted, but I doubt it was as long as ten years. And yet while Jessie, Sonia and Natalie’s lives are ruined, Emily sits here with us today, a picture of glowing health and beauty! And why is that, ladies and gentlemen. I’ll tell you why. Because she could afford her drugs, and when she needed help she was a part of a society that was able to give it to her. She was protected by her family and friends. While her addiction was certainly supplied by criminals, she didn’t need to steal or whore to pay for it. She was able to avoid sinking into the squalor that engulfed Jessie and Natalie! Ladies and gentlemen, I abhor the effects of many drugs and wish sincerely that people were not tempted to take them, but I say to you here tonight that in the vast majority of cases it is not drugs that kill people! Look at Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Emily Hilton-Smith, Tommy Hanson! It is the law that kills people, because the law turns addicts into criminals.