The House of Cards Complete Trilogy (102 page)

“And the greatest.”

“I owe that to you even more than I owe it to myself. I must find some way of beating him, destroying him—any way! And quickly. Everything I have ever achieved depends on it.”

“And what then, Francis?”

“Then perhaps we can think about stepping back and I can become an intolerable old man in carping retirement, if that’s what you want.”

“Is that what you want?”

“No. But what else is there? Apart from this I have nothing. Which is why I’m going to fight Tom Makepeace. And all the others. So long as I breathe.”

For Mortima it sounded all too much like an epitaph; she held him close in a way they’d not embraced for a considerable time, nuzzling into loose flesh and afraid she was falling into the deep pit of his empty old age.

Suddenly he stiffened, measurably brightened. Something over her shoulder had caught his eye. The workmen had finished laying out the stakes—miniature Union flags, would you believe—and a large lawn mower was lumbering toward them. It approached hesitantly, its progress obstructed, forcing it to slow, to stop and swerve to avoid them. It did so with considerable difficulty, chewing up the neat turf and knocking over several flags as the gardener wrenched at the wheel. Clearly it was not a machine designed to mow in such confined circumstances. Urquhart observed all this with growing interest.

“Anyway, my love, a great general doesn’t need to bend his own bow, he gets others to do that for him. All he needs are ideas. And one or two have just come knocking at my door.”

***

“Max!” he summoned.

Ministers were trooping into the Cabinet Room where they found him at its far end, slapping his fist like a wicket keeper waiting for the next delivery, rather than in his accustomed chair beneath the portrait of Walpole.

Stanbrook made his way over as the others milled around, uncertain about taking their seats while he was still standing.

“Max, dear boy,” Urquhart greeted as the other approached. “Our little conversation about the statue. You remember? Haven’t signed the Order yet, have you?”

“I’ve delayed it as long as I possibly could, FU.” Stanbrook tried to make it sound like a substantial victory of Hectorian proportion. Then, more sheepishly, “But I can’t find a single damned reason for turning it down.”

Urquhart chastised with a glance, then laid an arm upon his colleague’s shoulder and turned him toward the window. “There’s only one reason for turning down such a worthy project, Max, and that’s because they haven’t raised enough money.”

“But they have. Eighty thousand pounds.”

“That’s just for the statue. But what about its maintenance?”

“What’s to maintain with a statue, FU? An occasional scrub for pigeon droppings is hardly likely to run up bills of massive proportions.”

“But it’s not just the birds, is it? What about terrorists?”

Stanbrook was nonplussed.

“Home Secretary,” Urquhart called to Geoffrey, who came scampering. The others, too, began to draw closer, fascinated by what was evidently some form of morality play or possibly bloodletting of the new Environment Secretary—either way, no one wanted to miss it.

“Geoffrey, wouldn’t you say that a statue of our Beloved Former Leaderene situated just beyond the gardens of Downing Street would be an obvious target for terrorist attack? A symbolic retribution for past failures? Theirs, not hers. Let alone a target for the more obvious attentions of petty vandals and graffiti goons.”

“Certainly, Prime Minister.”

“And so worthy of steps to ensure its—and our—security. Twenty-four hours a day. Perhaps a specially dedicated video security system. How much would that cost?”

“How much would you like it to cost, Prime Minister?”

“Splendid, Geoffrey. To install and maintain—at least ten thousand pounds a year, wouldn’t you think?”

“Sounds very reasonable to me.”

“Then, of course, there’s the monitoring of that system. Twenty-four hours a day. Plus a visual inspection of the site every hour during the night by the security watch.”

“No change from another twenty thousand pounds for that,” Geoffrey offered.

“You see, Max. There’s another thirty thousand a year that will have to be found.”

Stanbrook had grown pale, as though hemorrhaging. “I think the fund will just about run to that, FU.”

“But you haven’t thought of the grass, have you? A surprising omission for a Secretary of State for the Environment.”

“The grass? What’s the bloody grass got to do with it?” Both his perspective and his language had collapsed in confusion.

“Everything, as I shall explain. Come with me.”

Urquhart flung open the doors to the patio and, like Mother Goose, led all twenty-five of them in file down the stairs, into the garden, through the door in the old brick wall, and in less than a minute had brought them to the site of the stakes. Startled Special Branch detectives began scurrying everywhere in the manner of cowboys trying to round up loose steers.

“Away! Away off my grass!” he shouted at them. “This is most important.”

Security withdrew to a nervous distance, wondering whether the old man had had a turn and they should send for Smith & Wessons or Geritol.

“Observe,” Urquhart instructed, hands spread wide. “The grass. Beautifully manicured, line after line. Until”—he made a theatrical gesture of decapitating a victim kneeling at his feet—“here.”

They gathered around to inspect the scuffed and torn turf on which he was standing.

“You see, Max, the lawn mower can’t cope. It’s too big. So you’re going to have to get another one. Transport it here twice a week throughout the summer, just to mow around the statue.”

“Take a bit of strimming, too, I’ve no doubt.” Bollingbroke had decided to join what was evidently a glorious new summer sport.

“Thank you, Arthur. A strimmer as well, Max. The whole bally production line we have created to keep the green spaces of our gracious city shorn and shaven—disrupted! Put out of gear. Ground to a halt. For your statue.”

“Hardly my statue,” Stanbrook was mumbling, but already there was another player on the field.

“Chief Secretary, what would be the cost of a small mower and strimmer, their storage and transportation from said storage about fifty times a year, plus an allowance for all the chaos to the maintenance schedule that is likely to ensue?” He made it sound as if the center of London was sure to grind to a halt.

“I’d say another ten thousand,” a youngish man with lips that operated like a goldfish pronounced. “Minimum.”

“So that’s ten, and ten, and twenty. Makes another forty thousand pounds, Max.”

“I’ll tell the Society.”

“Not just forty thousand pounds, Max. That’s forty thousand pounds a year. We’ll have to ensure that a fund is available to generate that sort of money for at least ten years; otherwise the taxpayer will end up footing the bill. We couldn’t have that.”

“Not when I’m just about to announce a freeze on nurses’ pay,” the Health Secretary insisted jovially.

“And where’s the Chancellor of the Exchequer? His Prime Minister wants him. Ah, Jim, don’t be bashful.”

The Chancellor was thrust by many willing hands from seclusion at the rear of the assembly amid a chorus of laughter.

“Chancellor. A fund sufficient to generate forty thousand pounds a year for a minimum of ten years. How much are we talking about?”

Jim Barfield, a rotund Pickwickian figure with a shock of hair that made him look as though his brains had exploded, scratched his waistcoat and sucked his lower lip. “Not used to thousands. Throw a few noughts on the end and I’d have no trouble but…” He scratched once more. “Let’s say a quarter of a million. Just between friends.”

“Mr. Stanbrook, has the Society got a quarter of a million pounds? In addition to the eighty for casting said statue?”

Stanbrook, not knowing whether to laugh along with the rest, to fall to his knees and kiss the grass, or to crawl away in humiliation, simply hung his head. “No graven images!” a voice from the west flank of Whitehall insisted. The others applauded.

“Then it is with much regret…”

He had no need to finish. The Cabinet to a man, even Stanbrook, applauded as if on the green trimmed sward of Westminster they had been watching one of the finest conjuring tricks of the decade. Which, perhaps, they had.

He felt good. He had shown he was still the greatest actor of the age; it had been as important to remind himself as to remind the others. His view had been salvaged, the past exorcized. Now to exorcize the future.

Twenty-Five

Ambition should be strong enough to take a hard polish. And a damned good kicking.

Claire ran into him as she was scurrying out of the House of Commons Library. She was clutching papers and he had to reach out to prevent her from toppling.

“Hi, stranger.”

“Hello to you.” The voice was soft, the old chemistry still at work. Reluctantly Makepeace withdrew his supporting arm and let her go. “Running errands for the boss?” he inquired, indicating the papers and regretting it immediately. Urquhart had already come too much between them.

“Would it seem silly if I suggested I’d missed you? I’ve thought about you a lot.”

“I’m sure that’s true,” he retorted, hurt male pride adding a sharper edge than he’d intended. “I suppose coming from an acolyte of Urquhart I should take such attention as a compliment.”

She searched for his eyes but they remained elusive, darting along the corridor, falling at his feet, unwilling to allow her to inspect the wounds she had inflicted on him. He was acting more like a secret and bashful lover than when they’d shared something to be secretive about.

“I’d like to think that we could still be friends,” she offered, and marveled immediately at her own hypocrisy. She meant it; she retained a strong sense of affection and respect for him, a man with whom she had shared so much. Yet she was also the woman who was trying to bring him to his knees. For the first time she began to be aware of how far she had moved, had strayed perhaps, from her own image of herself. She’d become two people, political animal as well as woman, in two worlds, one black, the other white, and the dark world where she stood in the shadow of Francis Urquhart was tugging her away from her roots and those she had loved.

“Claire, there are only two sides in this place right now. Those who stand with him, and those who don’t. There’s no room in the middle anymore.”

A colleague passed by and they both stood in embarrassed silence as though their past secrets had been betrayed to the evening press.

“I’ve not sold out,” she began again, anxious to reassure herself as much as him.

Disdain sharpened his eye. “Spare me that sweet talk about means and ends, Claire. Like curdled milk, I’ll only swallow it once. With him, there is but one end. Francis Urquhart. And any means will do. Face up to it. You’ve sold out.”

“I wasn’t born to all this like you, Tom. I’ve had to fight and scratch for every little thing I’ve achieved in this place. I’ve taken all the jibes, the patronizing, the gropers, the men who preach equality yet only practice it when they go a Dutch treat for dinner. Perhaps you can afford to, but no way am I going to pack up and walk away at the first sign of trouble.”

“I haven’t walked away. Not from my principles.”

“Great. You preach, and in the meantime Big Mac wrappers will inherit the Earth. We both have our ideals, Tom. Difference between us is that I’m prepared to do something about them, to take the knocks in pursuing them, not simply sit on the sidelines and jeer.”

“I’m not sitting on the sidelines.”

“You ran off the bloody pitch!”

“There are some games I simply don’t want to play.” His tone implied that in politics, at least, she was nothing more than a tart.

“You know, Tom Makepeace, you were a better man in bed. At least there you knew what the hell to do.” She didn’t mean it, was covering up for her own pain, but she’d always had a tendency to a phrase too far and this one tore across their respect like a nail across silk.

She knew she’d cut him and watched miserably as a bestockinged messenger handed Makepeace an envelope bearing a familiar crest. As he wrenched it open and read she began to frame an apology, but when his eyes came up once more, inflamed no longer with wounded pride but unadulterated contempt, something told her it was already too late.

“Those who stand with him, Claire. And those who don’t.”

He turned on his heel and strode away from the ruins of their friendship.

***

10 Downing Street

Dear Thomas,

I am replying to your recent letter. I have nothing to add to the reply I gave in the House last week, or to the policy adopted by successive Governments that security considerations prevent such matters being discussed in detail.

Yours sincerely,

Francis

It had been couched in terms intended to offend. His name had been typed, not handwritten; the dismissal of his request was as abrupt as was possible for an experienced parliamentarian to devise. Perhaps he should be grateful, at least, that the letter had dispensed with the hypocrisy of the traditional endearment between party colleagues that suggested that the author might be “Yours ever.”

As Makepeace entered the Chamber, the letter protruding like a week-old newspaper from his clenched hand, he trembled with a sense of his own inadequacy. There was a time, only days gone by, when a word from him would have had the System producing documents and reports by the red box load; now he couldn’t raise more than a passing insult.

Claire, too, had made a fool of him—not simply because he’d said things in a clumsy manner he’d not intended, but because he hadn’t realized how much of his affections she continued to command, in spite of Maria. He should know better, have more control, yet she’d left him feeling like a schoolboy.

If he was flushed with frustration as he sat down to listen to the debate on the European Union Directive (Harmonization of Staff Emoluments), within moments his resentment had soared like a hawk over Saudi skies. The House was packed, the Prime Minister in his seat with Bollingbroke at the Dispatch Box, holding forth on matters
diplomatique
with the restraint and forbearance of a bricklayer approaching payday.