‘Where are you going?’ said Margaret, since Francis did not reply.
‘Penny and I are going to dance some place.’
They were both waiting. Penelope, who was not talkative, had an inward-turning smile.
They might be late, Arthur went on, and asked Margaret if they could have a key.
‘I’ll get her back safe and sound,’ Arthur said to Francis.
Francis nodded.
‘And I’ll send her back to Cambridge in time for Christmas,’ Arthur went on, a little lordly, and knowing it.
I joined in, to stop Arthur teasing Francis any more. I said we would all travel to Cambridge together. We were taking our children, as we did each year, to spend Christmas with my brother Martin.
Francis, back in authority again, asked us all to come to his house on Boxing Day. There was to be a great party of Francis’ children, a couple of grandchildren, Martin’s family and ours.
Just for an instant, Arthur looked appealing. He wanted to be invited. Francis knew it, and glanced at him from under high, quixotic eyebrows. Arthur might be obstinate, but he had met another obstinate man. This time Francis held the initiative. He did not budge. He gave no invitation. He said politely that in five minutes he must be off.
Resilient, Arthur was on his feet.
‘We have to go too. Come on, Penny. It’s been a very fine evening, Sir Francis.’
They told Margaret they wouldn’t want breakfast, and would see her later in the morning. Arthur said good night to Francis, and Penelope kissed him. Then they went out, a handsome couple, cherishing their secrets, disclosing nothing except happiness, full of the pride of life, full of joy.
18: The Euphoria of Touching Wood
On a bright January morning, the telephones kept ringing in my office. Did I know, did anyone know, who was going to be the new Prime Minister? Had anyone been summoned to the Palace? All over Whitehall, all through the maze of the Treasury Building, men were gossiping. To some, in particular to Ministers like Roger, the answer mattered. To one or two, it would be decisive. No one in Roger’s circle knew what it was going to be. They had not been ready for the resignation. Now the Chancellor was being backed: so was the Home Secretary. Moral sentiments were being expressed, and a good deal of damage being done.
After lunch, we heard that Charles Lenton had been sent for. There had not been such a turnover of fortune for over thirty years. By the end of the afternoon, people in high places were discovering virtues in Lenton that had not before been so vividly perceived. He was a middle-ranking Minister who had, for a short time after the war, been in charge of Hector Rose’s department. He was now fifty-five, young to be Prime Minister. He was a lawyer by profession, and people commented that he must be the first Conservative Prime Minister since Disraeli without substantial private means. He was hearty, healthy, unpretentious: he looked amiable and slightly porcine, except that, as a political cartoonist and a smart photographer happily observed, he was born with bags under his eyes. Rose said: ‘At any rate, my dear Lewis, we shan’t be dazzled by coruscations of brilliance.’
Roger said nothing. He was waiting to see where the influence lay. In the London network, messages about the Prime Minister began flashing like the bulbs on a computer. Whom he listened to, where he spent the weekend, whom he had a drink with late at night.
Within three months, Roger and his friends were certain of one thing. The Prime Minister had set himself up with a confidant. This was not in itself surprising: most men in the ‘first place’ (as some liked to call the Prime Ministership) did so. But it was more surprising when they realized who the confidant was. It was Reggie Collingwood.
From the outside, the two of them had nothing in common. Collingwood was arrogant, unsocial, in a subfusc fashion grand — whereas the Prime Minister was matey and deliberately prosaic, as though his ambition was to look natural in a bowler hat, coming in on the Underground from Purley. Yet there it was. At once the gossips were tipping Ministers whom Collingwood appeared to fancy. They all agreed that Roger’s stock was on the way down.
It sounded too near the truth. I had heard from Caro herself that Collingwood had never got on with her family. They were too smart, too much in the high world, for him. Collingwood might have spent a lot of time in the high world, but he did not approve of it. As for Roger, Collingwood had had nothing to do with him. They had not had so much as a drink together. At Basset, during that weekend twelve months before, they had met like remote acquaintances: and then Roger had found himself in, or forced, a quarrel.
Before long, the gossips began to hedge. Monty Cave was brought back into the Government, and promoted to full Ministerial rank. The commentators got busy once more. Was this a gesture towards Roger? Or was the PM playing both ends against the middle? Or, a more ingenious gloss, was he showing the left wing of the party that he had nothing against them, before he eased Roger out?
A few days after Cave’s appointment, I was sitting in the barber’s in Curzon Street when I heard a breathy whisper near my ear. ‘Well, what’s going to happen tomorrow night?’
As soon as I got out of the chair, I heard some more. Apparently Roger had been summoned to one of those private dinners which busybodies like my informant were beginning to know about: dinners with the Prime Minister and Collingwood and a single guest, which took place, because Collingwood didn’t like the Tory clubs, in his own suite at an old-fashioned hotel.
‘Well, what are they going to say to him?’
I didn’t know. I didn’t even know whether the story was true. My informant was a man with a selfless passion for gossip. As I walked down the street in the sunshine, I was thinking bleakly of the old Dostoievskian phrase, that I had heard something ‘on not specially reliable authority.’
But it was true. In forty-eight hours we knew, when Caro telephoned Margaret to ask if they could come to dinner that night, with no one present but the four of us.
They arrived very early. The sun was still high over the Park, blinding Caro as she sat down opposite the window. She screwed up her eyes, hooted, told Margaret that she wanted a drink but that Roger needed one first. Roger had scarcely spoken, and Caro’s voice, as in her own house, took charge. But Margaret liked her more, and got on with her better, than I did.
Soon they were sitting side by side on the sofa, all of us suddenly quiet.
I said to Roger: ‘So you saw them last night, did you?’
‘Why do you think,’ said Caro, ‘that we’ve parked ourselves on you like this?’
From his armchair, Roger was gazing, eyes blank, at the picture over the fireplace.
‘How did it go?’ I asked.
He muttered, as though he were having to force himself to talk.
I was at a loss. He was not inhibited because Margaret was there. He knew that she was as discreet as I was, or more so. Both he and Caro felt safe with her, and trusted her.
Roger brushed both hands over his eyes, forehead and temples, like a man trying to freshen himself.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. He leaned forward. ‘Look here,’ he said, ‘if I said what the position seemed like tonight — I should have to say that I’ve got it in the palm of my hand.’
He sounded realistic, sober, baffled. He sounded as though he didn’t want us to see, didn’t want himself to see, that he was happy.
‘Isn’t that good news?’ said Margaret.
‘I can’t believe it,’ said Roger.
‘You can, you know,’ said Caro gently.
‘You’ve all got to remember’ — Roger was speaking with care — ‘that things change very fast at the top. I’m in favour now. It may not last twelve months. Things may begin to go the other way. Remember your uncle and what happened to him. You ought to know what to expect,’ he said to Caro. ‘So ought Lewis and Margaret. They’ve seen enough. For all we know, I’m at the top of the hill tonight. I may start moving downwards tomorrow. Or perhaps I’ve already started. We’ve all got to remember that.’