Brian Freemantle: Here Comes Charlie M

‘Neither will I,’ said Berenkov.

‘It would be nice to show my gratitude.’

‘Yes,’ agreed the man.

‘Did you like him?’

‘Very much,’ he said, distantly. Then he added: ‘And now I feel sorry for him.’

‘Sorry?’

‘He was very clever, doing what he did. But I’m sure he never completely realised what it would be like afterwards.’

He shivered, a man suddenly exposed to the cold.

‘… more terrible than prison,’ he said. ‘Far more terrible.’

It had been stupid to begin the conversation, she decided, irritated with herself. It had led to needless reminiscence and they had been getting away from that in the last few months.

‘It’s all over now,’ she said briskly. ‘And we can forget about it.’

‘I’ll never be able to do that,’ he said. ‘Nor want to.’

‘Just prison, then,’ she accepted. ‘The worst part.’

He looked down at the woman, smiling at her misunderstanding.

‘Prison wasn’t the worst part,’ he said.

She frowned up into his face.

‘Not knowing was the worst part,’ he tried to explain, with difficulty. ‘Being aware, as I was, for almost a year that I was being hunted yet not knowing what they were doing or how to fight back …’

He paused, back among the memories.

‘Not knowing is like being aware that you’re dying and unable to do anything about it,’ he said.

For several moments, neither spoke. Then Berenkov said: ‘And Charlie’s got to live like that forever.’

‘Unless he’s caught,’ she reminded him.

‘Unless he becomes careless and is caught,’ he agreed.

It was an unfortunate coincidence, each event detracting from the other. On balance, there was far more ceremony and pomp about the inauguration of the American President so the coverage from Washington unquestionably overshadowed the election victory of the British Premier.

Comparison was inevitable, of course. Radio and television commentators maintained a constant interchange of fact and fallacy to make their points and from the grave that provided complete surveillance of the cemetery the man sighed irritably, knowing there would be no other subject covered that day.

He had never before switched the softly tuned transistor lodged against the headstone to anything but continuous news coverage or talk programmes. He looked around and saw some genuine mourners only yards away; they’d be bound to hear any pop music. Damn it.

Still, remembered the man, it had been worse in the early days. He hadn’t thought of bringing the radio then, even for boring current affairs debates. Or evolved the method he now employed to pass the time. Other shifts had copied him and there wasn’t a better-kept burial spot in the graveyard. He felt quite proud. No one had said anything officially, though. Hadn’t really expected them to; civil servants were a miserable lot.

His jacket lay neatly folded and far enough away to avoid it being splashed by water from his bucket or scrubbing brushes. He knelt on a specially padded piece of blanket and cleaned to a slow rhythm, a regular metronome movement, forward and back, forward and back.

‘… bright new future from the gloom of the past …’ intoned the American President, Henry Austin, and the undertaking was relayed instantly by satellite from the podium on Pennsylvania Avenue to the churchyard in Sussex.

What sort of future did he have? wondered the grave-cleaner. Damn all, he decided. His gloom of the past would be the gloom of the future.

Some clumsy so-and-so had chipped the bordering granite near the headstone, he saw.

‘Sorry, love,’ he said.

He frequently wondered about Harriet Jamieson, spinster, who had died on the 13th of October, 1932, aged 61 years and been buried in the hope of eternal peace. Probably a relation of someone in the department, he had decided. Otherwise there might have been a query about all the care being expended on the grave.

‘Bet you didn’t have so many men sweating over you when you were alive, Harriet my girl,’ he said.

The radio programme switched to the B.B.C.’s Westminster studio. The new Premier had made a brief Commons appearance, said the reporter, his voice urgent to make the event sound more exciting than it had really been.

‘… time to bind our wounds …’ said the commentator, quoting Arthur Smallwood’s message verbatim.

‘Good grief,’ quietly muttered the man in the cemetery.

He heard the church clock strike and rose gratefully. There was a telephone just outside the lychgate and he was connected immediately.

‘Nothing, as always,’ he reported.

‘Thank you,’ replied the duty clerk.

‘Someone’s chipped the surround, near the headstone.’

‘I’ll make a note of it.’

‘I don’t want to be held responsible.’

‘I said I’d record it.’

‘How much longer are we going to keep this up, for Christ’s sake?’

‘Until we’re instructed otherwise,’ said the clerk.

Prissy bastard, thought the man, as he went off duty.

In Washington, Henry Austin gazed over the crowds that lined the avenue right up to the White House, happy in the politician’s knowledge that the inaugural address had caught just the right note.

‘I come to office,’ said the new President, ‘intending to honour the pledge I have made several times during this campaign to the American people. The mistakes of the past will be corrected … when necessary with the utmost vigour. And I will do my best to ensure that fewer are committed in the future …’

And from the specially equipped room at Downing Street, Arthur Smallwood stared into the television cameras and out at the watching British people, his face grave with sincerity.

‘… overcome accepted and difficult problems,’ he said, coming to the conclusion of his address to the nation. ‘They are inherited from the past. My government and I are confident that we can do better than that which we succeed. We are determined in that resolve. And prepared to be judged by you, the people, on our efforts …’

‘My God!’ protested the grave-cleaner in familiar exasperation, leaning forward to snap off the television set on which he’d watched both events. ‘That’s all I’ve heard, all day. Empty politicians making empty bloody promises. And they haven’t a clue what’s going on. Not a clue.’

‘Chops,’ announced his wife, through the kitchen hatch of their semi-detached house in Dulwich. ‘I’ve got pork chops. Is that all right?’

The man didn’t answer. He’d get the blame for that damaged grave, he knew. Charlie Muffin was a bloody nuisance.

Henry Austin enjoyed it all, the speech and the triumphal drive to the mansion that was to be his home for the next four years and the photographic session and the reception and the grand ball.

‘Brilliant speech, Mr President,’ Willard Keys, the Secretary of State, congratulated him.

‘I meant what I said,’ replied Austin seriously. They were in the corner of the ballroom, momentarily away from most of the guests.

‘Mr President?’

‘About mistakes. I want this administration squeaky clean. And I want everyone to understand that. Everyone.’

‘I’ll see to it.’

‘And Willard.’

‘Mr President?’

‘I mean the past as well. I don’t want any embarrassments that we’re not prepared for. Make that clear, too. Everything tidied up … no loose ends.’

‘Why don’t we make it the first policy memorandum from the Oval Office?’

‘Yes,’ agreed the President. ‘Why don’t we?’

Four thousand miles away, Arthur Smallwood stared across the first-floor study at Downing Street, inviting the Foreign Secretary’s assessment.