The Friends of Harry Perkins

by Chris Mullin

  The priest, a lady vicar, read a prayer and kept her homily mercifully brief. What is there to say about the death of a much-loved child? A golden little life snuffed out. That it is God’s will? What kind of God would be so cruel?

  The choir, of which Catherine had been a member, sang ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’. Mrs Morgan, her class teacher, paid a short tribute and read a poem.

  ‘I’ll lend you for a little time a child of mine,’ He said,

  ‘For you to love the while she lives and mourn for when she’s dead.

  It may be six or seven years, or twenty-two or three,

  But will you, till I call her back, take care of her for Me?

  She’ll bring her charm to gladden you and, should her stay be brief,

  You’ll have her lovely memories as solace for your grief.’

  Thompson, in a trembling voice, gave a brief account of that golden little life, speculating on what might have been, and concluding, ‘If I live to be a hundred there will not be a day,’ a pause to regain composure, ‘perhaps not a single hour in a single day . . .’ another pause, ‘when I do not see that shiny face smiling up at me.’ Then, head down, he returned to his seat, the silence broken only by the sound of sobbing.

  Later, at the crematorium, the little coffin disappeared to the sound of Westlife singing ‘Queen of My Heart’, a song that, in happier times, they used to sing together as they drove up the motorway to Sheffield.

  * * *

  Come Whitsun they returned to ‘their’ island and scattered the little person’s ashes on a grassy hill overlooking the beach on which she had once played. ‘Daddy,’ asked Lucy, as they walked back to the cottage, ‘will we ever be happy again?’

  TWELVE

  A few days after the funeral a Macmillan nurse came and took away the medicines, the wheelchair, the drip and various other paraphernalia that had helped Catherine through her last days. Thompson returned to work and Elizabeth busied herself looking after Lucy and volunteering three days a week at a food bank in Battersea. It was a month before they could bring themselves to set foot in Catherine’s room. The curtains remained drawn and the door firmly closed. Clarence the teddy bear had moved in with Lucy, but that apart, Catherine’s possessions remain untouched. One morning, after Elizabeth had delivered Lucy to school, they finally plucked up the courage to open the door and entered hand in hand. The room, in twilight, was just as the little person had left it. As if she had gone away and would be back in a few days. The Cinderella duvet was pulled up over the pillows, her boy band posters still on the wall, the bookshelf with the complete works of Harry Potter, framed photographs of Granny and Grandpa and the four of them outside their whitewashed cottage, taken on their last visit to ‘their’ island. ‘I can smell her,’ Elizabeth said quietly as she drew back the curtains.

  ‘How long are we going to leave it like this?’

  ‘It’s too early yet.’

  ‘Sooner or later we will have to let go.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Elizabeth quietly.

  ‘At least we should put the sheets in the wash.’

  Elizabeth began to strip the bed. She lifted a pillow, ‘What’s this?’

  It was an envelope, addressed in Catherine’s large, childish hand. It read, ‘MY WILL’. With trembling hands Elizabeth opened it and, without looking, handed the note inside to Fred. In a quavering voice he read it aloud, ‘I leave Clarence my teddy bear to Lucy. Also my Harry Potter DVDs. To Dad I leave my collection of coloured stones. To Mum my Westlife CDs and the scrapbook we made together. Everything els I leave to the poor children in Africa exsept my Pokeman cards which I leave to Daniel in my class at school. Signed Catherine Thompson’ and sealed with a smiley face. It was dated five days before her death.

  * * *

  Two more weeks elapsed before Thompson could bring himself to attend another meeting of the Friends. ‘Welcome back, Fred,’ said Jock Steeples. ‘A lot’s happened while you’ve been away.’ Several of the others shook his hand warmly and one or two tapped him gently on the shoulders. Mrs Cook gave him a hug and Molly Spence planted a kiss on his cheek.

  The previous week Michael Flather had pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey to people trafficking. He had been sent down for nine years. Albert the driver had got off with a suspended sentence in the light of his co-operation. Rosemary Eames had been interviewed, but the prosecution had decided there was not enough evidence to charge her. After the trial Thompson had been besieged by requests for interviews, but contented himself with a short statement saying only that he was glad to see justice done.

  ‘A good result,’ said Mrs Cook.

  ‘Aye,’ said Steeples, ‘this won’t do you any harm at all. You’re respectable now.’

  ‘What are you going to do for an encore?’ asked Stephen Carter.

  ‘As it happens, I do have something up my sleeve,’ said Thompson, fleetingly more chipper than he had felt for a long while.

  * * *

  An opposition day debate was easily arranged. The shadow cabinet agreed that Thompson would lead. It would be his first appearance on the front bench in four months. A handful of favoured journalists were briefed in strict confidence. In accordance with the usual courtesies, Thompson at the last moment dropped a handwritten note to Jason Joslin MP, advising him that he was likely to be named, and there he was in his usual seat in the back row of the government benches looking a shade less self-satisfied than usual, fidgeting with his notes, nervously flicking back his long blond hair. Already he looked an isolated figure. His colleagues seemed to have left a wide space around him. Almost as if they anticipated that he was about to become untouchable. No doubt the fate of Michael Flather was fresh in their minds.

  As was his habit Thompson warmed up slowly. No hyperbole, no synthetic indignation, just a calm setting out of the facts. The country, he said, was facing an unprecedented housing crisis. A vast and widening gulf had opened between an older generation, most of whom had been able to afford their own their homes, and a younger generation – the so-called Generation Rent – most of whom had not the slightest hope of buying their own homes, unless they had parents who could afford to subsidise them. This problem was particularly acute in London and the south-east. Local authorities which had once provided homes for those unable to afford their own, could now no longer do so. They had been obliged to sell of much of their housing stock at knock-down prices and forbidden – yes forbidden – to use the proceeds to build more. As a result many young families had been forced into private rented accommodation, much of it substandard.

  ‘I do not wish to exaggerate, Madam Speaker. There is no single cause, but there is one aspect of this crisis in particular upon which I wish to focus today: the rise of a particularly venal species, the buy-to-let landlord.’ He glanced at Joslin who shifted uneasily in his seat. ‘The sale of local authority housing was sold to us, back in the heady days of the Thatcher ascendancy, on the basis that it would extend home ownership to those who might not otherwise be able to afford it.’

  ‘Would the honourable gentleman give way?’ It was the housing minister, an amiable cove by the name of Tristram Bellweather. In a previous incarnation he had been the managing director of an upmarket firm of estate agents.

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘Is it not a fact that the sale of council houses represented a huge redistribution of wealth to some of our least prosperous citizens, who hitherto had not been able to benefit from rising house prices?’ This triggered a bout of hear-hearing from pinstripes on the government benches. Bellweather, glowing with self-satisfaction, resumed his seat.

  Thompson surveyed the serried ranks. ‘Good to know,’ he said, ‘that the honourable gentlemen opposite believe in the redistribution of wealth.’ Cue derisive laughter from the opposition benches. ‘Unfortunately, in this case, most of the redistribution that took place was not at the expense of those who owned the wealth, but at the expense of the next generation who now find themselves excluded from publi
c sector housing and consigned to the tender mercies of the private landlord.’ Cue raucous cheering from the opposition benches and cries of ‘nonsense’ from the government side. And then, ‘I don’t think the sale of public housing had anything to do with redistributing wealth. I think it was about bribing the electorate.’

  Uproar. Cries of ‘disgraceful’ and ‘withdraw’. Thompson ploughed on.

  ‘Madam Speaker, today I wish to focus on one particularly perverse outcome from the enforced sale of public housing. It is an unhappy fact that many of those who have benefited from this disastrous policy are not the former council tenants who exercised their right to buy. They have long ago moved on. No, the stark reality is that many former council properties have been hoovered up by buy-to-let landlords. We do not have far to look for examples . . .’ Out of the corner of his eye Thompson noticed Rupert Farquar lurking in the shadows by the entrance to the aye lobby. ‘We are fortunate to have with us today the honourable member for Uxford who, together with his wife and a gentleman named Richard Lloyd Cathcart, owns no fewer than 148 former council properties, most of them in a single London borough.’

  More uproar. More cries of ‘disgraceful’. Demands for points of order. The speaker was on her feet.

  ‘I hope the honourable gentleman has evidence for that assertion.’

  ‘I do indeed, Madam Speaker. In fact I have a little list.’ He waved a sheaf of papers.

  Jason Joslin was on his feet, red-faced with anger. Thompson gave way.

  ‘What precisely is the honourable gentleman alleging? The House should be aware that I run a perfectly legitimate business.’

  ‘I trust the honourable gentleman does. I am not alleging any impropriety. I am merely seeking to place on record a state of affairs that many people, of all political persuasions, may find remarkable. So far as I am aware, it was never part of the plan that the sale of public housing should enrich the likes of the honourable gentleman and a handful of his friends. And if that was the intention, no one mentioned it at the time.’

  * * *

  No one spoke up for Joslin. He fled the chamber pursued by journalists and the following day found himself splashed across the front pages. A week later he was the subject of a Panorama special. The suggestion that some of the tenants who had been persuaded to sell to St Margaret’s Housing Trust might have been pressured into doing so began to resurface. It turned out that the mysterious Mr Cathcart had a bit of a track record when it came to persuading those who had exercised their right to buy to sell up. What’s more, it emerged that in a number cases – actually quite a few – Joslin and Cathcart had put up the money that enabled them to exercise their right to buy. There was talk of a police investigation and rumours of an uprising in the Uxford Conservative Association.

  In the months that followed, Thompson’s star rose. Seldom had a newcomer made such an impact in so short a time. Even the old codgers in the tea room warmed to him. The Tories, too, had him marked down as a man to watch. Two months after the fall of Joslin he was made shadow foreign secretary. Suddenly the world was his oyster.

  THIRTEEN

  But no triumph was so great that it could erase the memory of Little Sunshine. First thing in the morning and last thing at night, and on many occasions during the day, he saw that shiny face smiling at him. He saw her as he walked to work along the Embankment. He saw her on the swings in Victoria Tower Gardens. Sometimes he found himself talking to her. ‘Come back, Sunny. I’ll give all this up and we’ll go back and live on our island and be happy again.’ Sometimes he imagined her talking to him. ‘Well done, Dad,’ she said after his promotion, ‘You’re going to be famous one day.’

  * * *

  FRED THOMPSON IS A USELESS TWAT. Mrs Jeffries came in one morning to find this painted in large white letters across the plate glass of Thompson’s constituency office. Thomas Merton was the obvious suspect, but there was no evidence, and anyway there were a number of other candidates. Merton had not been seen or heard of for weeks. Maybe he had read about Catherine and deep inside that thick skull there was some sliver of decency. Even so, after consulting the police, Thompson decided to take precautions. Metal shutters were installed on the front and rear windows along with discreet panic alarms in both the outer office and the inner sanctum.

  * * *

  ‘Statement. The foreign secretary,’ intoned the speaker. Sir Francis Oswald rose. His demeanour was grave. A gent of the old school, he had somehow, miraculously, survived into the third decade of the twenty-first century. A hereditary baronet. His wife the daughter of a duke, related to half the statues in the Foreign Office. The twenty-fifth, or so it was said, member of his dynasty to sit in the Commons. Civilised, gentlemanly, unfailingly courteous. One of a dying breed who did his best, not always successfully, to conceal his distaste for the estate agents, hedge funders and barrow boys who increasingly populated the benches behind him. They, in turn, resented him as a relic of the old order. ‘Madam Speaker, I very much regret to inform the House that His Majesty’s government have decided to relinquish our permanent seat on the Security Council of the United Nations. We have done so with the greatest reluctance, but as the House will be aware the UN secretary general has expressed a wish to reform the composition of the Security Council, so that it better reflects the balance of power in the modern world. Regretfully, it has been apparent for some time that we no longer enjoy the support of other permanent members. It is proposed that India replace the United Kingdom and that the European Union, of which of course we are no longer a member, will have two seats, which are likely in the first instance to be occupied by France and Germany . . .’ His words were drowned by uproar on the benches behind him. From the opposition benches, a stony silence and much shaking of heads.

  ‘Mr Fred Thompson.’

  His first outing as foreign affairs spokesman, but he could hardly have hoped for a more open goal. Every successful politician needs luck, and it was becoming increasingly apparent to friend and foe alike that Thompson was a lucky politician.

  ‘Madam Speaker, no one in this House should be surprised by this most regrettable announcement. We are one of the founder members of the United Nations. We have been a leading member since its inception. Is this not the clearest possible evidence of the depths to which our nation has sunk since the right honourable gentleman’s party, in one of its periodic bouts of insanity, decided to lead this country into the wilderness?’ Sir Francis’s face assumed a pained expression. None of this was his doing. Indeed behind the scenes he had fought a long rearguard action, but it had come to naught. He was rumoured to be on the brink of resignation. ‘Will the foreign secretary confirm that this is yet another of the bills coming in for Brexit? Will he confirm that not even our old ally the United States stuck up for us? Is he not ashamed of the damage his party has done to our standing in the world? When will he find the courage to face up to the zealots in his party who have brought this country to its present pass?’

  Thompson sat down to cheers from the opposition benches and a stunned silence from the government side. Sir Francis did his best to respond robustly, but it was obvious to all that his heart wasn’t in it. There followed an hour in which he was assailed from all sides. From the government benches much harrumphing at the wickedness of it all, the perfidy of foreigners in general and the United Nations in particular. The news that Germany – Germany of all countries – would replace the UK on the Security Council was a source of particular apoplexy. There was anger too that the US government had not come to our aid. So much for the much-vaunted ‘special relationship’. Several of the new breed of Tories demanded that the British contribution to UN funding be drastically cut. One or two even went so far as to demand British withdrawal. Stephen Carter had the last word. ‘Have you noticed, Madam Speaker, that those who are loudest in their outrage are also those who were most voluble in their demand that Britain should leave the EU? What did they expect?’

  * * *

  ‘Well done,
son,’ said Jock Steeples when the Friends reconvened a week later in their upper room in Soho. ‘You’re turning into a bit of a star. I reckon you’re leadership material.’ His words prompted a mild bout of hear-hearing from around the table. Mrs Cook raised her glass. Others followed.

  ‘Steady on,’ said Thompson, ‘aren’t we getting a bit ahead of ourselves?’

  ‘On the contrary,’ said Steeples, ‘it’s time to get serious. Having lost five general elections in succession, we can’t afford to take any chances on the outcome of a sixth. Even now we are little more than level pegging in the polls. Given the mess they’ve got us into, we should be streets ahead.’

  ‘You are not suggesting some sort of coup?

  ‘That’s precisely what I am suggesting.’

  ‘After 125 years the dear old Labour Party has just got round to electing our first female leader and you want me to try and remove her?’

  ‘Why not? She’s hopeless. Pleasant, yes. Intelligent, yes. But entirely lacking in passion or charisma.. We’re heading for yet another defeat. You know that as well as I do.’

  ‘I’m surprised at you, Jock,’ said Mrs Cook indignantly. ‘You’ve been around long enough to know that Labour never removes failing leaders. We go down with the ship.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Steeples, ‘and it’s about time we kicked the habit.’

  ‘Even if she were removed,’ added Stephen Carter, ‘there’s no guarantee that our candidate would end up in the driving seat.’

  ‘Plus,’ added Mrs Cook, ‘we’d have to cope with a party that was hopelessly divided. It took the Tories ten years to recover from removing Thatcher.’