The House of Cards Complete Trilogy (55 page)

“Your Majesty, we must put an end to this open sore.”

“I do so agree, Prime Minister.”

The informality of their earlier meetings had been replaced by an almost theatrical precision, like two chess players taking patient turns with the pieces. They sat just a few feet apart, knees together, waiting for the other to begin. Eventually Urquhart was forced to make his move.

“I must ask that this never happens again. Such material emanating from the Palace makes my task impossible. And if the leak came from a Palace servant, then he should be disciplined as an example to others for the future—”

“Confound your insolence!”

“I beg—?”

“You come here to impugn my integrity, to suggest that I or one of my staff leaked these wretched documents!”

“You don’t for one moment think that
I
leaked them, not for all the damage they have done…”

“That, Mr. Urquhart, is politics, which is your game and
not
mine. Downing Street is notorious for leaking documents when it serves their purpose. I am not in that game!”

The King’s head was thrust forward, his balding temples glowing with indignation and the bony bridge of his long and much broken nose showing prominently, like a bull about to charge. The limp handshake had been deceptive. Urquhart couldn’t fail to mistake the sincerity of the other man’s anger, and knew he had misjudged the situation. He flushed and swallowed hard.

“I…apologize, sir. I can assure you I played no part in the leaking of these documents, and I had assumed that, perhaps, a Palace servant…? I misconstrued.” The knuckles of his tightly clenched hands were cracking with frustration, while the King snorted through his nose several times, banging a hand down upon his right knee as if to expend his anger and to regain control of his temper. They both sat silent for several moments, gathering their wits.

“Sir, I am at a loss as to which devil is responsible for the leak and our misunderstanding.”

“Prime Minister, I am well aware of my constitutional duties and restraints. I have made a deep study of them. Open warfare with my Prime Minister is not within my prerogative and it is not my desire. Such a course of action can only be damaging, perhaps disastrous, for us both.”

“The damage has already been inflicted for the Government. After this afternoon’s Question Time, I have no doubt that tomorrow’s newspapers will be full of coverage supporting what they believe to be your view and attacking what they will describe as an insensitive and heavy-handed Government. They will say it is censorship.”

The King smiled grimly at Urquhart’s recognition of the balance of popular sentiment.

“Such coverage will only do us both harm, sir. Drive a wedge between us, expose those parts of our Constitution best left in the privacy of darkness. It would be a grave error.”

“On whose part?”

“On all our parts. We must do whatever we can to avoid that.” Urquhart left the statement hanging in the air while he tried to judge the other man’s reaction, but all he could see was the continuing puffiness of exasperation around the eyes. “We must try to prevent the newspapers ruining our relationship.”

“Well, what do you expect that I can do? I didn’t start this public row, you know.”

Urquhart took a deep breath to blunt the edge of his tongue. “I know, sir. I know you didn’t start it. But you can stop it.”

“Me? How?”

“You can stop it, or at least minimize the damage, here from the Palace. Your press secretary must phone round the editors’ offices this evening to tell them that there is no dispute between us.”

The King nodded as he considered the proposal. “Maintain the constitutional fiction that the King and his Government are as one, eh?”

“Precisely. And he must suggest that the press leaks have gotten it wrong, that the draft does not represent your views. Perhaps implying that it was prepared for you by some adviser or other?”

“Deny my words?”

“Deny that there is any difference between us.”

“Let me be clear about this. You want me to disown my own beliefs.” A pause. “You want me to lie.”

“It’s more a smoothing over the cracks. Repairing the damage…”

“Damage I did not cause. I have said nothing in public to dispute your position and I shall not. My views are entirely private.”

“They are not private when they are spread all over the front pages of the newspapers!” Urquhart could not control his exasperation; winning this argument was crucial.

“That is your problem, not mine. I discussed my ideas only with a small circle of my own family, around the dinner table. No Palace servants. No journalists. Certainly no politicians.”

“Then you did discuss it.”

“In private. As I must, if my advice to my Government is to be of any use.”

“There are some types of advice the Government can do without. We are elected to run this country, after all.”

“Mr. Urquhart!” The blue eyes were ablaze with indignation, his hands white as they gripped the arm of his chair. “May I remind you that you have not been elected as Prime Minister, not by the people. You have no mandate. Until the next election you are no better than a constitutional caretaker. Meanwhile I am the Monarch with the right accorded by tradition and all the constitutional law books ever damn well written to be consulted by you and to offer advice.”

“In private.”

“There is no constitutional duty on me to lie publicly to save the Government’s skin.”

“You must help with the editors.”

“Why?”

“Because…” Because if he didn’t, Urquhart would be stranded and done to death by a dribble of by-elections. “Because you cannot be seen to dispute matters of policy with the Government.”

“I will not repudiate my own beliefs. It would be offensive to me not only as a Monarch, but as a man. And you have no damned right to ask!”

“In your capacity as Monarch you have no right to personal beliefs, not on politically sensitive matters.”

“You deny me my rights as a man? As a father? How can you look your children in the eye—”

“On such matters you are not a man, you are a constitutional tool…”

“A rubber stamp for your folly? Never!”

“…who must support the duly elected Government on all matters in public.”

“Then I suggest, Mr. Urquhart, that you go get yourself elected, by the people. Tell them you have no care for their future. Tell them that you are content to see the Scots drift away in discontent and despair. That you don’t find it obscene for thousands of Englishmen to have no concept of home other than a cardboard box in some pestilential urban underpass. That large swathes of our inner cities are no-go areas for either police or social workers. Tell them you don’t give a damn about anything except trying to line the pockets of your own supporters. Tell them all that, get yourself elected, and then you come back here and issue me with your orders. But until then, I will not lie for you!”

The King was on his feet, propelled upwards more by the energy of his uncontrollable rage than any conscious desire to finish the audience. But Urquhart knew there was no point in continuing. The King was unshakable, he would not agree to bend, not, at least, until after Urquhart had won an election in his own right as Prime Minister. And as Urquhart strode slowly out of the room, he knew the King’s intransigence had torn to shreds any chance of holding that early election, and winning.

Seventeen

Those who wish to ride a princess should use a long rein.

The telephone rang in the private apartments of Kensington Palace. It was past eight o’clock in the evening and Landless hadn’t expected to find the Princess at home. Her husband was away in Birkenhead opening a gas terminal and he thought she would either be with him or out on the town celebrating her freedom, but she answered the phone herself.

“Good evening, Your Royal Highness. I’m delighted to find you in.”

“Benjamin, this is a pleasant surprise.” She sounded reserved, slightly distracted, as though she was holding something back. “I’m recuperating from the rigors of a day spent with two thousand members of the Women’s Institute. You can’t imagine how tired one gets after shaking all those hands and listening to all that sincerity. I’m in the middle of a massage.”

“Then I apologize for disturbing you, but I have some good news.”

He had spent the afternoon pondering how she might react to the furor caused by the speech she had passed to him as the first fruit of their new arrangement. Her intention had been to illustrate the integrity and deep concerns of the private King; she’d less than half an idea it would be published and no idea of the storm it would cause. There might even be an inquiry. Had she now taken fright?

“I just wanted you to know that the newspapers tomorrow will be overflowing with articles in praise of the King. It’s remarkable, done him a huge amount of good. And all because we handled matters the right way. You’ve done a fine job.”

She stretched out on the massage table in search of a glass of champagne. “Great team, eh, Benjamin?”

“Yes, Ma’am. A great team.” She was still standing off; had he ruined it already? “And I’ve been thinking, doing some recalculation. You know, now I’ve had the chance to meet you and see how capably you handle yourself, I think the value of your help is going to be even greater than I originally thought. Another fifty thousand pounds. How does that sound?”

“Benjamin, you serious? Sounds brill.”

He winced at the garble of slang, the cultural product of an endless diet of gossip columns, fashion magazines, and adult comics. He’d left school at fifteen and had fought his way through life burdened with all his uncut edges, his rough tongue and even rougher accent. It had given him a sense of self-esteem yet it was a brutal road, not one he had wanted for his three daughters who had found their own paths littered with the finest in educational opportunities. As he listened to the Princess he could neither understand nor abide those who, having been born with every advantage, proceeded to disgrace them. Still, he knew he had found his woman. He chuckled amiably down the phone.

After she replaced the receiver she took another sip from her glass. She wondered if she were getting herself in too deep. She had long ago learned that there was no such thing as a free lunch for any member of the Royal Firm, let alone a free fifty thousand pounds. There were strings to everything, and she suspected that Ben Landless would pull hard.

“You’re tensing up, Ma’am.”

She rolled over, the towel slipping from her body as she examined her newly tightened breasts.

“Forget the shoulder muscles, Brent. Time to take care of the inner woman.”

Lieutenant Brentwood Albery-Hunt, a six-foot-three Guards Officer on secondment to the Palace as the Princess’s personal equerry, gave a sharp salute and stood to attention as his own towel fell to the floor and the Princess cast a critical eye over him in mock inspection. He knew from past form that she was a demanding Colonel of the regiment, and that night duty under her supervision would be arduous.

Eighteen

Elections are meant to weed out the half-wits. They don’t always succeed. A hereditary monarchy doesn’t even bother to try.

December: Christmas Week

“It can’t be done, Francis.”

I don’t appoint Ministers to tell me things can’t be done
, Urquhart raged inside. But the Chancellor of the Exchequer was insistent, and Urquhart knew he was right.

They were huddled in the corner of a reception room at party headquarters where the good and the great of the party had gathered to save money and time by celebrating Christmas and bidding farewell to a long-serving official. The pay of such officials was appalling, their working conditions usually pitiable, and they were expected to show independence neither of mind nor manner. In return they expected, after the passage of many years, recognition, in the form either of an invitation to a Buckingham Palace Garden Party, a modest mention in the Honors List, or a farewell reception at which busy Ministers gathered to drink sweet German wine and nibble cocktail sausages while the retiring and frequently unrecognizable servant was feted. But Urquhart had been pleased to attend this function, for an elderly but ebullient tea lady named Mrs. Stagg. No one else was sufficiently senior to remember how long she had been there. Her tea was poisonous and her coffee indistinguishable from her tea, but her sense of fun had cut through the pomposity that so frequently befogs politicians and her bustling presence in a room usually managed to defuse even the most somber of occasions. Urquhart had fallen for her when, as an aspiring MP more than thirty years ago, he had watched transfixed as she had spotted a button loose on Ted Heath’s jacket and had insisted on stripping the bachelor party leader to his shirt sleeves while she repaired the damage on the spot. Urquhart was aware that this was her third attempt at retirement but, at the age of seventy-two, it seemed likely to be her very last and he had looked forward to the escape from official business. But it was not to last.

“It simply cannot be done,” the Chancellor repeated. “Christmas has scarcely happened in the shops and the recession is going to be here earlier than we expected. We can massage the statistics a bit, explain them away for a month or two as rogues, but we won’t be able to massage away the school leavers who’ll be flooding into the workforce at Easter. Most of them are going to go straight from the classroom to the unemployment line, and there’s sod all you or I can do about it.”

The four men standing with heads bowed in their huddle drew closer together, as if to protect a great secret. Urquhart had asked the Chancellor what he thought of the chances of putting off the impact of recession for a month or two, squeezing out a little more time. But the Treasury Minister only confirmed what he already knew.

Stamper was next to speak, very briefly. There was no use in making a feast of bad news. “Four points, Francis.”

“In front?”

“Behind. This aggravation with the King has shot our lead to hell. Four points and moving in the wrong direction.”