Not again, Mother, he wanted to say.
The second call was from a colleague inquiring if Raymond had been offered a job.
“Nothing so far,” he said before learning of his contemporary’s promotion.
The third call was from one of Joyce’s friends.
“When will she be back?” another Yorkshire accent inquired.
“I’ve no idea,” said Raymond, desperate to get the caller off the line.
“I’ll call again this afternoon, then.”
“Fine,” said Raymond, putting the phone down quickly.
He went into the kitchen to make himself a cheese sandwich, but there wasn’t any cheese, so he ate stale bread smeared with three-week-old butter. He was halfway through a second slice when the phone rang.
“Raymond?”
He held his breath.
“Noel Brewster.”
He exhaled in exasperation as he recognized the vicar’s voice.
“Can you read the second lesson when you’re next up in Leeds? We had rather hoped you would read it this morning — your dear wife...”
“Yes,” he promised. “The first weekend I am back in Leeds.” The phone rang again as soon as he placed it back on the receiver.
“Raymond Gould?” said an anonymous voice.
“Speaking,” he said.
“The Prime Minister will be with you in one moment.”
Raymond waited. The front door opened and another voice shouted, “It’s only me. I don’t suppose you found anything to eat, poor love.” Joyce joined Raymond in the drawing room.
Without looking at his wife he waved his hand at her to keep quiet.
“Ray,” said a voice on the other end of the line.
“Good afternoon, Prime Minister,” he replied, rather formally in response to the more pronounced Yorkshire accent.
“I was hoping you would feel able to join the new team as Under-Secretary for Employment?”
Raymond breathed a sigh of relief. It was exactly what he’d hoped for. “I’d be delighted, Prime Minister.”
“Good, that will give the trade union leaders something new to think about.” The phone went dead.
Raymond Gould, Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Employment, sat motionless on the third rung of the ladder.
As Raymond left the house the next morning he was greeted by a driver standing next to a gleaming black Austin Westminster. Unlike his secondhand Sunbeam, it glowed in the morning light. The rear door was opened and Raymond climbed in to be driven off to the department. Thank Cod he knows where my office is, thought Raymond as he sat alone in the back. By his side on the back seat was a red leather box the size of a very thick briefcase with gold lettering running along the edge: “Under-Secretary of State for Employment.” Raymond turned the small key, knowing what Alice must have felt like on her way down the rabbit hole. The inside was crammed with buff files. He opened the first to see, “A five-point plan for discussion by Cabinet on how to keep unemployment under one million.” He immediately started to read the closely typed documents.
When Charles Seymour returned to the Commons on the Tuesday there was a note from the Whips’ office waiting for him on the Members’ Letter-board. One of the Housing and Local Government team had lost his seat in the general election and Charles had been promoted to number two on the Opposition bench. “No more preservation of trees. You’ll be on to higher things now,” chuckled the Chief Whip. “Pollution, water shortage, and exhaust fumes...”
Charles smiled with pleasure as he walked through the Commons, acknowledging old colleagues and noticing a considerable number of new faces. He didn’t stop and talk to any of the newcomers as he could not be certain if they were Labour or Conservative and, given the election result, most of them had to be Socialist. A doorkeeper in white tie and black tail-jacket handed him a message to say that a constituent was waiting to see him in the Central Lobby. He hurried off to find out what the problem was, passing some of his older colleagues who wore forlorn looks on their faces. For some it would be a considerable time before they were offered the chance of office again, while others knew they had served as ministers for the last time. As Macmillan had proclaimed, even the most glittering political career always ends in tears.
But at thirty-five Charles dismissed such thoughts as he marched toward the waiting constituent. He turned out to be a red-faced Master of Hounds who had traveled up to London to grumble about the proposed private member’s bill banning hare coursing. Charles listened to a fifteen-minute monologue before assuring his constituent that any such bill was doomed through lack of parliamentary time. The Master of Hounds went away happy and Charles returned to his room to check over the constituency mail. Fiona had reminded him of the 800 letters of thanks to the party workers that had been franked but still needed topping and tailing after every election. He groaned.
“Mrs. Blenkinsop, the chairman of Sussex Ladies’ Luncheon Club, wants you to be their guest speaker this year,” his secretary told him once he had settled.
“Reply yes — what’s the date?” asked Charles, reaching for his diary.
“16 June.”
“Stupid woman, that’s Ladies Day at Ascot. Tell her that I’m delivering a speech at a Housing Conference, but I’ll be certain to make myself free for the function next year.”
The secretary looked up anxiously.
“Don’t fuss, she’ll never know any better.”
She moved on to the next letter. “Mr. Heath wonders if you can join him for a drink on Thursday, six o’clock?”
Simon Kerslake also knew it was going to be a long slog. He was aware the Tories would not change their leader until Heath had been given a second chance at the polls, and that could take every day of five years with a Government which had a ninety-seven majority.
He began writing articles for the Spectator and for the Sunday Express center pages, in the hope of building a reputation outside the House while at the same time supplementing his parliamentary salary of £3,400. Even with Elizabeth’s income as a consultant he was finding it difficult to make ends meet, and soon their two young sons would have reached prep school age. He envied the Charles Seymours of this world who did not have to give a second thought about their next paycheck. Simon wondered if the damn man had any problems at all. He ran a finger down his own bank account: as usual there was a figure around £500 in the right-hand margin, and as usual it was in red. Many of his Oxford contemporaries had already established themselves in the City or at the bar and on a Friday evening could be seen being driven to large houses in the country. Simon laughed whenever he read that people went into politics to make money.
He pressed on with demanding questions to the Prime Minister, and tried not to show how frustrated he was by the expectations of his colleagues whenever he rose each Tuesday and Thursday. Even after it became routine he prepared himself thoroughly, and on one occasion he even elicited praise from his normally taciturn leader. But as the weeks passed he found that his thoughts continually returned to money — or to his lack of it.
That was before he met Ronnie Nethercote.
Andrew Fraser had often read that the anger or jealousy of one man could block the advance of a political career but he still found it hard to accept that it could apply to him. What annoyed him even more was that Hugh McKenzie’s tentacles seemed to have spread through every other department.
Andrew’s marriage to Louise Forsyth had been expansively covered in the national papers and the absence of the Secretary of State at the wedding did not escape the notice of the Daily Express’s William Hickey. They even published an out-of-date photograph of Alison McKenzie looking sorrowful.