Fifty-First State

by Hilary Bailey

  FIFTY-FIRST STATE

  Hilary Bailey

  Thanks to friends at the Crouch End Novelists’ Group, especially Margaret D’Armenia, Iris Ansell, Jennie Christian, Dave Cohen, Lawrence Estrey, Frances Kelly and Gail Robinson.

  And to Ian Abley.

  Contents

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Part Two

  Chapter Elevan

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  A Note on the Author

  Part One

  One

  May 2017

  A woman, Jenny Henderson, sits under an old, twisted-trunk apple tree which is just coming into leaf, in the back garden of a house in northwest London. It is evening. It will be dark in two hours. She faces her house, where, in the dimly lit kitchen, a man’s figure is moving to and fro. She sits at a slatted pine garden table, writing in a notebook with a ballpoint pen. She is wearing two sweaters, a thick skirt, thick tights and sturdy brown shoes. Overhead, a noisy blackbird is hectoring its mate. The woman has already written:

  This will be my account of the events leading up to what we are now calling ‘The Occupation’. Officially, of course, it’s not an occupation. It is ‘Assistance’. But with the fighter planes screaming over the country as if to tell us ‘We are here’, the skies full of surveillance helicopters, and helmeted Marines in military vehicles driving through our cities and villages it certainly feels like an occupation. That’s what we call it, anyway, and so do our European neighbours.

  My story of some of the events in the two years leading up to this US Occupation is personal. I’m a fairly ordinary woman, a solicitor, in my fifties, living in a London suburb. All I intend to do is record the lives and thoughts of people I knew, or of people they knew, during the cruelly brief period when Britain somehow turned itself from an independent democracy into a US client state. The Fifty-first State, we say. I plan to tell the story as carefully as I can, only embroidering where I think it safe to do so. Some of the people I’ll be writing about are important in the world, some are not. All they have in common is that I know them and I’ve talked to them. Myself, I was and still am a bystander – except when it came to the terrible matter of William Frith and Jemal Al Fasi.

  This preamble concluded, Jenny puts down her pen. She is a tall, middle-aged, ordinary-looking woman, round-faced and blue-eyed. As a young woman she was probably pretty, but this is not a face to retain good looks into middle age. Nevertheless, she is pleasant-looking, steady-eyed and clear-skinned. An observer would sum her up as reliable; a woman who could find a fire extinguisher in a crisis, make up an ice pack for a sprain, feed unexpected guests without fuss, a woman to whom a distraught woman would turn, crying, ‘Have you seen my little boy?’ and expect a sensible response.

  Suddenly, still holding her pen, Jenny turns and looks round at the house behind her, a house just like her own. Beyond the garden wall of this house, though, the ground is untended, brambles encroach on a straggled lawn, a path and old flower beds are overgrown. Jenny smiles up at the unlit first-floor window. The smile that then illuminates her face somehow belies the imaginary observer’s first impressions. It is not a nice smile. It is like that of a girl waving a toy round the corner of a door, showing her brother that though he hid it, she has found it. Or like a man looking at a long-standing business enemy and smiling at him to hint that he now has nearly enough evidence to put his rival into the hands of the Serious Fraud Office. It is a smile in the grey area between ‘Gonna get you’ and ‘Gotcha’. Why would an apparently nice, ordinary woman be smiling malignantly like this at the dark windows of a neighbouring house?

  She turns back and writes on:

  Inside the house my husband is preparing supper while the power is on. I hope he’ll be inventive – we’re short of food as well – or it will be bread, cheese and tomatoes, as so often. Meanwhile there are only two hours of daylight left and it’s getting chilly. Not that I – and all of us – don’t rejoice with the spring. We spent the winter, an unusually cold one, like medieval peasants, though peasants, for the most part, without fireplaces. Because of the oil shortages we had electricity for four, perhaps five hours a day. Two hours in the morning, two in the evening. No warmth, no light, the rest of the time. The only good part was that we had time to get used to it – you do get used to it, up to a point – because the big oil crisis came in August last year, 2016. During the autumn our blood thickened, we detected the draughts and gradually learnt the half-forgotten tricks of keeping warm in winter without oil or electricity.

  Hard times, indeed. And we are left asking the age-old questions – how did we get here and will we ever be able to get back to where we were? I don’t know whether my story will answer the first question and it certainly won’t answer the second. But there’s an odd, stubborn part of people that insists on wanting to testify and I suppose I’m doing this because of that stubbornness, the stubbornness of the witness on the stand, who insists on pouring out his story, relevant or irrelevant to the case in hand, heedless of an impatient judge, a sceptical jury and an apathetic courtroom crowd. History, as we’re told, is written by the winners – well, I say, not always. I say, here is my truth, not the truth, but my truth. And I say – if not now, when? If not me, who?

  London. April 4th, 2015. 4 p.m.

  Looking from his helicopter window, Lord Gott, a director of a City investment bank and treasurer of the Conservative Party, saw below him the suburban houses of London’s outskirts, with their little patches of garden and tiny cars moving down ribbon-like streets. Further on, they were over the crowded inner areas and then, only minutes later, there was the river, and then they were turning sharply just behind the Victorian-ornate Houses of Parliament. One of the ugliest buildings in London, Edward Gott considered, though it was his workplace, or one of them.

  They began to follow the river south. He noticed the water was high, slopping over the embankment again. At the start of the century the tide had risen from sixteen to twenty-five feet daily. Now it routinely rose five feet higher. An extra five feet, at spring and autumn tides, was no joke for a city built on a river. Nor was there any guarantee it wouldn’t go higher. But tall proud buildings, apparently undaunted, gleamed on both banks of the Thames in the sunshine of late afternoon as Gott’s helicopter swept over them. An impressive sight, he thought, if you hadn’t studied the projections. It was a huge mess of a city, 500 square miles of it, population over thirteen million now and if large areas had to be evacuated – where would they go? The Thames Gateway project, the plan to expand London eastwards, had been stalled for the last fifteen years, hit by a dragging recession which had reduced public spending and had put contractors out of business, because now the insurance companies had also read the projections and the word ‘flood plain’ sounded to them like ‘plague’. Just another of those situations the government could do nothing about – whichever one was in power.

  There had been three elections since May 2010, when Gordon Brown’s Labour Party achieved an overall majority of only three seats.

  Governing with a majority of three is near impossible. In 2012 the country went back to the polls, Labour hoping to achieve a more workable majority. But with the country in recession, the Conservatives won with a majority of eight over Labour, with the Liberal Democrats holding the balance of power. Less than 40 per cent of the electorate had voted in the 2010 election and a mere 32 per cent turned out in 2012 to elect the new government, hea
ded by Frederick Muldoon, a compromise between one contender (too right wing) and the other (too wet.) After two elections in five years, neither conclusive, the government of Britain was being regarded cynically, at home and abroad.

  It couldn’t go on, Gott thought. If steps weren’t taken to solve the situation it would, inevitably, solve itself, and probably in ways no one wanted. You either sorted it out, or it sorted you out, that was the way, in his experience, it worked with businesses and individuals. There was no reason to think governments were any different. ‘So you say, so you say, Edward Gott,’ Gott told himself. ‘Perhaps one day you’ll take your own advice and do something about your own predicament.’ But he knew he wouldn’t. Not now, not after all this time.

  But even that thought did not depress him. He’d flown south after breakfast at his house in Scotland. Nothing there to encourage a man, he thought, remembering the frozen look on his wife’s face as he looked out of the helicopter window before leaving – she had never liked the paddock being taken over to serve as a helicopter pad. Nothing much in his later date, either, lunching near Lancaster with his factory’s research team and finding them as difficult as ever to deal with. He knew they saw his visits like the arrival of an armed man at Mass in a monastery, clanking down the aisle, causing fear and distraction. They wouldn’t let him in at all if he weren’t paying their mortgages, as well as for every other damn thing in the building. If his team wanted to be involved in pure research, Gott believed, they should seek employment at a university. As long as he was paying they had to come up with results – and not keep them from him when they did. So far, Gott’s day had not been pleasant. But now he stretched, luxuriously. He wondered why, with all these hassles, he felt so good. Fifty-four now, fighting fit and undeterred. How long could he go on like this?

  The helicopter thrummed on down the Thames. And then there’d be another treat – Graham Barnsbury. As soon as they landed at Greenwich he’d be off to meet the Party Chairman at the House of Commons. Barnsbury was a big, thickset man whom Gott regarded an overgrown public schoolboy, while Barnsbury, he guessed, thought of him, Gott, as a Lowland Scotsman on the make. But they’d get along, as they had to. The problem was that, as Party Treasurer, Gott would not be bringing Barnsbury good news. He’d not brought him any good news since the previous November, when he had been able to announce a half-million-pound donation from a supporter. Which still left the party broke and in debt, although six months further away from bankruptcy. Since then the party finances had been on life support. Gott still had nothing to tell Barnsbury that Barnsbury wanted to hear and, as on other occasions, Gott would sense that Barnsbury blamed him for the shortage of money. The curse of treasurers everywhere. Telling him that the Conservative Party was in much the same position as the Labour Party and only marginally worse off than the Liberal Democrats would not help. Nor would it help to remind Barnsbury that the only salvation lay in the Prime Minister making an effort to push through a bill to fund political parties from the public purse. Which the PM would not do, because to achieve it he would need all-party support; all the parties feared that if the state did take over party funding their banks might instantly call in their debts. In addition, the PM feared a public outcry about using taxpayers’ money to maintain the parties of 650 MPs they did not like or trust. And, even if all those things had not been true, Muldoon was so battered by struggles with the other parties, whose support he needed to get his votes through, and so worn down by infighting inside his own party that, Gott thought, he probably had to call for help to lace up his shoes in the morning. So, Gott decided, he’d have to put up with Barnsbury and his air of disappointment again.

  The helicopter swung towards Greenwich, where the pier was under water. The Ark Royal was bobbing around like a cork at the end of its anchor chains. They came down on the landing pad, and Gott climbed out, thanked the pilot and went to his waiting car. He’d cut Barnsbury short, he decided, go to his bank in Leadenhall Street and deal with what had arisen since he’d left London the day before and then treat himself to supper at Sugden’s with his friends and protégées Julia Baskerville and Joshua Crane. They’d be having their usual meeting there, to discuss their weekly political programme which would be going out on TV later in the week. He’d be welcome. Julia and Joshua were fun. He’d end his day on a good note because, then, by God, he’d deserve it.

  Gott greeted his young, tall and thin private secretary-cum-assistant Jeremy Saunders at his waiting car and entered the opulent eight-seater, custom-made for him because he owned the company. Gott took the front passenger seat and Jeremy started up. It was only a second before suspicion flooded Gott’s mind. He swung round to look beyond the partition to the larger part of the vehicle. The seats were all empty but lying silently on the floor was Jeremy’s intelligent Border collie, Finn. Finn looked sideways at Gott and away again. Lord Gott did not like dogs in general and Finn in particular, perhaps because Finn was an individual with whom Gott had to share Jeremy.

  Gott turned back. ‘Jeremy – how many times do I have to tell you I don’t want that dog in the car?’

  ‘I had to take him to the vet.’

  ‘Nothing serious, I hope,’ Gott said harshly, meaning the opposite.

  ‘I felt a lump in his tail. It turned out to be a piece of shot. Must have been there for ages. He must have been in the way of a gun.’

  Gott had the grace not to say any more, although Jeremy knew what he was thinking. They were drumming along beside the brimming river, the Houses of Parliament in sight. Jeremy reflected that Gott and Finn had more in common than Gott suspected. They were both intelligent, energetic, self-interested and quick but shallow thinkers – although, Jeremy thought, Finn was of course infinitely more loyal.

  Fox Square, London, SW1. April 5th, 2015. 1.30 a.m.

  In five hours it would be dawn. The pale sun of early spring would come up, striking the glass of the tall towers of the City of London from the East, gleaming on to the spires and domes of churches, glancing off the water of the River Thames, hitting the east side of the Mother of Parliaments, and filling the streets slowly with light.

  Just off one of the streets close to Parliament, dark at this hour, lit only by the weak gleam of mock-Victorian street lights, lies a little square, Fox Square. At one end is the eighteenth-century church of St Botolph’s. On the remaining three sides are three-storey Georgian houses. In the centre of the square is a small island, on which stands an equestrian statue of General Sir Galahad Montmorency Havelock, hero of two Afghan Wars. He is seated on a spirited horse, sword raised, rallying his men to the attack. Carved on the pedestal beneath his feet are his dates. Born in 1828, he died on the North West Frontier in 1879. By a coincidence, his great-great grandson had just been killed there, in the rubble of the Khyber Pass.

  On the side of the square facing the church, and sideways on to Sir Galahad, in the middle of a row of ten houses, there is a famous restaurant, Sugden’s. The surrounding houses are tenanted, as is shown on the gleaming brass plates outside, by firms of solicitors, charities or organizations connected directly or indirectly with the government of the country. The agents of the ducal landlord of the houses would never allow any but the most respectable of firms as tenants. It’s unlikely that if Sugden’s – a mere restaurant – applied for a lease now they would get it, but Sugden’s is an institution. Sugden’s has been in Fox Square since the days when it was a chop house catering for members of Queen Victoria’s Parliaments and the scribblers who wrote about it.

  The small windows on either side of the door are masked by lace curtains little different from those which had hung there in the days of Empire. On the six inches of lintel above the front door the name ‘Sugden’s’ is picked out in black on white. No larger sign could be allowed, nor could any changes be made to the front of the building, but this lack of advertising was not a disadvantage, perhaps the reverse.

  Inside the front door is an oak counter, manned at that time by two elder
ly sisters, big Miss Bonner and small Miss Bonner. To the left, still, is the restaurant, a large room, which was probably at one time the drawing room and dining room of the house. Most of the back wall is now a large window looking out on to a small walled patio, where at night soft lamps burn and, in summer, tables stand.

  On this particular night, only two parties of diners remained. One was a group of six men, sitting at the back of the room. The man at the head of the table for six – two businesslike-looking Chinese men, a Frenchman and three Englishmen – called for his bill. William Frith, a tall, thin man in his early thirties came forward with the bill on a plate and handed it to the host, a former Cabinet Minister, who enquired jovially if anyone would like a last drink before they parted. All, to William Frith’s relief, declined. ‘All right, then, gentlemen,’ said their host. ‘But I shall be more insistent when we meet after the contracts are signed. I won’t take no for an answer then.’

  After he had dealt with the bill and seen the men off, relocking the front door after them, William returned to his post. Only two diners, a man and a woman sitting near the windows, were now left so William took the opportunity of sitting down. He wore a dinner jacket and a black tie, his pale brown hair was still sleek and tidy after a long evening but his long face was pale and there were smudges under his large, pleasant brown eyes. He had spent most of the day painting his bathroom, before going on duty at six.

  William loved his job. All he wished now was that the couple by the window, lingering over Armagnacs and black coffee, would go, freeing him to go upstairs, get into his day clothes and take the bus back to his flat in Shepherd’s Bush and his wife, Lucy. However, the restaurant owner, Jack Prentiss, had a firm policy that Sugden’s clients should be allowed to stay almost as long as they liked. A lunch might stretch into dinner, a dinner into the early hours of the morning and still the staff would not cough, yawn, shuffle, look discontented or attack the guests by asking, too often, if they required anything else. Only at three would Jack, who lived upstairs and whose hours of sleep were tailored to the movements of his business, come downstairs and ask his guests to leave.