The Storytellers (4 page)

“Bourgeois trinkets,” muttered Jack Pugh. But luckily for him, his aside was drowned out by a rising chatter inside the room as people compared notes about their overstretched finances.

Derek Robinson rose to his feet, anxious to reassert his authority.

“Friends!” he called out and the room gradually fell silent. “Of course this is hard – for all of us, and for you with young families most of all. But it is them or us. They would pay us nothing if they thought they could get away with it. Only by fighting them every step of the way will we preserve our standard of living.”

“Only by fighting them every step of the way will we smash this unjust system,” interjected their guest.

“Quite,” asserted the chairman. “Now I think we should call a vote. The motion is that we stop work on Monday” – Monday being a popular day as it extended the weekend – “until management reinstates minimum overtime. Those for?”

Peter Farris cast his eye around the room and noted the sea of raised hands.

“Now those against?”

He could see none. Whatever the merits of a motion, his members were still holding firm. But he wondered how long this would last. The practical concerns of the young machinist seemed more real than the theoretical exposition advanced by the delegate from Cowley.

“Motion carried!” he thundered. “This meeting is now closed.”

* * *

Men tumbled into the night. A few stayed behind to drink, in no hurry to re-enter desolate homes from which wives had long since left or had never arrived. Harry Blodget was one and attempted to collar Jack Pugh. But Jack, known behind his back as the Cowley Trot, was too wily an operator to get sucked into a late-night discussion that went nowhere and achieved nothing. He had a world to destroy and a world to build. Besides, there was a young undergraduate, Miranda, at Brasenose College, who found Marxist-Leninist theory profoundly erotic, waiting for him. He understood the need for flattery nonetheless.

Before excusing himself – ‘Meetings to go to; the word to spread.' – he assured Harry that he was one of the best, a praetorian of the revolution.

“A great man, that,” the Longbridge fitter repeated intermittently as he got stuck in for what he hoped would be a journey into oblivion that shut out his empty life.

Stanley was pleased to be going home. It was too cold a night for carousing. He hadn't noticed his son John slipping out of the institute ahead of him; there had been such a crowd. Mabel would be waiting to brew up a hot mug of cocoa for them both. They would talk awhile before retiring. The heartfelt plea from the young machinist was sticking to him though. Perhaps the world he knew was coming to an end. Things were a right jumble, for sure. All the talk about breaking everything down so it could be built up again, well that might have come out of the Communist Party textbook, but it seemed a crippling waste. Why not just change things for the better? He shook his head, which hurt from the cold or the thinking, he wasn't sure which. He'd leave the question to cleverer men.

Harvey also slipped out of the institute, surprised at how easily he'd gained entry. Back home he typed up his first report and faxed it into the office.

C
HAPTER

T
HE NEXT MORNING he woke late and found a copy of The Sentinel on the kitchen table. The headline blazoned across its front page was
Red Robbo to Smash Society!
Underneath, his article had survived more or less intact save for some subtle changes and a harder edge. The delegate from Cowley hardly got a mention, which he was sure would infuriate the young man immensely. George Gilder had been working late.

Sylvia came in with his cup of coffee, beaming. He had told her where he was going the day before and she had recognized his handiwork straight off, although she was inclined to think that every good page in
The Sentinel
had been written by her son.

“That's more like it, Harve,” she said, tapping the headline with her finger. “People don't like to be smashed up.” He didn't have the heart to tell her the headline wasn't his.

* * *

On Sunday, it snowed off and on all day, but by teatime had more or less stopped. Harvey sat huddled on a bench in Aske Gardens, in
front of their home, a plastic bag placed beneath himself and Sylvia to protect them from the fallen snow she had insisted on coming outside to see.

‘Crumpets when we go back in, Harve,' she'd offered up with relish. ‘A proper weekend treat!' – which she was now leaving him in order to prepare.

Local children were making the most of it. A snowball flew past his head, followed by a ‘sorry mister!' barely meant. The gardens were small, yet treasured, the gift of a seventeenth century merchant.

He'd read about the Askes, a Yorkshire family of high ideals. Robert worked for the East India Company, trading in raw silk, and had left a fortune of some £50 million in modern money to the Haberdashers, his trade guild or livery company. An almshouse for the poor was built and a school, all according to his instructions, and while the school still thrived, the gardens were all that remained of the almshouse. Care of the elderly and destitute was now the preserve of the state, not private charity, an advance even his mother endorsed, except when she was fretting about bureaucrats playing Lords Bountiful and feathering their own nests at her expense.

Harvey's visit to Longbridge had stirred unexpected emotions. That his work had been given such prominence, even if the headline was not his, pleased him greatly. When not in Buttesland Street, his home was
The Sentinel
. That was where his loyalty lay; to it and to its political attitude as George Gilder defined it. But the people he had been amongst did not strike him as evil, with the possible exception of the delegate from Cowley whose obvious intelligence he thought was being played like an instrument for his own gratification. Even the shop steward seemed more a prisoner of events than their conductor. What he had witnessed were men in the eye of a storm, seeking comfort in each other's company and clinging to the only secure structure they knew.

Robert Aske's forebear – another Aske named Robert – had
faced a similar dilemma. As a devout Catholic, he had been strongly opposed to the reforms of Henry VIII. Although a lawyer in London, he travelled north to join the many from Yorkshire, Northumberland, Durham, Cumberland and Westmorland in their protest against Henry's pillaging of the monastic orders. He secured safe passage from the king's representative to remonstrate with the monarch directly, but following their meeting, the revolt flared again and he was arrested. Rather than execute him at Tyburn, as befell other leaders of the protest, Henry had him hung in York, bound by chains to preserve his rotting body as a public example to his kinsmen.

Harvey's interest in history was one of uninvolved curiosity and mirrored his work. As a journalist, he reported. That was his job. He knew he was more concerned about his employer's approval than with what he reported on. Only opera engaged his emotions, but that was within the safety of a story that could be picked up and put down, like a book. While he sat looking at the snow and the children playing in it, part of the scenery and observer both, Robert Frost's poem, ‘The Road Not Taken,' came to mind, about the often illusory choices people face.

When the world breaks apart, must you not attach yourself to one part or the other, and short of limbo, will you not choose that closest to your familiarity, which makes it not a choice at all? Frost's traveller has the luxury of two paths to take, innocent of outcome. Only in hindsight can such a choice carry any resonance, save that being one traveller you cannot travel both. Harvey knew he was born working class. But there had been schools and universities to go to, free of charge. He had possessed some aptitude and a mother with ambition on his behalf. So had he chosen the path he was on? He hardly thought so. Brought up differently might he not have been Ray Gosling, the machinist worried how to pay his young family's bills?

Robert Aske the elder had been forced to choose between his brand of religion, with its emblematic structures, and a new, more
secular order, dominated by a king determined to utilize Church power and wealth for his own advantage. Some choice! And yet Aske the merchant, in whose winter-gripped garden Harvey now sat, had been a Protestant beneficiary of the kingdom Henry Tudor founded. From nowhere, the image of Frances Graham drifted into his head. Her laugh, like Bow Bells peeling across a meadow urging Dick Whittington on towards London where a great fortune lay waiting to be claimed, stirred in his memory. Sod it, he thought. He was his mother's son. If that was a choice, he'd made it.

C
HAPTER

T
HE CANDLELIGHT danced off the silverware and glass, casting an indulgent glow across the animated faces making merry around the long table, before darting with their shadows into the castle walls like furtive lovers. The jazz singer Toots Malone was there and the Gambler John Beacher, along with assorted earls, duchesses and self-made men. All, like their host, had one thing in common: a belief that life was to be lived at full tilt, or not at all. From one end of the banqueting hall, Frances Graham, chatelaine of Graham Castle, oversaw the seamless performance of her staff as dishes were brought and empty plates cleared, always watching her husband's powerful face for any hint of dissatisfaction, while still managing to charm the man on her left and the man on her right with words and laughter and coquettish smiles that stroked and teased and pleased, an amorous potion, convincing them they were in love.

The conversation moved like quicksilver from guest to guest.

“It's a bloody mess!”

“It's the bloody government denying the workers what's rightfully theirs.”

“How can you say that? If it isn't there it hardly matters whether
it's theirs or not.”

“If what isn't there?”

“Money. If there's no selling, there's no earning and so no pay – simple!”

Articulated thoughts jumped and sputtered and sped.

“Christ, this winter's bad!”

“Not so bad if you like snow. The skiing's been exceptional.”

“I hate snow.”

“So where are you going?”

“South Africa. Or Australia. Ginnie's got a cousin there. One hundred thousand acres and a thousand head of cattle. We haven't decided.”

“Jesus. That's a hundred acres a cow!”

“So you can count. And they're not called cows. You milk cows. These are beef.”

“A technicality!”

“I'd like to see you milk a steer.”

“Fran does it all the time.”

“I expect she's into Mickys, not steers. Isn't that right, Fran?” Micky being the name Australians give to a free-roaming bull.

“Well I married one, didn't I?”

“Perhaps we should all emigrate.”

“Or take a leaf out of Richard's book.”

The conversation stalled for a moment at the mention of Richard Bingham, as if a dark spirit had entered the room. The public knew him as Lord Lucan, but to most of them he was a friend – a high roller, a charmer, a life-liver who had taken a wrong turn.

“Bad business that.”

“Enough said,” commanded their host. “For god's sake, cheer us up Toots!”

The jazz singer's expressive features rippled into a mischievous grin, the prelude to a short performance.

“There was a young girl from Cape Cod, who thought babies came only from God. But it wasn't the Almighty who lifted her nightie, but Roger the lodger, the sod!”

Richard Bingham's cloud dispersed as quickly as it had appeared and the gathering was merry again.

“Perhaps now would be a good time for the ladies to withdraw!” laughed Frances, rising to her feet.

“Why do we always get to miss the good stuff?” a female guest complained.

“Because it is not actually that good,” a sympathetic male diner reassured her. “It is the male equivalent of the seven veils. We like to keep you guessing.”

“Guessing about what?” she asked. “By the time you join us your dance is over.”

“Come along, Madge,” Frances encouraged. “Men only control half the world.”

“The half that most often goes wrong,” she hissed.

“Touché!” conceded her host, shutting the door firmly after her.

David Graham was a Scot of the old order, a chieftain at a time when chieftains were no more, at least in the eyes of the chattering classes in London. Tall and physically strong with dark hair and dark eyes that took few prisoners, his was a nature that demanded loyalty and expected to be obeyed. As soon as he had decided his wife would be Frances Gaspard, as she then was (her family had dropped the ‘i' from Gaspardi shortly after arriving in England in the eighteenth century), his pursuit of her had been relentless. On one occasion, a thousand red roses had been delivered to the small flat she shared with a girlfriend, filling the basin, the bath, the sink and every container able to hold water. Frances had been a prize he expected to win, one of the loveliest girls in her set.

What makes a woman accept a man is a mystery, even to herself, whereas men chase attraction until more powerful men push them
aside. The men interested in Frances Gaspard were many, but not one was inclined to hold his ground against David Graham. Flattered, intrigued, excited and with nothing at the time offering greater prospects of adventure than going off with a highland chieftain, as comfortable in London's Clermont Club as he was on the face of a mountain, she had capitulated. Since then she had learned to run his castle and to entertain the flow of high-achieving risk-takers from all walks of life her husband seemed to attract. But even after six years of marriage, she could not say she knew him fully. There appeared to be a part of himself he did not want her to know, and she was too intelligent a woman to pry.

With the men now clustered around David's end of the table, conversation quickly returned to the state of the country. Seeing the way talk was heading, the jazz singer excused himself. With the breezy aside that he intended to become an honorary lady for the evening, he left the dining room. A chorus of quips followed him: ‘best keep your bedroom door locked then, Toots;' ‘leave some for us, dear boy;' and from one wag, a bow to the old Slim Gaillard song Toots had often sung, ‘A puddle o'vooty, old Tooty's a gooty!' No one was offended. The jazz singer was liked.

“What was all that about, Harry?”

“Cement Mixer, Put-ti, Put-ti. You don't know it?”

“Oh yes,” the questioner claimed, but clearly didn't.

“To mix a mess o'mortar,” Harry continued, warming to his theme, “you add cement and water, and see the mellow roony, come out slurp slurp.”

“Pithy!” intoned Frank, a regular at Graham Castle.

“Where do you get such nonsense from?” Peter asked.

“Well while you were at Oxford learning about Plato, I was in Soho listening to the tunes of Buddy Bolden and Jelly Roll Morton.”

“And I bet that's not all you were doing there,” challenged Malcolm with the undisguised envy of one who had never properly
sown his wild oats and was now under the thumb of a wealthy wife.

“Ah, the New Orleans sporting house,” rhapsodized Andrew, memories of ladies past flooding into his head, along with the sweet spirit from a Taylor's 1928 their host had had decanted.

Old Archibald sat coiled in his seat, still lean at 6 foot 4 inches, an old soldier whose awkward relationship with authority had led him to special operations and a tailored unit he had moulded in his own image: fast, inventive, clandestine and invariably deadly. David Graham's kinsman had become a legend in his lifetime.

“It can't be allowed to happen.” His rasping voice, weakened by age, still had the power to arrest.

Jazz and pleasure were abandoned and the eyes of the small group fixed on him.

“What can't, Archie?” Malcolm asked.

“We fought against the Nazis and we would have fought against the Soviets if we'd had any strength left. Now the commies are stirring up trouble right inside our own unions and this spineless government, utterly compromised by its socialist mumbo-jumbo, is watching the country fall apart around it.”

Archibald did not expect any dissent, or interruption. He painstakingly prepared his cigar with the same care he had once applied to explosive charges, oblivious to everything but what he was doing. Satisfied, he drew it alight, savouring its rich incense.

“You see, the tactic is simple. First, you sow the seeds of confusion. In pre-revolutionary France and later, Russia, weak government was made to look even weaker by the covert actions of the revolutionaries. And as you know, I understand something about covert activities.”

That was his cue to allow everyone some gentle comradely laughter and all willingly obliged as he filled his glass and passed the decanter on.

“The government of the Weimar Republic that took power in Germany after the First World War was, in many ways, highly
competent. Even though the country was divided between a left pushing for full communism and a right wanting strong authoritarian leadership, the government managed to hold the ring. Between 1924 and 1929 things were even looking up. The brutal WWI peace terms had been renegotiated and with the help of American loans, the economy was growing again and extremism began to fade.”

Reading their minds he then said with a twinkle, “You probably wonder how a soldier has come to know these things.”

Indulgent nods and head shakes accompanied supportive mutterings as the decanter moved slowly from hand to hand.

“Well you see covert activities are most effective when the circumstances are right. Who said that one flap of a butterfly's wings could change history?” He paused briefly, not really expecting an answer. “I forget, but no matter. The point is that when conditions become unstable the impact of covert activities is magnified.”

David Graham rose and collected the box of Romeo y Julietas from the sideboard and placed it on the table for anyone interested. Malcolm reached over and helped himself, having declined the butler's offer initially, uncertain as to whether he really liked cigars or not.

“But back to the Weimar Republic,” Archibald continued. “As I said, after 1924 things started to go pretty well. Popular culture replaced street violence and the American-born singer, Josephine Baker, who I am pleased to report wore little more than some bananas for one memorable act, was declared an erotic goddess.”

Too much history after dinner could be a burden and relieved approval greeted the image of the banana dancer. But the old soldier had lured them into an ambush. He brought the flat of his hand down on the table-top with a thump and a thunderous ‘Wham!' that startled even the acerbic Frank, who was not prone to shows of emotion.

“But then came the stock market crash in America, the withdrawal of loans to Germany and the onset of the Great Depression. You all know the rest. Hitler's hoodlums stirred it up something rotten,
blaming the poor bloody Jews for everything and by 1933 he had been made Chancellor and his shell-shocked people had given him more or less absolute power.”

Allowing all this to sink in, he took a little port and then drew on his cigar.

“We mustn't let it happen here.” His stipulation seemed the more powerful for the gentle way in which it was announced. The editor of
The Sentinel
, who had recently become a regular guest at the castle, did not need persuading.

When Frances and the ladies re-entered the grand dining room, along with Toots Malone, who'd been keeping them in irreverent hysterics for the best part of an hour, the sombre mood lifted.

“It's almost midnight, darling,” she announced.

“By heavens, so it is,” muttered old Archibald. “We've been in conclave too long.”

David rose, looked at his watch and started counting. “Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one…”

“Happy New Year!” everyone shouted.

Ignoring his scowling wife for once, Malcolm made a grab for Frances, which she easily dodged.

1979 had begun.