The Knives (18 page)

‘That a nation’s population grows, and diversifies – these are perfectly fine things, but they oughtn’t to be the goal of policy, because they create social problems – segregations, tensions – that need careful management. So we need to control immigration, sensibly. And, on that score, the buck stops with me.’

Taking the applause, content that things were going well, Blaylock hastened to the ‘Personal’ passage.

‘I chose this party. I wasn’t born to it – I wasn’t born to anything much. But I was raised well – I got that much of a start in life. My dad told me to do the best I could, for my own good but for the people around me, too. Try to set an example, pass it on, observe the golden rule. Play for the team, but call your own mistakes your own, be responsible for all your actions, whether they lead to triumph or its close cousin, disaster. In time I wore the Queen’s uniform and wore it proudly, and in the army I learned
everything about teamwork that I’d ever need to know.

‘I went to a “good enough” comprehensive school. I got through. There wasn’t much expectation for me or my classmates. But as a young person I wanted the chance to be the person I felt I could be. I wanted respect, though I knew I’d have to earn it. I figured out that I would have to think for myself, that it was beholden upon me – even if that meant arriving at difficult choices.

‘So when the time came to exercise my right to vote I studied the facts, made my choice – and it wasn’t massively popular round my way.

‘We’re not widely liked in the north. Mind you, it’s not so much our policies that are unpopular. Who doesn’t want better transport, livelier town centres, safer streets, proper sentences for serious crimes? No, it’s what we seem to embody. Northern people think we’re not like them. Why?

‘Where I’m from, as I grew up, under a Tory government – jobs were lost, and they haven’t come back. Our economy was changing, the things we did for our living, how we paid our way in the world – we had to move with the times. But, my view is, we didn’t handle that process of change as well as we should have, we didn’t take the needful cares to carry everybody with us. A lot of people looked and decided that we thought unemployment was a price worth paying for an economic uplift. And you can’t play politics with people’s livelihoods. If we got it wrong before, we have to show we understand now.

‘My political obsession is unemployment. It spirals through families, it breeds hopelessness, it drags us all down. Whereas a job, being part of the world of work and all that comes with it? It gives you respect for yourself and for other people. Yes, let’s be honest, work can be dull and dreary, too. But the greater part of it enables our sense of worth in society like nothing else – it’s a hugely vital thing to a person. And this government is committed to this principle.

‘This party is the home of people who want to get on in life by their own initiative, their own labour – people who want to shape their lives by their own choices as far as they’re able. Because the exercise of those muscles by everyone makes society stronger. And we really don’t need the state to tell us how to do that. We know, as a consequence of decisions we’ve been making all our lives. We know what’s right for ourselves, for our families, our neighbourhoods.

‘This party is the home for everyone who feels that way. We need to get that message through. There’s no bar on income level. Not the pigment of your skin, or your God if God you have, or your sex, or who you’re in love with. This party doesn’t work if it operates a caste system. This party doesn’t work if we all look alike. Because that’s not Britain today. If people don’t come to us, or if they do and if we don’t make them welcome, we have failed.

‘As Conservatives we know what is in our country’s best interests: a fair Britain that generates real opportunities to get on for everyone who’s ready and willing to seize them. Everyone has it in them to be their best. They need to believe it. But they can be sure we believe in them. This is the party that works.’

He was done – and the air seemed to thrum with an approving clamour. There was a rote element to it, Blaylock knew all too well. Still, the standing ovation thundered usefully on.

At his side for the stride back across the walkway Mark Tallis thrust his iPhone under Blaylock’s nose. ‘Twitter’s on fire. Look.’

But Blaylock’s eye had been caught by something he wanted to scroll to, and he seized the phone to do so. It was something much less laudatory, from a broadsheet commentator.

He repaired to his hotel room, slumped into the sofa, accepted a mug of Lemsip and let his spads talk at him – about fringe events, lobbyists seeking audiences for their clients, ‘security industry engagement’. Did he want to see for himself the new cutting edge of radiation screening and millimetre-wave cameras? Did he want to meet ‘the new breed of detector dog’? Not this afternoon.

Tallis looked disappointed. ‘Well, for what it’s worth, Claymore Security have a suite at the Arsenal–Chelsea game next Tuesday, they slipped me a pair of tickets. I wondered about you and your boy …?’

‘It’s a thought. Cheers, Mark.’ Blaylock tucked the tickets into his top pocket. His phone pulsed – Geraldine. She had James Bannerman on the line.

‘David, I’m in receipt of a letter from Messrs Gary Wardell and Duncan Scarth, who claim to be the chief operating officers of the Free Briton Brigade? In light of the ban on their marching through the East End they have requested a small “static” demonstration, which I am inclined to grant as a gesture to their freedom of expression. We will offer them a suitably cramped location and a narrow window of time, so as to minimise disorder.’

Blaylock rubbed his forehead, trying to recall where he had heard the name of Duncan Scarth. ‘It’s your call, Chief. Good luck.’

Deborah Kerner had entered, with a stranger in tow: a shortish but
sportif
fellow in a blue suit and broad-striped tie, with a strong jaw and a rather knowing dimpled smile.

‘David, this is Gavin Blount? Gavin did security stuff for the Cabinet Office in the last government, now he’s Political Director in Belfast. Ex-Grenadier Guard, don’t you know.’

Blount’s grip was firm, his gaze level, his accent faintly West Yorkshire. ‘I admired your speech.’

‘Gavin wrote this great paper on system inefficiencies, and … I just thought, hey, you guys ought to meet properly. Coffee, Gavin?’

‘Thank you, black, one sugar.’

‘Same for me,’ said Blaylock, taken aback by Deborah’s uncommon readiness to play maid, peering at the cover of the paper she had passed him:
Driving Change: Leadership & Command Structure in the Civil Service.

Blaylock grunted. ‘“Command”. That’s a dirty word in Whitehall.’

‘I know.’ Blount showed his dimples. ‘Those military connotations. I don’t say the team should be running round in fatigues. But, too many clever types pushing paper around has … limitations. Too many people in Whitehall obsess over “structure” but run a mile from “command”, because it’s not how the wiring looks in the diagram …’

They talked politics a while, and the cold Blaylock had felt coming on all morning began to rasp in his throat, yet he found Blount’s company so agreeable he nearly called for a tumbler of whisky. In no time he was being chivvied by Ben about the fringe meeting he was due to attend.

‘No, I need a lie down. Cancel for me, yeah? Just give them the full contrite bollocks.’ He shook hands with Blount. ‘I trust we’ll meet again.’ The younger man turned smartly, as if with a click of his heels, and Deborah showed him to the door.

Tallis lingered. ‘Can we talk about the parties this evening?’

‘Nope. Let’s see what’s the best offer come 6 p.m.’

‘You like Gavin?’ asked Deborah, returning.

‘Sound man.’

‘Yeah, imagine him in your team meetings in place of old Cox.’

Blaylock threw her a look as if to say he understood very well that she had been match-making. Tired and achy, he went to his darkened
room, lay back on the cool quilted throw-over and checked his phone messages. Jason Malahide had invited him to dinner
à deux
, an impertinence at which he was nearly too jaded to scoff.

He gave in to the temptation to check the BBC News reports on his speech and quickly wished he had not. Someone from the Institute of Directors was quoted as saying that ‘after Jason Malahide’s big energetic vision of a Britain open for business, it was depressing to hear David Blaylock’s little Englandism’. Martin Pallister had gone for the high hand. ‘The Home Secretary’s empty posturing over an issue where he’s already failed barely merits comment. I will just sit here and wait for his words to come back and bite him.’

Tugging absently at the match tickets in his top pocket he thought for a moment, then called Jennie, and knew instantly from her voice that nothing he might say would please her.

‘Does Alex fancy coming with me to Arsenal next Tuesday?’

‘
He has plans, I believe. Have you done anything about the week of the tenth?’
He realised he was caught in negligence once again.
‘Remember, the school’s doing “Take Your Kids to Work”? I’m bringing Cora to chambers, have you thought about something doable with Alex?’

‘Fine. Yes. I have. I will.’

‘Okay. You don’t sound so cheery.’

‘I’m a bit done in, I had my speech this morning.’

‘Yeah, I heard.’

‘What did you think?’

A heavy exhalation down the line.
‘I realise it’s the Tory way to say “This is how it worked for me so all you lot need to do likewise.” But, y’know, David … what are your lot actually planning to do to bring a load of jobs back to the north? And, sorry, General bloody Patton? I know how you felt about the army, how painful it was for you, so it does pain me a bit to hear you trying to package it up and sell it.’

‘Okay, forget I asked, goodbye Jennie.’ Riled, deflated, he fumbled for the Actifed bottle, took a swig and hauled a pillow over his head.

Presently the phone vibrated anew. He didn’t expect a contrite Jennie, and was not disappointed. It was his friend Jim Orchard, Lord Orchard of Sherwood.

‘I’ll go to the foot of our stairs. I was expecting the machine.’

‘Always at your service, Jim.’

A guffaw came down the line, a jolly collegiate
hur-hur. ‘Well done on your speech. Very purposeful. “Always do your best, lads and lasses, just like my old dad told me to.” Hur-hur. Yes, I liked all that.’

‘I hoped you would.’

‘Might I possibly have your company this evening? Appreciating you’ll have more attractive offers on your dance card.’

‘It’s a lovely thought but I’m under the weather.’

‘Poor you. Can you not be tempted by a rogan josh and a pint or two of fizzy piss at the Raj Doot?’

Now it was Blaylock’s turn to guffaw.

‘Yes, I sense you are easily swayed …’

‘You’re looking well, Jim.’

‘I don’t believe you. Bloody politician.’

Closing in on seventy, Jim Orchard still took his pleasures as he found them. Tall enough, he carried a gut not quite cloaked by his generously cut lightweight suit. A railway worker’s son and grammar school boy who went into the construction game after a Cambridge scholarship, he had directed millions toward party coffers and enjoyed the ear of every Tory leader since Blaylock was in short trousers.

‘Well, believe this, I’m glad to see you. I had offers. Jason Malahide also proposed dinner tonight.’

‘Whereabouts? In the library with the lead piping?’

‘Yeah. I know an ambush when I see it.’

‘It’s a shame, how the two of you dance round each other. Much better if you could just demand satisfaction from him, like Castlereagh did with George Canning. Invite him civilly to pistols at dawn on Putney Heath, hur-hur …’

Blaylock smiled, and waited for the waiter to take away their plates. ‘If I was counting my enemies I’d neither stop nor start with Malahide. There’s Belinda Ryder, the civil liberties champ—’

‘Oh, that’s how it is when you’re a possible leader. It breeds resentment. Your successes bring more grief than your cock-ups. They’re counted more heavily against you, right?’

Blaylock didn’t rise to what Orchard implied.

‘But, yes, that civil liberties crowd. It’s strange to me, David, once upon a time we had a very, very clear view on the defence of the realm. We were bloody well for it, and the state had to ensure it. Now we have all these strange fish, complaining how tough we make it for people we suspect of evil intent. Defending freedoms their granddads may or may not have died for … It’s relatively new. Let’s face it,
Winston
was a fairly avid phone-tapper long before anyone thought to make it a statutory process.’ Orchard had begun to tap impatiently at the table-top.

‘I know. Don’t get yourself too vexed.’

‘Oh, it’s just I fancy a smoke. My point is, don’t you fuss yourself unduly about Belinda bloody Ryder. Or that lightweight Malahide.’

‘Darlings of conference can go a long way. All the way.’

‘Well, quite, that is partly why I still seek your company.’

‘I’d never expect you to make a lousy bet like that.’

‘It is perfectly sound. Of course, the man has to want the top job.’

‘I’m not in the running. I have my job to do.’

‘Ah, Trollope! “No motive more selfish than to be counted in the roll of the public servants of England” … C’mon, David, who
do you think you’re talking to? Let me run the book on your actual “rivals”, if I may be so crass. Caroline Tennant? Needs to get some kids, I’d say. Before that, a husband. Also, a sense of humour.’

‘I don’t think the public reckon a divorcee is the greatest role model.’

‘Wasn’t a problem for Eden. Though it might depend on who’s the second Mrs Blaylock … Where did we get to? Malahide, yes. Pleases conference and speaks to Essex and all that, but we have those votes priced in already. North of Watford he’s pretty obnoxious. Which is where you come in, riding astride today’s stirring peroration.’