The House of Cards Complete Trilogy (92 page)

“Francis, that performance was little short of a disgrace. An insult to our European partners. In one afternoon you’ve managed to unravel everything I’ve achieved in my time as Foreign Secretary. And all for the sake of gratuitous parliamentary fisticuffs.”

“You’ve got to learn, Tom, that it’s not all Queensberry Rules in Europe. Occasionally you need a bit of pepper on the gloves.”

“You can’t go screwing around with foreign policy without having the courtesy to consult me first, I won’t have it. How can you expect me to deal in good faith with my counterparts after that?” He tossed back the forelock that had fallen across his brow, trying to recompose his temper.

“Ah, good point. I don’t.”

Claire took a step back. She knew what was coming and felt as if she were intruding. She experienced a strong twinge of embarrassment, too. Was it because Makepeace had until a few days previously been her lover, or because she was as yet unaccustomed to the rituals of humiliation? His gaze of suspicion followed her.

“Tom, you are one of my most capable and pious of Ministers, a great source of strength. Potentially. You are also the Government’s most passionate Euro-enthusiast, a source of considerable confusion. Potentially. So—I’m moving you to Environment, where your piousness can find its reward and your enthusiasm can inflict less harm.”

The blow had been landed but the effect was not instantaneous. By degrees the forelock tumbled forward once more and his expression turned to confusion. Stiffly, his head began to shake from side to side as though trying to shake itself free from sudden confusion and disbelief.

“Think about it, Tom. You’re a man of great administrative ability and considerable social conscience in a Government believed by most to be utterly heartless. That must cause you as much distress as it does me. So where better to display your personal credentials and the Government’s best intentions than in the field of Environment? Good for you, good for us all.”

The head was still shaking. “I’ll not accept.”

“It’s not a matter for debate.”

“Environment or Out?”

“If that’s the way you want to put it.”

Makepeace drew a deep breath, struggling for composure that, after a few moments, he found. “Then I resign.”

Claire looked afresh at him; God, he really meant it. He wouldn’t compromise. He was wrong, but she found herself appreciating more than ever that streak of stubbornness, both noble and naive, which was the most endearing and aggravating feature of Tom Makepeace. Urquhart, however, seemed less impressed. His euphoria had gone, to be replaced by unadorned exasperation.

“Tom, you can’t resign! For God’s sake stop being so petulant and look at what it means. It won’t be so very long before I decide to retire and the party starts looking for a new leader. My guess is they’ll go for a change of style, too. Someone with a little less stick and a bit more sugar than me. Someone who has a different bias to his politics, just for the joy of a change. Sounds like a pretty good description of Tom Makepeace. Environment is a great opportunity for you—grab it with both hands!” He allowed the thought to take root for a moment. “What the party won’t do, Tom, is to hand over its destiny to someone who’s spent the last couple of years sulking on the backbenches.”

Makepeace was wound tight as a piano wire, feet spread apart for support, his arms knotted lest his hands betray the trembling emotions inside, his features set rigid as he struggled for control. Slowly, at the very edges of his mouth, Claire noticed the traces of a wistful smile beginning to appear, the picture of a man saying farewell to something of great importance to himself. But what? Position? Or principle?

“Francis, your logic is almost impeccable. It has only one small fault.”

“And what is that?”

“You underestimate how much I have come to dislike you.” And with that he was gone.

The silence he left behind grew oppressive. “I suppose that meant no,” Urquhart muttered at last.

“Shall I go after him?”

“No. I’ll not beg.” Nor would he forgive. “And it was threatening to be such a pleasant day.”

***

It might, perhaps, have made a difference if Makepeace had been allowed a few quiet moments for thought and reflection, an opportunity to set practicality alongside his sense of wounded pride in order to discover which would finish the day stronger. But the wind of fate blows capricious in Westminster, and it was not to be. The corridor from the Prime Minister’s House of Commons office emerges directly beside the stairwell leading down from the press gallery. In his careless anger Makepeace all but bowled over Dicky Withers as the pressman emerged from the stairs.

“Arrest this ruffian, Sergeant!” Withers demanded of the policeman who guarded this sensitive section of palace corridor.

“Not likely, Dicky. I’ve just put five quid on him becoming the next Gaffer.”

“A pity,” Makepeace responded as he dusted down the pressman in apology. “You’d have got much better odds in the morning.”

Withers eyed his assailant carefully, noting the unusually discomfited expression. “That’s one hell of a hurry, Tom. Tell me, are you flying or fleeing?”

“Does it make a difference?”

“Sure. When a Foreign Secretary is caught charging around like that it must be either a woman or a war. Which is it? You know you can confide in me. I’ll only tell about a million people.”

Makepeace finished straightening the carnation at the pressman’s lapel. Everything in its order. “Get the boys together for me, Dicky. Lobby Room in fifteen minutes. Then we can tell the whole bloody world. Can’t give you an exclusive, but you’ll get the first interview afterward.”

“Sounds like war.”

“It is.”

***

MAKEPEACE DECLARES WAR ON URQUHART

FOREIGN SECRETARY
“QUITS IN DISGUST”

By Richard Withers, Political Editor

•••

Foreign Secretary Thomas Makepeace left the Government yesterday amid bitter recriminations with Downing Street over the direction of Government policy. There was also controversy as to whether he had resigned or been sacked.

“I’ve walked out on him in disgust,” Makepeace told a hurriedly convened Westminster press conference.

Downing Street sources later went to considerable effort to deny this, stating that he had been “consistently out of step” with Government policy on Europe, and the Prime Minister had no choice but to dismiss him. One Government loyalist last night described Makepeace as “a Euro crank.”

It was a day of extraordinary excitement at Westminster. The sensational resignation/dismissal followed immediately upon scenes of uproar within the House of Commons after the Prime Minister Francis Urquhart had denounced great rafts of European orthodoxy.

Last night Makepeace announced the formation of a new pro-European group within the Government party called “the Concorde Club.” “It will be modern, progressive, and entirely up-to-date. It will be opposed to political Neanderthalism,” he said. Observers were left in no doubt that the political Neanderthal he had most in mind was Francis Urquhart.

It is unclear how much support the Concorde Club will gain but if the widely respected Makepeace is able to gain a substantial following, it will represent a most serious threat to the Prime Minister and his chances of continuing long in office.

One senior party source commented that it “was nothing less than a declaration of war.”

Fourteen

Beware the politician who talks about his political principles. He is usually picking your pocket.

She rapped at the door. “He’s on, Francis.”

From within the bathroom there was the sound of water being swirled and agitated as Urquhart eased himself back to the present. “Leave the door open, would you? And switch it up.”

She did as he asked, and also refilled his glass. They made such a balanced team, she mused, with their instincts so intertwined, facing the world and its foibles practically as one. She couldn’t remember the last time they had indulged a serious difference of opinion. Was it the redecoration of the apartment at Downing Street or the sacking of his first Chancellor? He’d played both in traditional fashion, while she had encouraged him to be more adventurous with both the decor and the ax. They’d compromised; she’d changed the furniture and he’d kept his Cabinet colleague (but only for another six months, she remembered. Francis had sacked him on her birthday—beneath it all he could be such a romantic).

He wasn’t often wrong—hadn’t been that morning when he’d offered a few predictions over breakfast. “It’ll be a busy weekend for Tom,” he had forecast. “Standard rules of engagement for poor losers. Friday they run to the arms of their constituents for a show of moral support. Saturday it’s a walk in the garden with the wife and waifs for a display of family values, then off on Sunday to the vicar to parade the conscience—a personal and intensely spiritual odyssey that somehow always seems to be accompanied by a makeup man and the mongols of the camera pack. Lord, how it must turn the stomach of picture editors, but somehow they seem to manage.”

“His wife’s buried away in America, isn’t she?”

“True. Maybe he has a girlfriend tucked away somewhere. You know, I think we should keep an eye on young Tom. Perhaps he has hidden depths.”

Now, as the early evening news announced that the once-and-maybe-future Cabinet Minister had been greeted enthusiastically by his Women’s Luncheon Committee meeting, a shout of derision and the noise of parting waters came from the bathroom. Urquhart emerged wrapped in a towel.

To the apparent excessive interest of the pursuing news crew, Makepeace was shown purchasing a bag of oranges in his local market.

“Nice touch. From high ministry to lowly market place—our man of the people,” Urquhart reflected.

“Bet he pays with a twenty-pound note. He won’t have the slightest idea how much they cost,” Mortima muttered less charitably.

“Mr. Makepeace, what are your plans now?” a breathless interviewer pressed as Makepeace produced his wallet.

“To go home and relax. It’ll be the first weekend in almost ten years I haven’t been surrounded by red boxes; I’m rather looking forward to it.”

“But you’ll miss being in office, surely? Do you want to return to Government at any time?”

“I’m only fifty. I hope there’ll be a chance to serve again sometime.”

“But not under Francis Urquhart. Yesterday you called his Government unprincipled. Do you think it’s time for the Prime Minister to step down? Or be pushed?”

Makepeace made no immediate response. He stood with his hand extended, waiting for his change. It came in a great handful of coins, which he did not bother to count.

“Mr. Makepeace, should the Prime Minister be forced to go?” the interviewer pressed.

He turned to face his interrogator and the nation, his brow darkened as though considering a dilemma of enormous consequence. Suddenly he broke into an impish grin.

“You might say that,” he offered. “But at this stage I wouldn’t care to comment…”

Urquhart reached for the remote control and silenced his tormentor. “I’ve handled this matter badly,” he reflected. “Should’ve handled him better. Never wanted him out. But…politicians of principle. They’re like a hole in the middle of the motorway.”

“This morning’s press was fine,” she added supportively.

“It was no better than a draw, Mortima. A Prime Minister should do better than merely a draw.”

He was being so ruthlessly honest with himself. But could he also be honest about himself, she wondered? Clad in nothing more than a bath towel he looked so vulnerable, and she began to ruminate yet again on his passing years, the glorious days of summer turned fading autumn, a time when even a great oak tree must lose its leaves and stand bare before the pitiless winds. He had given so much, they had both given so much, yet as the seasons of their lives changed they would have so little to look forward to. There was no joy in watching him grow old.

Approaching winter. A patchwork of creases and crevices. Thin emaciated finger-twigs, parchment skin of bark, when the sap begins to wane and the nights grow longer in a landscape covered with axmen.

“Why do you want to go on, Francis?”

For a moment he looked startled. “Because it’s the only thing I know. Why, do you want me to stop?”

“No, but it may cost you more than ever to continue, and I think you should know why you continue.”

“Because I honestly believe I am the best man for the job. The only man, perhaps. For the country—and for me—I must go on. I’m not ready to spend the rest of my days looking back. There are too many memories, those things we ought not to have done.”

“You won’t be able to go on forever, Francis.”

“I know. But soon I shall become the longest-serving Prime Minister in modern times. Francis Urquhart’s place in history will be secure. Not a bad thing for us to have achieved, Mortima. Something for us to share, I suppose, after all this has been put by.”

“To justify the sacrifices past.”

“As you say, to justify the sacrifices past. And those still to come.”

***

“Mummy, why didn’t Mr. Urquhart lock up Toad?”

Claire put down the book and gave her youngest daughter, Abby, a cheerful hug. “I don’t think Mr. Urquhart was around then, darling.”

“But he’s been around forever.”

It dawned on Claire that Francis Urquhart had been Prime Minister since before either Abby or Diana had been born. A long time. A lifetime.

“I think Mr. Urquhart is Toad,” the oldest child joined in from the other side of the sofa.

“Don’t you like Mr. Urquhart?” her mother inquired.

“No. He’s not very kind and never listens. Just like Toad. And he’s so
old
.”