: 14 :
The Major lay in bed as still as a soldier on sentry. As still as a man in his grave. It was quiet, too quiet, with his wife Betty still in Cameron Bridge. Usually he had her steady breathing to mark the seconds, and the dark room slowly brightening to mark the hours as morning entered their London home. The sheet draped over his legs like a clammy shroud.
The press conference. The money. The scam. What had he got himself involved in? What if the media found out? What then? Yes, he could try to weasel out of it. Deny any insider knowledge; distance himself from the key players. And hope that was enough to keep the police from his door. It probably wasn’t.
Nineteen million. No one had told him it was all coming from one donor. It smelled dodgy. No wonder the press had gone wild. He wouldn’t have believed a word of it either, if he wasn’t involved.
It was all his goddaughter’s fault; she was the one who had roped him into fronting the SLU in the first place. She couldn’t be the forward face, she said. We need someone with right wing credibility, she said. And he had lapped it up. Eager to believe the work would be as easy as she said it would be rewarding.
Why had he trusted her without question? All along she kept assuring him she had control of the media, that she knew what she was doing, that they were in her pocket. That she would do the hard work behind the scenes and the SLU staff would walk him through the rest. Then the disastrous press conference happened and everyone there looked foolish. Especially him. She wasn’t the one who was risking her image on this, he was. She was behind the curtain pulling the strings. He should have demanded more skin in the game from her. He should have anticipated that any negative outcome was going to fall on his shoulders.
And the press conference wasn’t the half of it. If the full story were to come out it would make them look like monsters.
The Major stayed in his bed until daylight, eyes wide open, waiting. Mornings were the worst. His insomnia was back with a vengeance. It was more exhausting than the speed marches in formation that they had cranked out during training. He was getting by these days on a diet of booze, instant coffee, and old-fashioned stubbornness. But for how much longer?
He rose the second the alarm sounded, showered and dressed in his kilt and tweeds. He patted the bed next to him to say goodbye to Betty for the day, forgetting for a moment that he was alone in the house.
The Major took a black cab to his office, the converted pied-a-terre in a South Kensington mews where he had written his memoirs. Years ago it had also doubled as a crash pad for the mistresses and escorts who might or might not have made the Major’s acquaintance. Once, many an afternoon had been whiled away over cocktails and sweaty sheets and where the receptionist now sat had been a bouncy king-sized bed and drinks cupboard. Good times.
These days his office was a hideout from his wife’s barely suppressed rage. After his affair was exposed in the tabloids she had supervised the conversion of the flat into a proper office, her mouth a tight white line as she watched removal men carry the bed down three flights of stairs. ‘Make sure that lot goes right to the tip,’ she said as they drove away.
Other marriages might have crumbled after what happened, but he was not the right generation for that, nor was his wife. Divorce was not in either of their vocabularies. His wife had made stony-faced endurance of her husband’s career into her vocation. Betty Abbott was far from ready to retire that particular commission.
‘Any messages?’ he asked the secretary, a battleaxe of a woman selected for reception duties by his wife.
Wilma shook her head. ‘Nothing,’ she said, her hands pounding away at a Cold War-era Selectric typewriter. ‘Maybe later.’ They rarely exchanged anything but essential information. Flirting with the help was verboten these days: the secretary was as fat as a butcher’s dog and old enough to be his mother. On paper he was her employer. He was under no illusions as to who Wilma’s real boss was.
With the coming political race, as well, he’d had to take on more help. A couple of interns dropped in most days, fresh young fellows with cheeks like slapped arses and thin shoulders in awkward suits, to help with the workload. Hugo and Oscar were identical apart from Hugo’s cowlick and Oscar’s mild stammer. Wilma had planted Oscar at a desk facing the wall to frank three hundred envelopes for posting in key swing vote areas. Whatever the young Oxbridge graduates had imagined life held for them after a 2:2 in PPE, this most likely was not it.
Whitney shut himself into the inner sanctum, a box room that had once served as a makeshift kitchen and storage. The old fittings had been removed. Blocked off ends of pipes jutted from the walls. When the office reshuffle happened, Betty had put him in the smallest room. He had no doubt it was on purpose.
She had been in last month for redecorating again. A power move to underline who was in charge, like a bulldog pissing in a bed of daisies. The room still smelled of fresh paint. The Major perused boxes of memorabilia collected over the years that he had yet to put back on the walls. Clippings of favourable book reviews. A photo of the Major shaking hands with Jimmy Savile when they met at a dinner at Lympstone – might be better to leave that one off the wall. A small walnut box with hand-cut dovetail joins that contained one of his father’s pistols.
He was gazing at the box when Wilma announced a call from a Mrs Macdonald waiting on line two.
‘Major,’ Erykah purred when he picked up the call.
‘Mrs Macdonald,’ the Major said. ‘To what do I owe the pleasure?’
‘I thought we could meet soon. I have a feeling we might have some . . . mutual interests to discuss.’
‘Is that so?’ the Major asked. He doubted all she wanted was a chat over a latte, but he was pleased for the distraction. ‘And remind me again what it is you have that I want?’
‘I think you know what that is,’ Erykah said. Her voice dipped just low enough to hint what that might be. If she was going to play the game, she was determined to play it right. ‘If the news stories were anything to go by.’
‘Ah yes, I remember, the famous chest,’ he said. Perhaps his day was picking up after all, the cheeky minx. ‘A cheap ploy.’
‘Cheap but effective. It had your attention,’ Erykah said. ‘So let’s meet. Talk. Out of the office.’
‘Let’s,’ he said, already imagining what might happen next. He was glad she hadn’t suggested dropping by. ‘Sooner rather than later. Today.’
‘Perfect,’ Erykah said.
‘What time suits you?’
‘Any time. As soon as you’re finished at the office.’ She suggested a café near Westminster.
‘I’m leaving now,’ the Major said, and rang off.
Thank the gods for womankind. He’d had enough of the office for one day. An afternooner sounded like just the thing. Although a drink would have been better than coffee. With any luck, maybe she would keep him out late enough for one of those too.
‘I’ve always wondered something,’ Wilma said as he made his way to the door.
‘What’s that?’ the Major paused to ask.
‘Does that really work with men?’ Her hands did not even slow as she continued to type at a violent speed. The Selectric crashed and clattered like a tractor on a country road. Hugo, or was it Oscar, paused his work, the better to eavesdrop.
‘Does what work?’
The Major’s secretary looked up and smiled. ‘The bedroom voice. She sounded like a bitch on heat.’ No doubt Wilma would be on the phone to his better half as soon as he was gone.
Crusted hag. ‘Well, if it does, I certainly don’t know who with,’ the Major said, and left.
The café Erykah had suggested was one of a chain that had seen better days. While a steady stream of tourist traffic still wandered in and out, these days they were as often asking for directions or looking for the toilets as ordering a drink. Flyers for local events were affixed to the community
noticeboard, most of them out of date.
Whitney waited to order, tapping on the counter while the baristas busied themselves with emptying coffee grounds into an overflowing bin and laughing at each other’s small talk. Finally, after almost a quarter of an hour, one of them deigned to pour him a filter coffee. A tinny thump thump thump of music emanated from somewhere in the corner of the room.
Though with the prospect of hooking up with the lovely Mrs Macdonald on the cards, who could complain? The Major brushed his moustache with a knotted finger. His mind wandered to hotels he knew close by where they might remember his visits in past years. Maybe somewhere that could give him a room on account, discreetly.
The Major picked up a newspaper left by some previous customer. He turned the pages with almost no interest – there was no news, really, just scraps of distracting entertainment served up as journalism and press releases disguised as investigations. His eye landed on the society column. News reaches us that everyone’s favourite goggle-eyed perv and erstwhile war hero, Major Abbott, has become an Internet meme. Ugh. The Major crushed the tabloid in his paw and threw it onto the floor.
He checked his watch. It was half an hour since he’d arrived. Erykah had said she was coming straight away. He contemplated ordering another coffee but the teenagers behind the counter were still occupied with ignoring the customers. The Major began to wonder if he was being stood up. His jaw tightened. Well then, fine. At least it had got him out of the office.
Or maybe this wasn’t a date after all. He wouldn’t have put it past his wife to try to set him up. That was it. She was leading him on to make him look the fool. Maybe his wife was going to be the one who came through the door. Or maybe the Erykah woman would be wearing a wire while he propositioned her. Yes, that had to be it. He drank the cold dregs of his coffee in one mouthful and stood up to go.
‘I am so, so sorry,’ Erykah trilled as she came through the door, hands held up in apology, heels clicking on the scuffed linoleum floor. ‘Tube lines down all over and the taxi queue was insane.’ He sat down again.
‘No sneaky wire in there, I hope,’ he said and nodded towards her enormous designer handbag.
‘Hello to you too,’ she said as she shed several layers of outerwear and pulled off a frankly kinky looking pair of gloves. She dusted crumbs off a chair and perched on its edge.
‘Apologies,’ he said. ‘But you can never be too careful. After the last time and all.’ He searched her face for some kind of sign. There was a sheen of sweat on her brow, but that could as easily have been from running to make the meeting as from nerves. Underneath that, though, he thought he detected something else. Skittishness. As if she was trying to make her mind up about going one way or another.
If there was one thing he knew from experience, it was that uncertainty was the worst thing in the field. Be right, be wrong, whichever. But don’t be uncertain. Pick a line and stick with it. Anyone who didn’t? Those were the ones you had to watch the closest.
‘Oh, but we’re on the same team really, aren’t we?’ She laid her hand on his and he softened. ‘You want to know if you can trust me. Tell you what. As a sign of trust, you can look through my bag if I can look through yours.’ She pointed at the sporran on his lap. ‘Deal?’ The Major crossed his legs. ‘Didn’t think so,’ Erykah smiled. ‘Neither of us has much to gain from being exposed, am I right?’
The Major chewed this over and found it acceptable. ‘So, what can I do you for?’ he said.
‘I was hoping you could tell me,’ Erykah said. ‘You see, I have a feeling you might like to make sure your side – our side – whatever it is, that I stay on it.’
‘I hope this isn’t some sort of attempt at blackmail.’
Erykah opened her mouth, a hand fluttered to her chest. ‘Blackmail? Me? Far from it,’ she said. Was that the dark shadow of a lie he saw pass her face? Or was she genuine? ‘What I have in mind is more of a mutually beneficial arrangement. You’ll find I can be very discreet.’
‘You’ve been the model of discretion so far,’ the Major said. ‘Or did I imagine that smile on your face when you realised the entire press corps could see down your top?’
‘I’m more than window dressing,’ she said, looking him in the eyes. ‘You know what it’s like to be taken for granted, looked over. You never made colonel; why is that?’
His eye twitched – she had hit the mark. She had done her research. He was hungry for credibility.
‘What I want is to be more than a name and face for people to use.’ Erykah leaned forward and brushed the sleeve of his tweed jacket with her fingertips. ‘You know how that feels, don’t you?’ she said.
The Major straightened his posture and inhaled deeply. He stayed silent as she continued, ‘I bet I know what they say when you leave a room.’ Her voice dropped and she looked up through her lashes. ‘You’re on the way out. Washed up. How many years can you live off the memory of a war that happened when half the country wasn’t even born? Off a book that hardly shifted any copies?’ She leaned back. ‘I know it’s not the money you want. Otherwise, why would you bother with this SLU nonsense? There are easier pay cheques to be had. No,’ she said, ‘it’s not about money for you. It’s about being in the thick of it again.’
She looked at him. ‘Don’t be offended. I know because that’s how I feel too. You have to understand, a week ago I had a marriage, I had rowing, and I had the lottery ticket. Now I have nothing.’ She looked away and tried to hold back tears. That much, he felt sure, was genuine.
The Major shrugged. ‘And?’
‘I know the lottery was a scam,’ she said. She told him that she knew the Scotland Liberal Unionist Party was involved. She suggested that two men who had turned up at her house, and one later at the press conference, knew him. He couldn’t disagree.
‘The question is, what do we do about this?’ she concluded. ‘I am not interested in exposing your friends or the original deal – they made it clear what would happen, and in any case, I’m not the sort of woman who goes back on her word.’ Her diamond eternity band glinted as a shard of light broke through the window of the café. ‘Usually. But at the same time I do require some assurance that I won’t be cast aside.’
‘You can take your continued good health as a positive sign,’ the Major offered.
‘Touché,’ Erykah smiled. ‘But I want more than that. Like I said, I have nothing. A month from now I’ll probably be divorced. So I need security of some kind. And what I want is a leg up in the organisation.’
‘What makes you think it’s an organisation?’ the Major asked. ‘For all you know it could be me and a couple of associates—’
‘You don’t have that kind of money,’ Erykah interrupted, ticking off points on her fingers. ‘And you don’t have that kind of influence. No, your value is your media profile, which as we agreed, is something of a waning commodity. So it’s someone else’s gig, only they don’t show their face. And it’s someone you know well, otherwise you wouldn’t be involved in the first place.’ The Major’s eye twitched again. Another hit. ‘Who?’
Major Abbott shook his head. ‘No can do,’ he said.
Erykah narrowed her eyes. ‘Whoever it is has your loyalty. Is it a woman?’ The Major switched his eyes away. ‘What kind of woman?’ Erykah said. ‘Not your wife. A lover? An ex?’
‘It’s none of your business. You won’t get that information out of me. I’ll give you anything but that.’
‘Then I want your help,’ she said. ‘You have the MEP slot to aim for, and if you fail, no huge loss really, it will have done the job of raising your profile and you have more time for hitting the media pundit circuit. But me? Whichever way this goes, I have nothing.’ She spun the ring round on her finger. ‘No lottery win. No marriage, not a real one, anyway. And since the press release went down like a lead balloon . . .’
‘You want a job,’ the Maj
or said.
‘What’s your staff situation?’
‘I have a secretary and sufficient interns to handle the admin if that’s what you’re asking.’
‘You have,’ she said. ‘But no one you can confide in, is there? A secretary is not going to be the kind of person you trust, a secretary who sounded like she would have reached through the telephone and wrung my neck if she could have done.’ The Major tipped his head in concession. ‘Her loyalty extends no further than office hours. With me you could have something more.’
‘I presume that when you say “something more”, you don’t mean stuffing envelopes and answering the phone.’
‘I have skills,’ Erykah said. ‘We haven’t even scratched the surface here.’
‘Is that so?’ the Major said. He could see that whatever she was thinking, she was growing bolder. Maybe she hadn’t walked in uncertain of what she was going to do after all. Maybe she had simply been trying to screw up the courage to do it.
‘Sure,’ she said. ‘In the last day we’ve had calls from all the glossies, and several broadsheets wanting photo shoots and one on one interviews. They all want the human face of your party, and why not? It beats having rings run round your media strategy by some anonymous troll. You and me co-fronting this. A double act. For now.’
‘It’s not solely a matter of getting media attention,’ he said. ‘There is a lot more going on behind the scenes than some press conferences and a nifty campaign ribbon.’
Erykah nodded. ‘I have no problems getting my hands dirty. I want what you have.’
The Major barked a laugh. ‘What I have? More trouble than you can imagine.’
‘I can imagine plenty,’ she said.
‘Lady Livia won’t be pleased,’ he said.
‘Who?’
The Major’s faced blanched. ‘Who what?’
The Major was many things, but he was not a good liar. ‘The name you just mentioned. Lady Livia. Who is she and why won’t she be pleased? Is she the one funding this?’
The Turning Tide Page 16