Political Death (15 page)

Passion

Very early on Monday morning, the team of women cleaners all related or connected by marriage, all Asian entered the Irving Theatre. As usual, they entered by the Stage Door, unlocked by the cleaner in charge, Mrs. Patel senior. Because the team cleaned backstage first, it was some time before the body of Hattie Vickers was discovered.

When the team went towards the front of the house, Mrs. Patel found the communicating door shut but not locked, and she thus did not need to use the code to open it. This was unusual, but not unknown. Mrs. Patel could remember previous occasions when the code had not been necessary. She had no way of realising that it was Hattie Vickers, not Mike, who sometimes made the mistake out of nervousness; but Mrs. Patel had certainly never pointed out this lapse in security to the theatre management. It was never part of Mrs. Patel's plan to make unnecessary enemies.

Hattie lay, as she had lain since her fall, wedged between two seats in the stalls. In the hours when she had slipped slowly from unconsciousness into death, Hattie had remained motionless as though held in a red plush-lined tomb. Later it would be discovered that she had broken both hands in her fall (trying in some pathetic way to ward off the inevitable?) as well as suffering such terrible injuries to her head that there was never any question of recovery. Hattie Vickers had thus been dead for well over twenty-four hours when the cleaning team arrived.

Nevertheless, the first instinct of Mrs. Patel senior was to try to shake the body awake. She put her hand on the huddled form. Mrs. Patel did so rather gingerly because she assumed Hattie was one of the homeless who had infiltrated the Irving. Experience had told her that the homeless, even outside the Irving, could be quite vicious when disturbed.

At the same time Mrs. Patel knew her duty: "Wake up, please! I am asking you, please, to wake up."

The tangled mass of hair, spilling everywhere, told her that the sleeper was female, well probably female. When there was no reaction Mrs. Patel, more boldly, touched the hair itself, first one straying piece to which she gave a gentle yank, then the hair on the sleeper's head. The place where she touched the head felt slightly sticky, as though something had congealed. It was not until she saw her fingers blackish-red in the low lights of the auditorium that Mrs. Patel realised what she had found: not a sleeping form but an extremely dead one.

Even then, with that extraordinary self-control and personal dignity which had enabled Mrs. Patel to see her huge family through many vicissitudes, Mrs. Patel did not scream. She rose up and taking her youngest daughter-in law, a sensitive creature, by the hand, led her away. Mrs. Patel junior had not seen the corpse, but felt the occasion was owed the tribute of her tears. She sat sobbing discreetly as Mrs. Patel senior telephoned 999 from the theatre payphone just outside the stalls.

The dead body of Hattie Vickers remained exactly where it had fallen. The fact that Mrs. Patel senior had led a life of difficulties in two countries meant that she was not unacquainted with British police procedures. She knew that it was important not to touch anything before the police came, otherwise trouble ensued trouble for the Patels, that is. Trouble might come their way in any case (undeserved trouble had happened before now), but Mrs. Patel would do her best as usual to protect them all. After her first tentative exploration, Mrs. Patel had left the body quite alone in its position which mimicked sleep. Her reddened fingers, were, however, scrubbed and scrubbed again, regardless of what anyone might say.

Paradoxically, at about this time, you could have mistaken Jemima Shore, lying half-asleep in her huge, pale, disordered bed, for someone who was dead. There was a particular abandon about the way her body lay, death and gratified desire producing roughly the same effect. And indeed desire had been gratified, very much so. Something dangerous which had existed between herself and Randall Birley from their first meeting had detonated. The result was an explosion of violence, of sexual energy, from Randall, from Jemima, then from Randall again.

"I want you like this am I hurting you? and like this, and like this."

T want you like this I don't care and again, yes, again..."

"And like this. Darling."

They slept a little. Jemima woke to find Randall's dark head on her arm; for a moment in her confusion, its blackness puzzled her. Ned... she put the thought from her, and a moment later Randall too was awake, taking her, and she was able to put the thought very far away indeed.

Now that he was gone, Jemima lay for a long time luxuriously in her bed, letting sleep come and go. After a while she remembered his last words as he kissed first her breasts, then her shoulder. Randall had efficiently pulled the soft lace-covered duvet across her, rescuing it from some strange corner of her bedroom where it had ended up.

"So I won, you were my prize, the only prize I wanted." He picked up one of the dizzy strappy high-heeled shoes she had worn to present her Award. Jemima, who loved a virtuous opportunity to buy shoes, really amazing shoes, had decided that it was her duty to give the viewers a treat.

"Perhaps I should take one of these as a souvenir," said Randall lightly.

"Give me my shoe, my shoes."

"If I give them to you, will you put them on for me?"

"One day."

Jemima pondered briefly her words 'one day', and then drifted back to sleep. When she woke again, it was time for coffee, and in Midnight's disgusted opinion he did not like rivals, any rivals time for food. Jemima put on her robe but nursed her coffee back in bed. The sheer animal happiness of having enjoyed sex and still more sex the night before had not faded; the imprint of it all on her body, the bruises, would probably take even longer to fade, but about that she felt grandly reckless. At the same time, she was beginning to ponder Randall's last remarks: "I won you, my prize." A pleasantry? Yes. All the same, "Was I won? Do I want to be won? I think it's me who's supposed to give the prize," she thought wryly. On the whole, Jemima Shore did not want to be anyone's Garrick Award.

Yet in his other declarations those there had been before by mutual agreement they fell into bed Randall had been wonderfully ardent and yet unpossessive. "I could have a real passion for you. What would you think of that? You might not like that. Passion can be dangerous." He had used the word, alluded to the threatening bond she had felt between them from the start.

Well, what did she think of that? Jemima looked at the high-heeled shoes still lying on the bed where Randall had left them. One day, she had said. Yet she agreed with Randall about passion, and its consequences. Ned's particular mixture suited her, in spite of her grumbles: passion, including most satisfying physical passion, when he was there, coupled with long periods of absence, during which she was out of his sight and thus out of his arms (and she had a suspicion out of his mind too) for all the faxes which screamed their way across the world to debouch from her machine.

"But I rather hope not this morning," thought Jemima guiltily. And the fax seemed to sense her reluctance and remained tactfully silent. She did not plan to feel guilt about what had happened with Randall in that respect she and Ned, so often apart, carefully respected each other's privacy but all the same a loving fax at that particular point might have brought her perilously close to the tinglings of guilt.

She turned her thoughts back to Randall Birley: Randall and the question of danger. In particular, a more prolonged passionate relationship with Randall could be dangerous. Given that she had sensed that from the start, wasn't that what had drawn her to him... Jemima's honest self-interrogation was interrupted not by the fax but by the telephone.

It was Cherry. "I just got back from Nice more about that later in time to see you last night. Those were wicked shoes! What? Yes, yes, what you said was fine. What did you say? I couldn't stop looking at your shoes. I thought that was the point. And did you get to meet Randall Birley?"

Jemima knew she had to apply herself to the task, never easy, of telling Cherry enough but not too much. She could begin if not continue by telling the truth. "Yes, I did meet Randall Birley. But then I met him before at the Irving Theatre, with his' she hesitated, 'with Millie Swain. On Friday. We went to Gino's."

"I'm dying to see Twelfth Night." Cherry allowed herself to be distracted. "I hear it's terrifically upbeat, all that sixties pop music at the end, you leave the theatre singing."

Hattie Vickers of course did not leave the theatre singing. Nor did the shaken (but outwardly calm) group of Mrs. Patel and her helpers. Not many people witnessed the departure of Hattie's small body on a stretcher, face covered, one little skein of hair dangling beneath the blanket. Just as few people had witnessed the arrival of a police car, then another police car, followed by an ambulance.

The West End, around the Irving Theatre in its side street, was quiet and curiously listless of a Monday morning as though still hungover from the ritual enjoyments of the weekend. The story of Hattie's death did not make the early editions of the Evening Standard, which carried an inspiring headline on the subject of the election: LAB-LIB: NEW POLL SHOCK. The small print indicated that 67 per cent of those polled replied, "Don't Know' when asked whether they thought the Labour-Liberal alliance was helpful or otherwise in the present international situation.

Another discreet arrival and departure later that day was that of the Foreign Secretary, Burgo Smyth. He visited the Prime Minister, Horace Granville, at Number Ten Downing Street. A great deal of telephoning awkward, ghastly telephoning had preceded this meeting. But both men knew that the telephone discussions must finally culminate in a personal meeting.

"I won't insult you, my dear fellow, by saying that you probably need to spend more time with your family." The Prime Minister spoke with that mixture of gaiety and briskness which Burgo Smyth knew he reserved for really difficult situations. Smyth had after all sat in the Cabinet long enough beside Horace Granville, first as his colleague, latterly as his subordinate.

There was no doubt that H.G. had great personal charm and a good deal of it was probably genuine. "After all, why shouldn't he be charming?" thought Burgo with a spurt of anger that broke through the exhaustion currently perhaps mercifully dimming his inner reactions. "Inherited wealth, no wife, never felt the need apparently, poor fellow, lucky fellow, not even queer when he was young. I can never get used to "gay" (what's gay about it?), no hint of that, no scandal anywhere, and a devoted sister to look after him. I should have had a sister like Miss G. -' He conjured up the image of the Prime Minister's sister, a quiet, pleasant, well-mannered Scotswoman who conveyed the air of a superior school matron. "That would have saved a lot of trouble."

Horace Granville leapt up. His spare figure and thick fair hair which had passed imperceptibly from blonde to grey, coupled with his characteristically energetic movements, contributed to an air of youthfulness. Compared to H.G." Burgo felt weighed down, old and finished. Whereas H.G. would never be finished. If he lost the election, he would retire to his estates in Scotland, his lovely Adam house in its elegant park, the rare books in his library and his trees, those forests about whose fortunes Burgo Smyth had been rather too often kept informed. For Burgo Smyth on the other hand, the end of his political career was death itself, not only political death, but the end of the only life he had ever wanted.

"How is Teresa by the way?" asked the Prime Minister.

Burgo shook his head. "Not well. That is, the same. I haven't...! haven't bothered her with all this yet. My children think it's better to tell her everything at one time."

H.G. had always been extremely courteous to Teresa Smyth. He was invariably courteous to women, the chivalry of his manner to the new Labour leader Helen Macdonald being a joy to certain Tories, since she found it infuriating; that is, it teetered on the edge of patronage without ever quite falling into the trap. But in those long-gone days when Teresa had sometimes laboured to fulfill her role as a minister's wife, with occasionally embarrassing consequences, H.G. was one of Surge's colleagues who had always treated her kindly. He was grateful to him for that. Now he wondered just what else, if anything, he was going to have to be grateful to H.G. for.

"Limit the damage, limit the damage!" cried the Prime Minister. His step was so light and springy as he paced up and down the huge formal room that he gave the impression of taking part in some old-fashioned measure. "You'll resign, I understand. Pity, pity, but there it is." Then with even greater cheerfulness the Prime Minister threw in the afterthought, "No House of Lords for you, my dear fellow, no peerage. So unfair, you've certainly deserved it. When I think of the types who are going to get peerages and go to the House of Lords. Whether we win or lose."

Burgo Smyth could think of those types too. Curiously enough, thinking of them enabled him to endure stoically the casual way the Prime Minister had disposed of his final dream. A secret dream, that in the House of Lords one day he would still find some kind of political arena. After all, the members of the House of Lords were not exactly subject to the same pressure to preserve stainless reputations; no electoral challenge for them. At this point Burgo had no idea whether he would have to face prison for his offence; he was unquestionably guilty of covering up a death. But even people who had been to prison had a perfect right to sit in the Lords on release; it was one of the British anomalies that you could not strip away a peerage as you could strip away a knighthood or other decoration.

That had been Burgo Smyth's wild hope, after all the service to his country and his party. With a cheery wave of his long-fingered hand, H.G. had put an end to that secret longing too. It was unrealistic and had always been so. "Limit the damage, limit the damage." And he Burgo Smyth, who had for so many years and in so many turbulent countries done just that, he, Burgo, was now the damage.