A Quiver Full of Arrows (26 page)

you will want to
read Jeffrey Archer’s books. Here, to whet your appetite, are the opening pages
of

JEFFREY ARCHER

If Charles Gurney Scymourhad been born nine
minutes earlier he would have become an earl, inherited a castle in Scotland, 980,000
acres in Somerset, and a thriving merchant bank in the City of London.

It was to be several years before young
Charles worked out the full significance of coming second in life’s first race.

His twin brother, Rupert, only just came
through the ordeal, and in the years that followed contracted not only the
usual childhood illnesses but managed to add scarlet fever, diphtheria and
meningitis, causing his mother, Lady Seymour, to fear for his survival.

Charles, on the other hand, was a survivor,
and had inherited enough Seymour ambition for both his brother and himself.
Only a few years passed before those who came into contact with the brothers
for the first time mistakenly assumed Charles was the heir to the earldom.

As the years passed Charles’s father tried
desperately to discover something at which Rupert might triumph over his
brother- and failed.

When they were eight the two boys were sent
away to Summerfields where generations of Seymours had been prepared for the
rigours of Eton.

During his first month at the Oxford prep
school Charles was voted form captain and no one hindered his advance en route
to becoming head boy at the age of twelve, by which time Rupert was looked upon
as Seymour Minor. Both boys proceeded to Eton, where in their first half
Charles beat Rupert at every subject in the classroom, outrowed him on the
river and nearly killed him in the boxing ring.

When in 1947 their grandfather, the
thirteenth Earl of Bridgwater, finally expired, the sixteen-year-old Rupert
became Viscount Seymour while Charles inherited a meaningless prefix.

The Hon Charles Seymour felt angry every
time he heard his brother deferentially addressed by strangers as ‘My Lord’.

At Eton, Charles continued to excel and
ended his schooldays as President of Pop before being offered a place at Christ
Church, Oxford, to read History. Rupert covered the same years without
over-burdening the examiners, internal or external. At the age of eighteen the
young viscount returned to the family estate in Somerset to pass the rest of
his days as a landowner. No one destined to inherit 980,000 acres could be
described as a farmer.

At Oxford, Charles, free of Rupert’s shadow,
progressed with the air of a man who found the university something of an
anticlimax. He would spend his weekdays reading the history of his relations
and the weekends at house parties or riding to hounds. As no one had suggested
for one moment that Rupert should enter the world of high finance, it was
assumed once Charles had left Oxford that he would succeed his father at
Seymour’s Bank: first as a director and then in time as its chairman: although
it would be Rupert who would eventually inherit the family shareholding.

This ‘best laid plan’ changed, however, when
one evening the Hon Charles Seymour was dragged off to the Oxford Union by a
nubile undergraduate from Somerville, who demanded he should listen to the
Eights Week motion, ‘I would rather be a commoner than a lord’. The President
of the Union had achieved the unique coup of having the motion proposed by the
Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill.

Charles sat at the back of a hall packed
with eager students mesmerised by the elder statesman’s performance.

Never once did he take his eyes off the
great war leader during his witty and powerful speech, although what kept
flashing across his mind was the realisation that, but for an accident of
birth, Churchill would have been the ninth Duke of Marlborough. Here was a man
who had dominated the world stage for three decades and then turned down every
hereditary honour a grateful nation could offer, including the title of Duke of
London.

From that moment Charles never allowed
himself to be referred to as ‘the Hon’ again: his ultimate ambition was now
above mere titles.

Another undergraduate who listened to
Churchill that night was also considering his future. But he did not view
proceedings crammed between his fellow students at the back of the crowded
hall. The tall young man dressed in white tie and tails sat alone in a large
chair on a raised platform, for such was his right as President of the Oxford
Union.

Although Simon Kerslake was the first-born,
he had otherwise few of Charles Seymour’s advantages. The only son of a family
solicitor, he had come to appreciate how much his father had denied himself to
ensure that his son should remain at the local public school. Simon’s father
had died during his son’s last year at Lancing College, leaving his widow a small
annuity and a magnificent MacKinley grandfather clock. Simon’s mother sold the
clock a week after the funeral in order that her son could complete his final
year with all the ‘extras’ the other boys took for granted. She also hoped that
it would give Simon a better chance of going on to university.

From the first day he could walk Simon had
always wanted to outdistance his rivals. The Americans would have described him
as ‘an achiever’, while many of his contemporaries though to Phim as pushy, or even
arrogant, according to their aptitude for jealousy. During his last term at
Lancing Simon was passed over for head of school and he still found himself unable
to forgive the headmaster his lack of foresight. Later that year, some weeks
after he had completed his S-levels and been interviewed by Magdalen, a
circular letter informed him that he would not be offered a place at Oxford; it
was a decision Simon was unwilling to accept.

In the same mail Durham University offered
him a scholarship, which he rejected by return of post. “Future Prime Ministers
aren’t educated at Durham,” he informed his mother.

“How about Cambridge?” she Inquired, to wipe
the dishes.

“No political tradition,” replied Simon.

“But if there is no chance of being offered
a place at Oxford, surely...?”

“That’s not what I said, Mother,” replied
the young man. “I shall be an undergraduate at Oxford by the first day of term.
“

After eighteen years of forty-yard goals Mrs
Kerslake had learned to stop asking her son, “How will you manage that?”

Some fourteen days before the start of the
Michaelmas Term at Oxford Simon booked himself into a small guest house just
off the Iffley Road. On a trestle table in the corner of lodgings he intended
to make permanent he wrote out a list of all the colleges, then divided them
into five columns, planning to visit three each morning and three each
afternoon until his question had been answered positively by a resident Tutor
for Admissions: “Have you accepted any freshmen for this year who are now unable
to take up their places?”

It was on the fourth afternoon, just as
doubt was beginning to set in and Simon was wondering if after all he would
have to travel to Cambridge the following week, that he received the first
affirmative reply.

The Tutor for Admissions at Worcester College
removed the glasses from the end of his nose and stared at the tall young man
with a mop of dark hair falling over his forehead. Alan Brown was the
twenty-second don Kerslake had visited in four days.

“Yes,” he replied. “It so happens that a
young man from Nottingham High School, who had been offered a place here, was
tragically killed in a motor cycle accident last month.”

“What course- what subject was he going to
read?” Simon’s words were unusually faltering. He prayed it wasn’t Chemistry,
Anthropology or Classics. Alan Brown flicked through a rotary index on his
desk, obviously enjoying the little cross-examination. He peered at the card in
front of him. “History,” he announced.

Simon’s heartbeat reached 120. ‘‘I just missed
a place at Magdalen to read Politics, Philosophy and Economics,” he said.
“Would you consider me for the vacancy?”

The older man was unable to hide a smile. He
had never in twenty-four years come across such a request.

“ Full name?” he said, replacing his glasses
as if the serious business of the meeting had now begun.

“Simon John Kerslake.”

Dr Brown picked up the telephone by his side
and dialled a number.

“Niger?” he said. “It’s Alan Brown here. Did
you ever consider offering a man called Kerslake a place at Magdalen?”

Mrs Kerslake was not surprised when her son
went on to be President of the Oxford Union. After all, she teased, wasn’t it
just another stepping stone on the path to Prime Minister -

Gladstone, Asquith... Kerslake?

Ray Gould was born in a tiny, windowless
room above his father’s butcher’s shop in Leeds. For the first nine years of
his life he shared that room with his ailing grandmother until she died at the
age of sixty-one.

Ray’s close proximity to the old woman who
had lost her husband in the Great War at first appeared romantic to him. He
would listen enraptured as she told him stories of her hero husband in his
smart khaki uniform – a uniform now folded neatly in her bottom drawer, but
still displayed in the fading sepia photograph at the side of her bed. Soon,
however, his grandmother’s stories filled Ray with sadness, as he became aware
that she had been a widow for nearly thirty years. Finally she seemed a tragic
figure as he realised how little she had experienced of the world beyond that
cramped room in which she was surrounded by all her possessions and a yellowed
envelope containing 500 irredeemable war bonds.

There had been no purpose in Ray’s
grandmother making a will, for all he inherited was the room. Overnight it became
his study – full of ever-changing library and school books, the former often
returned late, using up Ray’s meagre pocket money in fines. But as each school
report was brought home it became increasingly apparent to Ray’s father that he
would not be extending the sign above the butcher’s shop to proclaim ‘Gould and
Son’.

Shortly after his eleventh birthday Ray won
the top scholarship to RoundhaySchool. Wearing his first pair of long trousers-
turned up several inches by his motherand horn-rimmed spectacles that didn’t
quite fit, he set offfor the opening day at his new school. Ray’s mother hoped
there were other boys as thin and spotty as her son, and that his wavy red hair
would not cause him to be continually teased.

By the end of his first term Ray was
surprised to find he was far ahead of his classmates, so far in fact that the
headmaster considered it prudent to put him up a form – “to stretch the lad a
little”, as he explained to Ray’s parents.

By the end of that year, one spent mainly in
the classroom, Ray managed to come third in the form, and top in Latin and
English. Only when it came to selecting teams for any sport did Ray find he
came bottom in anything.

However brilliant his mind might have been,
it never seemed to co-ordinate with his body. His single greatest academic
achievement during the year, though, was to be the youngest winner of the prize
essay competition in the school’s history.

Each year the winner of the essay was required
to read his entry to the assembled pupils and parents on Speech Day. Even
before he handed in his entry Ray rehearsed his efforts out loud several times
in the privacy of his study-bedroom, fearing he would not be properly prepared
if he waited until the winner was announced.

Ray’s form master had told all his pupils
that the subject of the essay could be of their own choosing, but that they
should try to recall some experience that had been unique to them. Thirty-seven
entries arrived on his desk by nine o’clock on the closing date six weeks
later. After reading Ray’s account of his grandmother’s life in the little room
above the butcher’s shop the form master had no inclination to pick up another
script. When he had dutifully struggled through the remainder he did not
hesitate in recommending Gould’s essay for the prize. The only reservation, he admitted
to its author, was the choice of title. Ray thanked him for the advice but the
title remained intact.

On the morning of Speech Day the school hall
was packed with 700 pupils and their parents. After the headmaster had
delivered his speech and the applause had died down, he announced, “I shall now
call upon the winner of the prize essay competition to deliver his entry: Ray
Gould.’’

Ray left his place in the hall and marched
confidently up on to the stage. He stared down at the mono expectant faces but
showed no sign of apprehension, partly because he found it difficult to see
beyond the third row. When he announced the title of his essay some of the
younger children began to snigger, causing Ray to stumble through his first few
lines.

But by the time he had reached the last page
the packed hall was still, and after he had completed the final paragraph he
received the first standing ovation of his career.

Twelve-year-old Ray Gould left the stage to
rejoin his parents in the body of the hall. His mother’s head was bowed but he
could still see tears trickling down her cheeks. His father was trying not to
look too proud. Even when Ray was seated the applause continued, so he too
lowered his head to stare at the title of his prize-winning essay: ‘The first
changes I will make when I become Prime Minister’.