How glad he was, after all, that he hadn’t been made a minister of state. There had been a Cabinet reshuffle a couple of years back, and the Member for Stirling, Michael Forsyth, had become Secretary of State for Scotland. Forsyth was an ardent, unrepentant Thatcherite in what was supposed to be a post-Thatcherite age. The story was that when the civil servants at St Andrew’s House heard of his appointment they went around picking windows to leave by. Forsyth had been a hate figure as a junior minister and as Secretary of State he attracted greater unpopularity. He’d just engineered the return of the Stone of Destiny in what looked like a desperate attempt to improve the government’s tartan credentials, but even David could see through that one. Here’s a lump of sandstone, okay? So now you don’t need to bother with this devolution/separation nonsense. David didn’t think that was going to make many people change their views, or their vote. The stone came up from London under military escort and when it crossed the Tweed at Coldstream in an army Land Rover Forsyth was there to meet it. ‘A momentous occasion,’ he was quoted as saying. It was all rather embarrassing, and David was content not to have anything to do with it, and not to be any more closely associated with Mr Forsyth than he already was. Head down, fixed smile, see out the last few months – that was his philosophy now.
The trouble was he was so indecisive. He liked the luxuries and kudos that his life brought him. He liked providing for Melissa and the kids, who were now both students, final year and first year. He’d embraced the wealth and privilege of his own upbringing, and by astute dealings increased the former many times over. Was he to be blamed or brought down for doing what most people in the same circumstances would have done? All right, he could have done a Lucy and rejected the lot, but who’d have gained? Nobody. Not himself, not Melissa, not his children. Certainly not Lucy, wherever she was. He hadn’t seen her for years, not since that last awful meeting in London, and he doubted he ever would again. The idea that he should have sacrificed everything out of some misplaced sense of guilt was absurd. And yet, and yet. There were times when he wished he wasn’t who he was, times when he wanted to hide away, as he had in childhood from his parents’ monstrous behaviour. Oh for the quiet, obscure life! Well, if he’d really wanted that, he should have resigned at the last election, or the one before that. Got out while the going was relatively good. But he hadn’t, and why not? Because he hadn’t wanted to disturb the tricky balances of his life. And he’d been right not to, because it looked like he was going to make it. The election was less than six months away and it was quite obvious that he was going to lose the seat. He was going to be able to ride out these last months, lose with dignity rather than run like a rat, then disappear into the backwoods. He might even end up with a knighthood. Sir David Eddelstane. He wouldn’t need to work, wouldn’t need to do anything except be. And that could still include being that part of himself that he kept private and guarded. The time bomb was ticking away but it would cease to tick after the election. He would lose, and after that nobody would care. The malevolent gremlin sitting in the depths of him, waiting to pop its grinning features out into the world when it was likely to cause maximum damage, would have missed its chance. He’d been carrying the little bastard around for decades, caressing, feeding, pacifying, indulging it, and it still wasn’t tamed, still was both part of him and apart from him, still had the capability to humiliate and destroy him – but not for much longer. A few more months, weeks even – that was all he needed.
And dear Melissa, who knew something, need never know the whole truth. After that time she caught him in the study, she’d demanded to know what it was he was hiding. Was he having an affair? No. Was he gay? No, no. Then what? He’d started to tell her but he couldn’t, he didn’t want to sully her with the stupid, sordid details and anyway they were his details, he wanted them to himself. She’d said, ‘David, I love you. I don’t know if I can do whatever it is you want, but I love you and I want to help.’ ‘No,’ he’d said, ‘you can’t help.’ ‘Do you love me?’ she’d asked, tears running down her face. ‘Yes, yes, darling, I love you very much.’ ‘Then don’t reject me.’ ‘I’m not rejecting you, it’s just something I have to sort out in my head. On my own.’ And he’d given her some baloney about the pressures of the job and the exhaustion and the sleeplessness and how it messed you up. A rejection, however he adorned it. ‘So where does that leave us?’ she’d said. ‘Still here,’ he’d said, ‘still together.’ ‘Should I expect anything awful to happen? Exposure, public humiliation, anything like that?’ ‘No,’ he’d said. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not a fool. Everything will be all right.’
So he’d lied to her. Twice. Once throughout all the years she never suspected, or never asked, and again when she did ask. But it had been worth it. He was still in one piece, still undiscovered. It would be worth it, if only he could manage the deceit for just a little longer. Then the rumble would be silenced for ever.
§
He came so close, less than a month to go. And then somehow, somebody found out. One minute he was about to emerge from the escape tunnel, the next there were searchlights blazing, loudspeakers and panic. And that was just in his head. He came home one afternoon from the campaign trail and Melissa was standing in the hall with a note in her hand, ashen-faced, saying that some journalist had phoned and refused to speak to her but had a story about him. ‘What is it, David?’ He said, ‘I don’t know,’ but he did. ‘A letter came too,’ she said. ‘Marked “Private and confidential”. I haven’t opened it.’ And then he really felt it, he knew from the emptiness in the pit of him that the gremlin had escaped, the rumble was out, and he took the note and he went into the study and closed the door and read the number and the name Peter Bond and wondered what information he had and how he had got it, and there on the desk was an A5 envelope, unopened as Melissa had said, and he opened it and saw the photograph and thanked God it was what it was because it could have been so much worse, but then maybe there was much worse, and he broke into a sweat and wondered if there was even a remote chance that he could save himself and Melissa and the kids but there wasn’t, and he looked at the calendar above the desk, twenty-three days left, and thought, this is it, I’ll stand down, the association will be mad but to hell with them, this isn’t about them any more it’s about us. And then he lifted the receiver and dialled the number.
§
The story of the last gasp. The original Mr Bond’s final case. He beds the girl – not a classic Bond girl, it has to be said – and she leads him to the villain, who turns out not to be a villain but a sad bastard like himself, but nevertheless old Bondy has a job to do. The bad guys have fucked him over once too often – Croick, Canterbury, Thatcher, Major, Forsyth, they’re all part of the same team – it’s just a shame that the only one in his sights is an inferior specimen of bad guy called David Eddelstane, but that’s how it works sometimes and Jimmy Bond has only one throw of the dice, one last stick of dodgy gelignite to detonate, and he goes for it. What the hell has he got to lose? Sorry, pal, this is going to hurt you a lot more than it hurts me. Sky-High Joe’s identity revealed at last – and jings! it was Wee Jimmy all along!
Lucy was using Peter and he was using her. No deception there, it was an honest relationship based on mutual exploitation. She went down to London and followed her brother around and then she came back to Edinburgh and did some more snooping. A proper wee detective. He could have given her some tips but he left her to it. Claudine, the waitress flatmate, knew a girl who knew a girl. Lucy talked to her. Then, on the crumb-strewn, wine-splashed, lumpy mattress she talked to Peter. Did he know what ‘strictly by appointment’ meant in the small ads? Yes he did. And that most of the city’s saunas were brothels? Yes. But that there were other places, hidden away, out of the limelight? Yes. This girl worked in one of them, or had done so. Discretion was the watchword of such operations but Lucy had found out what her brother liked. Peter said, Do I want to know this? Lucy said, Of course you do, isn’t that what this is a
bout?
It wasn’t much. It wasn’t anything really. He had a thing about shoes and what he enjoyed was a woman who made him worship her shoes, her feet. There was more, about him lying on the floor and being walked on, cleaning the shoes with his tongue, that kind of stuff. A foot-and-mouth outbreak, Peter said, but this time Lucy didn’t laugh. It’s pathetic, she snorted. And it was. The point, though, was not that it was pathetic but that it was paid for. In the current climate that was enough.
We need proof, Peter said. But Lucy wouldn’t tell him where Eddelstane went to get his kicks. Peter said, I could shadow you shadowing him but let’s not get complicated. He gave her his Minox camera. Get me a picture or two. Lucy said, She won’t do that. Meaning the shoe goddess. He said, We don’t need him in the act of licking. We just need him entering or leaving the premises. That’s all.
It was autumn, then it was winter. Everything was brown and dead. For weeks, months, Peter missed Lucy in the pub near Haymarket. He rang the doorbell of her flat and no one answered. He thought, she wants some kind of justice of her own, or maybe she wants money. He lamented the loss of the wee camera.
Then one day she was there again. She sat down without a word. He went to buy her a drink and when he came back the camera was on the table and next to it a slim white envelope.
What kept you? he said.
I had to be patient.
He opened the envelope. There were four photos, all the same: David Eddelstane MP, unmistakable in the light flooding on to his face from behind the door that was being opened to him. There was a legible number on the door, and the person opening it, though obscure, was definitely female. There was also a sheet of paper with Eddelstane’s home and office details and phone numbers.
Is it enough? Lucy asked.
We’ll see.
I want him destroyed.
The look on her face. Peter didn’t like it.
For this?
For everything. They got Al Capone on tax evasion, didn’t they?
He laughed, then stopped when she didn’t.
Later, back at her place, after they’d done sex, before he got up to go, he tried to reason with her. He didn’t want to leave, he said. He’d rather stay. He’d missed her. He said, I’d like us to be together.
What? she said.
We could be together. The two of us on the one life-raft. I think we might just about keep one another alive.
She shook her head. What are you talking about?
He said, Lucy, I really like you.
She said, You must be fucking insane then.
He said, You don’t really want to do this, do you? Why do you want to do it?
She said, I got you the fucking photographs. Don’t change your mind now.
He said, I never …
He said, Lucy.
He said, You’re hurt, Lucy. You’ve been an outsider so long you’ve forgotten what it’s like to have someone care about you. I care about you. Why don’t we let it all go?
She said, If you care about me you’ll do this one thing.
She was immovable. She turned away from him. She told him to get out. She said, If you don’t do it I’ll fucking do it and I’ll take us all down with him.
He got dressed. He said, I need to think it through.
She said, from under the sheet, Do it for me.
To think it through he had to stay clear of her for a few days. He stayed away from the pub – from all pubs in fact. He came off the booze completely. One last effort. Okay, supposing he did it? What power did the photograph contain? And if there was power, what would it achieve? Maybe if he’d had time he’d have come up with the answers but it was the Croick business all over again, he didn’t have time. Time was running out for everybody. Parliament was dissolved in mid-March and a General Election scheduled for 1 May. Six weeks of suicide for the Conservative Party.
He thought, I’ll do a test run. He called a news editor he’d done freelance work for in the past. He said he had a story about an MP in compromising circumstances. Who hasn’t? the man said. This one’s Scottish, are you interested? Aye, maybe, who’s the MP and what are the circumstances? Do you think I’m stupid? Peter said, but then he gave him enough to keep him interested. Is the story watertight? Peter said, Yes, but I can’t reveal my source. (Because Lucy had made that a condition.) The man at the paper said, Either we need proof or we need an admission from the MP. Peter said, Leave it with me.
A week later the Scottish Tories went into self-destruct mode, thus at least demonstrating their Caledonian genes. One MP announced he wasn’t seeking re-election following revelations about an affair. The party chairman withdrew from being proposed as a candidate when allegations were made about a homosexual relationship. Recriminations and accusations among rival officials and factions followed. Peter thought, what the hell, if I don’t move now I’ll be trampled in the rush.
He had nothing to lose. Except Lucy. And he didn’t want to lose her.
He dialled the Glenallan number.
EDDELSTANE: Why are you doing this, Mr Bond?
BOND: It’s my job.
EDDELSTANE: Is that really why you’re doing it?
BOND: What other reason would there be?
EDDELSTANE: I can think of many. It takes a special kind of person to do a job like yours.
BOND: I’ll take that as a compliment.
EDDELSTANE: I dare say you will. And I dare say, too, that nothing I can say will dissuade you from running your grubby little story?
BOND: It’s not me that made it grubby. If it isn’t true, you know what to do.
EDDELSTANE: You don’t even know me.
BOND: You’re the Member of Parliament for Glenallan and West Mills. Do you not agree that the public has a legitimate interest in your behaviour?
EDDELSTANE: You say that almost as if you mean it. This is not yet about the public interest though, is it? It is about you writing a story about me. Actually, Mr Bond, I don’t expect you to believe me but I don’t care about myself. It’s my family that concerns me. You will do my family irreparable damage.
BOND: I think it’s you that has done the damage, Mr Eddelstane.
EDDELSTANE: You sound very sure of yourself. I hope you can live with your conscience.
BOND: Can you live with yours?
EDDELSTANE: I shall have to. This isn’t going to be about David Eddelstane MP after a day or two. The circus will have moved on. This is going to be about me, my wife and my children. I shall have to hope that they will forgive me. Have you thought of that? I’m asking you to show a little mercy. No, not even that. A little kindness.
BOND: That’s not what this is about.
EDDELSTANE: No? Well, if it isn’t, what is it about?
But here, as elsewhere, as always, the transcript goes to ratshit. The original Mr Bond murders the High Commissioner and several of his lackeys but one of them manages to wallop him on the head on the way down so he slips into something less comfortable and the walls close in and all the voices and all the one-versations merge and overlap. Croick is dead but long live Croick as Canterbury as Lucy as Edgar as Eddelstane. The shoe-licker. Never met him face to face but by Christ Peter can still hear his voice down the phone line he no longer has. The accuser accused. The accused accusing. Whichever fucking way round it was. Eddelstane sounded dignified. He was the one going down to defeat and he sounded like a bloody martyr. Whereas Peter … And for what? He went looking for Lucy and she was gone, vanished, not a trace of her, disappeared as suddenly and permanently as old Uncle Jack. A ghost. The paper ran the story and the cheque fell through the letter box but for what, for what? Betrayal. Endless fucking betrayal. I need to show you what happens. Betrayal of others, betrayal of self. And let the lesson be to be yersel. Bondy in the lion’s den. The voice of the arch-villain, the evil genius with the nuclear bomb, the white cat and the soft-spoken voice of unreason. What is it all about, Mr Bond? Answer me that. What are we to be if not ourselves? What are we to be i
f not kind to one another? What else is there to be? To be cruel, to be brutal, to hurt or destroy by hatred – where is the profit in that? Profit isn’t even the right word. Where is the humanity in that? We all have it in us to be kind, Mr Bond, because somewhere in us we all desire the same – that someone else be kind to us. Yes, even me, even you. That someone think of us, remember us, consider us. I’m not even talking about love. I’m talking about being treated with consideration and care. That’s all. Not love, just care and consideration. Do you understand that, Mr Bond? Mr Bond? Mr Bond?
§
With less than a month to go before the General Election, the airwaves were suddenly full of the latest scandal to hit the Conservatives. Out of the blue David Eddelstane announced that he would not be seeking re-election as MP for Glenallan and West Mills. There he was on the evening news outside a Glasgow hotel, looking like he was going to throw up, with his wife beside him looking equally sick as he read from a prepared statement and said that after he’d finished reading it he would not be answering questions or giving interviews. Allegations, he intoned, concerning indiscretions in his private life were about to be made public – allegations which he had no intention of either disputing or discussing. In the current climate of fevered interest in any politician’s perceived misdemeanours he believed it was best for his party, his constituents and most of all for his family that he step aside immediately and allow another candidate to fight the seat. He deeply regretted the great distress his actions had already caused his wife and children, and the embarrassment and difficulties they were likely to cause the Conservative Party, and asked the media to show some humanity by allowing him the time and space to attempt to repair the damage he had done to his friends, colleagues and loved ones. Thank you very much.
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