He held the phone away from his head so that the shrill shriek of the banshee was broadcast throughout the limousine. JLM looked at the other passengers, Parker Weirdlove, Barney Thomson, and crack bodyguard, The Amazing Mr X. He smiled wryly, a bonding typa thing with the other guys in the back – that could easily have been accompanied by the clink of beer bottles – feeling superior to women in general, and Winona Wanderlip in particular.
The last time JLM had added to Wanderlip's already absurdly overloaded portfolio, he'd done it face to face. In the ensuing few seconds he'd genuinely thought that she'd been going to rip his eyes clean out of their sockets with her fingernails. 'Next time,' he'd said to Weirdlove later that day, 'I'm doing it over the phone.' 'Very wise,' Weirdlove had replied.
So, JLM had just further shafted Wanderlip by adding finance, in the assumed temporary absence of Melanie Honeyfoot, to her list. And he'd done it over the phone, which was pusillanimous in the extreme but, as he'd said to Weirdlove, 'sometimes stupidity is the better part of valour', which hadn't really made sense, but he'd known what he'd meant.
'Winnie, it likely won't be for very long,' he said, after the cacophony of abuse had drifted off to a more low-key vilification. 'You know I'd give it to Eaglehawk, but I can't trust him. I do realise how you feel.'
'No you fucking don't, you wanker!' she screamed back at him. He looked with testosterone-fuelled superiority around the car, smiled wryly at the phone, shook his head, straightened his shoulders, and did his best 'who's king?' voice.
'Winnie, I shouldn't need to remind you who you're talking to,' he said.
'Damn right you don't!' she barked. 'I'm talking to a fucking idiot!'
'Look,' said JLM, very, very sternly, 'you're being very naughty. I'm too busy for this at the moment. Frankly I've got more important backsides to kick than yours. If you've got issues, you can bring them to me when I'm back tomorrow. I'll try and fit you in for five. If it's going to be a problem, perhaps you'd like to consider your position.'
The shrill cry of the Valkyrie began to rise, so he quickly clipped the phone shut and looked smugly around the car.
'Women,' he said.
The Amazing Mr X said nothing. The Amazing Mr X had his own issues to do with women, but they were mostly ones of respect, compassion and unfailing devotion. Especially towards naked women. Even more so, when there was more than one naked woman in a room at the same time. His bedroom in particular. That's enough about The Amazing Mr X and the women thing.
'She'll get over it,' said Weirdlove.
'And if she doesn't...' said JLM, and he dragged a finger across his neck, making the appropriate sound.
The car screeched dramatically to a halt at the Schuman roundabout, narrowly avoiding a limo-ful of Turkish diplomats, the passengers lurched forward, and at JLM's sign across the neck, Barney Thomson felt the strangest shiver surge through his body. The sign of death, and it seemed to bring back so much; yet, again, there was nothing on which he could put his finger, no picture of a scene from his past life that immediately came to mind.
'Barney,' barked JLM, 'what d'you think of women?'
'Not sure,' said Barney. 'They seem nice enough. Rebecca's a nice girl.'
JLM smiled knowingly and nodded at Weirdlove. Another little in-joke to which I'm not privy, thought Barney, but he hardly cared.
'She certainly is,' said JLM. 'Lovely girl, really lovely. You interested?'
That was something Barney hadn't even begun to think about, and he shrugged and stared at the floor. Didn't answer.
'What d'you think about the Euro?' said JLM suddenly. 'Barney?' he added, when Barney didn't raise his head, assuming the question had been directed at Weirdlove.
Barney looked up, a little of the 'about to get squished on the road' deer about him.
'Don't really know anything about it,' he said. 'Seems like a sensible enough idea,' he added quickly, assuming he was meant to say something. 'Ever contracting world, and all that.'
'Exactly!' said JLM. 'Exactly my thoughts.'
Weirdlove gave him a raised eyebrow. The Amazing Mr X was still thinking about women.
'So,' said JLM, 'I'm going to say as much to the European parliament. Would be damned good for Scotland.'
'We don't have that option on our own, though, do we?' said Barney.
'Ah,' said JLM knowingly. 'Not at the moment, we don't.'
And he and Weirdlove exchanged another knowing look, then JLM stared out of the window as the limo shot down Rue de Loi.
'Wonder what's happened to Honeyfoot,' mused JLM, out of the blue. 'Very odd.'
***
Two minutes later and Winona Wanderlip was standing in James Eaglehawk's office. Big, bulging, bright red face, over-boiled like a lobster that's been in the pan for half an hour too long, extravagant hair, wild in every direction, chest heaving, a slight slaver at the mouth, incandescent with fury. In contrast, Eaglehawk looked like an FBI agent. Smooth, black-tied, groomed, pointy-chinned. Or what an FBI agent looks like in the movies, rather than in real life.
'You heard what he's doing?' she screamed at him.
Eaglehawk raised his hands to placate the stentorian outburst. He was sitting at the window, behind him the massive glass panels of the debating chamber, a September blue sky above. Of course he'd heard what JLM was doing. Wanderlip was always the last to find out. When JLM had added Enterprise to her brief, he'd told a group of visiting primary school children first.
'I know,' he said. 'It's cool.'
'You know already?' she screamed again, voice raised a pitch or two. 'It's cool? What the fuck is that? It's cool? When did he tell you?'
An easy one.
'Last night,' said Eaglehawk.
'So why didn't you tell me when I saw you this morning? We talked for about ten minutes.'
Eaglehawk held up his hand to indicate Wanderlip herself.
'Look at you, Winnie,' he said. 'You look as if you've got fifteen pounds of plutonium up your arse. Of course I didn't tell you.'
She emitted a low-pitch squeal.
'For crying out loud, Winnie,' said Eaglehawk, 'we all know what you're like. You're this exploding volcano. You've got this whole constantly pre-menstrual woman thing going on. I'm not going to go volunteering information like that.'
As he spoke, she crossed the point where, if she could literally have exploded she would have done, then started coming back down. Hands on hips – she frequently had her hands on her hips, even when she was in a good mood – heaving bosom gradually coming under control, lips on fire, nostrils doing all sorts of bizarre gymnastics, breaths short and sharp. Eaglehawk realised he'd ridden the worst of it, and made a note to thank McLaven for the advice: tell her to her face how bloody awful she is, and she'll respect you for it. As long as the home truth is coming from a man. And don't take it too far, or she'll rip your heart out.
'You don't think it's odd,' said Wanderlip, 'that when the Minister for Finance goes missing, the First Minister doesn't put the Deputy Minister for Finance in temporary charge? You don't think that's odd? Not even a little bit?'
Eaglehawk leant back, expelling a long breath. With a casual flick, he indicated the chair on the other side of the desk. Usually Wanderlip liked to stand over people, especially her ministerial inferiors, but she was coming down off the huge adrenaline rush of an out and out paddy, and needed the seat. So she slumped down, clasped her hands in her lap and crossed her legs. As if she was being interviewed by that aggressive idiot whom she always made mincemeat of on Newsnight Scotland.
'Look, Winona,' he began, 'we're not on TV here, we don't have to bullshit anyone. Right?'
Wanderlip nodded. Slowly. Was this the preliminary step to him letting his guard down, and expecting her to do the same? Graham J Black, the Chancellor, had given her good advice when she'd first started. 'Never let them see behind the veil. Never volunteer the truth. It doesn't matter who you're talking to. Never, ever, be honest.'
'Right,' she said.
'Of all the ministers under JLM, you're the only one who isn't a no-hoper. The rest are all in it for the publicity or the free booze or the women. All right, there's one or two who actually care, but you're the only one with any real political talent. So, you're the only one who's any threat to JLM. He can fuck up all he likes, but if there's no one else to replace him, then he's there for the duration.'
She didn't respond. He wasn't saying anything new, nothing that she hadn't thought before, nothing that the bloody Scotsman didn't print every day. It was just new to hear it from one of her own.
'He can't be seen to fire you, but he wants you out. Right, how does he do it? By pissing you off so much that you leave. Simple.'
'But aren't you pissed off?' she asked. 'Don't you think that you should've been given the finance job? What if Melanie never turns up?'
'You know something the rest of us don't?' he said, leaning forward.
'No,' she said quickly, 'why would I? You're avoiding the question.'
He rested his elbows on the desk. It was a pity, he was thinking, that Winnie had calmed down, because, as Wally was never slow to tell him, she was damned hot when she had a feist up.
'I've got my ambitions, Winnie,' he said, 'but they're long term. I've got plenty of other things going at the moment. For now, I just want to keep my nose clean, keep my job, and eventually my chance will come. That's all. Very, very equitable.'
Winnie. He'd reverted to Winnie. She stood up, feeling the anger beginning to rise again. Whatever colour he wanted to paint it, it was still yellow. Another bloody pathetic man too scared to stand up to Jesse Longfellow-Bloody-Moses.
She gave him a final withering stare, then turned and walked quickly from his office without looking back, without another word.
When she was gone, he waited another few seconds, could still hear the angry click of her shoes across the cheap flooring, then he lifted the phone and waited.
Political Power Grows Out The Barrel Of A Pun
'You're probably wondering why you're here?' said JLM.
In only a very short space of time, Barney had had enough. Every now and again JLM would throw some question or other at him, and Barney would skirt around the answer, because that's what Parker Weirdlove had told him to do. But who was it he was speaking to, after all? We are all one egg, as he remembered someone saying to him once. Obscure, and he wasn't sure why he remembered that and not a lot else. Maybe because it was so fundamental a principle. Anyway, after only a day and a bit in JLM's employ, he'd decided to be a little more honest.
'Not at all,' he replied. 'I'm here because you're obsessed with self-image, and can't stand the thought of getting your photo taken with so much as one hair out of place.'
A strange little noise escaped from the pit of Parker Weirdlove's throat. JLM looked sharply at Barney, as they sat in the small conference room in the bowels of the European parliament. Then he laughed lightly, the kind of laugh that Blofeld used to throw away before he pressed the red button and tipped someone into a tank of piranha fish. Casual, yet psychotic.
'That wasn't what I meant,' he said, voice cold, despite the laugh.
'Oh,' said Barney. Being forthright in entirely the wrong place. That reminded him of old.
'I'm in a very important position here, Mr Thomson,' said JLM. 'I don't doubt for one second that the First Minister of the country at the very heart of Europe's power infrastructure, needs to be impeccably turned out every minute of every day. I am a statesman, after all. The country looks up to me, and looks to me to play a vital role on the world stage.'
Barney nodded. It felt like it was time for some more honesty, but maybe not just yet.
'I meant, I expect you're wondering why you're here in this room, while the rest of the entourage is upstairs in the restaurant having lunch?'
All right, thought Barney, I picked up the wrong end of the stick there. Dr Blackadder, Veron, the Rev Blake, Father Michael and Dr Farrow were in a corner of the restaurant, tucking into frites and mayonnaise and steak au poivre etc. Barney was stuck down here, hanging out with The Amazing Mr X. The human equivalent of a flight on Easyjet.
'I hadn't actually,' said Barney, continuing his new honesty policy, 'but since you mentioned it?'
He had felt the slightest pang of regret at not having had the chance to travel with Blackadder, or to sit with her at lunch. Very odd; emotions within him that he didn't recognise.
'I like you,' said JLM, as if conferring some papal honour upon him. 'I like what you have to say about things. I like your opinions. You're a good sounding-board.' JLM hesitated. Barney hadn't really been aware that he'd said anything other than what he might have been expected to. Maybe that was it. 'You're sage,' JLM added. 'Very sage.'
'Thanks,' said Barney. Does it mean anything when an idiot tells you that you're sage?
'You know who you are?' said JLM.
Barney didn't answer, not being entirely sure how the question was intended.
'You're Peter Sellars.'
'Inspector Clouseau?' said Barney. That strange thing where he could barely remember the facts of his own life, but the minutiae of others' lives, the humdrum, the mundane, of television watched and purposeless gossip heard in barber shops, that was still there. That part of his brain had not been affected.
'Chance, the gardener in Being There,' said JLM.
'Right,' said Barney. Didn't mean anything to him. Weirdlove cast a glance at JLM. Knew that his boss had never seen the film, had just heard about it and liked the sound of one of his staff being an advisor; didn't realise that in any such analogy, it would be he himself who looked like an idiot.
'Yes,' said JLM, 'a statesman can never surround himself with too many advisors. He himself just needs to be able to sort the cogent from the mundane. Lovely.'
'Aye,' said Barney, without much enthusiasm.
'Anyway,' said JLM, 'Parker's going to tell you why we're all sitting in this dodgy little room in the arse of this miserable parliament.'
Barney looked at Weirdlove. A single eyebrow raised. Ready for more of it. This was bringing back life in the barber shop to him, no question. Men talking bullshit.
'Listen up and listen good,' said Weirdlove.
'I love it when he talks like that,' JLM butted in. 'Champion.'
'The First Minister has an agenda that few in the party know about,' said Weirdlove, ignoring JLM, his speech having done the usual 0-120mph in half a second. 'Correction, no one in the party knows about it. You learn this, you keep schtoom. The First Minister is trusting you with this, against my counsel. You got that?'
'Just like government,' said Barney. 'Tell you a piece of information you don't want to know in the first place, then threaten you so that you keep your mouth shut.'
JLM laughed. Weirdlove glowered. The Amazing Mr X didn't even blink.
'We're about to receive a visitor from the German delegation. His name is Conrad Vogts. Only this group and about two people on the German side know this is happening. You understand what I'm saying,' said Weirdlove, leaning forward.
'I think so,' said Barney, causticity creeping into his voice, which was new for him.
'Tone!' barked Weirdlove.
'Calm down,' JLM said to him, still amused by Barney in a paternal kind of a way, even though he was a couple of years younger than him.
'All right,' said Weirdlove, 'this is one of their top men. He's here to speak to myself and to the First Minister. You don't say a word. You listen, that's all. The First Minister wants you here, but that's where your involvement ends. You don't say anything. Not a word. Schtoom. Silence. You getting this?'
'Actually,' said Barney, 'you're beginning to confuse me a little.'
Another zinger of a look passed across Weirdlove's face. There was a knock at the door. The muscles relaxed around Weirdlove's mouth, JLM's shoulders straightened so that he became even more of a statesman than he'd been two seconds earlier, and as the door opened without invitation, The Amazing Mr X leap
t to his feet, his hand reaching inside his jacket.
'Sit down, X,' said JLM, rising to greet the newcomer. The Amazing Mr X backed off. JLM schmoozed smoothly, as their visitor closed the door behind him and looked with interest around the four men already inside the small room. A room whose windows looked out onto a warm Brussels street, with cars and buses and no pedestrians.
'Herr Vogts,' said JLM, hand extended. 'Delighted you could make it.'
'I am tickled also,' said Vogts. A tall man, thick shock of greying hair, a warmth and ease about the thin face. Virtually no accent when he spoke English; if anything, a trace of American. And he spoke faster than Parker Weirdlove. 'I'll have a meeting with anyone who'll have me,' he continued. 'But then, most people won't have me. Especially women. Not that I'm interested in men, not in that way. Though at the same time I've got nothing against homosexuals. Some of my best friends are friends with people who know homosexuals, so that proves something, even if I don't know what.'
'Lovely,' said JLM, a little nonplussed. 'This is Parker Weirdlove, who you've talked to. And this is Barney Thomson, the government's principal advisor on fiscal matters.'
There would've been a time when Barney would've flinched. He nodded, rose from his chair, and shook Vogts by the hand.
'Hello,' said Barney, gruffly.
'I had you pegged as the barber,' said Vogts, 'but then, I never was much good with a peg. Especially when it came to hanging up the washing. That's why my wife divorced me. That and all those women. She just couldn't get enough of them.'
'Sit down, sit down,' said JLM, mostly to shut Herr Vogts up. Parker Weirdlove, having set up this meeting, which both he and JLM viewed as something of a fulcrum in their term of government, sat down and eyed Vogts with a great deal of suspicion. Barney Thomson didn't quite know what to make of him, but then that went for everyone he'd met in the past two days. The Amazing Mr X stared at the door, occasionally glanced at the windows, and thought of women.
'How can we help you?' asked Vogts, having nestled down into his seat.
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