The House of Cards Complete Trilogy (62 page)

“Nevertheless, I want to see what was said before I allow this one to run.” The Speaker waved Colthorpe down but he was not to be deflected.

“We tarry and delay at our peril, Madam Speaker. This is just another example of the interfering, interventionist tendencies of the mod-Monarchy—”

“That’s enough!” She was on her feet now, staring furiously over half-moon glasses, demanding Colthorpe subside.

“But Madam Speaker, we must be allowed to respond to attacks made on us, no matter from what source those attacks emanate. The debate in Another Place, ostensibly about foxhunting, has been turned into a direct assault on this Chamber. Now, Madam Speaker, I don’t wish to impugn the integrity of anyone wishing to make such attacks…”

She liked the sound of that, and hesitated.

“It is possible, I suppose,” Colthorpe continued, “to care passionately for the welfare of the nation from the back of a horse while out pursuing foxes.” There was an amused growl of support from the benches around. “It may even be possible to identify with the plight of the homeless from within the luxury of a palace—indeed, several palaces. It may even be possible, I could not deny it, that being driven around the country in chauffeured limousines and private trains with forty carriages affords a unique insight into the problems of those confined to wheelchairs…”

“Forty coaches?” a voice queried. “What on earth does he need with forty coaches?”

Madam Speaker was on her feet again, lifting onto her toes, trying to give herself added height and authority and angrily pointing her glasses in his direction, but Colthorpe, voice rising in turn, ignored her.

“It may also be possible for those who live entirely off the backs of taxpayers and who pay no tax at all to accuse those who do of greed and selfishness. It is possible, Madam Speaker, but isn’t it more likely that this is just another load of the organic fertilizer that gets spread all over the Palace Gardens?”

The Speaker’s cries of “Order! Order!” were lost amid the instant hubbub. “If the Honorable Gentleman doesn’t resume his seat immediately I shall be forced to name him,” she mouthed, threatening Colthorpe with the procedure that would eject him from Parliament for the rest of the week’s business. But already it was too late. As Colthorpe looked toward the press gallery he could see scribes furiously tearing at their notebooks. There would be a posse of them waiting as he left the Chamber. His point had already been made; he would be named in every morning newspaper. “Order! O-o-o-order!” cried the Speaker. With what he hoped was a bow of great dignity, which caused the opera hat to tumble from his head and roll across the floor, Colthorpe resumed his seat.

Twenty-Eight

Loyalty is like the Doctrine of Celibacy—easy to proclaim but damned difficult to live by.

Landless was having his hair trimmed when the call came through, and he didn’t care for being disturbed at such moments. His secretary thought his reluctance arose from embarrassment because his hairdresser, who visited the businessman once a fortnight at his office, was what she called “delicate,” but Landless didn’t mind. Quentin was the only barber he’d ever found who could manage to keep his ropelike hair under control without larding it in hair cream and, besides, the Landless reputation with women was sufficiently beyond dispute to survive contact with an affected queen. In truth the hairdresser was a disgraceful gossip who had a fund of stories about his other fashionable clients, all of whom seemed to regard him as a father confessor for their sex lives. Landless never ceased to be intrigued by what others would admit to or fantasize about under the influence of nothing more potent than shampoo and an expert scalp massage. He kept his own mouth shut, and listened. He was engrossed in a fascinating report of what other parts of his body the country’s leading romantic soap star shaved, and in what designs, when the whine of the telephone dragged him away.

It was his editor in chief, seeking guidance, covering his ass as usual. But Landless didn’t object, not on this occasion. This was his story, after all.

“How are the others going to play it?” he growled.

“No one’s quite sure. This story’s so out of the ordinary.” The issue involved King, Prime Minister, Lords and Commons—the Archbishop wasn’t in there yet, but doubtless the
Sun
or
Mirror
would find some connection. Yet it had been raised by two such nonentities—few had heard of Colthorpe, none of Quillington. It was a sensitive issue, perhaps an item on the parliamentary page?

“Any guidance from Downing Street?”

“They’re cautious. Clean hands, so they insist. Serious issues that they understand must be reported and all that, but suggest Quillington’s a fool and Colthorpe went over the top. They don’t want a repeat of what happened before Christmas.”

“But they didn’t request we spike it, either?”

“No.”

“Colthorpe tried to shift the argument away from a divided nation to hard cash. Clever—too clever for him on his own. They’re flying kites. Trying it out with Colthorpe to see if it gets a fair wind.”

“So what do we do?”

It was not so much that he had promised Quillington, it was more instinct—the instinct of a man who had been used to street fighting all his life, used to recognizing the difference between shadows that provided cover and those that hid the enemy. He trusted his instincts, and they told him that among these shadows there lurked the figure of Francis Urquhart. If Landless threw a little light around, who knows what he might flush out. Anyway, he had a lot of money invested in the Royal Family and there was no dividend in it unless the Royal Family was news. Good, bad, indifferent news, he didn’t mind—so long as it was news.

“Splash it. Page One lead.”

“You think it’s that big?”

“We make it that big.”

There was agitated breathing on the end of the phone as the editor tried to catch up and comprehend his proprietor’s flow of logic. “Peers Attack Urquhart?” he suggested, practicing a few headlines. “PM Unelected and Unelectable, Say King’s Allies?”

“No, you bloody idiot. Six weeks ago we were telling the world what a fine, noble creature he was. From Roger Rabbit to Rasputin in one bound is more than even our readers will swallow. You make it balanced, fair, authoritative. Just make it big.”

“You want to catch the others standing on this one.” It was an assumption, not a question: this was going to be a front page like none of the competition.

“No, not on this one,” Landless responded thoughtfully. “Spread word around the newsroom.”

“But that’ll mean it will be all through Fleet Street in under an hour.” They both knew there were journalists in the newsroom taking backhanders for alerting their rivals to what was going on, just as they paid for whispers in the other direction. “They’ll all follow. Think we’re up to something, know something they don’t. No one will want to be caught out; it’ll be used on every front page…?”

“Precisely. This one is going to be a runner, because we’re going to make it run. Freely, fairly, in the national interest. Until the time comes for us to climb down off the fence, by which time the noise we make will give our Mr. Urquhart nightmares for months. That’s when we make sure he’s not only unelected, but unelectable.”

He dropped the phone back into its cradle and turned to Quentin, who was propping himself up against a far wall of the huge marble-covered private bathroom, seemingly engrossed in pursuit of a stray eyelash.

“Quentin, do you remember King Edward the Second?”

“You mean the one they did for with the red-hot poker?” He puckered his lips in distaste at the legend of sordid butchery.

“If I hear a word of this conversation breathed outside these walls, you’re going to become Quentin the First. And I personally am going to administer the poker. Get it?”

Quentin tried hard, very hard, to imagine the newspaper man was joking. He smiled encouragingly, but all he received in return was a sustained glare that left no room for doubt. Quentin remembered that Landless had never joked. He went back to cutting the hair, and said not another word.

***

She had taken the first editions up herself. She’d bumped into the messenger on the stairs.

“Nice to see you again, Miss.”

“Again.” Sally thought she detected undue inflection on the word. Perhaps it was her imagination—or her guilt? No, not guilt. She had long ago decided not to run her life by codes and rules that others so blithely ignored. She owed no one, and there was no sense in being the only impoverished virgin in the cemetery.

He laid the newspapers side by side on the floor, and stood over them for a considerable time, lost in thought.

“It’s started, Sally,” he said at last. She noted an edge of apprehension. “Soon we shall be beyond the point of no return.”

“To victory.”

“Or to hell.”

“Come on, Francis, it’s what you wanted. People beginning to ask questions.”

“Don’t misunderstand. I’m not despondent, only a little cautious. I’m an Englishman, after all, and he is my King. And it appears we are not alone in asking questions. Who is this Quillington, this unknown peer with a mission?”

“Don’t you know? He’s the brother of the man who is, as it is said, close enough to Princess Charlotte to catch her colds. Always in the gossip columns.”

“You read gossip columns?” He was surprised; it was one of Mortima’s least attractive breakfast traits. He eyed Sally closely, wondering if he would ever get the chance to eat breakfast with her.

“Many of my clients live in them. Pretend to be upset when they appear, are mortified when they don’t.”

“So Quillington’s a King’s man, is he? And the King’s men are already answering the call to battle.” He was still standing over the papers.

“Talking of clients, Francis, you said you’d introduce me to some new contacts, but I’ve not met anyone apart from the occasional messenger and tea lady. For some reason we seem to spend all our time alone.”

“We’re never truly alone. It’s impossible in this place.”

She came behind him and slid her hands around his chest, burying her face in the crisp, clean cotton of his shirt. She could smell him, the male smell, its muskiness mixed with the pine starch and the faint tang of cologne, and she could feel the body heat already rising. She knew it was the danger he enjoyed, which made him feel he was conquering not only her but also, through her, the entire world. The fact that at any moment a messenger or civil servant might blunder in only heightened his sense of awareness and drive; while he was having her he felt invincible. The time would come when he would feel like that all the time, would dispense with caution and recognize no rules other than his own, and even as he reached the height of his powers he would begin the downward slide to defeat. It happened to them all. They begin to convince themselves that each new challenge is no longer new but is simply a repeat of old battles already fought and won. Their minds begin to close, they lose touch and flexibility, are no longer attuned to the dangers they confront. Vision becomes stale repetition. Not Urquhart, not yet, but sometime. She didn’t mind being used, so long as she could use him, too, and so long as she remembered that this, like all things, couldn’t last forever. She ran her hands down his chest, poking her fingers between his shirt buttons. Prime Ministers are always pushed, initially by their own vanity and sense of impregnability, and eventually by the electorate or their own colleagues and political friends. Although not by a King, not for many years.

“Don’t worry about your clients, Sally. I’ll fix it.”

“Thank you, Francis.” She kissed the back of his neck, the fingers still descending on his buttons as though she were practicing a piano scale.

“You understand your job exceptionally well,” he breathed.

“Mrs. Urquhart not around?”

“She’s visiting her sister. In Fife.”

“Sounds a long way away.”

“It is.”

“I see.”

She had run out of buttons. He was still standing, newspapers at his feet, facing the door like Horatio at the bridge, ready to take on any intruders, feeling omnipotent. When he was like this, with her, she knew that nothing else mattered for him. Part of him yearned for the door to burst open and for all of Downing Street to see him with this much younger, desirable woman and to understand what a true man he was. Perhaps he hadn’t realized that they had stopped barging in with their interminable messages and Cabinet papers while she was here, always finding an excuse to telephone ahead first, or simply not bothering to come at all. They knew, of course they knew. But maybe he didn’t know they knew. Maybe he was already losing touch.

“Francis,” she whispered in his ear. “I know it’s late. It will be in darkness, but…You always promised to show me the Cabinet Room. Your special chair.”

He couldn’t answer. Her fingers held him speechless.

“Francis? Please…”

Twenty-Nine

A monarch is at a disadvantage when he drops the soap. What does he do when there is no valet to retrieve it for him?

He hadn’t slept again. And he knew he was beginning to get things out of proportion. Ridiculous things like his tooth mug. The valet had changed it, just like that, assuming as they all did that they knew best what was good for him. It had caused an unholy, spitting row, and now he felt ashamed. He’d gotten his mug back, but in the process lost his equilibrium and dignity. Yet somehow knowing what was happening to him only seemed to make it worse.

The face in the bathroom mirror looked haggard, aged, the crow’s feet around the eyes like great talons of revenge, the fire within damped and exhausted. As he studied his own image he saw reflected the face of his father, fierce, intemperate, unyielding. He shivered. He was growing old even before his life had properly started, a lifetime spent waiting for his parents to die just as now his own children waited for him. If he died today there would be a huge state funeral at which millions would mourn. But how many would remember him? Not him the figurehead, but him, the man?