High society (32 page)

CHEQUERS

P
eter had always wanted to visit Chequers, the Prime Minister’s country retreat. To visit the place where Lloyd George had planned the convoy system in 1916, where Churchill had pondered the battle against Nazi Germany, where Attlee had taken respite from his titanic struggle to bring the welfare state into being. Now that Peter had been elevated to Cabinet status, he had been looking forward to many evenings dining amongst the myriad souvenirs of administrations past, basking in the history that had been made and the history that he was playing such a central part in making. But such had been the speed of Peter’s ascension to the very highest ranks of public life that there had thus far been no time for such niceties, and this was Peter’s first trip. The circumstances were not remotely what he had hoped.

Charlie Ansboro, the Prime Minister’s Press Secretary, a man known within the Labour Party as the Wild Pig, stared Peter straight in the eye. ‘Minister. Tell me now and tell me absolutely straight. Is there any truth in what they’re about to throw at you? What they’re about to throw at us?’

They had barely sat down. Peter had not even been offered a drink. There had been no niceties, the Prime Minister had not yet joined them, and he would not do so until the Wild Pig called for him. Peter was either about to be cast out or to remain in, it was a matter of spin control, and the decision lay with the Press Secretary. If Charlie Ansboro decided that the government and the party would be better off dumping Peter, then the process would begin immediately and Peter would not see the PM at all.

T do not lie to the Prime Minister, Charlie. As I told him earlier, there is no truth in these allegations whatsoever,’ Peter replied, answering the Pig’s stare with an unblinking one of his own.

All the way from the Birmingham hotel to Chequers Peter had been agonizing over his strategy, going over every moment of his affair with Samantha. An affair which, thank God, he had conducted with the greatest care and secrecy. There was only one occasion when any other person had been in direct contact with Peter and Samantha during their relationship, and that had been the birthday dinner party. The occasion on which he had taken cocaine for the first and only time in his life. Apart from that the whole thing was a matter of his word against Samantha’s. If he had been spotted going into Samantha’s flat, so what? She had been his parliamentary assistant. As a backbencher he shared office space with countless other MPs. Was it any wonder that on some evenings they had made use of Samantha’s place in which to work, and if anyone said why hadn’t he used his own home, he would enquire whether they had ever tried living with two noisy teenaged daughters.

But there was that birthday dinner party. Samantha’s best friends would be bound to testify against him. Pondering this on the drive to Chequers, Peter had conceived a plan. He intended to produce witnesses of his own.

Charlie Ansboro leant forward in his chair. ‘Peter, I’ve known for months that you’ve been fucking her.’

Peter Paget did not flinch. ‘You’ve known more than me, then, mate.’

The two chairs in which they sat were uncomfortably close together, close enough for Ansboro to reach across and grip Peter’s knee. He gripped it hard, a most intimidating gesture. ‘You’ve been fucking her rigid, you bloody fool, and if you think I’m going to let your poxy little sex life bring down this government then you’re a bigger arsehole than even I took you to be. Tell me I’m a liar if you dare, you fucking — stupid — bastard.’

‘Take your hand off me right now.’

Charlie did not move his hand, in fact he increased his grip, and his stare became even more intense. He seemed almost to hiss through his clenched tobacco-stained teeth. ‘Tell me I’m a liar or I’ll hang you from Big Ben by your bollocks.’

‘Get your hand off me right now.’

Still Charlie’s hand did not move. His eyes were a picture of madness. This was a man possessed. Possessed with keeping the Prime Minister in power.

Peter shocked even himself with what happened next. He punched Charlie Ansboro in the mouth. His clenched fist shot out and smashed into Ansboro’s clenched teeth.

Charlie let go of Peter’s knee. He was shocked but did not seem angry. He even managed to smile. ‘Well done, Paget,’ he said. ‘You’re the first one who’s ever done that.’ He nursed a lip already growing fat from the blow. ‘And the very second you’re of no further use to us you’ll pay for it. OK?’

Peter’s stare remained steady. ‘As I told you, Charlie, there is no truth in any of the allegations that Ms Spencer is making against me.’

Ansboro rang a small bell, and a butler appeared.

‘Tell his nibs he can come through now, will you, mate?’

The Prime Minister entered and did not offer Peter his hand. Greeting him with the merest nod he turned straight to his Press Secretary. ‘Well, Charlie?’

‘Paget’s sticking to his story as hard as the press are sticking to theirs.’

‘Of course I am, Prime Minister, for the simple reason that — ’

‘And what’s our story?’ The Prime Minister was continuing to ignore Peter.

‘I say we’re in too deep to turn back. Drop Paget now and you’re admitting that he’s an adulterous, drug-taking hypocrite, in which case the bill’s dead anyway, and in my opinion the government fatally wounded as well.’

Peter could hardly believe he was being so callously sidelined. ‘Excuse me, Prime Minister, but — ’

‘Peter, please, I’m talking to Charlie.’

‘We’ll just have to tough it out,’ Ansboro continued. ‘Can they prove their allegations?’

‘Paget obviously doesn’t think so or he wouldn’t be going for straight denial.’

Again Peter butted in. ‘I’m going for straight denial, Charlie, because the allegations are false and — ’

Now it was the Prime Minister’s turn to butt in. ‘Peter, Charlie told me about your knocking off your PA the day I proposed you for Cabinet.’

‘Well, Charlie was wrong, Prime Minister. Charlie-Wild Pig fucking Ansboro was wrong. I have not been knocking off my parliamentary assistant, and I have not taken any drugs, OK? I am a man with an important job to do and a lot of people don’t want me to do it. That’s all that this is about. And while I’m speaking plainly I might as well tell you that your Press Secretary is the most despised man in the party bar none, and the fact that people suspect you value his counsel above that of your ministers is the single greatest threat to your government’s authority. This man is a shit, Prime Minister, and if you have summoned me from the bosom of my family in order that this unelected, unaccountable, foul-mouthed toady can call me a liar, then in future I will thank you not to waste my time. Now, it’s getting late and it is Sunday. You deserve some rest and so do I. What this arse needs is another smack in the mouth to go with the one I just gave him.’

The Prime Minister’s eyes widened with surprise.

‘I therefore have only two questions to ask you: am I still the Minister for Drugs, and are you still expecting me to steer our legalization through Parliament after the next Queen’s Speech?’

Charlie Ansboro was about to speak.

‘Shut up, Charlie,’ said the Prime Minister. ‘Yes, Peter. On both counts.’

‘Thank you, Prime Minister. Then if there’s nothing further I’ll bid you goodnight.’

As Peter crunched across the gravel towards his car every particle of his body felt alive. He had started as he meant to go on. He was going to be strong and he was going to win. He would maintain the new truth upon which he had decided completely and absolutely because it was the truth, a higher truth, a greater truth…at least, in as much as the actual truth would mean the end of his bill and hence the further perpetration of murder and crime that its failure would allow.

Peter was going to fight. He would fight because he was right, and he would win for the same reason.

FALLOWFIELD COMMUNITY HALL, MANCHESTER

I
still had the three quid that me an’ Jessie had begged, so I was able to make the phone call an’ get the addresses of the brothels advertised on the sticker. There were three of ‘em and I was promised the best I’d ever had.

‘So that were it. I had to get over there an’ spring Jessie sharpish, but not in an Oxfam shop coat, a bald tattooed ‘ead, a face all bruised up and three quid in me pocket minus a phonecall. Well, I couldn’t do much about the bruised face, but I knew enough about brothels to know that there was no way I was getting into one lookin’ like a tramp.

‘I don’t know if you’ve ever mugged someone at all, but let me tell you, if you’re not born to it, it’s fookin’ ‘orrible. I were waitin’ round in this quiet street tryin’ t’judge up blokes’ size an’ weight as they went by. I let two who were perfect go by ‘cos I bottled it before I picked one. He were about my size but weedy-lookin’. Well, I weren’t goin’ to pick Lennox Lewis, was I, even if I did still have Jessie’s bayonet?’

A QUIET STREET, BIRMINGHAM

G
i’ us your fookin’ shirt an’ jacket.’

‘Don’t hurt me!’

‘I’m not goin’ t’fookin’ hurt you. Just gi’s what I said.’

‘Please don’t hurt me!’

‘Look, I’ve told you I’m not goin’ t’fookin’ hurt you.’

‘You’re not?’

‘No! How many more fookin’ times.’

‘Oh, well, in that case fuck off.’

‘What?’

‘I’m not giving you my jacket. Fuck off. Help! Help!’

‘Look gi’s what I say, now! Or I’ll stick this in ya!’

‘You said you weren’t going to hurt me!’

‘I’ve changed me mind.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course I’m fookin’ sure! I’m desperate!’

‘Please don’t hurt me!’

‘For fook’s sake! Listen! These are the rules, OK? If you give me what I say, I won’t hurt you. If you don’t, I’ll stab you. Now is that fookin’ clear!’

FALLOWFIELD COMMUNITY HALL, MANCHESTER

I
swear I never want to ‘ave t’ roll someone again as long as I live. I mean we were fookin’ jibberin’ at each other, both absolutely cackin’ it. It were like a sketch on the telly. Anyway, I got his shirt an’ jacket in the end, and his wallet. I bunged him me coat an’ ran like fook. Actually, as I ran away I felt dead good, ‘cos I’d done it for her, see. I’d committed an unselfish act.’

A BROTHEL, BIRMINGHAM

W
hy’d you break the window in the roof, Jessie? There was like all glass everywhere. Any of the girls could ‘a got themselves cut. I mean that was just fuckin’ out of order, you know what I mean?’

Jessie did not answer. She was back. She was back. Right at the very source and centre of her torment.

‘I ought ta cut you up good, Jessie. Beat the livin’ shit outa you. You know what I mean?’

Jessie did indeed know what he meant. Having the living shit beaten out of her was something that she did not need to have described to her.

‘But you see,’ Goldie continued, ‘lotta the punters have missed you, Jessie. Oh yeah, did you know that? You got quite a following, quite a fanclub. Most of these Balkan babes we got on offer is olive-skinned, OK? Which is nice, tasty, melts my fucking Magnum, I can tell you, but on the other hand some geezers like ‘em pale. They like skin all whitey-white, like yours, pale as death, if you know what I mean. Fact is, Jessie, I’ve met punters that liked ‘em dead, oh yeah, snuff muff. It happens, baby, don’t think it don’t. Necro-howsyourfather. Sick, I call it. But that ain’t my business. Babes like you what look so good are precious and, like I say, there’s payin’ public asking me, Goldie, where’s the Scottish babe? I don’t want no Balkan bitch, I want Jessie. Yeah, you should be proud. Only five minutes ago some geezer rings up, describes you exactly, had you three times when he was last in town, he says; wants another taste. In’t it lucky we found you, Jessie? I’m sure you’d hate to disappoint your public.’

The void opening up in front of Jessie was cavernous. An immense black hole engulfing her totally. There was no precipice to teeter on; she had already fallen into a grave as big as the world.

When one of Goldie’s boys offered her the needle she hardly bothered to resist.

THE PAGET HOUSEHOLD, DALSTON

T
he four of them sat around the table together. It was past midnight and Peter had returned from his trip to Chequers an hour before. Since then, Charlie Ansboro had been on the phone to confirm that the journalist Paula Wooldridge was sticking to her story and that her editor intended to publish in the morning. Ansboro reported that Wooldridge was aggressive and confident and claimed she had two witnesses of good character and professional standing to support Samantha’s cocaine allegations.

In the face of this crisis Peter and Angela Paget had decided to wake their daughters and explain to them the maelstrom that would engulf the family with the morning’s papers. When he had finished explaining the situation there was a silence as the remaining three women in his life stared into their coffee cups.

‘Well, girls,’ Peter said, turning to his daughters, ‘it’s kind of you not to ask me the one question that you must be burning to ask. However, I’ll answer it anyway. No, I did not have sexual relations with this woman and nor did I take drugs with her.’

Suzie, the younger of the Paget girls, got up and kissed her father. Cathy was a little slower in her response. Her eyes flicked across to her mother; she seemed to be asking for confirmation. Angela Paget rose to the occasion. She knew her duty. ‘Your father is the victim of a press campaign against him, girls. This woman has clearly been put up to it.’

‘What are you going to do?’ Cathy asked.

‘We’re going to sue them,’ Peter replied.

‘Will we win?’

‘It depends,’ Peter said quietly. ‘The core of their case is the fabrication that I attended a birthday dinner with the girl Spencer and her two friends. All three are prepared to swear that they saw me take cocaine that night. The two friends also corroborate Spencer’s story that I subsequently spent the night with her.’

‘Quoting your own speeches, apparently,’ said Suzie, who had already clicked onto the internet and found early reports of the coming scandal.

‘Yes, all right, Suzie,’ her mother admonished. ‘We’re not interested in the detail of these disgusting stories.’

‘So where were you on the night in question, Dad?’ Cathy enquired, and Peter could only admire such intellectual focus for one so young.

‘Ah well, you see, that’s where they’ve been clever, because, you see, I was with Ms Spencer and they know it and, what’s more, at her flat. We were working on papers together and needed space.’

Momentarily Angela Paget’s eyes fell. Cathy noticed this but said nothing.

‘So if I tell the truth about that night,’ Peter went on quickly, ‘that I was at her flat, then it’s three words against one and I think they’d be able to make the story stick. It would certainly be hard for me to get a clear libel judgement when I’m outnumbered so heavily…’

‘So you’re going to have to lie, aren’t you, Dad? That’s obvious.’

‘Yes, I’m going to have to lie. I’m going to have to tell a small lie in order to establish a greater truth.’

‘Your innocence?’

‘I don’t care about myself overmuch, Cathy,’ Peter said sincerely. ‘Or us, in fact. I’m quite sure that our love as a family can survive a press smear campaign. No, the great truth I’m going to lie to defend is that thirty years of drug policy have failed the public utterly and it’s time to move on. That’s the truth they’re trying to smother.’

‘So you have to have been somewhere other than at Samantha Spencer’s flat on the night they say you took the cocaine,’ Cathy observed matter of factly.

‘Yes, Cathy, that’s true.’

‘For which you need witnesses. Witnesses you can trust absolutely.’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, we’d better get our diaries out, then.’ Cathy had brought matters to a head far faster than Peter had intended, but she had read his intentions perfectly. This was indeed where he had been leading.

‘If you’re prepared to do this thing, yes,’ Paget said, almost in a whisper.

‘Lie for you.’

‘Yes.’

‘In court?’

‘It may come to that.’

Angela Paget had turned almost white with the horror of what Peter was proposing. ‘You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, darling,’ she said.

‘Of course she doesn’t.’

‘Dad, Mum, we’re a family. We’re all each other has got and I’ve never been more proud of Dad than during this campaign. Can you get away with just me or do you need Suzie too?’

‘I think one of you should be enough.’

‘You don’t need Mum?’

‘No. I think the story is better if it’s not too obvious. Your mother was at home.’

‘Christ, Dad, you’d better hope I wasn’t out with other people that night.’

Cathy went off to her bedroom and brought back her Young Socialist Student Diary.

Meanwhile, Angela Paget went to bed, instructing her younger daughter to do likewise.

‘You’re lucky,’ said Cathy, studying her diary. ‘The previous night I was at drama class and the following night I was at Debating Society, but on the night in question I am free to have been with you. What do you think? A movie? Nice and anonymous. Nobody could swear that we hadn’t been there. I bought the tickets with cash while my famous dad discreetly studied a popcorn machine. We spent the next two hours together during which you were so utterly riveted by…What were the big movies five months ago?…What would you like to have seen? Toy Story 3? Jurassic 6? Mission Impossible 3? Or shall we be patriotic and support a small-budget Brit pic hailed by the critics and ignored by the public?’

‘Cathy, you do realize how serious this is, don’t you? This may easily go to court. You will have to perjure yourself.’

‘Dad, how many times do I have to tell you? A: I don’t believe in God; b: I don’t think much of the state, and c: most importantly, c, a person should answer to their own conscience, not some arbitrary set of rules imposed from above. Of course it’s wrong to lie, but I know that this silly cow is lying too, and I intend to fight fire with fire. What was it Polonius said? ‘Above all to thine own self be true,’ and that’s what I intend to be.’

Cathy Paget took up a ballpoint pen and wrote ‘Movies with Dad’ onto the blank date in her diary.

‘Fortunately Mission Impossible 3’s out on DVD,’ she said. ‘Watch it as soon as possible. It’s not bad, actually, and Cruise is gorgeous, despite being a rather reactionary male stereotype. You don’t want some clever brief saying, ‘So who was in this movie you’re supposed to have seen?’, do you?’

Not for the first time Peter Paget looked at his young daughter with what was something approaching awe.