At the mere mention of Sir Julian Christopher’s person the Prime Minister lowered her eyes and felt the heat rise in her cheeks. In a little less than two hours she would be meeting him off his flight at RAF Brize Norton, and she had absolutely no idea how she was going to get through the reunion without making a complete fool of herself.
“Very wise of them,” she murmured. “What is Lord Franks’s considered opinion as to the mood of Congress in Philadelphia, Tom?”
“Inward looking, Margaret,” the Foreign Secretary snorted quietly. In private — Henry Tomlinson was his oldest friend and already the Angry Widow’s closest advisor — he and the remarkable woman who had been unexpectedly thrust onto the World stage at the height of the recent war fever, remained on ‘Tom’ and ‘Margaret’ terms. Not because they had survived the Balmoral atrocity together, but because they had actually formed the foundation for a lifelong mutual respect and friendship. Like Henry Tomlinson, Tom Harding-Grayson regarded himself as a non-political cog in the gears of the Unity Administration of the United Kingdom, whose role was as unlikely as it sounded, essentially protective of the young woman — she was twenty years their junior as near as dammit — upon whose shoulders the coherence and indeed, possibly the future of the country largely depended. Nobody had seriously predicted a month ago that her elevation to the Premiership would suddenly offer Britain a leader about whom the majority of the people might coalesce; and more than that, a leader who understood the collective anger of her people, and their ache to be convinced that if they only had a little faith, things would get better. “Our Ambassador fears Congress may be very inward looking. By the end of the month we might very easily be right back where were started.”
Margaret Thatcher gave him a peevish look.
“A month ago I hadn’t put my signature to a draft treaty guaranteeing non-belligerence in the short-term and whole-hearted international co-operation at an unspecified later date. A month ago President Kennedy hadn’t ordered the urgent despatch of food, oil and badly needed pharmaceutical products to us. A month ago the First Sea Lord was resigned to sending most of the Royal Navy to the bottom of the North Atlantic in a war we couldn’t possibly win.” She sniffed. “Despite appearances to the contrary, and apart from the fact I think I’m coming down with a head cold things are looking up, gentlemen.”
Sir Henry Tomlinson chuckled.
“Well, that’s told us!”
“Quite,” Margaret Thatcher agreed, not really getting the joke as she reached for her handkerchief and stifled a genteel sneeze. “Blast,” she murmured irritably. “I knew it was a bad idea sitting out there on Capitol Hill in that cold wind!” She shrugged off her angst in a moment. “I’m glad I’ve got you two here together,” she announced, one matter ticked off and the next item on her agenda advanced to the top of her list.
There was nothing in her tone warning the two men that she was about to drop a bombshell.
“You are my closest non-Party advisors,” she prefaced busily. Then, with no further fanfare she declared: “I propose to recall Parliament as soon as possible. Here in Oxford would be as good a place as any, unless either of you have got a better idea.”
The two career civil servants, both Oxford University men and keen students of what was constitutional and what was possible, glanced uncomfortably at each other. Their initial response was that although the idea was probably constitutionally sound; it hardly seemed sensible in the circumstances.
“Prime Minister,” Sir Henry Tomlinson ventured, “leaving aside the question of whether or not such a project would be, shall we say, wise,” he hunched his shoulders in apology, “there are certain practical difficulties…”
“Parliament has a perfect right to debate and vote upon whether it has confidence in my Administration, Henry,” the lady retorted instantly. “Nothing which lies ahead of us will be easy,” she went on. “Likewise, very little of what lies ahead of us will be surmountable without the support of the British people and the unimpeachable legitimacy conferred on any Government, by the unambiguously expressed confidence of the House of Commons. Without that legitimacy my right to lead and the authority of the UAUK will be built on sand. Frankly, if I don’t seize the moment within the next few weeks it will be lost forever and perhaps, with it our best chance of leading our people out of this vale of despond.”
“Be that as it may,” Tom Harding-Grayson observed. People got blown away with the power of the Angry Widow’s presence on occasions such as these. “Henry makes a good point. The Government might not survive a vote of confidence. The membership of the House of Commons is somewhat reduced from its pre-war strength and many of the Honourable members who survive will have been twiddling their thumbs in the shires to no good effect in the interim. I daresay a minority of them will fall in behind hotheads like Enoch Powell…”
“No doubt there will be people of a like mind to the Honourable Member for Wolverhampton South West in the Conservative Party, and the Labour Party!” Margaret Thatcher retaliated mildly. “I confidently expect people like Michael Foot and the other peace at all costs,” she was about to say something profoundly ungenerous but thought better of it, “dreamers will have undergone any kind of Damascene conversion in recent weeks. However, I have faith in the common sense and patriotism of the representatives of what remains of our great and ancient democracy, gentlemen.”
Sir Henry Tomlinson opened his mouth to speak, shut it.
There was a knock at the door and a youthful subaltern marched into the Common Room. He handed the Cabinet Secretary a note, turned and departed.
“Secretary of State Fulbright and Ambassador Brenckmann have arrived safely at Brize Norton, Prime Minister.”
“Good.” That afternoon RAF Brize Norton was destined to be the meeting place of two Worlds, the symbolic counterpoint to the grand peace ceremony of that icy day in Washington last week. However, whereas in Washington the talk had been diplomatic, focused in the main on generalities, today’s encounter was about the practicalities of the new alliance in a World half-shattered. Things were beginning to look ominous in the Mediterranean, hence the flying visit to England by the Commander-in-Chief. She and the man everybody now called the ‘Fighting Admiral’ had spoken by telephone eight times since he had proposed marriage; the matter had not been raised again by either of them. The assassination of Edward Heath in the White House and her unexpected assumption of the Premiership had changed everything except her feelings for the tall, handsome much older — by the best part of a quarter-of-a-century — man who’d, without having to try, swept her off her feet in the handful of days she’d known him before he’d been sent to Malta. They had met, survived the Balmoral atrocity during which he’d saved her life, by throwing himself on top of her a split second before a five hundred pound iron bomb had skipped across lawn in front of the Castle and hurtled through the picture window in which they’d been standing, flirting one with the other in the previous minutes. The poor man had been fearfully knocked about and badly concussed; she’d held his hand that night as he tossed and turned in a feverish sleep, repeatedly calling out the name not of his late wife, but of a woman called ‘Aysha’. One day she planned to quiz him about ‘Aysha’. In anything like normal circumstances she would already have quizzed him about the mysterious woman who had so preoccupied his dreams that night after the attack on Balmoral Castle. In any other circumstances things would be so different.