An Uncivilised Election Read online

  She smiled into his face. She had beautiful, very white teeth. At close quarters the unblemished smoothness of her skin and the perfection of the bone formation of her too-thin face were more in evidence. She parted her teeth a fraction, as if she were going to laugh at him. He had never seen such an expression in her eyes.

  “No,” she said.

  “If that’s a lie—”

  “Daniel darling, I said no. Don’t tell me you think I’m a liar.”

  Slowly he let her go. She didn’t change her position but sat back with her head arched, looking at him through half-closed eyes, like a Siamese cat.

  “You would lie if it suited your purpose,” he said, “but I don’t think you would to me.”

  “It wouldn’t get me anywhere,” Amanda said. “Nor would a lot of little plastic bombs. Nothing would please me more than to think that Quatrain’s men were wiped out but that isn’t what we’re planning, is it?”

  “No, it isn’t,” Ronn said.

  “Have you heard from Travaritch?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does he still think he can get it?”

  “We’ll have to find help for him, once he’s got it out.”

  “We can do that.”

  “And I think he’ll want more money.”

  “We can find that too.”

  “We can’t, Amanda,” Ronn said very deliberately. He slid his arms round her, but did not go close enough for their bodies to touch. “You can, but I can’t. I don’t want there to be any misunderstanding.”

  “There isn’t any misunderstanding.”

  He pulled her a little closer; their bodies touched. She didn’t look away from him, and still watched him from narrowed eyes; she gave no sign whether she liked or disliked, approved or resented what he was doing. He confirmed something he had long suspected. She could make his blood run hot. It was the way she smiled. It was the sight of her shiny teeth, parted a fraction, and the glistening red of her tongue showing beyond. It was the crystal beauty of her complexion.

  “Daniel,” she said.

  “Amanda, I want to take you to bed.”

  “I know you do,” she said. “But first things first.”

  “That is first.”

  “It isn’t,” she said.

  “It needn’t interfere with—”

  “Darling Daniel,” Amanda said sweetly, “we have to concentrate on one thing, just one thing only, and to me that is first and last and every place in between. Afterwards.”

  “Is that a promise?”

  “Afterwards,” Amanda said.

  Slowly, reluctantly, he let her go. She didn’t move from him; he had to move back from her. He felt a strange disquiet and dissatisfaction and desire. She stood up, so slight and boyish, yet his heart pounded in his ears and he had to clench his teeth to stop himself from pleading with her; only one positive fact stopped him: Amanda Tenby would not be influenced by pleading.

  “Are you sure about Travaritch?” she asked.

  “I think so.”

  “Can’t you be absolutely sure?”

  “How can I?”

  “That is what I mean about first things first,” said Amanda. “You have to think more, darling.” At last she moved, sinking back on the window seat and sitting cross-legged. “I don’t believe that Travaritch has led a blameless life, do you? There must be some skeleton in his cupboard, something we could find out that he wouldn’t want the world to know about.”

  Ronn watched her closely, a smile touching his lips but not his eyes.

  “I shouldn’t think he has any guilty secrets,” he said.

  “How innocent can you be?”

  “You forget one thing.”

  “Do I, Daniel?”

  “You forget that everyone who works in nuclear research for the government is very closely screened before he is allowed to do secret work. After Fuchs and Nunn May they’ve taken every precaution.”

  “I know that,” she said. “But I don’t think the screen is so fine that nothing can get through it. Try, Daniel. Try very hard.”

  After a pause, he said, “It isn’t a thing I can do, and you know it.”

  “You have your friends.”

  “It would cost—”

  “Just send me the bill,” Amanda said. “But make sure that the man you use is reliable. You know exactly what we want, don’t you? We want some hold on Travaritch so as to make sure that he can’t back out at the last minute.”

  “I know,” said Daniel Ronn.

  “Who will you use?”

  Ronn smiled more broadly and very slowly shook his head.

  “That’s a thing you mustn’t know,” he told her. “I shall work through a friend of a friend, so that no one knows who is so interested in Travaritch. But if there’s a skeleton in his cupboard we’ll find it.”

  Amanda Tenby and Daniel Ronn did not know, but up and down the country candidates and agents and their chief workers were discussing the possible weaknesses of their opponents, in different ways and with different emphasis. A kind of metamorphosis came upon many of these people. The election seemed to work in them as a stimulant and an intoxicant. Even a candidate with next to no chance, or with no chance at all, began to dream dreams and to imagine reasons why he should be returned as the member of Parliament. No one who stood for election really believed that he had no chance at all. Many pretended to think so, even in the privacy of their own homes, but at heart there glowed a spark of hope.

  Richard Benwell felt that spark very vividly.

  He was the Labour candidate for a north London constituency against a Conservative candidate who had been the sitting member for nearly twenty years, always elected with a big majority. The Liberal candidate had won a seat on the local council a year before and now had a very good, and improving, election organization. A lot of people argued that this was one of the constituencies where the right tactic was for the Labour man to stand aside so that the Liberal had a real chance to beat the Conservative. Not only was such a theory in complete conflict with official Labour party policy, it was against everything Benwell believed in. He was sure that everyone, no matter what his political opinion, should have a chance to vote whichever way he wanted.

  Benwell was a comparatively young man. His wife, Marjorie, had a great love for him, and shared one great sorrow with him; they had lost their only child three years before. At that time Richard had been deeply interested in politics but had never seriously aspired to becoming a member of Parliament. His wife knew that politics now filled the gap which the death of their child had made in his life. It didn’t help her, for she was not very politically minded. She voted Labour because of his enthusiasm, but wasn’t particularly convinced about socialism; she was, however, absolutely convinced that whatever he felt compelled to do she must support.

  She was a good shorthand-typist and was working in the main committee rooms in the High Street, with the throb of passing traffic and the clatter and chatter of passing pedestrians now booming and now fading, as the door was opened. Half a dozen voluntary workers were sitting at the long trestle tables at the back of the shop premises which they had rented for a month, the duration of the campaign. Huge hand-painted bills were plastered all over the window so that it was almost impossible to see out. In the centre was a huge disk, carrying the slogan:

  VOTE LABOUR

  VOTE BENWELL

  One of the problems in the High Street was parking, but special arrangements had been made with the police for the candidate and his agent to leave their car outside for periods of not more than twenty minutes; for longer periods they had to use a parking place at the back of the shop. Marjorie, typing letters appealing for the Fighting Fund to all known or suspected supporters, had a sixth sense about Richard, and she looked up before he reached the door, although the growl of a diesel engine had drowned the sound of his car’s arrival. She saw that he was by himself, and her heart rose. He pushed the door open and came striding in. He was tall, had rather long
, very brown – nutty brown – hair, and hazel-coloured eyes which could light up with enthusiasm and with passion. There was something very clean-cut and Byronic about him. He even limped slightly on his left leg. She seldom noticed that, but for some reason she noticed it now.

  “Hallo, Mag!” That had been his name for her since their early days together. “Hi, everybody.” He waved to the workers, all of whom looked up and smiled – two old-age pensioners who addressed their envelopes with slow, almost maddening care but with exemplary clarity, one middle-aged housewife, and one teenager. Benwell gripped Marjorie’s shoulder for a moment, and then went up to the workers. “Hallo, Mrs. Potts, good of you to come again. Glad to see you’re better, Mr. Heppenstall, but don’t overdo it, will you? Here again, Mrs. Gray? …” He mentioned each of them by name. That was his especial gift: a reliable memory for names and the ability to be friendly with everybody and to neglect none. Everyone who knew him liked him.

  He came back to Marjorie.

  “Spare five minutes before Clark comes in?”

  “Love to!”

  “Let’s go in the back and make a cuppa.”

  She pushed her chair back. The workers nodded and smiled knowingly among themselves. “The back” was a small office used by Clark Henderson, Benwell’s agent, and Richard; it was very small, but in one corner was an electric kettle, a plug, a small cupboard with everything they needed to make tea. They had ten contented minutes, during which Richard talked of support he was likely to get from places where she didn’t feel any hope at all. She hadn’t the heart to disillusion him; her one anxiety was that he should not lose by too many votes.

  A door banged, and a man clumped across the shop, calling in a deep voice: “How’s the Working Party today, eh?” He pushed open this door, and stood on the threshold, a thickset man with a barrel of a body, grey-haired, grey-bearded. He wore thick-lensed glasses in a flimsy steel frame. He clapped his hands together.

  “Morning, lovebirds! Did you think of me or is that teapot empty?”

  “We thought of you,” said Marjorie.

  “Bless you, my child. And what have you been talking about – cabbages and kings?”

  “Crime and candidates,” announced Richard.

  “What?”

  “That’s right, isn’t it, Mag? Crime and candidates. We were just saying that if there was only one thing that would come out to Libby’s discredit it would make all the difference in the world.” The real name of the Liberal candidate was Libby, and that was likely to be a great help to him in the campaign. Already there was a rash of diamond-shaped posters and advertisements all over the constituency:

  VOTE LIB …

  VOTE LIBBY,

  VOTE LIBERAL

  Marjorie was pouring out tea, and something about Henderson’s manner made her look up, so that some of the tea spilled into the saucer. Richard obviously noticed the change in the agent too, for he asked: “Now what’s up?”

  “As a matter of fact I think I have a piece of information which would kill Libby’s chances,” said Clark Henderson. “That’s if you want to use it.”

  10: Past

  Cecil Libby, the Liberal candidate for the constituency in north London which bordered Quatrain’s, bustled out of his little Mini-Minor and along the path to his little house, and saw three of his children rushing along the hallway toward the open door, eager and excited, “daddy, daddy!” on all their lips. There were two girls, aged seven and five, and a boy aged three. They spilled out onto the garden, the older girl trampling on a flower bed which had more weeds in it than leggy antirrhinums which should have been pulled up weeks ago. They had no special reason for exuberance, just joie de vivre, and they hurtled at him. He thrust out his stubby arms, hoisted the first one shoulder high, then swung her over his head and dumped her down; she laughed helplessly all the time. He treated the second girl in the same way, dumped her down and turned to the boy. He would never have admitted it to a soul, but this child, his fourth, won a spark of deeper response from him than any of the girls. God knew he loved them, but young Monk, well, he had come when Libby had almost given up expecting a boy.

  Libby’s wife, Jane, appeared in the doorway.

  Libby held out his right arm, straight as a poker. Young Monk stood immediately beneath it, with nearly a foot of clearance between the arm and his head, although his father was only five feet six. With gravity which almost made his mother burst out laughing, Monk stretched up his arms and gripped his father’s, tiny fingers only just keeping their hold. Then the boy crooked his arms and hauled himself clear of the ground. His two sisters watched with bated breath, for this was the moment of danger, when Monk might slip off. They were honour bound not to pick him up, just as he was honour bound not to cry if he hurt himself. He drew his chubby legs higher and higher, then shifted his grip so that he edged closer to his father. Suddenly, Libby raised his arm and let the child dangle in the air, then caught him as he fell. The child’s face was a beacon of delight.

  “Monkey, monkey, monkey!” screeched the girls.

  “I’m a monkey,” piped young Monk.

  “You’re all monkeys,” Libby declared. He bustled up to the front door, the children clinging to him, to his wife. “Hallo, pet. I just managed to snatch half an hour off. Any chance of a sandwich?”

  “Of course,” said Jane. “We’ve had lunch, so we needn’t worry about the children. Daisy,” she said to the seven-year-old, “go along to the shop and ask Mrs. Smith for the usual groceries, and bring them back. Don’t forget to let Monk carry some, and don’t step into the road. Will you promise me that?”

  “Yes, mummy.”

  “Off with you!”

  Libby and his wife, probably two of the happiest people taking part in the election, turned into the house and closed the door. The bungalow was untidy, but not messy or dirty. The wallpaper had a worn look, and so did the kitchen furniture. The linoleum was patched in several places. Dolls were perched tidily in two small armchairs, a regiment of toy soldiers from a bygone age, their scarlet uniforms and bearskins appealing to Monk, were lined up on a window sill. The boiler which heated the water and the two small radiators in the bungalow was on, and the room was warm. Libby took off his coat. He was two stone too heavy, and looked very fat, but he also looked jolly. As Jane cut sandwiches, he leaned back in his chair and undid the laces of his shoes.

  “How is it going?” Jane wanted to know.

  “Not bad, not bad at all,” replied Libby. “I’ve been canvassing like a vacuum cleaner salesman. People are jolly decent, really. I could have had twenty-eight cups of tea, five sherries, four coffees and a whisky and soda, but I preferred to come home with you.”

  “Bless you.”

  “How have the kids been?”

  “Monk’s been a bit naughty, but he’s over it now. Darling, how are the envelopes getting along?”

  Libby grimaced. “We could do with a couple of dozen more workers, and a couple of hundred more quid. But we’ll get through. Had time to do any?”

  “About a hundred.”

  “Jolly good!” Libby closed his eyes. “Guess what the main subject people ask about is.”

  “Your syntax, I should think.” Jane, looking at him, saw that he was really tired. The lines at the corners of his mouth showed now that he was relaxed, the tiny tell-tale crows feet. “I don’t know.”

  “The bomb.”

  “The bomb?”

  “Quatrain’s bomb! Would you believe it? With all these issues at stake, the Common Market, Africa, the Far East, labour troubles on the home front, the cost of living, automation, every damned thing – and four people out of five say isn’t it terrible about that bomb! It’s won Quatrain more sympathy than anything else ever could. I feel sorry for Talmad. It’s an uphill fight for him anyhow, and this—”

  “It won’t make any serious difference, surely?”

  “In Quatrain’s own constituency it might make a lot,” said Libby. “It happened three days ago
, and instead of the interest dying down, it seems to be livening up. Oh, well.” He hitched himself forward in his chair, and took a sandwich off his plate. “This looks good. I wish the police would catch the devil.”

  “They’re sure to,” Jane said. “Look at the Mail.”

  The Daily Mail had a front-page picture of Quatrain, and one of a man with a big, strong-looking face; under this was the name “Commander Gideon.” Quatrain was quoted as saying that the police had already lost their opportunity of catching the assassin; Gideon was quoted as saying: “We have never yet failed to catch a man guilty of such an outrage.”

  “The copper’s sticking his neck out,” Libby remarked, and devoured the next sandwich, turned over the pages and glanced down them for election and general news.

  Suddenly his expression changed. His wife, coming in with a cup of coffee, saw his eyes close as if to shut out some unwanted vision. She had noticed him behave like this before and wondered if these were moments when he felt that he really had no chance to win, no matter what he said.

  She did not know that he had just read a short news item, which ran:

  OFFICE THIEF JAILED

  Ernest Cartwright, 19, of Seabright Road, Delton, was sent to prison for three months by the local magistrate for theft from the cashier’s office where he worked.

  He, Libby, had not been jailed when he had committed just such an offence; he had been bound over. A generous employer had helped him. He had needed the money so desperately then, and temptation had been fierce and ugly. He had taken twenty-two pounds ten shillings. Twenty-two pounds ten shillings could have ruined his life – and if it ever became known locally could ruin his political hopes even today. It had happened in the Midlands and he had moved away from there soon afterwards, so very few people knew.