Corridors of Power Page 9

  ‘The old boy hasn’t done too badly, has he?’ said Caro to Margaret. Sammikins was trumpeting with laughter.

  At close quarters he looked like an athlete, light on his feet with animal spirits. He had eyes like Caro’s, large, innocent and daring. He had her air, even more highly developed, of not giving a damn. He showed more open delight at Roger’s appointment than anyone there. Talking to me, he was enumerating in a resounding voice all the persons whom it would most displease.

  Joining our group, Diana was avid for action. ‘Look,’ she said to Roger, ‘I want to give you a real party. We can clear the decks here and lay it on for later tonight. Or have it tomorrow. Which would you like?’

  Sammikins would have liked either. So would Caro, but she was looking at Roger.

  Slowly he shook his head. He smiled diffidently at Diana, thanked her, and then said: ‘I don’t think it’s the right time.’

  She returned his smile, as though she had a soft spot for him, not just a political hostess’. With a rasp, she asked: ‘Why isn’t it the right time?’

  ‘There have been thousands of Cabinet Ministers before me. Most of them didn’t deserve a party.’

  ‘Oh, rubbish. You’re you. And I want to give a party for you.’

  He said: ‘Wait till I’ve done something.’

  ‘Do you mean that?’ cried Diana.

  ‘I’d much rather you waited.’

  She did not press him any further. Somehow she, and the rest of us, partly understood, or thought we did. What he said might have been priggish. It was not that, so much as superstitious. Just as he had been placating fate in his own office, so, in a different fashion, the job in his hands, he was doing now. It was the superstitiousness of a man in spiritual training, who had set himself a task, who could not afford to let himself be softened, who was going to feel he had wasted his life unless he brought it off.

  Part Two

  ‘In The Palm Of My Hand’

  11: Introduction of an Outsider

  Once or twice during the next few months, I found myself wondering whether Roger and his associates would qualify for a footnote in history. If so, what would the professionals make of them? I did not envy the historians the job. Of course there would be documents. There would be only too many documents. A good many of them I wrote myself. There were memoranda, minutes of meetings, official files, ‘appreciations’, notes of verbal discussions. None of these was faked.

  And yet they gave no idea, in many respects were actually misleading, of what had really been done, and, even more, of what had really been intended. That was true of any documentary record of events that I had seen. I supposed that a few historians might make a strong guess as to what Roger was like. But how was a historian going to reach the motives of people who were just names on the file, Douglas Osbaldiston, Hector Rose, the scientists, the back-bench MPs? There would be no evidence left. But those were the men who were taking part in the decisions and we had to be aware of their motives every day of our lives.

  There was, however, another insight which we didn’t possess, and which might come easily to people looking back on us. In personal terms we knew, at least partially, what we were up to. Did we know in social terms? What kind of social forces were pushing together men as different as Roger, Francis Getliffe, Walter Luke, and the rest of us? What kind of social forces could a politician like Roger draw upon? In our particular society, were there any? Those were questions we might ask, and occasionally did: but it was in the nature of things that we shouldn’t have any way of judging the answers, while to a future observer they would stand out, plain as platitudes.

  One peaceful summer afternoon, soon after he had taken office, Roger had called some of the scientists into his room. Once, when he was off guard, I had heard him say at Pratt’s that he had only to open his door to find four knights wanting something from him. There they all were, but there were more than four, and this time he wanted something from them. He was setting up a committee for his own guidance, he said. He was just asking them for a forecast about nuclear armaments to cover the next ten years. He wanted conclusions as brutal as they could manage to make them. They could work as invisibly as they liked. If they wanted Lewis Eliot as rapporteur at any time, they could have him. But above all, they had got to take the gloves off. He was asking them for naked opinions, and he was asking for them by October.

  Deliberately – it was part of his touch with men like these – he had let the blarney dissolve away. He had spoken as harshly as any of them. He looked round the table, where the faces stood out, moulded in the diffused sunlight. On his right, Walter Luke, who had just become the chief scientist of Roger’s department, tough, cube-headed, prematurely grey. Then Francis Getliffe: then Sir Laurence Astill, smooth-faced, contented with himself: then Eric Pearson, scientific adviser to my own department, youthful and cocky, like a bright American undergraduate: three more, drawn in from universities, like Getliffe and Astill, and so back to me.

  Walter Luke grinned. He said: ‘Well, as HMG pays me my keep, I’ve got to play, haven’t I? There’s no need to ask me. It’s what these chaps say that counts.’ He pointed a stiff, strong arm at Astill and the others. As his reputation for scientific judgement grew, his manners had become more off-hand.

  ‘Sir Francis,’ said Roger, ‘you’ll come in?’

  Francis hesitated. He said: ‘Minister, of course it’s an honour to be asked–’

  ‘It’s not an honour,’ said Roger, ‘it’s an intolerable job. But you can bring more to it than most men.’

  ‘I should really rather like to be excused–’

  ‘I don’t think I can let you. You’ve had more experience than any of us.’

  ‘Minister, believe me, everyone here knows all that I know–’

  ‘I can’t accept that,’ said Roger.

  Francis hesitated again; courteously, but with a frown, he said: ‘There doesn’t seem any way out, Minister. I’ll try to do what I can.’

  It sounded like the familiar minuet, as though no one would have been more disappointed than Francis if he had been taken at his word. But that was the opposite of the truth. Other men, wanting flattery or a job, talked about their consciences. Francis was one of the few whom conscience drove. He was a radical through conscience, not through rebellion. He had always had to force himself into personal struggles. He would have liked to think that for him they were all over.

  Just over a year before, he had puzzled his friends at our old college. They assumed that he would be a candidate for the Mastership, and they believed that they could get him elected. At the last moment, he had refused to stand. The reason he gave was that he wanted all his time for his research, that he was having the best ideas of his life. I believed that was part of the truth, but not all. His skin was wearing even thinner as he grew older. I fancied that he could not face being talked about, the gossip and the malice.

  Incidentally, instead of electing my old friend Arthur Brown, the college had managed to choose a man called G S Clark, and was becoming more factious than anyone could remember.

  All Francis wanted for himself was to live in Cambridge, to spend long days in his laboratory, to watch, with worried, disapproving love, how his second and favourite daughter was getting on with an American research student. He wanted no more struggles. That afternoon, as he said yes, he felt nothing but trapped.

  Sir Laurence Astill was speaking firmly: ‘If in your judgement, Minister, you feel that I have a contribution to make, then I shall consider myself obliged to accept.’

  ‘That’s very good of you,’ said Roger.

  ‘Though how you expect us to fit in these various kinds of service and look after our departments at the same time–’ Sir Laurence had not finished. ‘Some time I’d like a word with you, on the position of the senior university scientist in general.’

  ‘Any time,’ said Roger.

  Sir Laurence nodded his head with satisfaction. He liked being in the company of Ministers: t
alk with Ministers was big stuff. Just as Francis was sated with the high political world, Astill was insatiable.

  The others, without fuss, agreed to serve. Then Roger came to what, in his mind and mine, was the point of the meeting. What he was going to suggest, we had agreed between ourselves. I was as much behind it as he was; later on, I had to remind myself of that. ‘Now that we’ve got a committee together, and a quite exceptionally strong one,’ said Roger, blandishment coming into his tone for the first time that afternoon, ‘I should like to know what you’d all feel if I added another member.’

  ‘Minister?’ said Astill acquiescently.

  ‘I’m bringing it up to you, because the man I’m thinking of does present some problems. That is, I know he doesn’t see eye to eye with most of us. He might easily make you waste a certain amount of time. But I have a strongish feeling that it might be worth it.’

  He paused and went on: ‘I was thinking of Michael Brodzinski.’

  Faces were impassive, the shut faces of committee men. After an interval, Astill took the lead. ‘I think I can probably speak for our colleagues, Minister. Certainly I should have no objection to working with Dr Brodzinski.’

  Astill liked agreeing with a Minister. This wasn’t time-serving, it wasn’t even self-seeking: it was just that Astill believed that Ministers were likely to be right. ‘I dare say we shall have our points of difference. But no one has ever doubted that he is a man of great scientific quality. He will have his own contribution to make.’

  Someone said, in a low voice – was it Pearson? – ‘If you can’t beat them, join them. But this is the other way round.’ The other academics said that they could get on with Brodzinski. Francis was looking at his watch, as though anxious to be back in Cambridge. He said: ‘Minister, I agree with the rest. I’m inclined to think that he’d be more dangerous outside than in.’

  ‘I’m afraid that doesn’t quite represent my attitude,’ said Astill.

  ‘Still,’ Roger said, ‘you’re quite happy about it, Astill?’

  ‘I’m not. I think you’re all wrong,’ Walter Luke burst out. ‘As bloody wrong as you can be. I thought so when I first heard this idea, and I think so now.’

  Everyone looked at him. I said quietly, ‘I’ve told you, you can watch him–’

  ‘Look here,’ said Walter, ‘you’re all used to reasonable ways of doing business, aren’t you?’

  No one replied.

  ‘You’re all used to taking people along with you, aren’t you?’

  Again, silence.

  ‘So am I, God help me. Sometimes it works, I grant you that. But do you think it’s going to work in anything as critical as this?’

  Someone said we had to try it.

  ‘You’re wiser old bastards than I am,’ said Walter, ‘but I can’t see any good coming out of it.’

  The whole table was stirring with impatience. Walter’s outburst had evoked the group-sense of a meeting. Getliffe, Astill, everyone there, wanted him to stop. Technical insight they all gave him credit for; but not psychological insight. He gave himself no credit for it, either. Battered looking he might be, but he still often thought of himself as younger than he was. That strain of juvenility, of deliberate juvenility – for he was proud of this, and in his heart despised the ‘wise old bastards’ – took away the authority with which he might have spoken that afternoon.

  Roger was regarding him with hard eyes.

  ‘Would you take the responsibility, if I gave you your head and left Brodzinski outside?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Walter said.

  Roger said: ‘You needn’t worry. I’m going to over-rule you.’

  A week later, at the same place, at the same time, Michael Brodzinski was making his first appearance on the committee. The others were standing round, before the meeting, when a secretary came to tell me that Brodzinski had arrived. I went out to welcome him, and, before we had shaken hands, just from the joyful recognition on his face, I was certain that he had received some account of the first discussion, that he knew I was partly responsible for getting him there, and so gave me his trust.

  I led him into Roger’s room. Approaching the knot of scientists, who were still standing, Brodzinski looked very powerful physically. He was much the most heavily muscled, more so than Walter, who was a strong man.

  Once more I was certain that he had heard precisely how he had been discussed. ‘Good afternoon, Sir Laurence,’ he said to Astill, with great politeness and qualified trust. To Francis Getliffe the politeness was still great, the trust more qualified. To Walter the politeness became extreme, the politeness of an enemy.

  Roger called out a greeting. It was a hearty, banal bit of cordiality, something like how grateful Roger was to have his help. At once Brodzinski left Walter, and listened as though he were receiving a citation. With his splendid, passionate, luminous eyes, he was looking at Roger as more than a supporter, as something like a saviour.

  12: An Even Bet

  Twice that month, I was invited out by Caro’s brother. It seemed a little taxing, but on the second occasion, when my wife was staying with her sister, I said yes. It seemed more taxing still, face to face with Sammikins – a name I found increasingly unsuitable for this loud-voiced, untameable man – in one of the military clubs.

  He had given me dinner, and a good one. Then, sitting in the library, under the oil-paintings of generals of the Crimean war, the Mutiny, fierce-looking generals of the late-Victorian peace, we had gone on to the port. I was lying back relaxed in my chair. Opposite me, Sammikins sat straight up, wild and active as a hare. He was trying to persuade me to bet.

  It might have been because he couldn’t resist it. Earlier that evening he had been inviting me to a race-meeting. Like his sister, he owned race-horses, and he thought it was unnatural, he thought I was holding something back, when I professed boredom in the presence of those romantic animals. But if I wouldn’t bet on horses, surely I would on something else? He kept making suggestions, with cheerful, manic, loud-voiced glee. It might have been just the addiction. Or it might have been that he was provoked by anyone like me. Here was I, fifteen years older, my manner restrained by the side of his, (which didn’t differentiate me too sharply from most of the human race). Did he want to prove that we weren’t all that unlike?

  I took him on. I said that, if we were going to bet, he had one advantage; he was, at any rate potentially, richer than I was. I also had an advantage: I understood the nature of odds, and I doubted if he did. If I were ready to bet, it was going to be on something which gave us each precisely an even chance.

  ‘Done,’ he said.

  Finally we settled that Sammikins should order more glasses of port, and afterwards not touch the bell again. Then, for the period of the next half-hour, we would mark down the number of times the waiter’s bell was rung. He would bet on an odd number, I on even. How much? he said.

  ‘Ten pounds,’ I replied.

  Sammikins put his watch on the table between us. We agreed on the starting and finishing time, and watched the second hand go round. As it came up to the figure twelve, Sammikins cried: ‘They’re off!’

  On a sheet of club writing-paper, I kept the score. There were only half a dozen men in the library, one of whom kept sniffing in an irritated fashion at Sammikins’ barks of laughter. The only likely orders appeared to be a party of three senior officers. Immediately after the start, they rang for the waiter, and I heard them asking for large whiskys all round. With decent luck, I was reckoning, they ought to manage another.

  Watching them with bold, excited eyes, Sammikins, who knew two of them, discussed their characters. I was embarrassed in case his voice should carry. Like his sister’s, his judgements were simple and direct. He had much more insight than staider men. He told stories about those two in the last war. He liked talking about the military life. Why hadn’t he stayed in the army? I asked him. Yes, he had loved it, he said. With his fierce, restless look, he added that he couldn’t have st
ood being a peace-time officer. It occurred to me that, in different times, he might have been happy as a soldier of fortune.

  No, he couldn’t have stood being a peace-time officer, he said: any more than he could stand the thought of keeping up the estate when his father died.

  ‘I suppose,’ said Sammikins, with a laugh loud even for him, ‘that I shall have to dodder about in the Lords. How would you like that? Eh?’

  He meant, that he would detest it. He was speaking, as usual, the naked truth. Though it didn’t seem to fit him, he had all his family’s passion, which Caro shared, for politics. No one could possibly have less of a political temperament than Sammikins had: yet he loved it all. He loved the House of Commons, it didn’t matter how many enemies he made there. He was talking about his party’s leaders, with the same devastating simplicity with which he had talked about the generals, but with his eyes popping with excitement. He didn’t think any better of the politicians, but they entranced him more.

  One of the generals pressed the button by the fireplace, and the waiter came in. Sixteen minutes had passed. They ordered another round. I make a stroke on the writing paper and smiled.

  ‘Soaking,’ said Sammikins, who was not a specially abstemious man, with disapproval.

  No movement from anyone else in the room. The man whom Sammikins’ laugh made wretched was reading a leather-bound volume, another was writing a letter, another gazing critically at a glossy magazine.

  ‘They want stirring up,’ said Sammikins, in a reproving tone. But he was surveying the room with a gambler’s euphoria. He began speaking of the last appointment of a junior minister – who was Roger’s Parliamentary Under-secretary, occupying the job which Roger had filled under Gilbey.