In High Places (20 page)

Warrender's eyebrows went up. 'Aren't you being contradictory? In one breath you tell me to run my own department, then in the next to settle a case...'

Howden cut in angrily, 'I'm telling you to follow government policy - my policy: which is to avoid contentious immigration cases, particularly at this time, with an election next year and' - he hesitated - 'other things coming up. We went into all that the other night.' Then bitingly: 'Or perhaps you don't remember.'

'I wasn't all that drunk!' Now the anger was Harvey War-render's. 'I told you then what I thought of our so-called immigration policy, and it still goes. Either we get ourselves some new, honest immigration laws which admit what we're doing, and what every government before us...'

'Admit what?'

James Howden had risen and was standing behind the desk. Looking up at him Harvey Warrender said softly, intensely, 'Admit we have a policy of discrimination; and why not - it's our own country, isn't it? Admit we have a colour bar and race quotas, and we ban Negroes and Orientals, and that's the way it's always been, and why should we change it? Admit we want Anglo-Saxons and we need a pool of unemployed. Let's admit there's a strict quota for Italians and all the rest, and we keep an eye on the Roman Catholic percentage. Let's quit being fakers. Let's write an honest Immigration Act that spells things out the way they are. Let's quit having one face at the United Nations, hobnobbing with the coloureds, and another face at home...'

'Are you insane?' Incredulously, half-whispering, James Howden mouthed the question. His eyes were on Warrender. Of course, he thought, he had been given a clue: what had been said at the Government House reception ... but he had assumed the effect of liquor ... Then he remembered Margaret's words: I've sometimes thought that Harvey is just a little mad.

Harvey Warrender breathed heavily; his nostrils quivered. *No,' he answered, 'I'm not insane; just tired of damned hypocrisy.'

'Honesty is fine,' Howden said. His anger had dissipated now. 'But that kind is political suicide.'

'How do we know when nobody's tried it? How do we know people wouldn't like to be told what they already know?'

Quietly James Howden asked, 'What's your alternative?'

'You mean if we don't write a new Immigration Act?'

'Yes.'

'Then I'll enforce the one we have right down the line,' Harvey Warrender said firmly. 'I'll enforce it without exception or camouflage or back-door devices to keep unpleasant things out of the press. Maybe that'll show it up for what it is.'

'In that case,' James Howden said evenly, 'I'd like your resignation.'

The two men faced each other. 'Oh no,' Harvey Warrender said softly, 'oh no.'

There was a silence.

'I suggest you be explicit,' James Howden said. 'You've something on your mind?'

'I think you know.'

The Prime Minister's face was set, his eyes unyielding. ' "Explicit" was the word I used.'

'Very well, if that's what you wish.' Harvey Warrender had resumed his seat. Now, conversationally, as if discussing routine business, he said, 'We made an agreement.'

'That was a long time ago.'

'The agreement had no term to it.*

'Nevertheless it's been fulfilled.'

Harvey Warrender shook his head obstinately. 'The agreement had no term.' Fumbling in an inside pocket he pulled out a folded paper and tossed it on the Prime Minister's desk. 'Read for yourself and see.'

Reaching out, Howden felt his hand tremble. If this were the original, the only copy ... It was a photostat.

For a moment his control left him. 'You fool!'

'Why?' The other's face was bland.

'You had a photostat...'

'No one knew what was being copied. Besides I stood there all the time, beside the machine.'

'Photostats have negatives.'

'I have the negative,' Warrender said calmly. 'I kept it in case I ever need more copies. The original is safe too.' He gestured. 'Why don't you read it? That's what we were talking about.'

Howden lowered his head and the words came up at him. They were simple, to the point, and in his own handwriting.

1. H. Warrender withdraws from leadership, will support J. Howden.

2. H. Warrender's nephew (H.O'B) to have--TV franchise.

3. H. Warrender in Howden Cabinet - to choose own portfolio (except Ext Affairs or Health). J.H. not to dismiss H.W. except for indiscretion, scandal. In latter event H.W. takes full respon, not involving J.H.

Then there was the date - nine years ago - and the scribbled initials of them both.

Harvey Warrender said quietly, 'You see - just as I said, the agreement has no term.'

'Harvey,' the Prime Minister said slowly, 'is it any good appealing to you? We've been friends...' His mind reeled. One copy, in a single reporter's hands, would be an instrument of execution. There could be no explaining, no manoeuvre, no political survival, only exposure, disgrace ... His hands were sweating.

The other man shook his head. Howden was conscious of a wall ... unreasoning, impregnable. He tried again. 'There's been the pound of flesh, Harvey; that and more. What now?'

'I'll tell you!' Warrender leaned near the desk, his voice a fierce, intense whisper. 'Let me stay; let me do something worth while to balance out. Maybe if we rewrite our immigration law and do it honestly - spelling out things the way we really do them - maybe then people will stir their consciences and want to change. Maybe the way we do things should be changed; perhaps it's change that's needed in the end. But we can't begin without being honest first.'

Perplexed, Howden shook his head. 'You're not making sense. I don't understand.'

'Then let me try to explain. You talked of a pound of flesh. Do you think I care about that part? Do you think I wouldn't go back and unmake that agreement of ours if it could be done? I tell you there've been nights, and plenty of them, when I've lain awake until the daylight came, loathing myself and the day I made it.'

'Why, Harvey?' Perhaps if they could talk this out it might help ... anything might help...

'I sold out, didn't I?' Warrender spoke emotionally now. 'Sold out for a mess of pottage that wasn't worth the price. And I've wished a thousand times since that we could be in that convention hall again and I'd take my chances against you - the way they were.'

Howden said gently, 'I think I'd still have won, Harvey.' Momentarily he felt a deep compassion. Our sins revisit us, he thought - in one form or another, according to ourselves.

'I'm not so sure,' Warrender said slowly. His eyes came up. 'I've never been quite sure, Jim, that I couldn't have been here at this desk instead of you.'

So that was it, Howden thought: much as he had imagined, with an extra ingredient added. Conscience plus dreams of glory thwarted. It made a formidable combination. Warily he asked, 'Aren't you being inconsistent? In one breath you say you loathe the agreement we made, and yet you insist on hewing to its terms.'

'It's the good part that I want to salvage, and if I let you send me out I'm finished. That's why I'm holding on.' Harvey Warrender took out a handkerchief and wiped his head, which was perspiring freely. There was a pause, then he said more softly, 'Sometimes I think it might be better if we were exposed. We're both frauds - you and me. Perhaps that's a way of setting the record straight.'

This was dangerous. 'No,' Howden said quickly, 'there are better methods, believe me.' One thing he was sure of now:

Harvey Warrender was mentally unstable. He must be led;

coaxed, if necessary, like a child.

'Very well,' James Howden said, 'we'll forget the talk of resignation.'

'And the Immigration Act?'

'The act remains the way it is,' Howden said firmly. There was a limit to compromise, even here. 'What's more, I want something done about that situation in Vancouver.'

'I'll act by the law,' Warrender said. 'I'll look at it again; I promise you that. But by the law - exactly.'

Howden sighed. It would have to do. He nodded, signifying the interview was at an end.

When Warrender had gone he sat silently, weighing this new untimely problem thrust upon him. It would be a mistake, he decided, to minimize the threat to his own security. War-render's temperament had always been mercurial; now the instability was magnified.

Briefly he wondered how he could have done the thing he had ... committed himself recklessly to paper when legal training and experience should have warned him of the danger. But ambition did strange things to a man, made him take risks, supreme risks sometimes, and others had done it too. Viewed across the years it seemed wild and unreasoning. And yet, at the time, with ambition driving, lacking a foreknowledge of things to come...

The safest thing, he supposed, was to leave Harvey War-render alone, at least for the time being. The wild talk of rewriting legislation posed no immediate problem. In any case it was not likely to find favour with Harvey's own deputy minister, and senior civil servants had a way of delaying measures they disagreed with. Nor could legislation be brought in without cabinet consent, though a direct clash between Harvey Warrender and others in Cabinet must be avoided.

So what it really came down to was doing nothing and hoping for the best - the old political panacea. Brian Richardson would not be pleased, of course; obviously the party director had expected swift, firm action, but it would be impossible to explain to Richardson why nothing could be done. In the same way, the Vancouver situation would have to simmer, with Howden himself obliged to back up Harvey Warrender in whatever ruling the Immigration Department made. Well, that part was unfortunate, but at least it was a small issue entailing the kind of minor-key criticism which the Government had ridden before, and no doubt they could survive it again.

The essential thing to remember, James Howden thought, was that preservation of his own leadership came first. So much depended on it, so much of the present and the future. He owed it to others to retain power. There was no one else at this moment who could replace him adequately.

Milly Freedeman came in softly. 'Lunch?' she queried in her low contralto voice. 'Would you like it here?'

'No,' he answered. 'I feel like a change of scene.'

Ten minutes later, in a well-cut black overcoat and Eden homburg, the Prime Minister strode briskly from the East Block towards the Peace Tower doorway and the Parliamentary Restaurant. It was a clear, cold day, the crisp air invigorating, with roadways and sidewalks - snow heaped at their edges - drying in the sun. He had a sense of well-being, and acknowledged cordially the respectful greetings of those he passed and the snapped salutes of RCMO guards. Already the Warrender incident had receded in his mind; there were so many other things of greater import.

Milly Freedeman, as she did on most days, had coffee and a sandwich sent in. Afterwards she went into the Prime Minister's office taking a sheaf of memoranda from which she had pruned non-urgent matters that could wait. She left the papers in an 'in' tray on the desk. Its surface was untidily paper-strewn but Milly made no attempt to clear it, aware that in the middle of the day James Howden preferred to find things as he had left them. A plain, single sheet of paper, however, caught her eye. Turning it over curiously she saw it was a photostat.

It took two readings for the full meaning to sink in. When it had, Milly found herself trembling at the awful significance of the paper she held. It explained many things which over the years she had never understood: the convention ... the Howden victory ... her own loss.

The paper could also, she knew, spell the end of two political careers.

Why was it here? Obviously it had been discussed ... today ... in the meeting between the Prime Minister and Harvey Warrender. But why? What could either gain? And where was the original? ... Her thoughts were racing. The questions frightened her. She wished she had left the paper unturned; that she had never known. And yet...

Suddenly, she experienced a fierce surge of anger against James Howden. How could he have done it? When there had been so much between them; when they could have shared happiness, a future together, if only he had lost the leadership ... lost at the convention. She asked herself emotionally: Why didn't he play it fair? ... at least leave her a chance to win? But she knew there had never been a chance...

Then, almost as suddenly as before, the anger was gone and sorrow and compassion took its place. What Howden had done, Milly knew, had been done because he had to. The need for power, for vanquished rivals, for political success ... these had been all-consuming. Beside them, a personal life ... even love ... had counted for nothing. It had always been true: there had never been a chance...

But there were practical things to think of.

Milly stopped, willing herself to think calmly. Plainly there was a threat to the Prime Minister and perhaps to others. But James Howden was all that mattered to herself ... there was a sense of the past returning. And only this morning, she remembered she had resolved to protect and shield him. But how could she ... using this knowledge ... knowledge she was certain that no one else possessed, probably not even Margaret Howden. Yes, in this she had at last become closer to James Howden even than his wife.

There was no immediate thing to do. But perhaps an opportunity might come. Sometimes blackmail could be turned against blackmail. The thought was vague, ephemeral... like groping in the dark. But if it happened ... if an opportunity came ... she must be able to substantiate what she knew.

Milly glanced at her watch. She knew Howden's habits well. It would be another half hour before he returned. No one else was in the outer office.

Acting on impulse she took the photostat to the copying machine outside. Working quickly, her heart beating at a footfall which approached, then passed, she put the photostat through. The copy which came out - a reproduction of a reproduction - was of poor quality and blurred, but clear enough to read, and the handwriting unmistakable. Hastily she folded the extra copy and crammed it to the bottom of her bag. She returned the photostat, face down, as she had found it.