Michael Dobbs - The Touch of Innocents

‘This is a traditional British game called a Government reshuffle,’ intoned the producer-turned-novice foreign correspondent. It was the hour of day when the minds of most journalists descend to their stomachs and they begin the detailed process of planning lunch, but the twinges of hunger were deadened for the young American by the knowledge that it was peak breakfast viewing time back home, and he had it live.

‘Into Ten Downing Street behind me in the past few hours have passed Britain’s most able, and most ambitious. For some the door is the threshold to still greater fame and preferment; for others, it’s the open jaws of the political crematorium. The game for us is to guess who has got what they want, and who has just joined the living dead. One junior minister has already let the cat out of the bag. When he left Downing Street just a few minutes ago, he was in tears. Others react differently. When he reappeared after his chat with the Prime Minister, the much criticized but usually voluble Defence Secretary could utter nothing more than a strangled “Nothing to say”, while the Transport Secretary seems to have vanished completely. He went in through the front door of Downing Street some time ago, but it seems he must have left from the back.’

The correspondent turned to glance down the narrow Georgian street which, as though switched from the studio, became bathed in late autumn sunlight. Behind him one of the heavy net curtains at a first-floor window was disturbed by a shadowy figure – a curious secretary enjoying the fun, perhaps. Or the Transport Secretary seeing if the coast were yet clear. But the correspondent’s attention was turned to a tall figure striding towards him from the direction of the heavy wrought-iron gates that shielded the entrance to Downing Street.

Even at a distance the bearing was notable. Many of the visitors to Downing Street that morning had appeared skittish and overflowing with nervous energy, others had been cautious, prowling, like stalking cats. This visitor seemed relaxed, self-confident, as though walking in the country, which, indeed, frequently he did. Yet his three-piece suit was all town, immaculately tailored and showing scarcely a trace of unintended creasing, the gold watch fob accurately suggesting an heirloom from a long line of distinguished and wealthy ancestors, while the highly polished shoes which caught the pale sun announced that this man was both meticulous enough to require they be polished daily, and of sufficient means to ensure he did not have to bother with such matters himself.

As he drew closer to the cameras the image of good grooming and close attention to personal detail became enhanced; the spare frame, the face healthily weathered rather than lined, a controlled expression difficult to read and suggesting a man who did not share his emotions lightly. Perhaps with his masculine manner and evident self-confidence he did not feel the need to share his emotions at all. The thick hair was laid straight back from the temples, its mixture of black ink and steel grey implying a man in his early fifties. A man, like a good malt, improving with age. And moist, pale blue eyes. He had the women of his local party association dangling from his Jermyn Street belt.

‘And here’s a man who seems to be relishing the game,’ the young American continued brightly, but failing to realize that the name he offered viewers was being swept away in a sudden deluge of shouted questions. ‘He’s arriving not by car, but on foot, in full view of the cameras, denying himself any hiding place when he leaves. He’s either very bold, or very optimistic. But this is a man hotly tipped for promotion.’

The politician turned his face to the cameras on the far side of the street and gave half a wave, but did not smile.

The correspondent held a hand to the side of his face to guard his earpiece; a voice that sounded very much like Grubb was bawling indecipherably at him. Something about an unnamed bastard.

‘In his previous job at the Employment Ministry he made his name as a political tough-guy by defeating one of the most bitter rail strikes in recent memory, while in his current role as Health Secretary he’s established a reputation as a radical reformer …’

More squawking in his earpiece.

‘… whatever he’s doing tomorrow, in many people’s view this is a man who could eventually go all the way and one day be working on the other side of that Downing Street door.’

On cue a duty policeman saluted, the door swung open and without a backward glance the politician disappeared inside as Grubb’s voice echoed across the satellite link, at last intelligible if deeply inelegant.

The young broadcaster drew a deep breath, no mistake this time, the words mouthed with almost excessive precision.

‘We are likely to be hearing a lot more about Paul Devereux.’

The senses were stunned, literally. A blast of sheer white light had entered the eye, which had been unable to cope. The pupil struggled to exclude the glare but had found it an impossible task; the light beams felt as though they were tearing around the skull, harassing the brain like a pack of mongrels let loose in a school yard. The olfactory nerve, under assault from a powerful and nauseatingly pungent odour, jammed in revolt; the nostrils flared in disgust, but found it impossible to escape. A sharp pain shot up through the nerve tendrils of the left arm from somewhere near its extremity, travelling through the brain stem like an angry, malevolent wind, blowing away cerebral cobwebs, rattling closed doors and throwing open the windows of the mind as it passed. The sensation it created was intense and unpleasant, yet in response her body could manage nothing but a slight, almost contemptuous curling of the little finger.

Around the bed, the reaction to pain generated smiles. ‘You were right, Sister,’ the consultant neurologist, Arnold Weatherup, sighed. ‘Once again,’ he added with feigned reluctance. ‘I thought this one had passed us by, but it would seem the main problem was a leaky spleen all along. You have a sixth sense about these things; not so long ago women like you would have been burned at the stake.’

‘And no’ so long ago, Mr Weatherup, doctors like you were robbing graves for anatomy specimens.’

The consultant laughed. There was always much laughter in this ward; it helped to ease the distress of frequent failure.

‘The medical profession has always required its sacrifices,’ the anaesthetist joined in, staring intently at Primrose.

‘I don’t think we need to prod or poke around any longer, Sister McBean,’ Weatherup concluded, examining the fresh scar on the upper left abdomen through which the leaky spleen had been removed. ‘I shall leave it to you to weave your charms and spells and hope that this recovery might continue.’ He smiled. ‘By the way, Burke and Hare, the grave robbers – Scots, weren’t they?’

‘No, doctor. Only the corpses they sold. Nothing but the best for the medical profession.’

None of this banter registered within the damaged brain, which was still dazzled and largely blinded by the unaccustomed light. The tar pit, although drying out, still delayed and frustrated the reawakening army of neurological messengers. They leapt from stepping stone to stepping stone, trying to find a way through. Most still failed and some, like those bearing short-term memories, would perish entirely, but others were more persistent, reinvigorated by the blood’s fresh supplies of oxygen, trying first one route, then another, until slowly they came nearer their goal. The stepping stones were growing larger, more messengers were getting through, yet many still arrived out of sequence, jumbling their messages and confusing the brain.

Of the several hours before the accident and all the many days since there would be no coherent memory, nothing but a dark void. Only through dreams, which have their own unscrambling process for memories, would she be able to revisit any fragment of the torment she had endured, and one fragment she would touch only in her nightmares. A meaningless, unconnected and untranslatable memory but one which was insistent.