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  Pallister’s smile was rueful, if not indulgent. ‘I hear you, John, of course I do. But you know how it is. Industry left this city. The better-offs went with it. Nothing flourishes in stony ground. You’ve got to lure the money back. That means big-picture thinking. The end result, but, is gravy all round.’ He thumped the banister again. ‘Anyhow …’ And with the flourish of a hand he directed Gore back indoors. They resumed their seats.

  ‘I think this meeting ought to come to order. I wanted to say, John, what you’ve been doing, I find it terrifically proactive. Hands-on stuff. Real initiative. You’re making something out of nothing.’

  Gore shrugged. ‘Not nothing. Out of people. That’s my job.’

  ‘Is it, though? Is that what all vicars do? It’s not what the guy at my church talks about.’

  ‘Right. You go to church? Really?’

  ‘Yeah, for my sins. I meant to ask, in fact, did you by any chance happen to see the hoo-hah over Tony’s article in the Torygraph last Easter?’

  Gore nodded. ‘“No Christian can be a Tory”. That one?’

  ‘Aye. Talk about stirring the pot. You’ve got to like the cheek of it, but, eh? Obviously some of them godlier Tories were highly affronted.’

  ‘Yes. Well. I don’t know if I had a view on that. I don’t much like sanctimony. Didn’t like it in Thatcher either.’

  ‘Well, one thing you should know, John – he’s sincere, is Tony. His faith is solid, really, it’s what he’s all about.’

  Gore was pondering. ‘His wife, she’s Catholic, right?’

  ‘Cherie? Aye, I think so. What of it?’

  ‘Just, I don’t know if I recognise his particular brand. Of the faith. And I should say, I don’t know that the public care for politicians who wear that stuff on their sleeve.’

  ‘Oh no, not a bit. That’s your job. And that’s what Tony says and all.’ Pallister wore his own thoughtful look. ‘You know what, you’d put me in mind of him a bit. Tony.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Don’t blow a gasket there. No, I think you’d get on, the two of you. What with the faith in common. And you’re both Durham lads, right? Now I think, you lost your mam quite early too, didn’t you? You and Susannah?’

  Gore swallowed, unhappy, but nodded.

  ‘How old’s your dad again?’

  ‘He’s, uh, sixty-two.’

  ‘Really? Mine too. Wartime kids, eh? They’ll not die, just you watch.’

  The door was rapped and swung wide, Pallister’s researcher shouldering in with mugs of tea. Behind him, Susannah, and with her, two bearded men laden with video camera, boom-stick microphone, clapper, cases and the attendant ephemera of the newsgathering crew.

  ‘Sorry, John – Marty, can you do this now?’

  ‘Right now?’

  ‘It’s the only time the lads have got before you head back to London.’

  Pallister bit his lip. ‘Sorry, John. They’re doing this little piece on me.’

  Susannah had already begun to reorder certain items on Pallister’s desk. ‘John won’t mind being in shot, do you, John?’

  ‘I would, actually. But I’m happy to step outside, leave you to it.’

  ‘That’s not what we’re after,’ the cameraman announced to Susannah. And Gore felt his instincts confirmed as truth.

  ‘God, okay, let’s take it outside,’ his sister was muttering, driving the men out of doors as quickly as they had come.

  Gore kept his eyes on Pallister, who had been unable to keep a shade of chagrin from his face. ‘What was that about?’ he enquired as the door clicked closed.

  Pallister held up his hands. ‘Look, there’s space out there in the media needs filling. I thought it might as well be us. Just for starters.’

  ‘You mean, “you”.’

  ‘Not this time.’ Pallister blinked. ‘It’s funny, you know? I asked you here thinking we could talk.’

  ‘We have been, haven’t we?’

  ‘No, I mean, a real conversation. I’m intrigued by what you’ve been doing, honest. What you’ve said. I can see you’re interested in politics. So I meant a talk like that. But I’m sort of’ – he waved a hand – ‘I dunno, I’m just getting this feeling what you really wanna do is take a swing at me.’

  Gore shifted in his seat. ‘Can I be frank with you?’

  ‘It’s about time, bonny lad.’

  ‘I’m still not clear what you want from me. I’m happy to talk politics. Actually it feels more like you’ve been deferring to my area. There’s no need. By all means get to business.’

  Pallister leaned forward, took a breath. ‘Okay. Let’s talk about Hoxheath. The West End in general. Government money’s been pumping into the place for years. I know that from my TREC days. We got a lot of things going there, but it didn’t last. It couldn’t. Now you’ll hear some say it’s just throwing good money after bad. That it’s beyond redemption – we’re just managing decline and we’d be better off razing Hoxheath to the ground. Year zero.’

  ‘Well, that’s disgusting.’

  ‘Exactly, John, but that’s just how some people think. So I reckon it wants a whole new plan, and a better one – the best people on it, really working with the best of what’s there in the community.’

  ‘Who’s going to pay for that?’

  Pallister opened his hands. ‘That’s why I’m here, John. Have you heard of the regeneration budget?’

  Gore shrugged. ‘No, but it sounds familiar.’

  ‘It’s a big pot of government money. Cross-departmental. A lot of it’s ring-fenced for capital projects but there’s a special pot, “challenge fund” they call it, for smaller initiatives. And it’s there for the bidding. You just have to put together what they call a board to apply. What they like to see is a cross-section – local people, business people. Unlikely bedfellows. Well, I want to get me a board together and make a project for Hoxheath.’

  ‘Are you allowed to? As an MP?’

  ‘Nowt to stop us. Who better? Listen, we’re not talking a fountain of money but it could be put to bloody good use, the right project and the right people. Trouble with these boards is they end up all the usual suspects. Bunch of time-servers. Some fat councilman in the chair. I don’t want the same tired old community types neither – people who don’t understand politics. So what I want is for you to sit on the board and coordinate that whole side of it. There’s nowt tired about you. And you can speak and people listen, I can see that.’

  ‘Who’s the chairman of this board? You?’

  ‘No, actually, my pick would be someone from business. They run a better meeting. Look, I’m not saying I want you to mastermind the thing, but I want you onboard and behind us.’

  ‘As a driver or a passenger?’

  ‘Fully involved. And fully supportive. But more than that. I mean, you know your Marx, right? “Religion, the soul of a soulless world”? Well, we need some soul to what we’re doing. Otherwise it’s just numbers. We need you to give us that weight.’

  The style of the pitch, at least, had begun to snare at Gore’s interest.

  ‘This is what I’m about, see. I can’t sit here trying to sell the old state socialism. It was backward, sluggish, it didn’t bloody work. There are limits to politics – I’ve learned that. We can’t save the world. But I’m bloody sure what we can do is help out the neighbourhood.’

  Susannah was at the doorway once more, her face a silent warning.

  ‘That’s never the time, is it? Look, we’ve to get the four o’clock train but I promised your sister lunch. Why don’t we continue this over a nice roast?’

  *

  ‘You’ll have a bottle of Brown with that?’ Pallister offered and Gore acquiesced, though the MP himself abstained. (‘I don’t drink alcohol any more. Hardly. Get more done that way.’) But in the wood-panelled restaurant of the Station Hotel they did not stint on their victuals. Thick moist slices of slow-roasted beef, buttered baton carrots, cauliflower in white sauce, plump Yorkshire pud
dings sopping in gravy from the boat. ‘Geordie Sunday, eh?’ Pallister chuckled as he tucked his napkin into his shirt. Susannah, who had opted for a dry sliver of quiche, was less boisterous. But the gents feasted keenly.

  ‘So, John, what about my proposal? What do you say?’

  ‘I don’t entirely understand. What my role would be, what the project would be. I need some more specifics.’

  The MP stifled a belch. ‘We’re still just in concept. All I’m asking you for is a handshake deal. Sue and I are working on a proper day’s event, a forum. We get all our people together, talk through the options, pick the best idea. Obviously I’d want you in there for that.’

  Gore picked at his teeth and sat back. ‘I’m still not sure it wouldn’t be wrong of me to involve myself too much. To that degree.’

  ‘Whey, I thought you were precisely the “involved” type.’

  ‘The Church can’t be just a Band-Aid for bigger problems. And I have to say by nature I’m wary of … public relations.’ He glanced at his sister, in whose mouth butter would not melt.

  ‘Fine. For a moment I was afraid you’d say you’re a bloody Lib Dem.’

  Gore blinked to dismiss the levity.

  ‘Will you at least have a think? At least tell me that, eh? You play hard to get, don’t you? I heard you’ll take a helping hand off all sorts. Why not me?’

  With that Pallister excused himself for the gentlemen’s, dabbing a smear of gravy that had somehow besmirched his red tie. Susannah smiled to herself. ‘So he hasn’t seduced you?’

  ‘I’m not such an easy lay.’

  The terminology seemed to tickle his sister. ‘Oh, I know that, kidder.’

  ‘What are you smirking at?’

  ‘You know when I came by your service the other week? And we were talking? And there was that rather fabulously tarty girl. With the bairn?’

  ‘Lindy. Her name’s Lindy.’

  ‘Right. You’re not by any chance sticking one up her, are you?’

  ‘No, I’m not. She’s a friend. She’s not “tarty” either.’

  ‘Tarted-up, I mean. For a church service. No, she seemed canny, though.’

  ‘That was a lame trick you tried back there, with the TV people? Ham-fisted by your standards. So was I meant to be caught on camera giving him my blessing?’

  ‘I thought you enjoyed getting your face about the place.’

  Pallister was returning. Gore sipped his ale as the MP resettled in front of his still-steaming plate. ‘So, are you looking forward to power?’

  Pallister rapped the table surface. ‘You can’t be a slave to polls, but you’re daft to ignore them. You know KPMG? Sue tells me they’re running seminars for their clients on how to protect their money when we win. If we win. No, whatever happens, we’ve dragged ourselves back. This election I’m actually looking forward to. At last. In the past, you know, we weren’t professional. There was just a base area of cunning that we surrendered. Like it were just too tawdry.’ He speared a fat carrot, toyed with the fork. ‘I mean, they say elections get lost, not won. The Tories are in a hole, right enough. But there’s a hunger for us out there, I know it.’

  At twenty to four Susannah was shuffling tickets, unfolding Pallister’s coat for him while Gore was still mopping his plate. They struggled to their feet as three. Pallister appeared solemn. ‘We’re gonna keep talking then?’

  ‘Sure.’ Gore shrugged, and they shook hands. Pallister retained his grip.

  ‘All I’m saying, John, stick a little bet on me. You won’t lose. Next time I’ll come see you. On your turf.’

  There was something to the man, Gore was forced to concede as he sat back alone at the cleared table, weighing his unfinished half of ale. The quality of assurance was not the mere facade of some nervous wreck. The air of honest business – I give you mine, you give me yours – was perhaps more carefully cultivated. But rerunning the tape of the conversation in his head, Gore heard no truly glaring bullshit. The vigour, too, was infectious. And a Labour man, despite it all – not some shameless turncoat, not Susannah. His offer did not appear to carry conditions. Gore looked forward keenly to devising some of his own, prior to what he imagined would be a measured and reluctant acceptance in the very near future. He drained back the ale, the best drink he had enjoyed in a month of Sundays.

  *

  Rattling down to London, speeding through darkened provincial towns … To Martin it had once seemed the apogee of thrills and vaulting prospects. Never again, he knew, could he entertain such gormless provincialism. He had learned to settle in First Class – not that he wouldn’t gladly put up elsewhere. But there was no point pretending it was fun among the griping kids and the gasping lager fiends. This was his business, and his constituents could hardly begrudge the extra working space for he and the impeccable Ms Gore, now perched opposite.

  Across the aisle were a well-tended quartet in their fifties, all in waxed jackets – two husbands, two wives, though the game of whose was whose Martin intended to leave for later. Meantime he amused himself in eavesdropping. These ones were Yorkshire by accent, London by orientation. We are all of us marked on the tongue, he mused. Will anyone tell the Bradford man in his new silk hat?

  ‘Is that your shooting coat?’

  ‘This old thing? Oh no.’

  ‘Ah. What do you think of this awful business? Them trying to outlaw it?’

  ‘Outrage. Pure outrage.’

  One of the males, the one with less hair, was a publican, the other – hawk-faced and distracted – a surveyor. One of the wives, it seemed, had briefly sold commodities. Pallister rolled his eyes at Susannah, and she smiled over her papers. They were not her sort either, not any more. But then they never were. This was your actual Tory, and this was why the Tories were and ever would be a nasty little party of the shires and market towns.

  Susannah was trying to immerse herself in work, briefings and press rumblings compiled by his researcher, but he knew she was tired and out of sorts. She was making this trip for a variety of reasons, but he trusted he was high among them. She was, as so often, only lightly made-up and in want of a hairbrush. A stray lock caught the light most unfavourably. He leaned over the table and smoothed it down. She flinched.

  ‘Ah, ah. Now come on, let me. It’s better for you.’

  Peering closer still, he frowned, licked a fingertip and began to blend her foundation. They were far enough removed from unfriendly eyes, not that any of that had ever concerned him. Gossip was the devil’s work, the no-mark vice of the inadequate and vicarious. They were a long time removed from the two or three – or was it more? – occasions that they had slept together, seven – or was it eight? – years hence.

  ‘So how did I do? With your brother?’

  ‘You tell me. Do you like him?’

  ‘Do you?’

  She made a pained face.

  ‘Well, I do, yeah. Seems a bright enough man. On the basis of a few dodgy remarks, I’d say he’s slightly on the wrong side of the Masturbatory Tendency. Doesn’t entirely strike me as the go-getting sort neither.’

  ‘Nor me. But I’ve been mildly impressed by his persistence.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ He gave her some mischief in a grin. ‘Bloody vicars, but. When do I get to meet that guy off the telly? The soldier? When do I meet Alan Shearer?’

  ‘I’ve spoken to his PA. She’ll see. He’s quite careful.’

  Martin felt he was now owed a perk in return for his ongoing effort to extend himself in the direction of her pet theory. Susannah was obsessed by the notion that all things were enabled through contacts and associations, and had lately pushed under his nose a proposal for the improvement of his ‘intelligence-gathering’. This, as far as Martin could read, was the purloining of phone numbers for blue-chip businessmen, footballers, soap actors, musicians and assorted celebrities. He attributed the fixation to her past relations with advertisers, and she coolly confirmed as much. ‘There’s a place for endorsement in politics too, you kno
w. If we’re talking public awareness of policy areas, it could be golden.’

  Fair enough – though Martin had to wonder where was the material gain? Susannah argued that some associations were mere reflected glory, but others offered new stocks of lateral thinking. Martin was comfortable in the company of high-net-worth individuals, and had never been averse to getting his photo in the paper, yet on some humble level he receded before names grander than his own. ‘These people like to be listened to,’ Sue insisted. ‘You do that and they’re impressed. You’re a good listener. People think MPs are up their own jacksies. You show them you respect their achievement. They want to advise, we want to listen.’

  ‘Oh, do we?’

  ‘Even if it’s just humouring them. Once they’re onside, who knows what you might get? Down the line.’

  This woman had shaken him from the clutch of so many bad habits, taught him to foster his own brand – what she had done for his spirit, he could hardly enumerate. But after such scoldings he wondered – at some length – about the degree to which she truly respected him. Whether, indeed, he was to her a mere rung on a ladder. Since fucking her was now so far off the agenda, it seemed never the time to ask her directly.

  Now she peered up from the page. ‘You need to look at some of this.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Mueller aren’t sounding too happy. There’s some talk of pulling out.’

  ‘Jesus, they’ve not been there six month. Anyhow, it’s not my problem. It’s Mike Watt’s.’

  ‘You might want to comment. If you still have an eye on Trade and Industry. Oh, and they’re talking about a strike at the Freeman Hospital.’

  ‘Strike? For pay or conditions or what?’

  ‘Pay.’

  ‘Oh, right, easy.’ Pallister cast a drooping eye over the briefing papers. ‘Right. The usual SWP shit-stir. The Freeman, you know that’s where my dad got treated? For his arm?’

  But Susannah had abruptly crushed her chin into her chest. ‘Malcolm Fairbrother, twelve o’clock.’