House of Cards Read online

  * * *

  Behind the brick façade of Party Headquarters in Smith Square, opposite the limestone towers of St. John’s, the atmosphere was strangely subdued. For the past weeks this had been a place of ceaseless activity, but on election day itself most of the troops had disappeared, heading for the constituencies, those far outposts of the political world where they had tried to drum up the last few converts for the cause. By this hour most of those who remained were taking an early supper at nearby restaurants or clubs, trying to exude confidence but lapsing repeatedly into insecure discussion of the latest rumors about voter turnout and exit polls and critical seats. Few of them had much appetite and they soon began drifting back, pushing their way through the ever-growing crowds of spectators, beyond the cordons of police and past the mounting piles of scorched moths.

  During the last month these offices had grown overcrowded, overheated, and impossibly cluttered, but tomorrow everything would be different. Elections are a time of change, and of human sacrifice. By the weekend, no matter what the result, many of them would be out of a job, but almost all of them would be back for more, sucking at the nipple of power. For now they settled in for what would seem an interminable wait.

  Big Ben struck ten o’clock. It was over. The polling booths had closed and no further appeal, explanation, attack, insinuation, libel, or god-awful cock-up could now affect the outcome. As the final chime of the old clock tower faded into the night air a few of the Party workers shook each other’s hand in silent reassurance and respect for the job well done. Just how well done they would discover very shortly. As on so many previous evenings, like a religious ritual they turned their attention to the news screens and the familiar voice of Sir Alastair Burnet. He appeared like a latter-day Moses, with his reassuring tones and ruddy cheeks, his flowing silver hair with just enough backlighting to give him a halo effect.

  “Good evening,” he began in a voice like a gently flowing stream. “The election campaign is over. Just seconds ago thousands of polling booths across the country closed their doors, and now we await the people’s verdict. The first result is expected in just forty-five minutes. We shall shortly be going over live for interviews with the Prime Minister, Henry Collingridge, in his Warwickshire constituency and the Opposition leader in South Wales. But, first, ITN’s exclusive exit poll conducted by Harris Research International outside one hundred and fifty-three polling booths across the country during today’s voting. It gives the following prediction…”

  The country’s most senior newsreader opened a large envelope in front of him, as reverently as if the A4 manila contained his own death certificate. He extracted a large card from within the envelope, and glanced at it. Not too quickly, not too slowly he raised his eyes once more to the cameras, holding his congregation of thirty million in the palm of his hand, teasing them gently. He was entitled to his moment. After twenty-eight years and nine general elections as a television broadcaster, he had already announced that this was to be his last.

  “ITN’s exclusive exit poll forecast—and I emphasize this is a forecast, not a result—is…” He glanced once more at the card, just to check he hadn’t misread it.

  “Get on with it, you old sod!” a voice was heard to cry from somewhere within the Smith Square complex; from elsewhere came the sound of a champagne cork being loosened in premature celebration, but for the most part they stood in profound silence. History was being made and they were part of it. Sir Alastair stared at them, kept them waiting a heartbeat longer.

  “…that the Government will be re-elected with a majority of thirty-four.”

  The building itself seemed to tremble as a roar of triumph mixed with relief erupted from within. Thirty-bloody-four! It was victory, and when you are in a game to the death it’s really only the winning that matters, not how the game has been played or how close the result. Time enough later for sober reflection, for history to reach its verdict, but to hell with history—for the moment it was enough to have survived. In every corner there were tears of joy, of exhaustion, and of release that many found almost as good as orgasm and, in the view of a few old hands, considerably better.

  The screen divided briefly between mute shots of the Party leaders taking in the prediction. Collingridge was seen nodding, in acceptance, his smile thinner than satisfaction, while the broad grin and shake of his opponent’s head left viewers in no doubt that the Opposition had yet to concede. “Wait and see,” he was mouthing, in triumph. Then his lips moved again, saying something that lip readers later thought had been in Welsh. Two words, both very inappropriate.

  * * *

  “Bollocks!” Preston was shouting, his hair falling into his eyes, revealing the secrets of the shiny scalp beneath. “What the fuck have they done?” He looked at the ruins of his first edition and began furiously scribbling on his notepad. “Government Majority Slashed!” he tried. It was hurled into the bin.

  “‘Too close to call,’” Mattie suggested, trying to hide any hint of satisfaction.

  “‘Collingridge squeaks in,’” the editor tried once more.

  They all ended up in the bin.

  He looked around desperately for some help and inspiration.

  “Let’s wait,” Mattie advised. “It’s only thirty minutes to the first result.”

  Four

  The crowd is vulgar. Always play to the crowd, praise the common man, and let him think he is a prince.

  Without waiting for the first result, celebrations were already well under way at the Party’s advertising agency. With the confidence shown by all positive thinkers, the staff of Merrill Grant & Jones Company PLC had been squashed for nearly three hours in the agency’s reception area to witness history in the making and every wrinkle of it projected on two vast TV screens. A river of champagne was flowing, washing down an endless supply of deep pan pizzas and Big Macs, and predictions of a drastically reduced majority only served to spur the party-goers on to more feverish efforts. Even at this early hour it was clear that two ornamental fig trees that had graced the reception area for several years wouldn’t survive the night; it seemed probable that several young secretaries wouldn’t either. Most of the wiser heads were pacing themselves, but there seemed little reason to exercise excessive restraint. Ad men don’t do restraint. Anyway, the client was setting a fearsome example.

  Like many expatriate Dublin adventurers, Roger O’Neill was renowned for his quick wit, his irresistible capacity for exaggeration and his unquenchable determination to be involved in everything. So overwhelming were his energies and so varied his enthusiasms that no one could be entirely certain what he had done before he joined the Party—it was something in public relations or television, they thought, and there were rumors about a problem with the Inland Revenue, or was it the Irish Garda—but he had been available when the post of Publicity Director became vacant and he’d filled it with both charm and ability, fueled by a ceaseless supply of Gauloises and vodka tonics.

  As a young man he had shown great promise as a fly-half on the rugby field but it was a talent that was never to be fulfilled, his highly individualistic style making him ill-suited for team games. “With him on the field,” complained his coach, “I’ve got two teams out there, Roger and fourteen others. Screw him.” And so Roger had been duly screwed, in many areas of his life, until Fortune had smiled and brought him to Smith Square. At the age of forty he sported an unruly shock of dark hair that was now perceptibly graying and his muscle tone had long since gone, but O’Neill refused to acknowledge the evidence of his middle age, hiding it beneath a carefully selected wardrobe worn with a deliberate casualness that displayed the designers’ labels to their best advantage. His non-conformist approach and the lingering traces of an Irish accent hadn’t always endeared him to the Party’s grandees—“All bullshit and no bottom,” one of them had loudly observed—but others were simply overwhelmed by his unusual vigor.

  His
path through the thicket had been made much easier by his secretary. Penelope—“Hi, I’m Penny”—Guy. Five foot ten, an exciting choice of clothes and a devastating figure on which to hang them. There was that other aspect that made her stand out from the Westminster crowd. She was black. Not just dusky or dark but a polished hue of midnight that made her eyes twinkle and her smile fill the entire room. She had a university degree in the History of Art and 120 wpm shorthand and was ruthlessly practical. Inevitably there had been a riptide of gossip when she’d first arrived with O’Neill, but her sheer efficiency had silenced, if not won over, the Doubting Thomases, of which there were still many.

  She was also totally discreet. “I have a private life,” she explained when asked. “And that’s just how it’s going to stay.”

  Right now at Merrill Grant & Jones—Grunt & Groans, as Penny preferred to call them—she was effortlessly providing the center of attention for several red-blooded media buyers plus the deputy creative director while at the same time managing to ensure that O’Neill’s glass and cigarettes were always available but closely rationed. She didn’t want him going over the top, not tonight of all nights. For the moment he was dug in deep with the agency’s managing director.

  “The future starts right here, Jeremy. Let’s not lose sight of that. We need that marketing analysis as soon as possible. It’s got to show just how effective our efforts have been, how brilliant the ads, how much impact they’ve had, how we hit our target voters. If we win, I want everyone to know they owe it to us. If we lose, God help us…” Suddenly he sneezed with great violence. “Shit! Excuse me. Damned hay fever. But if we lose I want to be able to show the entire bloody world that we beat the other side hands down at our communications game and it was only the politics which blew it.” He drew close so they were almost touching foreheads. “You know what’s needed, Jeremy. It’s our reputations on the line, not just the politicians’, so don’t screw it up. Make sure it’s ready by Saturday morning at the latest. I want it in the Sunday papers and I want it as prominent as an actress’s arse.”

  “And I thought I was supposed to be the creative one,” Jeremy reflected, sipping more champagne. “But that doesn’t give us much time.”

  O’Neill lowered his voice, drew closer still so that the ad man could smell the sourness of French tobacco on his breath. “If you can’t get the figures, make the bloody things up. They’ll all be too exhausted to look at them closely, and if we get in there first and loudest we’ll be fine.” He paused only to blow his nose, which did nothing to ease the other man’s visible discomfort. “And don’t forget the flowers. I want you to send the most enormous bouquet around to the PM’s wife in Downing Street first thing in the morning. In the shape of a gigantic letter ‘C.’ Make sure she gets them as soon as she wakes up.”

  “From you, of course.”

  “She’ll get in a twist if they don’t arrive because I’ve already told her they’re coming. I want the TV cameras to film them going in.”

  “And to know who’s sent them,” the other man added.

  “We’re all in this together, Jeremy.”

  Yet with only your name on the card, Jeremy almost added, but didn’t. It was possible to take sincerity too far. He was used to his client’s breathless monologues by now, and to the irregular instructions and accounting procedures demanded by O’Neill. A political party wasn’t like any other client; it played by different and sometimes dangerous rules. But the last two years working on the account had given Jeremy and his youthful agency more than enough publicity to stifle the lingering doubts. Yet, as they waited nervously for the results, a silent fear struck him as he thought of what would happen if they lost. Despite O’Neill’s assurances that they were all in this together, he had no doubts the agency would be made the scapegoat. It had all looked rather different when they’d started their work, with the opinion polls predicting a comfortable win, but his confidence had begun to evaporate with the exit polls. His was an industry of images where reputations withered like yesterday’s flowers.

  O’Neill rattled on, effervescent, irrepressible, until their attention was grabbed by the six-foot image of Sir Alastair, who was now holding his ear with his head cocked to one side. Something was coming through his earpiece.

  “And now I believe we are ready for the first result of the evening. Torbay once again, I’m told. Breaking all records. Just forty-three minutes after the polls have closed and already I see the candidates are gathering behind the returning officer. It’s time to go over live…”

  * * *

  The Assembly Room, Torbay. Victorian, crowded, humid, desperately hot, crackling with tension. Bundles of counted votes stretched out along trestle tables, empty black tin ballot boxes stacked to one side. On the stage at one end, amid the banks of hyacinths and spider plants, the rosettes and mayoral regalia, the candidates were gathered. The first result was about to be announced, yet the scene resembled more a village pantomime than an election; the promise of nationwide media coverage had attracted more than the usual number of crank candidates who were now doing their best to capture the moment by waving balloons and brightly colored hats to attract the cameras’ attention.

  The Sunshine Candidate, dressed from head to toe in a searing yellow leotard and waving a plastic sunflower as ludicrous as it was large, was standing directly and deliberately in front of the sober-suited Tory. The Tory, his suit pressed and hair cut for the occasion, tried to move to his left to escape from the embarrassment but succeeded only in bumping into the man from the National Front, who was inciting a minor riot in the crowd by displaying a clenched fist and an armful of tattoos. The Tory, desperate to do the right thing and uncertain what his candidate’s manual prescribed in such circumstances, retreated with reluctance back behind the sunflower. Meanwhile, a young woman representing the Keep Our Seas Clean party and who was clad in blue and green chiffon, walked back and forth in front of everyone, trailing yards of cloth that billowed like an incoming tide.

  The mayor coughed into his microphone. “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. I, as returning officer for the constituency of Torbay, hereby declare that the votes cast in the election were as follows…”

  * * *

  “So there we have it from colorful Torbay,” Sir Alastair’s sepulchral tones intervened. “The Government hold the first seat of the night but with a reduced majority and a swing against them of, the computer says, nearly eight percent. What does that mean, Peter?” the newscaster asked as the screen cut to the channel’s academic commentator. A bespectacled, rather tussled figure in Oxford tweeds was given on the screen.

  “It means the exit poll is just about right, Alastair.”

  Five

  Politics requires sacrifice. The sacrifice of others, of course. Whatever a man can achieve by sacrificing himself for his country, there’s always more to be gained by allowing others to do it first. Timing, as my wife always says, is everything.

  “Great show, Roger, isn’t it? Another majority. I can’t tell you how absolutely thrilled I am. Relieved. Delighted. All of that. Well done. Well done, indeed!” The breathless enthusiasm of the chairman of one of Grunt & Groans’s major retail clients poured into O’Neill’s face without any visible effect. The thick-waisted industrialist was enjoying himself, sweating, smiling; the evening was turning into a full-fledged victory party irrespective of the fact that the Government had just lost its first two seats of the night.

  “That’s very kind of you, Harold. Yes, I think a thirty- or forty-seat majority will be enough. But you must take some of the credit,” O’Neill replied. “I was reminding the Prime Minister just the other day how your support goes way beyond the corporate donation. I remember the speech you gave at the Industrial Society lunch last March. By God it was good, so it was, if you’ll forgive a touch of blasphemy, you really banged the message home. Surely you’ve had professional training?” Without waiting for an answer,
O’Neill rushed on. “I told Henry—I’m sorry, the PM!—told him how good you were, that we need to find more platforms for captains of industry like you. Giving us the view from the coal face.”

  “There was no need for that, I’m sure,” replied the captain without the slightest trace of sincerity. The champagne had already overcome his natural caution and images of ermine and the House of Lords began to materialize in front of his eyes. “Look, when this is all over perhaps you and I could do lunch together. Somewhere a little quieter, eh? I’ve several other ideas he might find interesting, on which I’d very much welcome your views.” The eyes bulged expectantly. He took another huge mouthful of wine. “And talking of banging home the message, Roger, tell me, that little secretary of yours—”

  Before the thought could be pursued any further, O’Neill burst into a series of volcanic sneezes that bent him almost double, leaving his eyes bloodshot and rendering any hope of continued conversation impossible. “Sorry,” he spluttered, struggling to recover. “Hay fever. Always seem to get it early.” As if to emphasize the point he blew his nose with the sound of many trumpets and what seemed like a few bass drums. The moment gone, the industrialist backed off.

  The Government lost another seat, a junior minister with responsibility for transport, a callow man who’d spent the last four years rushing to every major motorway crash scene in the country, dragging the media behind him. He had developed an almost religious conviction that the human race’s capacity for violent self-sacrifice was unquenchable; it didn’t seem to be helping him very much to accept his own. His chin jutted forward to meet adversity while his wife dissolved in tears.

  “More bad news for the Government,” commented Sir Alastair, “and we’ll see how the Prime Minister is taking it when we go over live for his result in just a few minutes. In the meantime, what is the computer predicting now?” He punched a button and turned to look at a large computer screen behind his shoulder. “Nearer thirty than forty, by the look of it.”