Paper Money (9 page)

right when he said so coarsely, "It was the best night's nooky you'll

ever have."

Tim could not quite banish the flashing memories of her slim, writhing

body; but now they had a dreadfully bitter taste. She had shown him

Paradise then slammed the door. She, of course, had been faking ecstasy;

but there had been nothing simulated about Tim's own pleasure.

A few hours ago he had been contemplating a new life, enhanced by the

kind of sexual love he had forgotten existed. Now it was hard to see any

point at all in tomorrow. He could hear the noise of the children in the

playground outside, shouting and shrieking and quarreling; and he envied

them the utter triviality of their lives. He pictured himself as a

schoolboy, in a black blazer and short gray trousers, walking three

miles of Dorset country lanes to get to the one-class primary school. He

was the brightest pupil they had ever had, which was not saying much.

But they taught him arithmetic and got him a place at the grammar

school, and that was all he needed.

He had flourished in the grammar school, he remembered. He had been the

leader of the gang, the one who organized playground games and classroom

rebellions. Until he got his glasses.

There: he had been trying to remember when in his life he had felt

despair like this; and now he knew. It had been the first day he wore

his glasses to school. The members of his gang had been at first

dismayed, then amused, then scornful. By playtime he was being followed

by a crowd chanting "Four-eyes." After lunch he tried to organize a

football match, but John Willcott said: "It's not your game." Tim put

his spectacles in their case and punched Willcott's head; but Willcott

was big, and Tim, who normally dominated by force of personality, was no

fighter. Tim ended up stanching a bloody nose in the cloakroom while

Willcott picked teams.

He tried to make a comeback during History, by flicking inky paper

pellets at Willcott under the nose of Miss. Percival, known as Old

Percy. But the normally indulgent Percy decided to have a clamp down

that day, and Tim was sent to the headmaster for six of the best. On the

way home he had another fight, lost again, and tore his blazer; his

mother took the money for a new one out of the nest egg Tim was saving

to buy a crystal radio kit, setting him back six months. It was the

blackest day of young Tim's life, and his leadership qualities remained

stifled until he went to college and joined the Party.

A lost fight, a torn blazer, and six of the best: he could wish for

problems like that now. A whistle blew in the playground outside the

flat, and the noise of the children ceased abruptly. I could end my

troubles that quickly, Tim thought; and the idea appealed.

What was I living for yesterday? he wondered.

Good work, my reputation, a successful government; none of these things

seemed to matter today. The school whistle meant it was past nine

o'clock. Tim should have been chairing a committee meeting to discuss

the productivity of different kinds of power stations. How could I ever

have been interested in anything so meaningless? He thought of his pet

project, a forecast of the energy needs of British industry through to

the year 2000.

He could summon no enthusiasm for it. He thought of his daughters, and

dreaded the idea of facing them. Everything turned to ashes in his

mouth.

What did it matter who would win the next election? Britain's fortunes

were determined by forces outside its leaders' control. He had always

known it was a game, but he no longer wanted the prizes.

There was nobody he could talk to, nobody. He imagined the conversation

with his wife: "Darling, I've been foolish and disloyal. I was seduced

by a whore, a beautiful, supple girl, and blackmailed ..." Julia would

freeze on him. He could see her face, taking on a rigid look of distaste

as she withdrew from emotional contact. He would reach out to her with

his hand, and she would say: "Don't touch me." No, he could not tell

Julia; not until he was sure his own wounds had healed and he did not

think he could survive that long.

Anyone else? Cabinet colleagues would say:

"Good God, Tim, old chap--I'm terribly sorry.. and immediately begin to

map out a fallback position for the time when it got out. They would

take care not to be associated with anything he sponsored, not to be

seen with him too often; might even make a morality speech to establish

Puritan credentials. He did not hate them for what he knew they would

do: his prognosis was based on what he would do in that situation.

His agent had come close to being a friend, once or twice. But the man

was young; he could not know how much depended upon fidelity in a

twenty-year-old marriage; he would cynically recommend a thorough

cover-up and overlook the damage already done to a man's soul. to HIS

sister, then? An ordinary woman, married carpenter, she had always

envied Tim a little.

She would wallow in it. Tim could not contemplate that.

His father was dead, his mother senile. Was he that short of friends?

What had he done with his life, to be left with no one who would love

him right or wrong? Perhaps it was that that kind of commitment was

two-way, and he had been careful to see that there was nobody he

wouldn't be able to abandon if they became a liability

There was no support to be had. Only his own resources were available.

What do we do, he thought wearily, when we lose the election by a

landslide? Regroup, draw up the scenario for the years of opposition,

start hacking away at the foundations, use our anger and our

disappointment as fuel for the fight. He looked inside himself for

courage, and hatred, and bitterness, to enable him to deny the victory

to Tony Cox; and found only cowardice and spite. At other times he had

lost battles and suffered humiliation, but he was a man, and men had the

strength to struggle on, didn't they?

His strength had always come from a certain image of himself: a

civilized man, steadfast, trustworthy, loyal, and courageous; able to

win with pride and lose with grace. Tony Cox had shown him a new

picture; naive enough to be seduced by an empty-headed girl; weak enough

to betray his trust at the first threat of blackmail; frightened enough

to crawl on the floor and beg for mercy.

He screwed up his eyes tightly, but still the image invaded his mind.

It would be with him for the rest of his life.

But that need not be long.

At last he moved. He sat on the edge of the bed, then stood up. There

was blood, his blood, on the sheet, a disgraceful reminder. The sun had

moved around the sky, and now shone brightly through the window.

Tim would have liked to close the window, but the effort was too much.

He hobbled out of the bedroom, and went through the living room into the

kitchen. The kettle and the teapot were where she had left them after

making tea. She had spilled a few leaves carelessly over the Formica

work-top, and she had not bothered to put the bottle of milk back into

the little fridge.

The first-aid kit was in a high, locked cupboard, where small children

could not reach. Tim pulled a stool across the Marley-tiled floor and

stood on it. The key was on top of the cupboard. He unlocked the door

and took down an old biscuit tin with a picture of Durham Cathedral on

the lid.

He got off the stool and put the tin down.

Inside he found bandages, a roll of bandage, scissors, antiseptic cream,

gripe water for babies, a displaced tube of Ambre Solaire, and a large,

full bottle of sleeping tablets. He took out the tablets and replaced

the lid. Then he found a glass in another cupboard.

He kept not doing things: not putting the milk away, not clearing up the

spilled tea leaves, not replacing the first-aid tin, not closing the

door of the crockery cupboard. There was no need, he had to keep

reminding himself.

He took the glass and the tablets into the living room and put them on

his desk. The desk was bare except for a telephone: he always cleared it

when he finished working.

He opened the cupboard beneath the television set. Here was the drink he

had planned to offer her. There was whiskey, gin, dry sherry, a good

brandy, and an untouched bottle of eau de vie prunes that someone had

brought back from the Dordogne. Tim chose the gin, although he did not

like it.

He poured some into the glass on the desk, then sat down in the upright

chair.

He did not have the will to wait, perhaps years, for the revenge which

would restore his self-respect. However, right now he could not harm Cox

without doing worse damage to himself. Exposing Cox would expose Tim.

But the dead feel no pain.

He could destroy Cox, and then die.

In the circumstances it seemed the only thing to do.

DEREK HAMILTON was met at Waterloo Station by another chauffeur, this

time in a Jaguar. The Chairman's Rolls-Royce had gone in the economy

drive:

sadly, the unions had not appreciated the gesture.

The chauffeur touched his cap and held the door, and Hamilton got in

without speaking.

As the car pulled away he made a decision. He would not go straight to

the office. He said: "Take me to Nathaniel Fett you know where it is?"

The chauffeur said: "Yes, sir."

They crossed Waterloo Bridge and turned into the Aldwych, heading for

the City. Hamilton and Fett had both gone to Westminster School:

Nathaniel Fett senior had known that his son would not suffer for his

Jewishness there, and Lord Hamilton had believed that the school would

not turn his son into an upper-class twit--his Lordship's phrase.

The two boys had superficially similar backgrounds. Both had wealthy,

dynamic fathers and beautiful mothers; both were from intellectual

households where politicians came to dinner; both grew up surrounded by

good paintings and unlimited books. Yet, as the friendship grew, and the

two young men went to Oxford--Fett to Balliol, Hamilton to Magdalen--the

Hamilton house had suffered by the comparison. Derek came to see his own

father's intellect as shallow. Old man Fett would tolerantly discuss

abstract painting, communism, and be-bop jazz, then tear them to pieces

with surgical accuracy. Lord Hamilton held the same conservative views,

but expressed them in the thundering cliches of a House of Lords speech.

Derek smiled to himself in the back of the car.

He had been too hard on his father; perhaps sons always were. Few men

had known more about political skirmishing: the old man's cleverness had

given him real power, whereas Nathaniel's father had been too wise ever

to wield real influence in affairs of state.

Nathaniel had inherited that wisdom and made a career of it. The

stockbroking firm which had been owned by six generations of firstborn

sons named Nathaniel Fett had been changed, by the seventh, into a

merchant bank. People had always gone to Nathaniel for advice, even at

school. Now he advised on mergers, share issues, and takeovers.

The car pulled up. Hamilton said: "Wait for me, please.

The offices of Nathaniel Fett were not impressive--the firm had no need

to prove itself rich.

There was a small nameplate outside a street-door near the Bank of

England. The entrance was flanked by a sandwich shop on one side and a

tobacconist's on the other. A casual observer might have taken it for a

small, and none-too-prosperous, insurance or shipping company; but he

would not have known how far the premises to either side were occupied

by the one firm.

The inside was comfortable, rather than opulent, with air conditioning,

concealed lighting, and carpets which had aged well and stopped short of

the walls. The same casual observer might have thought that the

paintings hanging on the walls were expensive. He would have been right

and wrong: they were expensive, but they were not hanging on the walls.

They were set into the brickwork behind armored glass--only the false

frames actually hung on top of the wallpaper.

Hamilton was shown straight in to Fett's ground-floor office. Nathaniel

was sitting in a club chair reading The Financial Times. He stood up to

shake hands.

Hamilton said: "I've never seen you sitting at that desk. Is it just for

decoration?"

"Sit down, Derek. Tea, coffee, sherry?"

"A glass of milk, please."