Michael Dobbs - The Final Cut

'A new party,' she began once again. 'A big media launch with some prominent names in support. Then more to follow over the weeks ahead. Several from within our own party. Perhaps one or two even from within the Government.' 'Madness!' Booza-Pitt snorted.

But Urquhart's eyes had grown fixed, his frame stooped in concentration as he walked, studying the ground as though peering through a trap door into a personal hell. 'He'd hope for a couple of by-elections where they'd buy anything new on the shelf. Bite after bite, taking mouthfuls out of my majority. Making it ever more difficult for me to govern.' 'One step building on the next.' 'He wants to bleed me. Death by a thousand cuts.'

'Could he do it? Could he really?' Booza-Pitt had at last caught the changing wind. 'Sounds like a party no one but women's magazines would take seriously.'

'Even women take time off from painting our nails to vote, Geoffrey. We're not all hot flushes and flower arranging.'

A sense of urgency crept into the Prime Minister's step; Booza-Pitt felt he was being left behind. 'But where'd he get the money for it all?' he demanded breathlessly. For Geoffrey, the practicalities of life all came down to a question of money. He'd once found a short cut on the school cross-country run and, much to his annoyance, had made the team. He'd found consolation by selling the short cut to his friends.

'Money's not his problem, it's time,' Claire responded. 'Time to build momentum. Time to build an organization before the next election and to establish that he's more than merely a figment of the media's fevered imagination. Time to encourage our sweaty band of galley slaves to jump ship.'

'It'd be no more than a dinner party at prayer,' Booza-Pitt all but spat in contempt. Then his expression altered as though refashioned with a mallet. 'Good God. What does that mean for my Bill? I'd be giving him all the money.'

Urquhart came to a sudden halt under the limbs of a spreading cedar tree. 'Not quite what I had in mind,' he conceded quietly.

'I've… I've got to withdraw it. Somehow.' Booza-Pitt's voice trailed away, his mantle as defender of democracy in tatters even before it had been woven. 'There is another way,' Claire offered. 'One which would keep my reputation?'

'Keep the Government's reputation, Geoffrey,' she corrected. 'Your Bill will sponsor as many different groups as possible. Fine. We mustn't give Tom a clear run.'

'Nibbled to death by a thousand minnows, that was always my thinking,' Geoffrey exclaimed, wondering whether the time had come to reclaim authorship of the plan.

'And meanwhile make damn sure our own supporters have got something to get their teeth into. Let's fly the flag for them. Give them something that reminds them what we're all about, and how much they'd lose if it all went wrong.' 'Like what?' Geoffrey pleaded.

'I thought you were the one with all the bright campaigning ideas.' It was Urquhart, his tone sharp, back amongst them. 'Geoffrey, why don't you go and have a wander through the Long Library before lunch? Fascinating collection of first editions -Sartre, Hemingway, Archer. Right up your street.'

'Maybe a little later, F.U.?' he suggested, determined not to be written out of the plot. 'Geoffrey. Be a good fellow and bugger off.' 'Yes, right. Long Library. See you at lunch then.'

She marvelled at his resilience to insult. Even now, she suspected, he was working on how he would divulge to others the privilege of the PM's personal invitation to inspect his rare editions. 'He'll not love you for that,' she commented.

'Geoffrey is incapable of love for anyone except himself. His adoration of his own inadequacies is as total as it is astounding and leaves no room for anyone else. I suspect I shall survive, as will he.'

In the distance a lunch gong was being beaten and the squeals of children echoed with renewed impatience, but he ignored the summons, instead gripping her arm and leading her through french windows which brought them from the terrace into the house. They were in his study with the windows firmly closed behind them, shutting them off. Suddenly she felt claustrophobic, the rules had changed. This was no longer a summer stroll around the garden making sport with Booza-Pitt, but one on one, she and Urquhart, in an atmosphere of personal intensity she'd never felt with him before.

'I'm sorry, Francis, did I offend you, talking about the possibility of defeat?'

'No. You managed to express, and most eloquently, something that…' – he was going to say 'voices inside my own head' – 'my own thoughts have been telling me all too sharply.' 'So you think it could happen?'

'I'm not a fool. Of course it could happen. We're no more than passengers on a tide,- even as we are rushed along by it, only one small slip could sweep us under.'

'And if we were to slip and he were to win, just once, there would be no way back for us. Tom's always been committed to proportional representation – he'd change the election law himself, skew it in favour of the small parties, the minnows.'

'Who would grow into great pikes and tear any Government apart. This country would be turned over to chaos. By legislative order of Booza-Pitt and Makepeace, destroyers of civilization. Hah!' To her alarm he sounded as if he found ironic pleasure in the prospect of the Apocalypse. 'You would be history,' she warned. 'And favoured by it all the more!'

She realized why she had begun to feel so claustrophobic. She was standing beside not just a man, but a political Colossus whose deeds would be writ large. Yet she had known that from the very start; wasn't that why she had agreed to join him, for her own selfish place in his shadow, the thrill and experience of standing beside a great chunk of that story? Up so close, so privately, it left her not a little in awe.

'There is one major gap in his armour,' Urquhart continued in a state of considerable animation, 'his point of greatest vulnerability. He must keep his momentum going, appear irresistible before enough people will take their courage in their hands and march with him. But to raise an army he needs time. Time which is ours to give, or to deny. We must keep an eye on young Tom.'

'I already am,' she responded a little sheepishly. She'd intended to keep it secret, in case he disapproved, but the atmosphere of intimacy overcame her caution. 'He has a new driver who is – how shall I put it? – extremely keen to share his experiences, especially when he picks up his weekly pay cheque. From a very close friend of my husband.'

'Really? How splendid. I should have thought of that. I'm slipping.' 'Or perhaps I'm learning.'

He began to look at her quizzically, in a new light. 'I do believe you are – turning out to be a truly remarkable find, Claire, if you'll allow me to say so.' He had turned to her, taken her hands, his voice dropping to a softer register. He'd already invited her to share so much yet there was a new and pressing intimacy in this moment. 'One thing I have to ask. You've been pretty tough about Tom Makepeace. Politically, I mean. Yet from the way you understand him so well I get the impression – a sense, perhaps – that once you and he were… close. Personally.' 'Would it have mattered?' 'No. Not so long as I could be sure of your loyalty.'

Loyalty tied by bonds at least as secure as any she had shared with Makepeace. 'Francis, you can. Be sure of my loyalty.'

She felt herself being pulled by the enormous force of gravity which surrounded him. She panicked, realizing she was losing control, her lips reaching up towards him. Suddenly she was afraid, of both him and her own ambitions. She was falling, yet couldn't find it within her to resist, even in the knowledge that coming so close to him was likely to leave her burnt up and scattered like cinders. As had happened to others. She was on fire.