by Terry Morgan
CHAPTER 11
Jim Smith was feeling hungry.
He was still sitting cross-legged beneath the dog-koon tree in the cooling breeze from the electric fan on an extension lead, but he knew there was nothing in the house except a blackening bunch of bananas covered in fruit flies.
It was now late afternoon and thinking the headache that was threatening to return was a sign of a lack of food he wheeled the motorcycle out and drove up the dirt track onto the main road. Then he headed towards the town and a roadside shop that sold everything from meat and fish balls on sticks to baskets of 'battu' - steamed Indian mackerel. The air was still, hot and humid as he rode homewards, still talking to himself.
It was a year after his election that he had flown out of London Heathrow Airport to Frankfurt and then on to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia.
"I needed the space," he mumbled into the oncoming hot wind as if talking to someone sat behind him on the motorcycle. "Time to think and decide what to do. I was in a serious spot of trouble. When I was running the business I could escape to my office to think and emerge a few hours later with my mind clear and a sensible plan in my head. But in that bloody zoo, I had no hiding place, the nonsense seemed to follow me everywhere. If they thought I'd just give up, however, they were badly mistaken. They had no idea what makes me tick. I was James Smith and I am still the same James Smith, an obstinate bugger when it comes to doing what I think is right."
But as a newly elected Independent Member of Parliament Jim was, he admitted, still a bit green when it came to politics.
For the first time in his life he was unsure what to do for the best. All he knew was that someone, somewhere, wanted him out of the way. How far they might go was what worried him but the feeling persisted that he'd highlighted something so awkward for someone somewhere that they wanted him destroyed - completely.
"I knew I would upset one or two people along the way, but I assumed they'd be big enough to handle it and perhaps do something. It seemed I was an independent, free-willed, politically incorrect old fart who had no business coming into their profession and behaving like a bull in a china shop. But I didn't reckon on a bigger gang joining in."
The mumbling stopped as he turned off the road and bumped along the track leading to the house, but his mind was still on the past. The first casualty of the process to discredit him was his marriage. After thirty years of married life, he and Margaret had, as the media called it, 'separated.'
Sitting on the 'veranda', he prodded a meat ball with a stick, dipped it in chilli sauce, took a handful of raw, shredded cabbage, chewed, spat out a tiny piece of bone and wiped his mouth with his hand.
"Look at it this way, mother," he muttered. "I now realise that other politicians who suspected something of this magnitude might have decided to let sleeping dogs lie. Others might, I suppose, wait for the right moment to publish a book of revelations, by which time it would be back in the mists of time, deniable and far too late to do anything. But a book, suitably peppered with innuendo and just a few facts, might be profitable enough to boost a pension pot. Some might share opinions with one or two trusted friends in quiet restaurants and agree it was best to let the dogs lie for the sake of their careers. But I am a stubborn bastard, mother. I was not like the other elected politicians. I had no Party, no friends and no allies. I had become an awkward outsider with an unconventional style and no-one to share a cosy supper with. In fact, I knew I had made some unseen enemies."
He stood up, bent his head so as not to hit the overhanging tin roof and went inside to fetch his bucket of drinking water - water he collected every time it rained. He brought it outside, sat in the chair and gulped down a mug full. The sun had now disappeared and a fresh, cooling breeze was picking up.
So why had he gone into politics? It was as if his mother had just asked him.
"Time on my hands, mother. Not enough had been happening, you see. I'd always been so busy. But it had made sense to sell the business. Bigger businesses had been hovering around for quite a while as it became clear that the company needed the extra clout a publicly owned multinational could offer so I agreed rather reluctantly. It was my baby. I'd started it, ran it my way and was afraid it would lose its identity as part of something much bigger. But it made sense in other ways and I was pleased with the way the business had grown from a one man band to employ over a hundred and at the cutting edge of technology. We were exporting to over seventy countries and had subsidiaries in Singapore and South Africa and a new joint venture just going in China that had taken the best part of a year to resolve the details. But, by the signing date, and having rejected the chance to continue as an advisor to the new Board, I knew I'd soon get bored."
"But what I brought with me on my first days as a new boy in politics was not a book of rules and regulations, but a bag of dirty washing and a few other files that showed that all was not quite as it should be in the corridors of power. Then I quickly learned that the rules and regulations that I had not fully read were often used to pour cold water on controversy and unpopular opinion and kick them into the long grass where they could be lost and hopefully forgotten altogether. And I quickly learned not to expect support from anyone however high up the chain of command, after all they were far too busy trying to remain popular until the next election. If they got a whiff of something that smelled a little unpleasant, they wanted to move away to where the air smelled fresher.
"But that left those targeted by this obnoxious old fart pulling dirty washing out of the bag he'd brought with him to start to play a new game - a game with few rules and no bloody sympathy."
He suddenly sprang to his feet and went inside the house, conscious of the use of a couple of words his mother would have frowned on. He had almost heard her. "Language, James, language." But he still felt annoyed, annoyed enough to use words he, himself, didn't like.
Five minutes later he re-emerged carrying a cup of coffee and wearing just his shorts. He sat down in the chair once more. Darkness was now enveloping the house.
"Yes, mother, it was one hell of a whirlwind during the few weeks before I eventually arrived in Kuala Lumpur. Perhaps if I had been any other politician facing the same sort of attention I might have deliberately gone to ground by staying inside my London flat. In fact, I tried it for two days and spent the whole time on the internet and watching TV. But I've always hated being housebound and with a group of photographers and a TV camera parked outside it was two days too many. It was also unfair on the other residents of the block and I had gone out of my way to apologise for the inconvenience. With no rear exit that didn't involve trespassing and clambering over numerous fences and walls, I'd tried to leave by the front door just to buy some newspapers to read what sort of fuss they were now making of me. But it had been hard going pushing my way through the crowd and then they followed me. Finally, I turned back again and locked the door. But I could read all about the fuss on the internet, TV and radio anyway so I wasn't missing much.
"But much of my life for the past thirty years involved hopping on and off aeroplanes, so a vague plan started to form. I decided to go abroad for a few days to be alone to think. So, I packed an overnight case with a few bare essentials and some paperwork, took a deep breath, made my way up the steps to street level, forced through the crowd on the pavement and flagged down a taxi to Heathrow Airport.
"I flew to Frankfurt and stayed overnight in the Sheraton Hotel. But because a small group, including two familiar faces, still seemed to know where I was and were in the hotel foyer next morning, I returned to the airport. Then, for no other reason than there was a Lufthansa flight going to Nairobi and I have always liked Nairobi I bought a ticket. A day later, I took a Cathay Pacific flight to Hong Kong thinking that that, surely, would be enough to find myself alone. But, no. A new face appeared. He followed me in a taxi all the way from the airport into Kowloon - a Chinese man in jeans, just like the later one in KL. - and they no longer had cameras. That was what started to unnerve me.
The next day I flew to Kuala Lumpur, mother, and they were still following me."