Michael Dobbs - The Final Cut

'I'm only fifty. I hope there'll be a chance to serve again sometime.'

'But not under Francis Urquhart. Yesterday you called his Government unprincipled. Do you think it's time for the Prime Minister to step down? Or be pushed?'

Makepeace made no immediate response. He stood with his hand extended, waiting for his change. It came in a great handful of coins, which he did not bother to count.

'Mr Makepeace, should the Prime Minister be forced to go?' the interviewer pressed.

He turned to face his interrogator and the nation, his brow darkened as though considering a dilemma of enormous consequence. Suddenly he broke into an impish grin.

'You might say that,' he offered. 'But at this stage I wouldn't care to comment…'

Urquhart reached for the remote control and silenced his tormentor. 'I've handled this matter badly,' he reflected, 'should've handled him better. Never wanted him out. But… politicians of principle. They're like a hole in the middle of the motorway.'

'This morning's press was fine,' she added supportively.

'It was no better than a draw, Elizabeth. A Prime Minister should do better than merely a draw.'

He was being so ruthlessly honest with himself. But could he also be honest about himself, she wondered? Clad in nothing more than a bath towel he looked so vulnerable, and she began to ruminate yet again on his passing years, the glorious days of summer turned fading autumn, a time when even a great oak tree must lose its leaves and stand bare before the pitiless winds. He had given so much, they had both given so much, yet as the seasons of their lives changed they would have so little to look forward to. There was no joy in watching him grow old.

Approaching winter. A patchwork of creases and crevices. Thin emaciated finger-twigs, parchment skin of bark, when the sap begins to wane and the nights grow longer in a landscape covered with axe-men. 'Why do you want to go on, Francis?'

For a moment he looked startled. 'Because it's the only thing I know. Why, do you want me to stop?'

'No, but it may cost you more than ever to continue, and I think you should know why you continue.'

'Because I honestly believe I am the best man for the job. The only man, perhaps. For the country -and for me – I must go on. I'm not ready to spend the rest of my days looking back. There are too many memories, those things we ought not to have done.' 'You won't be able to go on forever, Francis.'

'I know. But soon I shall become the longest-serving Prime Minister in modern times. Francis Urquhart's place in history will be secure. Not a bad thing for us to have achieved, Elizabeth. Something for us to share, I suppose, after all this has been put by.' To justify the sacrifices past.' 'As you say, to justify the sacrifices past. And those still to come.' 'Mummy, why didn't Mr Urquhart lock up Toad?'

Claire put down the book and gave her youngest daughter, Abby, a cheerful hug. 'I don't think Mr Urquhart was around then, darling.' 'But he's been around forever.'

It dawned on Claire that Francis Urquhart had been Prime Minister since before either Abby or Diana had been born. A long time. A lifetime.

'I think Mr Urquhart is Toad,' the oldest child joined in from the other side of the sofa.

'Don't you like Mr Urquhart?' her mother enquired.

'No. He's not very kind and never listens. Just like Toad. And he's so o-l-d.'

'He's not that old,' Claire protested. 'Only a little older than Daddy.'

'A very little older than Daddy,' Johannis commented wryly. He was examining the financial pages of the evening newspaper while managing to watch the news and eavesdrop at the same time.

'Did your Mummy read The Wind in the Willows to you when you were a girl?' Diana enquired. 'No, darling. She didn't.'

'Did you have an unhappy childhood, Mummy?' Diana was beginning to pick up so many of her mother's unspoken thoughts, much as Claire had when she was a child. Her own mother had spoken so little to her, not wanting to share the pain, trying to protect her from the truth. But the pain had come, even when there had been no beatings, for when there was no abuse there was silence. That's how it had been for Claire and how it would never be for her own children. Screaming matches, hysterical argument, voices and fists raised until she thought her heart would crack. Then long periods of silence. Complete silence. Meals that were spent in silence, long days in silence, even her mother weeping in silence. The silence of the hell-cupboard beneath the stairs where on occasions she was locked and more frequently she hid. A childhood of abuse and silence. The noise of wounding and the yet more wounding sound of silence – perhaps it all evened out in the end. She had survived. She was a survivor.

'Buy shares in him, d'you think?' Joh asked, his attention now upon the television news. 'Or has he gone the way of all flesh?' Tom Makepeace paid for his oranges.

She wondered how much Joh knew, or guessed. Before they had married they'd discussed openly his fears that a husband twenty-three years older than a wife would inevitably be found deficient, lacking in some important respects, that one day he would be a pensioner while she was still in her prime and in almost all such relationships there was bound to develop a gulf which could only be bridged by trust and immense understanding. 'You cannot keep a marriage warm if both sides of the bed go cold,' he'd said. How well he had foreseen. But that had been a long time ago, had he in the years since made the crossover in his mind from abstract theory to fact? If he had, as she suspected he had, he'd offered no hint of it. Loyal knight, husband, guide, father-confessor, never inquisitor. It made her respect and love for him all the stronger.

'No,' she responded to her husband's question. 'Not yet at least.' 'But Tom Makepeace could be a danger.' 'Do you really think so?'

'I am a businessman, my love, not a politician. But make your own market analysis. How long do most Prime Ministers last – three, four, five years? He's already lasted more than ten. No one can defy the odds forever, the chances of your Francis still being in office in two years' time are very small. Age, accident, ill health, unpopularity. Time has many unpleasant allies.' 'But he seems at the height of his power.' 'So was Alexander when he fell from his horse.' 'What are you saying, Joh?'

'I suppose I'm saying be careful. That there's every likelihood of Francis Urquhart falling beneath the chariot wheels while you are his PPS – correction, not falling, more likely being thrust beneath by a baying mob. And all his handmaidens with him. Don't tie yourself too closely.'

'And you think that Tom Makepeace will do the thrusting?' She found the terminology peculiarly uncomfortable.

'Makepeace, or someone like Makepeace. You should keep an eye on him.'

His logic was, as always, impeccable,- a shiver of distress passed down her spine.

'How would you do that, Joh? Keep an eye on him?'

He appeared not to have heard, setting aside his newspaper in order that he could embrace his daughters before sending them off to bed accompanied by the normal chorus of complaint. Only when Abby and Diana had departed, towing soft toys and endearments, did he turn once again to his wife. 'How? Depends how important it was.' 'According to you, very.' He massaged his hands, a vizier warming them above a campfire on some damp, starless night, his lips moving as though sucking at the pipe he used to love before he met Claire and loved her more. 'A talkative friend. Close colleague, perhaps. Nothing electronic or illegal. That sort of thing, you mean?'

She stared at him, afraid to acknowledge what she meant, even to herself.

'A driver. Drivers know all the secrets. They could've abolished the CIA in exchange for one driver in the Kremlin motor pool. I'd get a friendly businessman to offer him a driver with big ears inside the car and a big mouth out of it.' 'Not illegal?' 'More an accident.'