Mrs Harris, MP

by Paul Gallico

  Philip Aldershot stared as though he could not believe his ears, but saw only a look of utter boiled blandness on the face of the tycoon-politician. He shut the door behind him and went out into the Mews with his head spinning. Major Kempton, who hadn’t the ghost of a chance in the heavily Conservative Fairford Cross, in the wealthy Cotswolds!

  The Centre Party, which took its name from rejection of both the Right and the Left, had enjoyed only a brief moment of power between the decline of the Liberal Government and the rise of the Tories back in 1922. But their momentary sweep had started with the capture of Fairford Cross.

  It was a name then to conjure with, but however could Sir Wilmot, or anyone else, hope to beat the strongly entrenched Tory Party there? And what had the candidacy of a London charwoman in East Battersea to do with this?

  Philip Aldershot emerged from the Mews into Lyall Street and suddenly, as a new idea smote him, his brain reeled so that his body threatened to careen with it and he seized hold of an iron railing to steady himself. East Battersea was as hard-rock a Labour seat as Fairford Cross was Conservative. A Conservative win here would tremendously strengthen the hand of the Tory Party if they were to be successful in the forthcoming election. What the devil had Sir Wilmot in mind? Was it possible that … ?

  And here, like the opening of the combination lock of a safe, the last tumblers fell into place. Not for nothing had Sir Wilmot chosen Aldershot as his second-in-command. He might still be somewhat politically naïve, but he had brains and the power of logic and analysis. Now, as the door swung open and the full subtlety, as well as simplicity, of what might be on Sir Wilmot’s mind was revealed, he was fairly staggered, not only by its brilliance, but by that same remote, hairlined possibility that had attracted his chief, of bringing it off. And as he marched in the direction of Eaton Square, one eye out for a taxi, another name was ringing through his mind, that of Hugh Coates, City Financier, himself a rough-and-tumble politician and self-appointed would-be king-maker in the Conservative Party. And wasn’t his estate and country seat just outside Fairford Cross? Aldershot wondered how soon Sir Wilmot would be going to see him.

  4

  ‘Oh, Ada,’ moaned Mrs Butterfield, ‘ain’t you frightened? Are you sure you’re doing the right thing? I can ’ardly believe it’s ’appening.’

  ‘Frightened of what?’ Mrs Harris asked valiantly. ‘They’re only just people, aren’t they, like you and me?’

  But truth to tell she wasn’t exactly at ease. It was one of the few times in her life when she felt nervous and wondered whether she had not let herself in for something which might be well over her head.

  She and her best friend, Mrs Butterfield, were bowling along in the back seat of an elegant black Jaguar saloon, Mark VII, driven by none other than Mr Philip Aldershot, Vice-Chairman of the National Executive Committee of the Centre Party for Greater London, on their way to face the inner circle of the Selection Committee of the East Battersea local Centre Headquarters, in West Rowntree Street.

  Mrs Harris was looking neat and composed in a navy-blue Hattie Carnegie suit, one of Mrs Henrietta Schreiber’s cast-offs and a parting gift from her in America. She was also wearing one of those small, American, half-hats with a veil, and white gloves. Philip Aldershot was delighted to find that Mrs Harris’s wardrobe contained a catalogue of hand-me-downs representing her diverse, satisfied and generous clientele. If the powerful inner circle of the Selection Committee in East Battersea expected to be faced with a dowdy caricature of the average London charwoman, whom they could laugh out of existence, they were going to be disappointed. He was less happy about the doleful and depressing figure of Mrs Butterfield, but Mrs Harris had insisted upon bringing her friend and Aldershot, thinking that her presence would lend comfort and support to Mrs Harris, had acquiesced.

  The important thing was to get by this Committee and Charlie Smyce. The campaign manager had not taken at all kindly to the change in plans and the directive of Sir Wilmot. But Aldershot could see that he indeed must have information where the corpse was interred, for it was obvious that, distasteful as the candidacy of Mrs Harris might be to him, Smyce was afraid not to yield.

  Well, and if he, Aldershot, managed to get her by the scrutiny of the Committee there would then be time enough to produce Mrs Harris for the public in her overalls and mob-cap, beneath her banner of crossed mop and broomstick, slop-pail rampant, duster volant.

  At the entrance to West Rowntree Street Aldershot stopped the car for a moment and turning around in the driver’s seat, he said, ‘Now, don’t you worry, or be nervous, Mrs Harris. They’re a good lot. Just be yourself.’

  ‘ ’Oo else would I be?’ asked Mrs Harris.

  ‘Oh, Ada,’ bleated Mrs Butterfield, her chins quivering, for she was as fat, round and blubbery as Mrs Harris was thin and spare, ‘there’s still time to turn back. ’Ow would you ’ave time to run the guvinment and look after all your people as well?’

  Aldershot wished there was some way of stopping the nattering of the fat woman. But, however she felt, Mrs Harris, apparently, was not going to permit herself to be unnerved by her. She said, ‘Now then, Violet, don’t go worrying yourself. We’ll ’ave to wait and see.’

  ‘What I meant,’ Philip Aldershot said, ‘was just say what you think and feel at all times. And if I see you getting into any kind of trouble, I’ll bail you out if I can.’

  Mrs Harris nodded, saying, ‘Righty-o, Mr Aldershot, let’s get on with it then,’ and retired once more within a kind of roseate haze that had surrounded her ever since this same Mr Aldershot had rung the doorbell one evening, presented his credentials and convinced her that the Centre Party of East Battersea was in desperate need and was begging her to stand for Parliament for the constituency.

  At first she had been inclined to look upon it as a leg-pull, but the fervour and earnestness of the young man, and the need he had stated for a candidate of known integrity and sincerity, as well as hints that any financial obligation would be covered by Sir Wilmot Corrison, convinced her of his bona fides. For one thing, Aldershot had on his person a cheque for £150 marked ‘bonus’, which was to go into Mrs Harris’s bank account. For, he explained to her, every candidate for Parliament must lodge a deposit of £150, which is forfeited if they fail to obtain more than an eighth of the total votes cast in their constituency.

  Mrs Butterfield had dropped in for their evening cup of tea. When apprised of what was in the wind, she had loosed a flood and tirade of prophecies and visions of doom, disaster and assorted catastrophes, should Ada Harris attempt to rise above her station in this matter. Even had she not been thrilled and excited beyond belief by the prospect held out to her, Mrs Harris would have felt compelled to have a go, just to prove Mrs Butterfield wrong.

  Ada Harris in Parliament! Ada Harris standing up in the House of Commons and giving the assembled Members a piece of her mind and a dose of plain, simple, ordinary sense.

  The whole thing still appeared far out, farfetched and dreamlike. For just a few days before she had never even heard of Philip Aldershot. Nor in her wildest imaginings had she ever thought of herself as involved in the machinery of government, even though she had long known that if she was given a chance she could certainly manage things better than they had been in the past. As, indeed, some fifty-three million other members of the United Kingdom felt about themselves as they digested their daily portions of doom, served up in their morning papers.

  But Ada Harris had lived long enough and had accumulated sufficient wisdom and shrewdness to know that sometimes a train of events was set in motion by the simplest of things, such as, for instance, the evening that she, Violet Butterfield and Mr Bayswater had found themselves in argument over a political figure on the telly. When this happened, if one was sensible, one did not attempt to stay the juggernaut, particularly if it was a merry one. Instead, one climbed aboard and went along for the ride.

  And having come to this conclusion, her usual incorrigible optimism took over
and she could see nothing less than success. Wherever she looked there was writ large in the sky in letters of fire, ‘Ada Harris, MP.’

  ‘Here we are, then,’ said Philip Aldershot, escorting the two women through the dank corridors of a dank building that smelt of disinfectant, to a door marked ominously, ‘COMMITTEE. No Admittance.’ ‘I’ll lead the way.’

  Mrs Butterfield hung back: ‘Oh, Ada, I’m frightened. I’d better not come in with you.’

  ‘Shut up!’ hissed Mrs Harris. ‘Come along now.’ At that moment she felt that not for worlds would she enter the room without her old, tried and true, pessimistic friend at her side. And then they were inside under the scrutiny of ten pairs of eyes set into ten variegated heads on ten pairs of shoulders; four females and six males, gathered around a long table, each with a pad and pencil placed directly before them.

  Then Mr Aldershot was proceeding with the presentation of names, none of which Mrs Harris caught or was able to remember with the exception of the one at the head of the table, who was called Mr Smyce, and about whom Aldershot had warned her, ‘We might perhaps be having a spot of trouble with him.’

  Mr Smyce was a little man in a suit just a size too large for him and he wore a tie the colours of somebody’s old school. He had a long, bluish jaw, a trap mouth and furtive eyes that never seemed to come to rest on anything or anyone. Mrs Harris’s estimate of Aldershot went up. Brother Smyce, indeed, had ‘Troublemaker’ written all over him. But what filled her with relief and composure were the other nine members of the panel, for she knew every one of them.

  Not personally, of course. Far from it. They were all strangers to her, but it mattered no longer that she had not been able to grasp their names. They were just plain, ordinary people. The women were the kind either for whom she might be working for an hour or so a day, or shopping next to them, elbow to elbow at the International Stores or MacFisheries. She had seen them and known them all at one time or another in her life; middle-class women, small tradesmen, junior executives, white-collar workers. The wispy man at the far end of the table could be nothing other than a bank manager. The straight way the elderly gentleman at the centre sat up said, ‘Retired Army Officer’.

  Well, she had known enough of these. They looked neither friendly nor unfriendly, but she thought she caught expressions of agreeable surprise as Mr Aldershot introduced her to them as, ‘Mrs Ada Harris, a popular resident of East Battersea, who has consented to stand as a candidate for our Party in the forthcoming election.’ If this was her jury she felt that at the very least she would be able to talk to them. For she had enjoyed long conversations with their kind in houses, flats, supermarkets or Marks and Sparks, and by and large their problems were identical. They wore the same leaden shoes that she did in the never-ending race to catch up with ever-rising costs and the attempt at least to breast the tape at the close of the year in a tie with the tax man and the bank account.

  When the military-looking man, who was obviously the chairman, had made her welcome, he said, ‘Supposing you tell us in your own words, Mrs Harris, why you think you would make a successful candidate for this constituency. After which, if you don’t mind, we’ll probably ask one or two questions.’

  Feeling confident and exhilarated, without further ado, she launched forth into her theories of ‘Live and Let Live’ and the soul-destroying economic spiral that must be broken if ever there were to be any happiness or relaxation in the land.

  She was more at ease with them even than she had been with Sir Wilmot Corrison, for she knew their lives so very much better than his, and they were all that much closer to her.

  Thus she could cut away all superfluities and reach straight through to them, as when she addressed the motherly-looking woman directly with, ‘You, ma’am, and your ’usband, must be saving up for your children’s schooling. When the time comes, what ’ave you got? ’Arf as much as you need, because they’ve put the prices up again. What about them as lives on a pension?’ and her sharp, little eyes swept past the military man, lingering for the briefest fraction of a moment to sweep him up with her. ‘ ’Oo cares about them? And what’s to happen when there isn’t enough to pay the bills? What about the young marrieds when the kiddies begin to come?’ and here her glance gathered up the bank manager and another, youngish chap who was probably a sales assistant at a big store. ‘How much have you got left in all at the end of a week for treats, and hobbies, or going out together, or taking a trip, or whatever it is you do and enjoy that makes life worth living? And how much do you all go without for the sake of others in the family, to make both ends meet? Which of you could raise ’is or ’er ’and and say they can make both ends meet?’

  No hands went up and no one said anything or asked any questions at this point, for each of them was considering the immediate, gnawing, financial problem that they thought they had managed to put aside and which here was being hauled forth to face them.

  ‘They won’t let us live,’ cried Mrs Harris. ‘And they’ve got to be made to.’

  Now she didn’t even offer a plan or panacea for the economic injustice that beset them all, but in her use of the word ‘they’, a not even identified ‘they’, she set up a scapegoat figure, different in each of their cases, but on which their resentment could be pinned. There were several definite murmurs of ‘Hear, hear!’

  She took off into flight on Mods and Rockers, Beatniks, Ban the Bombers beastliness, but they were only half listening to her at this point. She had shocked and hypnotized them into a bemused state of contemplation of a world in which, for once, if even for a short time, there might be enough money to go around without the ceaseless worry, strain, harassment and the nerve-jangling apprehension of the overdraft. The dropped aitches and the bad grammar did not seem to matter. The neat little woman in the navy-blue suit, hat and veil, was calling upon them to fight for the kind of world in which there might be a breathing space.

  ‘Hire Purchase,’ Mrs Harris was saying. ‘I’d make a law against it. You’d pay for what you ’ad, or you wouldn’t get it.’

  All of their minds swept to the things they had bought and wished they hadn’t, and the burden of debt that rode their shoulders more heavily than the Old Man of the Sea.

  Finally, as she had in the house of Sir Wilmot, Mrs Harris ran out of breath and ideas simultaneously and came to a halt. Such was the power of her oratory and the magic slogan, ‘Live and Let Live’, that not a word was spoken for some thirty seconds, until the spell was broken by Charlie Smyce who said in a voice quite as nasty as one would expect from him, ‘And what exactly are your views on foreign policy, Mrs Harris: Kenya, Cyprus, the Yemen and Aden, Rhodesia, let us say, and the Congo?’

  Smoothly, and as deadly on cue as any actor, Philip Aldershot replied, ‘Mrs Harris believes in freedom for oppressed peoples and the protection of British interests wherever they may be threatened. Isn’t that so, Mrs Harris?’

  Ada Harris caught the life-line thrown to her with grace and agility. ‘I couldn’t have put it better meself,’ she said, eliciting another ‘Hear, hear!’ from the retired military man.

  One of the male members of the Committee, who might have been a director of a small factory, asked, ‘What’s your position on death duties, Mrs Harris?’

  ‘It’s a blight, ain’t it, and a disgrace!’ she replied. ‘It’s a wonder we aren’t all of us ’aunted by the dead that are being cheated out of whatever they worked for all their lives to provide for the living.’ And she had him in her bag.

  ‘Mrs Harris would be glad to answer any further questions,’ Philip Aldershot said evenly. ‘But perhaps you’d like the opportunity of discussing amongst yourselves what you have heard.’

  ‘That’s so,’ said the Chairman. ‘I move we adjourn with a vote of thanks to Mrs Harris for coming here and giving us her views.’

  Charlie Smyce opened his thin lips to speak, but Aldershot caught him in mid-air with a glance and he closed them again, took the votes for adjournment and the thre
e found themselves once more outside in the corridor.

  ‘By God,’ said Philip Aldershot, ‘you were wonderful!’

  Mrs Butterfield looked more terrified than ever. ‘Lor’,’ she said, ‘I’m frightened, Ada. That sort of thing ain’t for the likes of us. But maybe you’ll be lucky and they won’t accept you.’

  ‘Not accept her?’ echoed Mr Aldershot. ‘They’ve swallowed the bait, hook, line and sinker.’

  5

  Promptly at five minutes to three on Monday afternoon, John Bayswater drove Sir Wilmot Corrison’s shining, amber-coloured, Hooper-bodied, Golden Cloud Rolls-Royce to the Brook Street entrance of Claridge’s and was saluted by the top-hatted and cockaded doorman who recognized the perfect chauffeur of the perfect car of a rich man when he saw them. And just as promptly at three o’clock, Sir Wilmot Corrison, accompanied by a red-faced, powerfully built, grey-haired man who exuded wealth, possessions, vigour and omnipotent authority, emerged from the hotel where they had been lunching.

  Bayswater, who was ready at the door of the limousine, had no difficulty in recognizing Hugh Coates, the finance king, whose pictures he had seen often enough in the newspapers.

  The two men were silent as they entered the rear of the car and sat down heavily. Ordinarily Bayswater would have shut the door, nipped around front and driven away from the entrance to the hotel, taking his instructions as to where to go from his employer at the back. This day, however, there was a considerable, early autumn nip in the air and Bayswater asked, ‘Shall I spread the rug, sir?’

  Sir Wilmot replied, ‘Yes, please do, Bayswater.’ While the chauffeur was attending to this he ordered, ‘And then I want you to drive around Regent’s Park for a bit.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’ Adjusting the vicuna rug over the laps of the two men, he closed the door, returned to the driver’s seat and, gently easing the car out into the traffic stream, headed for Regent Street whence he would turn north through Portland Place to Regent’s Park as directed.