The Final Cut fu-3

by Michael Dobbs

  In alarm he snatched his fingers back as, with the heel of his elegant hand-made shoe, the Frenchman crushed the glass to pieces. The helicopter swept low along the black sand coastline of Khrysokhou Bay in the north-west of the island, past the tiny fishing villages they had known as boys. Those days of youth had been long, summers when the octopus had been plentiful, the girls had eager eyes and much to learn, and sailing boats had bobbed in the gentle swell beside clapboard jetties. Not so long ago the road back through the mountain had been little more than a rutted track; it had since turned into a swirling tar highway that bore on its back thousands of tourists and all their clutter. The fishing villages now throbbed to the beat of late-night discos, the price of fish had soared, so had the price of a smile. Progress. Yet the sailing boats were still moored inside ramshackle harbours which collected more flotsam than jetfoils. Opportunities unfulfilled, yet Theophilos' marina on the nearby cape would change all that. Once he'd got the British off his back.

  The helicopter banked. 'Bishop's Palace in five minutes,' the pilot's metallic voice informed them through the headphones. Dimitri reached for the hand grip; he hated flying, regarding it as an offence to God's law, and would only submit to such folly so long as God's personal messenger were by his side. Trouble was that his brother travelled everywhere by helicopter, often flying the machine himself, which served only to exaggerate Dimitri's congenitally twitchy disposition. He'd give his life for his brother but prayed it wouldn't be necessary at this precise moment. He sat upright in his seat, relieved that the noise of the engine precluded conversation.

  Theophilos, by contrast, displayed an exceptional degree of animation. He'd been studying a newspaper, repeatedly stabbing his finger at it and thrusting it in Dimitri's face. Dimitri was sure this was done deliberately in the knowledge that any activity other than rigid concentration on the horizon would induce in him an immediate and humiliating attack of sickness. In many ways they were still kids back on the rocks by the beach, playing, planning new and greater adventures, testing each other's courage, bending the rules. Dimitri recalled the first day his brother had returned to the family house as a priest, clad in his robes, clutching his crucifix and bible, a dark apparition in the doorway surrounded by all the panoply of holy office. Dimitri, overawed and uncertain, had fallen immediately to his knees, head bowed in expectation of a blessing; instead Theophilos had raised a leg, placed his boot squarely upon his brother's shoulder and sent him spiralling backwards to the ground. That night they'd got bladder-bursting drunk on home-made wine, just like old times. Nothing had changed. Theophilos was always the bright and ambitious brother, honed by a year at Harvard's Business School, who would lead the family Firm. Dimitri was a man of linear mind, reconciled to following. Even in helicopters.

  They had landed on the helipad behind the palace and Dimitri, having cheated death once more, came back to the world of the moment. His brother was still absorbed in the newspaper, The People's Voice, a leading Cypriot newspaper in London. This in itself was not unusual since the Firm had well-watered business contacts amongst the expatriate community and Theophilos took considerable care to ensure that his press coverage was high in both profile and praise, but this item was not about him. It appeared to be an extensive report concerning missing graves, many column inches, which the Bishop kept caressing with the tips of his fingers, yet his words were inaudible, sent spinning away in the wash from the rotors. As they clambered from the cabin instinctively they ducked low, Dimitri wanting to kiss the ground in relief while the Bishop struggled to secure the flowing kalimachi headpiece. He continued to cling to the newspaper.

  'What? What did you say?' Dimitri roared in his brother's ear as the noise behind them began to subside.

  Theophilos stood to his full height, his holy garb adding further inches and authority. He was smiling broadly, the gold cap of his tooth much in evidence.

  'I said, little brother, that you should brace yourself. We're about to catch a bad dose of bone fever.' The nudges aplenty applied to Makepeace and about which he had complained to de Carmoy had grown to outright body blows. Telephone calls, snatches of passing conversation, journalists asking The Really Serious Question, all seemed to conspire to push him in a direction he was reluctant to take.

  But why the reluctance? Not for lack of ambition, nor fear of the probable suicidal consequences of taking on the Urquhart machine. Surrounded by more self-professed friends than ever before, nevertheless he felt more isolated than at any time he could remember, almost adrift. He'd been shorn of his Ministerial support machine for the first time in a decade – its secretaries, advisers, tea makers, ten thousand pairs of hands, and most of all the daily decisions that made him feel so much part of a team. Even for a man so long in political life he had been mortified to discover that for all the new supporters he appeared to have gained, others he had counted as friends now turned the other way, found things with which to busy themselves whenever he appeared. Friendship within a divided party may be Honourable by the compulsion of parliamentary etiquette, but it is far from Reliable.

  Then there was his marriage. It was empty and hollow but it had had form, a regularity that was comforting even if for so many months of the year it amounted to no more than a phone call a week. He hadn't called for more than two, and she hadn't enquired why.

  Exhilarating as he found such freedoms, they were also confusing and, when he was left alone to brood, almost frightening, like a climber reaching across a crevasse for his first mountain top. And behind him they kept pushing, pushing, pushing, Annita Burke in particular. She was sitting beside him in the rear of the car, Quentin Digby the lobbyist in front. Digby was going on about how the media adore fresh faces and a new story, and this would be the biggest and newest for years. Annita, her black eyes witchlike in the glow of the dashboard, sat stirring. 'The logic is overwhelming,' she was saying. 'The support is there. For you. I've talked to a posse of people in recent days. They'd follow you all the way, given half a chance.'

  'The chance of anonymity, you mean,' Makepeace responded acerbically. 'Any support short of actual help for fear F.U. might find out what they're up to.'

  'No, not a clandestine coup, no attempt to take over the sweet shop by stealth. It probably wouldn't work and it's not your way.' 'Then what?' 'A rival sweetshop. A new party.'

  God, this had all the echoes of his conversation with Jean-Luc. He remembered Annita's display of interest at the garden party and began to wonder whether she had put de Carmoy up to it. She was a cynic and natural conspirator, perhaps too much so; how many of the other nudgers, winkers and pushers had she organized, cajoled, perhaps persuaded to imply support just to get her off their backs?

  'You'd dominate the headlines for weeks. Build a momentum,' Digby was encouraging. 'After all these years of Urquhart people want a change. So give it 'em.'

  'I've twelve former Cabinet Ministers telling me they would back you, and even one present member of the Cabinet,' Annita continued. So she was organizing. 'Who?' 'Cresswell.'

  'Ah, the soft white underbelly. A man whose only fixed opinions seem to centre on puddings and port.' 'But worth a week of headlines.'

  'Publicly?' Makepeace demanded. 'He'd come out and say so publicly?'

  'Timing is everything.' Digby was at it again, leaving the question unresolved. 'Once the first few are out of the trap, others will follow. Momentum is everything. It's catching, like mumps.'

  'Safety in numbers,' Makepeace muttered, almost to himself. 'It makes that first step so vital.'

  'Timing is everything,' Burke echoed, delighted that Makepeace's observations appeared to be focusing on the definitive and practical. His mind was on the move, three parts there, just one last push… 'You can go all the way, Tom, if we retain the initiative. We must start organizing now, but for God's sake don't reveal your hand too soon, until everything is ready. The trouble with you is that once you make your mind up about something you're too impatient, too emotional. Too honest, if yo
u like. It's your biggest fault.'

  True enough. Exactly what Claire had told him. He could handle himself, but there were other problems. 'To fight and win an election we need a machine, grass roots in the constituencies, not just a debating society in Westminster,' Makepeace reflected. 'That's why we need time.' 'And timing.'

  The car had stopped outside 'Vangelis'', where he had invited them to eat. And, it seemed, to plot. It sparked a memory of something Maria had said at their first meeting by the milk bottles. About a ready-made headquarters in every high street and overnight an army at his side.

  The ghost of a smile hung on his lips. The various strands of his life seemed to be drawing together, or at least entangling themselves. Urquhart. Ambition. Maria. Passion. All pushing him in the same direction. Suddenly there seemed to be no point any longer in reluctance or resistance, he'd better lie back and enjoy it. And as Maria had said only the previous night, his timing was usually immaculate.

  They disembarked from the car. 'I guess about eleven o'clock, Mickey,' he told his driver. 'Not earlier, I'm afraid. I've a feeling this dinner is going to be a long one.'

  Mickey tipped his cap. This new job was proving to be most stimulating. The pay was better than sitting around the corporate car pool, Makepeace was a kind and considerate passenger. And the gossip was a hell of a lot more entertaining than listening to businessmen wittering on about ungrateful clients and their wives' muscle-minded tennis coaches. Others were being pushed and jostled. Hugh Martin was in his forties, once fleet of foot and a former rugger wing-forward who was more than accustomed to the elbows and abuse of a line-out. He hadn't expected to find the same tactics used outside the Nicosia Folk Art Museum. The museum, which lay amongst the labyrinths behind the city's ancient fortified walls, was promoting its most recent exhibition and invitations had been issued to the city's erudite and elevated, the British High Commissioner amongst them. He had counted on a pleasant stroll around the stands with Mrs Martin, greeting old friends and making some new, perhaps even finding something to inspire his wife, who had started a small collection of ceramics. Instead he found a group of almost twenty people gathered outside the hall distributing leaflets. He had no chance to discover what the leaflets said because as soon as they saw his official Rover draw up the group turned its full attention and considerable volume in his direction.

  His bodyguard, Drage, was out of the front seat first. 'I'll check it, Sir.'

  But Martin was both curious and amused. If the capital's demonstrations were anything like its plumbing, the noise would far exceed the efficiency. Anyway, this was Nicosia, courteous, civil, archetypically Cypriot, not Tehran or bloody Damascus. So he followed. It was a move he would soon regret.

  'British murderers,' one old crone hissed through purple gums, propelled to the fore by younger hands behind her. A banner appeared, something about graves and war crimes, and as the protesters gathered around someone behind her shoulder spat. It missed, but the swinging fist didn't. It came from too far back to inflict any real damage but the surprise caused him to gasp. Drage was at his side now, pushing and shouting for him to retreat to the car, but in turn they were being pushed back by far greater numbers and the High Commissioner, still disorientated and clutching his stomach, stumbled. Drage caught him, lifted him up and tried to move him towards the car. Martin thought the blow must have done him more harm than he had realized for he was seeing lights; to his dismay he discovered they were the lights not of mild concussion but of a television crew. Every part of the demonstration – every part, that is, which occurred after the landing of the blow – was being caught on video. The anger of aged mothers. Waving banners demanding an end to British colonial cover-up. Ban the Bases. The stumbling retreat of a High Commissioner, carried like a child in the arms of his bodyguard, fleeing into the night from the wrath of old women. The first spark of Cypriot defiance. Such an unhappy coincidence that the news crew should have found itself in the right spot at precisely the wrong time. An unpleasant outbreak of bone fever. 'The tea room's infested.'

  'Mice again? I understand Deirdre all but jumped out of the window into the Thames last week when she found two of the little brutes staring up at her. They're rampant behind the panelling. Time to bring back the cat, d'you suppose?'

  'Not mice. Rumour.' Booza-Pitt was exasperated with his leader's apparent flippancy. 'Tom's up to something, but no one seems to know precisely what.'

  In the background the squealing serenade of children at play came from around the pool area where a dozen of them, all litter of senior Ministers, were indulging in the rare delights of a summer Sunday at Chequers. Out on the sweeping lawn the Environment Secretary was running through a few golf shots as a policeman in blue sleeves and bulky flak jacket passed by on patrol cradling a Heckler amp; Koch semiautomatic; on the patio, in the shade of the lovely Elizabethan manor with its weathered and moss-covered red brick, an air force steward served drinks. The atmosphere was relaxed, lunch would shortly be served, and Urquhart seemed determined not to be pushed. This was his official retreat, he'd handle matters in his own way.

  'A leadership challenge in the autumn,' the wretched Booza-Pitt was persisting, trying so hard to impress that his eyebrows knitted in concern like a character out of Dostoevsky.

  'No. Not that. He'd lose and he knows it.' Claire sipped a mint julep – the bar steward had recently returned from a holiday in New Orleans – and subsided. She was leading the Home Secretary on, Urquhart knew and was amused by it, only Geoffrey was too blind to realize. For him, the conversation had already become a competition for Urquhart's ear.

  'Even so, he might. Out of spite. Inflict a little damage before he fades into the shadows.' 'No. He has other ideas.' She subsided again.

  Urquhart was himself by now intrigued. She had an air of such confidence, and a voice which brushed like fresh paint on canvas, but he couldn't yet see the picture. 'Like what?' Geoffrey threw down a challenge.

  Claire looked to Urquhart; she'd intended to keep this for a more private moment but he was of a mind that she should continue. A golf ball clattered around their feet, followed by a belated cry of warning from the lawn,- evidently the Environment Secretary was in considerable need of his practice. Urquhart rose from the wooden garden seat and began to lead them around the pathways of the garden, out of earshot and driving range of others.

  'A new party,' she began once again. 'A big media launch with some prominent names in support. Then more to follow over the weeks ahead. Several from within our own party. Perhaps one or two even from within the Government.' 'Madness!' Booza-Pitt snorted.

  But Urquhart's eyes had grown fixed, his frame stooped in concentration as he walked, studying the ground as though peering through a trap door into a personal hell. 'He'd hope for a couple of by-elections where they'd buy anything new on the shelf. Bite after bite, taking mouthfuls out of my majority. Making it ever more difficult for me to govern.' 'One step building on the next.' 'He wants to bleed me. Death by a thousand cuts.'

  'Could he do it? Could he really?' Booza-Pitt had at last caught the changing wind. 'Sounds like a party no one but women's magazines would take seriously.'

  'Even women take time off from painting our nails to vote, Geoffrey. We're not all hot flushes and flower arranging.'

  A sense of urgency crept into the Prime Minister's step; Booza-Pitt felt he was being left behind. 'But where'd he get the money for it all?' he demanded breathlessly. For Geoffrey, the practicalities of life all came down to a question of money. He'd once found a short cut on the school cross-country run and, much to his annoyance, had made the team. He'd found consolation by selling the short cut to his friends.

  'Money's not his problem, it's time,' Claire responded. 'Time to build momentum. Time to build an organization before the next election and to establish that he's more than merely a figment of the media's fevered imagination. Time to encourage our sweaty band of galley slaves to jump ship.'

  'It'd be no more than a dinner par
ty at prayer,' Booza-Pitt all but spat in contempt. Then his expression altered as though refashioned with a mallet. 'Good God. What does that mean for my Bill? I'd be giving him all the money.'

  Urquhart came to a sudden halt under the limbs of a spreading cedar tree. 'Not quite what I had in mind,' he conceded quietly.

  'I've… I've got to withdraw it. Somehow.' Booza-Pitt's voice trailed away, his mantle as defender of democracy in tatters even before it had been woven. 'There is another way,' Claire offered. 'One which would keep my reputation?'

  'Keep the Government's reputation, Geoffrey,' she corrected. 'Your Bill will sponsor as many different groups as possible. Fine. We mustn't give Tom a clear run.'

  'Nibbled to death by a thousand minnows, that was always my thinking,' Geoffrey exclaimed, wondering whether the time had come to reclaim authorship of the plan.

  'And meanwhile make damn sure our own supporters have got something to get their teeth into. Let's fly the flag for them. Give them something that reminds them what we're all about, and how much they'd lose if it all went wrong.' 'Like what?' Geoffrey pleaded.

  'I thought you were the one with all the bright campaigning ideas.' It was Urquhart, his tone sharp, back amongst them. 'Geoffrey, why don't you go and have a wander through the Long Library before lunch? Fascinating collection of first editions -Sartre, Hemingway, Archer. Right up your street.'

  'Maybe a little later, F.U.?' he suggested, determined not to be written out of the plot. 'Geoffrey. Be a good fellow and bugger off.' 'Yes, right. Long Library. See you at lunch then.'

  She marvelled at his resilience to insult. Even now, she suspected, he was working on how he would divulge to others the privilege of the PM's personal invitation to inspect his rare editions. 'He'll not love you for that,' she commented.

  'Geoffrey is incapable of love for anyone except himself. His adoration of his own inadequacies is as total as it is astounding and leaves no room for anyone else. I suspect I shall survive, as will he.'