David Dickinson - Death and the Jubilee

Out in the square a plain-clothes man was talking to the two policemen. A delivery van arrived and began unloading cases of wine at a house with a red door across the way. Life in Markham Square went on, even as the Prime Minister of Great Britain tried to negotiate the salvation of the City of London in Number 25 and Lord Francis Powerscourt was closer to despair than he had ever been in his life.

There was another rush up the stairs. A distant corner of Powerscourt’s mind automatically noticed that Schomberg McDonnell was not out of breath at all. Perhaps it keeps you fit, he thought, working for the Prime Minister.

‘Four and a half per cent,’ he announced, ‘fifteen years.’

‘Christ, he’s going to make even more money out of us that way,’ said the Prime Minister, opening his eyes.

‘Royal Commission, Prime Minister?’ asked McDonnell.

‘Not yet, not yet, dammit. Try him with some of that fashionable stuff. You know the sort of thing.’

‘Weekend at Sandringham with the Prince and Princess of Wales?’ said McDonnell. ‘Dinner in their London home at Marlborough House?’

‘Not weekend, McDonnell, weekends. Plural.’

‘God help him!’ said the private secretary, and shot back down the stairs. They heard a faint click as the study door closed on the floor below.

‘Interest charges would run on that deal at two hundred and twenty five thousand a year,’ said William Burke. ‘That’s not including repayment of the principal.’

The Prime Minister subsided on to the sofa once more. Burke prepared more sections of his book with headings of five million pounds. Powerscourt noticed that there was now a subsidiary row of figures labelled one per cent, half per cent, quarter per cent. Burke was preparing for all eventualities. The Governor wished most devoutly that he was somewhere else.

So did Powerscourt. Suddenly he could hear Lucy’s voice echoing in his mind. She was reading a bedtime story to Thomas, her tone soft and quiet in the hope it would send the little boy to sleep. It was a fairy story about a princess locked up in a tower. Only a handsome prince could rescue her from her prison on the top of the mountain. He went to the window to blink back his tears.

This time the negotiations seemed quicker than before. The Governor had only looked at his watch once before McDonnell was back.

‘Four per cent over fifteen years,’ he reported.

The Prime Minister snorted as though he had expected better tidings. ‘All right, McDonnell. Royal Commission.’

‘Member or Chairman?’

‘Start with member,’ instructed the Prime Minister, ‘see how you go.

‘Very good, Prime Minister.’

‘You’re down to two hundred thousand pounds interest charges a year now, Prime Minister,’ said Burke cheerfully. ‘Total interest charges of three million. Three to catch five.’

‘Could be worse,’ said the Prime Minister, ‘could be worse.’

Where is she? Powerscourt asked himself. What are they doing to her? He wished the meeting would end and he could tell his news to the Prime Minister and rush off to Brighton. He felt completely detached from this meeting, as if it were all a dream. It’s a Greek tragedy, he thought. McDonnell is the Chorus, forever coming back on stage with fresh news of atrocities and the unburied dead. Hold on, Lucy, I’m coming. Hold on.

Rosebery had ringed a number of entries in his racing paper. Burke was now marking out further pages of his notebook ready for new calculations of interest charges. Powerscourt saw that he now had a separate heading called Repayment of Capital, underlined twice.

‘Maybe we should open a book on how long each negotiation will be,’ said Rosebery, inspired by his study of the turf. ‘I say he’ll be back inside three minutes.’ There was not time for anybody to reply. Just inside the Rosebery timetable McDonnell returned.

‘Three and three quarter per cent. Twenty years,’ he announced.

‘Member or Chairman?’ asked the Prime Minister.

‘Chairman,’ said McDonnell. ‘I thought it was worth it for the extra five years.’

‘What have we left now?’ The Prime Minister was still lying back on his sofa.

‘Let me try him with clubland, sir,’ said McDonnell. ‘I talked to a man last night who said Messel had been very disappointed when he was blackballed by the Coldstream.’

‘Carry on, McDonnell.’

‘Very good, Prime Minister.’

‘I hope we can deliver these bloody clubs for him, Rosebery,’ said the Prime Minister, turning to his predecessor. ‘Never cared for them much myself. But you belong to one or two, don’t you?’

‘Rest assured, Prime Minister, the clubs should be fine.’ Rosebery smiled. ‘The last time I counted I belonged to thirty-seven.’

‘God bless my soul!’ said the Prime Minister. ‘How ever do you find the time to go to them all?’

One of the stairs at the bottom of the hall was creaking, Powerscourt noticed. There was a small but noticeable squeak that heralded the return of the private secretary.

‘Three and a half per cent, Prime Minister, over twenty years. It seems Mr Messel is very fond of clubs even though he doesn’t belong to many. That’s the MCC, the Royal Yacht Squadron, the Coldstream, the Warwick, the Beefsteak, the Athenaeum and the Jockey Club.’

‘All gone?’ asked the Prime Minister.

‘All gone,’ McDonnell nodded.

‘Christ, that’s a lot of clubs. Can we cope with that lot, Rosebery?’

‘We can, Prime Minister. But somebody should have warned him about the Warwick. The food is disgusting.’

‘We’re running out of bait,’ said the Prime Minister, rubbing his eyes.

‘A position on government committees, Prime Minister?’ McDonnell seemed to have taken the measure of Franz Augustine Messel. ‘I think he’d go for that, Mr Messel.’

‘Any damned committee?’ asked the Prime Minister. ‘Forestry? Technical Education? Maritime Shipping?’

‘Something like that, Prime Minister.’

‘Use your judgement, McDonnell. Off you go.’

The Governor of the Bank of England joined Powerscourt by the window. The Americans had left. The policemen still guarded Number 25. Rosebery returned to the racing pages, marking out some more winners for the afternoon. Burke was now writing his own name over and over again in the last page of the account book. The Prime Minister closed his eyes once more. Powerscourt was thinking again about professional success and personal failure. He thought again about the Farrell family, thrown out on to the unforgiving streets of London. He thought that he might never see Lucy again. I’ve just got to find her, he said to himself, clenching his fists very tightly. I’m bloody well going to find her. Hold on, Lucy. I’m coming. Hold on.

That squeak again. McDonnell’s face never changes every time he comes back, Powerscourt noticed. Nobody looking at him could have guessed what sort of tidings he was bringing with him.

‘Three per cent over twenty years. No interest payable for the first two years,’ he reported.

‘What’s that, Mr Burke?’ asked the Prime Minister from his sofa.

‘One hundred and fifty thousand a year, sir,’ said Burke.

‘Done,’ said the Prime Minister. ‘I’ll settle for that. What did you have to offer the fellow for the extra half per cent, McDonnell?’

‘I’m afraid I said it was likely that there would be a joint committee of both Houses looking into the whole question of foreign loans.’

‘Did you, by God,’ said the Prime Minister.

‘I thought,’ said McDonnell, looking his most innocent, ‘that Mr Messel might have useful things to say on the subject. And I only said it was likely, Prime Minister. Nothing definite. Nothing we couldn’t wriggle out of later on, if we had to.’