Country of the Blind (4 page)

To Rob, politics was about good guys and bad guys, knights and dragons. He never had the grace to acknowledge positive aspects of political opponents, couldn't admit to qualities of humour, wit, generosity or conscience in a Tory. He saw them as non-persons, sub-human, or (of course, thank you Mr Bevan) vermin. Nicole had heard such terms before, but more importantly, so had her grandmother, in Poland.

She could read his mind at the dinner table, see him find all sorts of ideological significance in the constituents of the delicious menu her mum had prepared for them (he must have been shattered at the absence of servants), but the overall atmosphere of warmth and civility was what finally flipped him out. He was one of the knights, and he clearly felt duty-bound to slay the dragon, despite the dragon's hospitality and conspicuous failure to breathe any fire.

Her dad didn't rise to it at first, trying to be both diplomatic and polite in changing the subject. But Rob had to fight, needed to fight. Even though this was being served up unprovoked at his own table, Dariusz was clearly prepared to let it go rather than cause a scene that would upset his daughter. However, a combination of annoyance that
Rob
was upsetting his daughter and the fact that his wife had already weighed in and been subject to some moral accusations that were as insulting as they were bizarre, meant that the gloves had to come off.

And Nicole enjoyed it. She really, utterly, massively enjoyed it. It was like watching the All Blacks against her old school team. Her father was a trial lawyer, for God's sake - what chance did the goateed pipsqueak think he had?

She could see the look on his face, the defeat, the self-disgust, the realisation that he was finally playing for his team, fighting for his side, wearing the jersey - and getting an absolute trouncing (or gubbing, as they'd say round here). The desolation of seeing his supposedly infallible moral sword blunted and useless, the first time he'd ever really got to unsheathe it. And it wasn't fair. Not fair at all. She knew that. She could not possibly 18

have condoned some of the stances her father took or the tactics he employed, but his technique was nonetheless breathtaking to watch. Rob couldn't face her, and she knew that too. There was no big scene, not even a heavy phone-call. In fact he never rang again, and tended not to be around the same bars, clubs, meetings or buildings as her after that either. She saw a bit more of her parents, though. There had been a few shared glances between her and her father during his demolition of Rob, a few mutually noted glints of enjoyment, a joke just the two of them were in on. So she made a greater effort to go home the odd weekend, and her father made a greater effort to be there when she did.

They were able to talk politics together from time to time, and although he never attempted to change her views, and she definitely couldn't accept his positions, he did nonetheless teach her a few things.

"We're not monsters, Pepper, that's the first thing you've got to appreciate,"

he once said. "This demonisation, it's not healthy, not constructive. You
know
I'm not some rampaging oppressor; neither are my family or your mother's family. And we're not 'the exception that proves the rule', either. Don't fall into the trap of thinking everyone who doesn't agree with you is some kind of alien whom you can't possibly relate to or communicate with.

"I know that shouting a few slogans and lobbing some metaphorical rotten apples at a few aunt sallies can help get a head of steam up, but it's no substitute for political debate. It's also not a million miles away from what your man Orwell was on about. You go back and read about the Two-Minute Hate next time you see a bunch of protesters chanting hysterically on some demo. What this country needs, as a democracy - maybe now more than ever - is an exchange of ideas, some discourse. And you can't have that if you don't respect the other side a little."

"Well I don't think anyone ever told Thatcher that, when she was talking about 'wiping socialism from the face of the Earth'," Nicole replied. "That didn't exactly do a great deal to engender an atmosphere conducive to reasoned debate, did it?"

"No, it didn't," he conceded. "It certainly reduced the currency of debate -

I think deliberately. After years of consensus politics, she knew it was going to be a time for really taking sides, and it stiffened a few spines to mix it like that. Some would see it as a deft political manoeuvre, but certainly it left a bad taste in a few mouths. None more than your grandfather's. I know you'll find it hard to believe, but we used to argue about politics a great deal, while you and Gillian were tucked up in bed upstairs. Your grandfather was what was called a 'Wet'. An Old School Conservative who saw politics as a more gentlemanly affair than it has become today. He always said he found Thatcher and her accomplices. . . rather 'thuggish', was the word he used."

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"And you?"

"I was younger, and it was a climate for a younger generation. I've got my reservations in retrospect, but at the time, Pepper. . . Well, it was
exciting
, let me tell you. It was intoxicating. Things were really changing, rapidly. And I know you'll tell me that while the champagne was flowing and the Porsches were lining up around the Square Mile, the bill for the party was being met elsewhere - in the North and in Scotland - but by God it shook the country up. It changed it, moved it forward. And there will be winners and losers every time there's change, so don't tell me to feel guilty because I was one of the winners this time. For despite the aspects that seem rather distasteful in hindsight, if I went back there I'd sign up to be a part of it all again."

"You'd vote for her if she made a comeback?"

"No, no. I just mean that I don't regret the choices I made back then. Different measures suit different times. I don't believe I was wrong,
we
were wrong or even she was wrong, even though I do regret some of her legacies."

"Like what?"

"Well, like this mutually suspicious politics of hatred that we've been talking about. I know it's hard, but you've got to put it behind you, rise above it. It's no good me saying 'don't reduce politics to a slanging match' and you replying

'well, your lot started it'. At some point you've got to write off the old scores and look ahead to a new game. And although I know you don't respect the people in the Cabinet just now, you have to look beyond them, too. It's about ideas and values, not slogans and personalities.

"I don't know, maybe I've turned into an old Wet like your grandfather, or maybe it's just the lawyer in me, but I think politics is more fun when there's two strong sides squaring up, no quarter asked or given, and respect on both sides. Because if you don't respect your opponent, you're not respecting the game, and that means you're not respecting our parliament."

"What, so you're telling me after all this time that you respect the Labour Party? That you respected Neil Kinnock?"

"I respect the fact that the Labour Party has always been an advocate for, well, sections of society that have perhaps not been so high on the Conservative agenda. And
you
have to respect the fact that the Left's agenda doesn't cover the whole spectrum either. I know it sounds trite to say that 'it's all very well looking after the poor but someone needs to look after the rich', but there's a grain of truth in it nonetheless. And that truth is that in Britain we need two sides, two advocates, each reminding the other about the issues that aren't on their agendas, the parts of the board that their plans don't cover."

"It might help if a few of the current cabinet thought that way too," Nicole said.

Her father had arched his brows, seemingly troubled by unspoken thoughts. 20

"Yes, well," he said. "I'd have to give you that one. I do often wonder what your grandfather would have made of the likes of Portillo and Swan. He was a great admirer of Lord Home in his day, of men who saw their role in government as one of service. The problem with those two is that they are very much creatures of current politics. One gets the impression when one of them drafts a paper or makes a speech, they're less concerned with how the idea would affect the country than how its reception will affect their standing within the party. I never thought I'd hear myself say it, Pepper, but I do fear that it's a symptom of a party too long in government."

"Well, it seems there's at least one thing we're agreed on."

However, there had been another consequence of her father's humiliation of Rob back then, something that strengthened Nicole's resolve to make her own way in law, something that confirmed the difference between them. She had enjoyed his mastery, certainly, and thrilled at his oratory, but was disturbed not only by his use of arguments that she found abhorrent, but more by his use of arguments that she knew
he
found abhorrent. There were lawyers, she knew, who although they would (obviously) never admit it, nonetheless took pride in achieving a verdict they knew to be unjust, considering it a testament to their own prowess that they could play the game so expertly. Lawyers who well knew that their client had done it, for instance, but whose egos it boosted to win the case, to let their own abilities wield more power than the facts. And she knew that it wasn't all down to egotistical misanthropy; whatever his or her beliefs or intentions, a lawyer has to do whatever is in his or her power to win the case, and can soon forget the morality of it as the race gets faster, the contest heats up. But there was still something very distasteful about it, something that underlined how it was just a game to the lawyers when it meant a hell of a lot more to the other people inside and outside of the courtroom. Gods playing with the mortals for their sport.

There was a look on Rob's face, fed up with him as she had been, which she recognised and which bothered her. She knew it from courtrooms, from the many spare mornings and afternoons she had spent watching trials. The bewildered, frustrated and - most significantly - impotent look on the face of the poor sod on the stand, as he sees truth, fact, logic and reason implode and disintegrate under an onslaught of semantic gymnastics, molecule-width hair-splitting, near Dadaist reinterpretation, and mean, downright sophistry. And she didn't just mean the accused or the plaintiff; how often had she seen the honest eye-witness, or the casualty officer who treated the victim, or whoever, stagger back into the body of the courtroom feeling like they had been unmasked up there as a malignant liar, an incompetent moron, or both?

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The devil, it seemed, was never short of an advocate. The ordinary punter, however, was often less spoilt for choice in his representation. And so what if it sounded naive? She wanted to assist people as they cowered before the imposing and forbidding complexity of this machine which otherwise sucked them in, twisted them, stretched them, turned them inside out and upside down, and then spat them out, telling them as they lay there, dazed, whether it had (by the way) found for or against them.

A guide through the maze, a Sherpa on their climb.

Nicole's real sin hadn't been a rebellion, but a vanity. While her father expertly worked the machine, she thought she could take it on. This is what you want: to defend the ordinary Joe who is being buffeted, abused and toyed with at the unknown whims of a shapeless entity he can no more understand than he can control.

This is what you get: "Post-dramatic stress hingmy."

"Don't touch the lassie's fanny pads."

Careful what you wish for.

When the sobs subsided, she remained in place with her head on the desk for a while, wondering whether she should attempt a Major Major-style exit out of the window, only never to return again. Trouble was, she was two floors up over West Regent Street.

She heard the door open, then looked up slowly to see a man standing before her, holding what was locally known as a tammy in both hands. He looked mid-to-late-fifties, tall and broad, carrying excess weight in places that paradoxically suggested he was once a lot more trim. Formidably so, even.

"Oh God, I'm sorry," she said with a sniff, suddenly sparking herself into action, tidying a few items on her desk and harassedly moving around to gather some of the debris from the office floor.

"Let me get those," he had said, almost to himself, placing his tammy on a chair and kneeling down to pick up a few sheets of paper.

"No no," she said, failing hopelessly not to sound flustered. "I'll manage, I'll manage." She sniffed again, her tubes still a little choked, her face feeling conspicuously puffy. "I just need a moment here. . . "

"Look, tell you what," he said in deep, soothing tones, "why don't I make you a wee cuppa tea while you take a wee minute to sort yoursel' oot. Maybe even nick oot for a bit of fresh air."

"You know, I'm perfectly capable of making myself a cup of tea if I decide I want one," she snapped, not taking her eyes off the multicoloured documents scattered around her. "I'm not. . . "

"Miss Carrow," he interrupted, the voice again soft but lent persuasion by its diaphragmic bassiness, "I'm sure you're extremely capable of makin' yoursel'

22

a cuppa tea, and plenty more besides. But you look like you've had a helluva rough day, an' I'm just sayin' let me make you wan while you. . . recompose yourself, if you like."

She suddenly stopped fumbling around on the floor and looked up at the man, closing her eyes for a second and then giving him an apologetic smile.

"I'm sorry," she half-whispered, shaking her head. "I don't mean to be rude. You're right. I have had a hell of a day."

He held a band out to her to help her climb back to her feet. Nicole grasped it and laughed a little.

"A cup of tea would be just lovely," she said. "Mr. . . ?"

"McInnes. Tam McInnes."

Mr McInnes had looked to the kettle and mugs while she finished gathering up the stray stationery and opened a window. He placed the steaming mug on the desk in front of her and took a seat opposite.

Nicole took a few warm, restorative gulps and sighed, a long, slow exhalation.