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[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
Eason the usual look.
'Tory HQ?' said Eason.
'Yes,' said Grogan. 'We need a plan.'
Eason chewed food and wiped his arm across his mouth.
'Why do I hate the sound of that?' he said.
'Because I'm going to sit in the office and do sod all while you have to go
undercover and suck up to a bunch of Tory wankers.'
Eason took another huge bite of bagel, and then crammed the rest of it into
his mouth, so that his cheeks bulged with food.
'Huck's sake,' he said.
1657hrs
The PM stormed into the office and slammed the door behind him. Williams,
Thackeray, Barney and Igor were sitting around the room, having a discussion on
Chelsea's impending Premiership triumph, and whether it could just as easily have
been Hartlepool or Wigan or Rushden & Diamonds who were in that position if a
Russian gazillionaire had pitched up to buy the club. Barney and Igor were being
drawn into the PM's inner circle, which didn't seem to bother anyone.
'Did you hear it?' said the PM. 'Did you hear it?
They looked around the room at each other, wondering if he was talking
about another one of the Chancellor's farts.
'Liar! He called me a liar!'
'Oh that,' said Williams, and Thackeray nodded and looked back at the notes
he was making for the following day's keynote speech. Barney shrugged and turned
56
back to Barber's Monthly, with all the news on the latest scissor technology coming
out of the big hairdressing technology industries in Nevada.
'Liar!' repeated the PM. 'He called me a liar! A liar! I mean, do I say that he's
the spawn of the undead? But it's going to come to that. Liar! Jesus suffering Christ!'
'Well you are,' said Thackeray matter-of-factly, looking up from his notes.
'What?' said the PM.
'Well, you know, you are a liar. You lie all the time. I write your speeches, and
they're full of lies.'
The PM looked a bit taken aback, wasn't sure what to say.
'I mean, it's no big deal. You're a politician, of course you lie. Everyone
expects you to lie. Even if you told the truth, everyone would think you were lying
anyway, so you might as well just lie in the first place.'
'I think you should lie even more,' added Williams.
'But...' began the PM, but he wasn't sure what to say after that. Thackeray had
a point after all. 'Well, there was also his line about the wishy-washy, pussyfooting
government.'
Williams and Thackeray stared at him. Neither of them said, 'if the cap fits',
but it was implicit in their eyebrows.
'You're saying I'm over-reacting?' said the PM eventually.
'Yes, Sir,' said Williams.
'Sit down and have a doughnut,' said Thackeray.
'Let me tell you about the new combs coming out of the States,' said Barney.
'Arf.'
2213hrs
Saturday night, another day of the campaign behind them all, election day another
day nearer. Barney sat alone in a bar just off Marble Arch, nursing a slow beer.
57
Didn't want to drink too much, another early start with the PM's thinning hair the
following day. Igor was having dinner with a couple of young American ladies on
tour who he'd met on The Mall whilst out for a walk earlier in the day. The PM sat in
bed in his pyjamas trying to concentrate on a report on world hunger for the
following day. Eason and Grogan worked late, devising a stratagem which would
allow Eason entry to Tory Party HQ.
And meanwhile, across the Atlantic, it was mid-afternoon in Virginia, where
the real power lay, and where the real decisions which would affect the outcome of
the British General Election would be taken. Except, it was a Saturday afternoon, and
no one with any interest in it was at their desk.
58
Sunday 24th April 2005
1345hrs
A quiet Sunday, eleven days before the general election. Anywhere between a four
and ten point lead for the government in the opinion polls in all the Sundays, and for
all that the politicians and the media might try to make something of every little
snippet they could get their hands on, it was dull, dull, dull and there was little that
any of them could do about it. If only they'd all known that the Prime Minister's
personal barber had been murdered with a chicken just over a week earlier. The
leader of the opposition had turned to personal attacks on the Prime Minister's
integrity, with his principal speech writers arguing over whether to call the PM a
"liar", a "despicable liar", "very naughty and bad" or a "cheatin', lyin', bitch-slappin'
muthafukka". The alternative opposition, in its desperation to break away from the
21% point mark in the polls, had finally turned to Iraq, which it had been holding off
on for two weeks.
The Prime Minister was sitting on the London Eye with his main assistants
Thackeray and Williams. Also along for the ride were his two new assistants, Barney
Thomson, the barber, and Igor, the deaf-mute hunchbacked barber's aide, who had
originally been brought in to deal with his hair, but were more and more becoming
dragged into the PM's inner circle; although more in an agony aunt kind of position
rather than in a policy making capacity. The PM had thought that the Eye might give
him a different perspective on things. Had also thought that going amongst the
public in central London might be a bit of an election coup, but of course everyone
had just been hacked off at him for taking up an entire capsule on the Eye, with his
security guys on the one before and the one after, and most of the people there had
of course been foreign tourists anyway.
59
The four men in the capsule were waiting for the PM to start any discussion.
Thackeray had tried as soon as they'd moved off, but the PM had been distracted
and had talked excitedly about the vision which the Eye afforded them and how it
was a wonderful corollary for his government and the vision which it had brought to
the country. Thackeray had shut up, they had allowed the PM to grandstand for a
while, and then he had talked even himself into silence. Now, as they reached the
apex of the loop, a melancholy had descended upon them, as they looked out over
London in all its grey, low-rise ordinariness. From up here it looked vast and
unremarkable, but had that silent beauty of any of the great cities. Barney glanced at
the PM, recognised the feeling of gloom which had begun to dominate his meetings
with him. Could tell the man wasn't happy, wasn't enjoying the campaign. Would
probably have been more upbeat with more of a fight.
'What d'you think about God?' the PM suddenly threw out into the capsule.
Thackeray and Williams glanced at each other, and immediately decided that
this was one which was probably aimed at Barney in any case.
'Arf,' said Igor.
The PM nodded. Even he was beginning to get a handle on Igor's
monosyllabic utterances, which contained so much in such a short bark.
'It's absurd, isn't it?' the PM began, looking down at the river. 'Most of the
British public don't believe in God, couldn't give a stuff. No one goes to church
anymore, the media don't even pay religion lip service. The only aspects of religion
that a majority of the country actually care about are The Da Vinci Code and the
architecture, but just imagine.' He looked at them intently, demanding attention.
'Just imagine I gave a press conference and said just that, said that I thought the
whole God thing was a load of crap. We live in a world of natural selection, with no
outside influence whatsoever. God? I mean, please. But can I say that? Just imagine
the stink. Jesus, they'd be all over me like a viral infection.' He looked around the
four men. None of them had anything to say. Belief in God aside, he wasn't wrong
after all. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
