To Play the King

'And I'm a single girl. My mother always told me never to take it neat.'

He seemed amused by her outspokenness. 'Of course. But let me ask you to persevere, just for a little. It really is a very special whisky distilled near my birthplace in Perthshire, and would be ruined by anything other than a little water. Try a few sips to acquire the taste and, if not, I'll drown you in as many club sodas and ice cubes as I can find.'

She sipped again, it was a little less fiery. She nodded. 'That's something I've learned this evening.'

'One of the many benefits of getting older is that I have learned a lot about men and whisky. About women, however, it seems I am still quite ignorant. According to you.' 'I've brought some figures…' She stretched down for her bag. 'Before we look at that, I have another topic' He settled back in his chair, a reflective mood on his face as he held his glass in both hands, like a don quizzing one of his charges. 'Tell me, how much respect do you have for the Royal Family?'

Her nose wrinkled as she savoured the unexpected question. 'Professionally, I'm completely uncommitted. I'm not paid to respect anything, only to analyse it. And personally…?' She shrugged her shoulders. 'I'm American, from Paul Revere country. Used to be when we saw one of the King's men, we shot him. Now it's just another kind of show business. Docs that upset you?'

He ducked the question. 'The King is keen to make a speech about One Nation, about pulling together the divisions in the country. A popular theme, do you think?' 'Of course. It's a sentiment expected of a nation's leaders.' 'A powerful theme, too, then?'

'That depends. If you're running for Archbishop of Canterbury then it's bound to help. The nation's moral conscience and all that.' She paused, waiting for some sign that she was moving in the right direction. All she got was the arched eyebrow of a professor in his lair; she would have to fly this one entirely on instinct. 'But politics, that's a different matter. It's expected of politicians, but rather like background music is expected in a lift. What matters to the voters is not the music but whether the lift they're travelling in is going up or down – or more accurately, whether they perceive the lift to be going up or down.'

'Tell me about perceptions.' He studied her with more than academic interest. He liked what he heard, and what he saw. As she talked and particularly when she became animated, the point of her nose bobbed up and down as if she were conducting an orchestra of thoughts. He found it fascinating, almost hypnotic.

'If you were brought up on a street where no one could afford shoes, yet now you've got a sackful of shoes but are the only family in the street without a car and a continental holiday, you feel as if you've got poorer. You look back on your childhood as the good old days, the fun of running to school in bare feet, while you resent not being able to drive to work like all the rest.' 'And the Government gets the blame.' 'Certainly. But what matters politically is how many others in the street feel the same way. Once they're locked behind their front doors, or in a polling booth come to that, their conscience about their neighbour down the street matters much less than whether their own car is the latest model. You can't feed a family or fill up a gas tank on moral conscience.'

'I've never tried,' he mused. 'So what about the other divisions? Celtic fringe versus prosperous South. Home owners versus homeless.'

'Bluntly, you're down to less than twenty per cent support in Scotland anyway, you don't have many seats there left to lose. And as for the homeless, it's difficult to get onto the electoral register with an address like Box Three, Row D, Cardboard City. They're not a logical priority.' 'Some would say that's a little cynical.'

'If you want moral judgements, call a priest. 1 analyse, I don't judge. There are divisions in every society. You can't be all things to all men and it's a waste of time trying.' The nose wobbled aggressively. 'What's important is to be something to the majority, to make them believe that they, at least, are on the right side of the divide.'

'So, right now, and over the next few weeks, which side will the majority perceive themselves to be?'

She pondered, remembering her conversations with Landless and the taxi driver, the closed theatre. 'You're gaining a small lead in the polls, but it's finely balanced. Volatile. They don't really know you yet. The debate could go either way.'

He was staring at her directly across the rim of his glass. 'Forget debate. Let's talk about open warfare. Could your opinion polls tell who would win such a war?'

She leaned forward in her chair, as if to get closer to him in order to share a confidence. 'Opinion polls are like a cloudy crystal ball. They can help you look into the future, but it depends what questions you ask. And on how good a gypsy you are.' His eyes fired with appreciation.

'I couldn't tell you who would win such a war. But I could help wage it. Opinion polls are weapons, mighty powerful weapons at times. Ask the right question at the right time, get the right answer, leak it to the press… If you plan a campaign with expertise, you can have your opponent pronounced dead before he realizes there's a war on.'

'Tell me, O Gypsy, why is it that I don't hear this from other opinion pollsters?'

'First, because most pollsters are concerned with what people are thinking right now, at this moment in time. What we are talking about is moving opinion from where it is now to where you want it to be in the future. That's called political leadership, and it's a rare quality.'

He knew he was being flattered, and liked it. 'And the second reason?'

She took a sip from her glass, recrossed her legs and took off her glasses, shaking her dark hair as she did so. 'Because I'm better than the rest.'

He smiled in return. He liked dealing with her, both as a professional and as a woman. Downing Street could be a lonely place. He had a Cabinet full of supposedly expert Ministers whose duty it was to take most of the decisions, leaving him only to pull the strings and carry the can if the rest of them got it horribly wrong. Few Government papers came to him unless he asked for them. He was protected from the outside world by a highly professional staff, a posse of security men, mortar-proof windows and huge iron gates. And Elizabeth was always off taking those damned evening classes… He needed someone to confide in, to gather his ideas and sort them into coherent order, who had self-confidence, who didn't owe their job to him, who looked good. Who believed she was the best. 'And I suspect you are.' Their eyes enjoyed the moment.

'So you think there will be war, Francis? Over One Nation? With the Opposition?'

He rested back in his chair, staring into a distance, struggling to discern the future. This was no longer the energetic exchange of academic ideas, nor the intellectual masturbation of cynical old men around a Senior Common Room dining table. The horrid stench of reality clung to his nostrils. When he answered his words were slow, carefully considered. 'Not just with the Opposition. Maybe even with the King – if I let him make his speech.' He was pleased to see no trace of alarm in her eyes, only intense interest. 'War with the King…?'

'No, no… Not if I can avoid it. I want to avoid any confrontation with the Palace, truly I do. I have enough people to fight without taking on the Royal Family and every blue-rinsed loyalist in the country. But…' He paused. 'Let us suppose. If it did come to that. I should need plenty of gypsy craft, Sally.'

Her lips were puckered, her words equally deliberate. 'If that's what you want, remember – you only have to say please. And anything else I can help you with.'

The gyrations of the end of her nose had become almost animalistic and, for Urquhart, exquisitely sensuous. They remained looking at each other in silence for a long moment, careful not to say a word in case either of them should destroy the magic of innuendo which both were relishing. He had only ever once – no, twice -combined tutorials with sex. He would have been drummed out had he been discovered, yet the risk was what had made it some of the best sex of his life, not only rising above the lithe bodies of his students but in the same act rising above the banality and pathetic pettiness of the university establishment. He was different, better, he had always known it, and no more clearly than on the huge overstuffed Chesterfield in his college rooms overlooking the Parks.