House of Cards (2 page)

He had never felt at home in his constituency, but then he never felt at home anywhere any more, not even in his native Scotland. As a child he had loved to wander through the bracing, crystal air of the Perthshire moors, accompanying the old gillie on a shoot, lying for hours in the damp peat and sweetly scented bracken waiting for the right buck to appear, just as he had imagined his older brother was waiting even at that same moment for German tanks in the hedgerows outside Dunkirk. But the Scottish moors and ancestral estates had never completely satisfied him and, as his appetite for politics and power grew, so he had come steadily to resent the enforced family responsibilities which had been thrust at him when his brother failed to return.

So amidst much family bitterness he had sold the estates, which could no longer provide him with an adequate lifestyle and would never provide him with a secure majority, and at the age of thirty-nine had exchanged them for the safer political fields of Westminster and Surrey. His aged father, who had expected no more of his only surviving son than that he devote himself to the family duties as he and his own father had done, had never spoken to him again. To have sold his heritage for the whole of Scotland would have been unforgivable, but for Surrey?

Urquhart had never disciplined himself to enjoy the small talk of constituency circles, and his mood had begun to sour as the day drew on. This was the eighteenth committee room he had visited today, and the early morning smile had long since been transfixed into a rigid grimace. It was now only forty m
inutes before the close of the
polling booms, and his shirt was wringing wet under the Savile Row suit. He knew he should have worn one of his older suits: no amount of pressing would get it back into shape again. He was tired, uncomfortable and losing patience.

He spent little time in his constituency nowadays, and the less time he spent the less congenial his demanding constituents seemed. The journey to the leafy suburbs, which had seemed so short and attractive when he had gone for his first adoption meeting, seemed to grow longer as he climbed the political ladder from backbencher through Junior Ministerial jobs and now attending Cabinet as Chief Whip, one of the two dozen most powerful posts in the Government, with its splendid offices at 12 Downing Street just yards from the Prime Minister's own.

Yet his power did not come directly from his public office. The role of Chief Whip does not carry with it full Cabinet rank. Urquhart had no great Department of State or massive civil service machine to command; his was a faceless task, toiling ceaselessly behind the scenes, making no public speeches and giving no television interviews. Less than 1 per cent of the Gallup Poll gave him instant name recognition.

His was a task which had to be pursued out of the limelight for, as Chief Whip, he was responsible for discipline within the Parliamentary Party, for delivering a full turnout on every vote. Which meant he was not only the Minister with the most acute political antennae, knowing all the secrets of Government before almost any of his colleagues, but in order to deliver the vote day after day, night after night, he also needed to know where every one of his Members of Parliament
was likely to be found, with
whom they were conspiring, with whom they might be sleeping, whether they would be sober enough to vote or had any personal crisis which could disrupt their work and the smooth management of parliamentary business.

And in Westminster, such information is power. More, than one of his senior colleagues and many more junior members of the Parliamentary Party owed their continuing position to the ability of the Whips Office to sort out and occasionally cover up their personal problems. And many disaffected backbenchers had found themselves suddenly supporting the Government when reminded of some earlier indiscretion which had been forgiven by the Party and Whips Office, but never forgotten. Scarcely any scandal in Government strikes without the Whips Office knowing about it first, and because they know about it first, many scandals simply never strike-unless the Chief Whip and his ten Junior Whips wish it to.

Urquhart was brought up sharply by one of his ladies whose coyness and discretion had been overcome by the heat and excitement of the day.

'Will you still stand at the next election, Mr Urquhart?' she enquired brashly.

'What do you mean?' he spluttered, taken aback.

'Are you
thinking
of retiring? You are sixty-one years old now, aren't you? Sixty-five or more at the next election,' she persisted.

He bent his tall and angular figure low in order to look her directly in the face. 'Mrs Bailey, I still have my wits about me and in many societies I would just
be entering my political prime’ he responded defensively. ‘I
still
have a lot of work to do and th
ings I want to achieve.'

But deep down he knew she was right. Instead of the strong red hues of his youth, he was now left with but a dirty smear of colour in his thinning hair, which he wore over-long and straggly as if to compensate. His spare frame no longer filled the traditionally cut suits as amply as in earlier years, and his blue eyes had grown colder with the passage of time. While his height and upright bearing presented a distinguished image in the crowded room, those closest to him got no warmth from his carefully rationed smile, which revealed only uneven teeth badly stained by nicotine from his forty-a-day habit. He was not ageing with the elegance or the authority for which he would have wished.

Time-was not on his side. Like most of his colleagues he had first entered Parliament harbouring unspoken ambitions to make it all the way to the top, yet during his career he had watched as younger and less gifted men had found more rapid advancement. The bitter experience had tempered his ambition while not being able to extinguish it completely. If not Downing Street, then at least a major
Department of State would allow him to become an acknowledged national leader, repaying his father's scorn with greater prominence than the old man could ever have dreamed of. He still had time to make his mark. He believed in his destiny, but it seemed to be taking an unholy long time to arrive.

Yet now was surely the time. One of the most important responsibilities of a Chief Whip is to advise the Prime Minister on any Ministerial reshuffle - which Ministers should be preferred, which bac
kbenchers deserved elevation,
which colleagues were dispensable and should make way. Not all the suggestions were accepted, of course, but the majority usually were. He had given the post-election reshuffle a lot of thought, and he had in his pocket a hand-written note to the Prime Minister covering all his recommendations. They would not only mean a stronger and more effective Government, and God knew they needed that after the last couple of years, but also one in which his close colleagues and allies would be in the strongest positions of influence. And he, of course, would have that prominent position which he had so long deserved. Yes, at last his time had come.

He tapped his pocket to reassure himself that the envelope was still there, just as Mrs Bailey switched her attention to the proposed one-way system for the High Street shopping centre. He raised his eyes in supplication and managed to catch the attention of his wife who was busily engaged in conversation on the far side of the room. One glance told her that his rescue was long overdue, and she hurried to his side.

'Ladies, you will have to excuse us, but we have to go back to the hotel and change before the count. I can't thank you enough for all your help, you know how indispensable you are to Francis.'

Urquhart made quickly for the door, but as he tried to complete his escape he was waved to a halt by his election agent, who was busily scribbling down notes while talking into the telephone.

'Just getting the
final canvass returns together’
she explained.

That c
ould have been done an hour ago’
snapped Urquhart.

The agent blushed. Not for the first time she resented Urquhart's sharp tongue and lack of gratitude, and promised herself that this would be her last election for him. She would swap this safe seat for a marginal seat as soon as she could. The pay would be even poorer and the hours longer, but at least she would be appreciated and not treated as another piece of constituency furniture. Or may be she would give up politics altogether and go and get a proper job.

It doesn't look
quite as cheerful as last time’
she said. 'Turnout is poor, and a lot of our supporters seem to be simply staying at home. It's very difficult to read, but I suspect the majority will be down. I can't tell how much.'

Damn them. They deserve a dose of the Opposition for a few years. Maybe that would get them off their complacent rumps.'

'Darling,' his wife soothed as she had done on countless previous occasions, 'that's scarcely generous. With a majority of 22,000 you could allow for just a little dip.'

'Miranda, I'm not feeling generous. I'm feeling hot, tired and I've had as much chatter about doorstep opinion as I can take. For God's sake get me out of here.'

As she turned round to wave thanks and farewell to the packed room, she was just in time to see the standard lamp go crashing to the floor.

The air of controlled chaos which usually filled the editor's office had gone, to be replaced by a sense of panic which was getting out of hand. The first edition had long since gone to press, complete .with a bold front page headline proclaiming: 'Home and dry!
’

But that had been at 6p.m., four hours before the polls closed. The editor of the
Daily Telegraph,
like all other editors, had taken his chance on the election result in order to make his first edition of even marginal interest by the time it hit the streets. If he was right, he would be first with the news. If he got it wrong, he would be covered in it and wo
uld not be allowed to forget.
This was Greville Preston's first election as an editor. He was not feeling comfortable as he constantly changed the front page and demanded rewrites and updates from his political staff. He had been brought in just a few months earlier by the new owner of Telegraph Newspapers, and he had been given only one instruction: 'Succeed'. Failure was not an option if he wished to continue as editor, and he knew he would not be given a second chance - any more than would his staff. The demands of the accountants for instant financial gratification had required ruthless pruning, and a large number of senior staff had found themselves being 'rationalised' - as the accountants put it - and replaced by less experienced but equally less expensive substitutes. It was great for the bottom line but quite dreadful for morale. The purge left the remaining staff insecure, the loyal readers confused and Preston with a perpetual sense of impending doom, a condition which his proprietor was determined to do nothing to dispel.

Preston's efforts at increasing the circulation by taking the paper down-market had yet to show the promised results, and the smooth and dapper appearance which he effected was spoilt by the beads of perspiration and concern which constantly appeared on his brow and made his heavy rimmed glasses slip down his nose. The carefully manufactured attempt at outward authority had never fully hidden the. insecurity within.

He turned away from the bank of television monitors which had been piled up against one wall of his office to face the member of staff who had been giving him such a hard time.

'How the hell do you know it's going wrong?' he shouted. Mattie Storin did not flinch. At twenty-eight she was the youngest recruit to the paper's political staff, having only recently replaced one of the senior correspondents who had fallen foul of the accountants for his habit of conducting interviews over extended lunches at the Savoy. Yet Mattie had a confidence about her judgement which belied the nine hectic months she had spent in the job. Anyway, she was as tall as Preston, 'and almost as beautiful' as she often quipped at his expense. She did not care for this new style of editor whose job was not so much to produce a prime quality newspaper but foremost to return a good profit. Preston came from the 'management school' of editing, where they teach readership audits and costs per thousand rather than what makes a good story and when to ignore the lawyers' advice; and it stuck in Mattie's gullet. Preston knew it, and resented Mattie and her obvious if raw and unfashioned talent, but he knew in many ways that he needed her more than she needed him. Even in the management school of journalism, a newspaper still requires a sharp journalistic nose to reach its circulation target, as Preston was slowly beginning to discover.

She turned to face him with her hands thrust defensively into the pockets of her fashionably baggy trousers, which in spite of the flowing lines somehow still managed to emphasise her willowy elegance. Mattie Storin very much wanted to succeed as a journalist and to develop the skills which she knew she possessed. But she was also a woman, a very attractive one, and was determined not to sacrifice her identity simply to conform to the typecasting expected of young women working their way up in journalism. She saw no reason why she should attempt either to grow a beard in order to have her talent recognised, or to play the simpering lovely lady to satisfy the chauvinistic demands of her male colleagues, particularly so inadequate an example as Preston.

She began slowly, hoping he would get the full flavour of her logic. 'Every single Government MP I've been able to talk to in the last two hours is downgrading his forecast, and every Opposition spokesman I have talked to is smiling. I've telephoned the returning officer in the Prime Minister's constituency, who says the poll looks as if it's going to be down by 5 per cent. That's scarcely an overwhelming vote of confidence. Something is going on out there. You can feel it. The Government are not yet home and are certainly not d
ry, and our story is too strong.’