The Friends of Harry Perkins Read online

  She smiled and drifted back to sleep. Wisps of blond hair peeping from beneath the bandage around her little head, cuddling Clarence, whose head was also bandaged. He shared her pain.

  * * *

  Gradually life began to return to normal. For the first time in weeks Thompson attended the Friends’ dinner in the upper room in Soho. He arrived late to find them discussing what line to take on the looming war with China. ‘We shouldn’t be under any illusions about China,’ Jock Steeples was saying, ‘it’s an imperial power.’

  ‘So is America,’ said Stephen Carter.

  ‘Maybe, but for once the Americans are on the side of the angels.’

  ‘Angels is putting it a bit strongly. ‘Declaring war over a few uninhabited islands, whether they belong to Japan or not, is utterly reckless.’

  ‘Fact is,’ said Steeples, ‘the US has a treaty with Japan and has to be seen to uphold it, otherwise it will be Vietnam next and then Taiwan. The Chinese have claims on just about the entire East Sea – everything down to Malaysia. Of course,’ he added, ‘it helps that, this time around at least, the leader of the free world is not a complete moron.’

  ‘Anyway, there’s not much we can do about it,’ said Mrs Cook, flashing him another of her steely smiles. ‘Except sit tight and pray.’

  * * *

  Three days later the Chinese announced what their foreign minister described as ‘a temporary suspension’ of their operations in the East Sea, but he took care to reiterate his country’s territorial claims. The US president, in a broadcast to the nation, adopted a notably conciliatory tone. He had always known, he said, that the Chinese were a peace-loving people. The US fleet would be withdrawing to its base in the Philippines.

  ‘Just shows it pays to stand up to the bastards,’ boomed Farquar when Fred encountered him in the library corridor.

  The world breathed a sigh of relief, but no one thought this was the end of the matter. ‘My guess is they’ll go for Vietnam next,’ said Steeples. ‘The US has no treaty with the Vietnamese.’

  * * *

  A course of radiotherapy lay ahead. ‘What’s radiotherapy?’ asked Catherine when they broke the news. The unfamiliar word rolled slowly from her tongue.

  ‘They take you to a special room in the hospital. You lie on a bed. They put a mask over your head with a hole in just where the tumour was and then a big machine fires invisible rays at the spot where you were operated on to stop Malfoy coming back.’

  ‘But I thought they took him out.’

  ‘They did, but you don’t want him coming back, do you?’ Elizabeth turned away and brushed a tear from her eye.

  ‘Why are you crying, Mummy?’

  ‘Because I love you so much.’

  TEN

  Little Sunshine didn’t make it.

  At first she seemed to be recovering well from the long and debilitating bouts of radiotherapy. Her silky blond hair, most of which had fallen out, began to reappear. Colour gradually returned to her cheeks. She sang songs, resumed her piano lessons. When summer came Fred took a month off and they went back to their island. She and Lucy paddled and splashed in the sea. They explored rock pools, counted the seabirds, went seal-spotting and laid the foundations for a Stone Age house on the beach. And each evening she read Harry Potter aloud to her little sister. It was a golden summer. Old folk on the island said they could not recall a better one. Fred, Elizabeth and Lucy would remember that summer for the rest of their lives.

  Come September, Catherine returned to school. After long absence she had fallen behind, but with help from Elizabeth soon caught up. At first glance she was as carefree as ever, except that she now treated schoolwork with a new seriousness and often spent the evenings reading. ‘When I grow up, I am going to be a brain doctor,’ she said.

  For a while all was well. The dark cloud that had hung over the family lifted. When parliament resumed Fred returned to work with a spring in his step. Elizabeth, too, was happier than she had been for a long time. The hollow eyes and the nervous tic that had appeared in her left temple disappeared. She and Fred were getting on better than they had done in ages. They graced the odd dinner party, went occasionally to the cinema and once to a performance of The Messiah by the parliament choir. They even resumed their lovemaking, which had been on hold since that dreadful day of the diagnosis.

  * * *

  In the House Fred was a rising star on the opposition front bench. He focused on the rise of the buy-to-let landlord, of whom there were not a few on the government benches and (if truth be told) one or two in the opposition ranks. He painted the housing crisis as yet another of the bills coming in for the Thatcher decade. At the very mention of their hero’s name the pinstripes on the government benches rose like a lot of Pavlov dogs. ‘Will the honourable gentleman give way?’

  Fred ploughed on. The cries of ‘give way’ intensified. He looked around, his eyes alighting upon Jason Joslin – J. J. to his friends – a smug young man of modest origins who had, by fair means or foul, clawed his way to considerable wealth. Witness the Armani suit and the gold cufflinks that protruded a full three inches from the sleeves of his jacket.

  ‘I give way.’

  ‘The honourable gentleman traduces a woman whose shoelaces he is not fit to tie,’ snorted Joslin. Cue much harrumphing on the benches behind him. ‘Is he aware that, as the child of a single parent, brought up on one of London’s toughest council estates, I and thousands like me reared in similar circumstances owe everything we have to the achievements of Margaret Thatcher’s government?’

  Thompson eyed the foe carefully, evincing an air of distaste even before he had uttered word in reply. ‘I have no doubt,’ he said slowly, ‘that the honourable gentleman and others who worship at the shrine of Blessed Margaret owe her a great deal.’ Pause. ‘It’s just a pity that they have kicked away the ladder up which they have climbed.’

  Cue cheers from the opposition benches and cries of ‘disgraceful’ from the benches opposite, although one or two patricians seemed to be quietly smirking behind their order papers. Jason Joslin was not universally popular on his own side.

  ‘Well done, my boy. Bull’s eye,’ whispered Farquar when their paths briefly crossed in the library corridor that evening. ‘Come and see me in Lord North Street this evening, after the division. I have some information that you might find of interest.’

  * * *

  ‘Ah there you are, dear boy.’ Farquar, once more resplendent in his velvet smoking jacket, opened the door. ‘Come in, come in.’

  Once again Fred was ushered up the narrow staircase past the Vanity Fair prints into the panelled first-floor drawing room, illuminated only by two large lamps and a spotlight over the fireplace.

  ‘Do sit down.’ Farquar indicated a well-worn winged armchair, one of a pair on either side of the empty grate. They had seen better days. In several places the stuffing was exposed. Funny how the upper classes never seemed to bother about wear and tear. In a working-class household chairs like that would have gone to the dump years ago. Farquar seemed to read Fred’s thoughts. ‘Been in the family for years, they have. Belonged to my great-grandfather who was in Lord Salisbury’s cabinet. Legend has it that Salisbury actually sat exactly where you are now.’

  Ah, that explained it.

  ‘Whisky?’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Farquar poured them both a generous measure.

  ‘Ice?

  ‘Please.’

  He made himself comfortable in the opposite armchair. ‘How’s your daughter? Terrible business that. You’ve had a hard time.’

  ‘Fingers crossed. She’s back at school. Life’s returned to normal, more or less.’ Fred’s voice trailed off. ‘But of course you never know.’

  ‘No, I don’t suppose you do. Well, here’s to her health.’ Farquar raised his glass.

  A moment’s silence, interrupted only by the clock of St John’s in Smith Square striking the hour. Farquar sipped his whisky. He seemed in no hurry to
get to the point. His demeanour was gloomy. ‘Brexit not working out too well, is it? Do you think, if we ask nicely, the Europeans will let us back?’

  ‘I very much doubt it. They seem glad to be rid of us.’

  ‘Thatcher – that woman’s got a lot to answer for. All this anti-Europe nonsense started on her watch. Instead of stamping on it she positively encouraged it.’ He stared morosely into his whisky. ‘Flogging off the family silver didn’t work out too well either. Some of us did try to warn her, but she wasn’t listening. Now look where we are. A second-rate power going on third-rate. The gap between top and bottom wider than ever. Our party flooded with all these so-called self-made wide boys like Flather and Joslin. Self-made, my foot. They’ve never made anything useful in their lives.’

  Another long silence. The headlights from a passing car briefly flickered across the ceiling. ‘Well, my boy, I’ve got something for you. After our little success with that bastard Flather who, by the way, comes up at the old Bailey next week. Suppose you know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Actually, I didn’t. A bit preoccupied of late. I’m slightly surprised. Thought I might be asked to give evidence.’

  ‘Apparently he’s pleading guilty, which will save everyone a lot of trouble. Slippery bugger though. I bet he’s done some sort of deal. Even so, the word is that he’ll go down. Couldn’t happen to a nicer fellow.’ A malicious grin drifted across Farquar’s ample features. He reached for a thin beige file which lay on the floor at his feet. ‘Anyway, to business.’ He passed the file. ‘Have a look at this.’

  The file contained a dozen sheets of paper relating to a property company called St Margaret’s Housing Trust. ‘Saint Margaret, forsooth. These spivs are taking the mickey.’ Three directors were listed: Jason Charles Joslin and Cynthia Michelle Joslin, both of the same address in Pimlico, and one Richard Lloyd Cathcart whose address was given as an apartment in the Barbican. ‘Cynthia is his wife, a hard-faced bleached blonde, also employed as his secretary in the Commons, another effing scam. Cathcart is some sort of shady City wallah.’

  ‘What does this company do?’

  ‘Housing, of course. For rental, not purchase.’

  ‘How many properties do they have?’

  ‘Look at the bottom three sheets, there’s a list. I had someone go through the Land Registry.’

  ‘Goodness, there’s a lot.’

  ‘A hundred and forty-eight, to be precise.’

  ‘And mainly in the same three or four blocks, by the looks of things.’

  ‘Ex-local authority houses. Every one. And in the same borough. Two of the blocks are in prime sites, overlooking the river. In one eight-storey building, the trust owns more than half the flats, all purchased under the right to buy at huge discounts. Apparently by tenants, but I happen to know that Joslin and Cathcart usually put up the money. The terms of the purchase require the tenant to remain there for five years, after which they can do what they like. At that point Joslin usually buys them out and the properties are re-let at much higher rents, often to foreigners.’

  ‘All strictly legal, I take it’?

  ‘More or less. Sometimes pressure is applied on tenants who don’t want to sell. Known in the trade as winkling, I believe. Can be a bit nasty sometimes. There was an incident ten years ago, just before Joslin was elected, that made a few paragraphs in the papers but it was all smoothed over. A misunderstanding, it was said.’

  Farquar walked over to the drinks cabinet and refilled their glasses. He raised his glass.

  ‘There we are, dear boy. All yours. A rich treasure trove. Requires a little footwork, of course, but nothing you can’t handle. Just keep my name out of it, that’s all.’

  * * *

  Early next morning Catherine came to their bedroom. Tears on her cheeks, a hand pressed to the left side of her head. ‘Mummy, Daddy, my head hurts. I think Malfoy has come back.’

  ELEVEN

  For a while they pretended that this was just a temporary setback and for a while Catherine pretended to believe them. Then out of the blue one day, a month after the tumour reappeared, she said, ‘Dad, do you know about heaven?’

  ‘Yes, darling.’

  ‘We learned about it at school. It’s a place where good people go. There’s music and fun and laughter and everybody’s happy.’

  A tear welled in his eye. It was one of Catherine’s good days. They were in the park, watching children on the swings.

  ‘Do you know where heaven is, Dad?’

  ‘No, darling.’

  ‘It’s up there in the sky,’ she pointed to a large white cloud. And then, ‘Do you believe in heaven, Dad?’

  ‘Of course, my sunshine,’ he lied.

  ‘Did you know there are angels in heaven? With wings and shiny faces and they can fly.’

  ‘Who told you that’?

  ‘Our teacher, Mrs Morgan. Her sister died and she said she was going to see her again one day, in heaven.’

  He hugged her close so she couldn’t see the tears streaming down his face.

  * * *

  By now they had given up the lease at Edale and moved into Elizabeth’s parents’ first-floor flat in Chelsea. It was spacious. Three bedrooms, a large sitting room, shared use of a small garden. Above all, it was close to the hospital.

  There followed more hospital visits, another scan, another debilitating course of chemotherapy, whispered conversations with doctors and nurses, much shaking of heads and discreet tears, before finally an acceptance that it was hopeless.

  Meanwhile Catherine grew paler and weaker. There were days when she felt well enough to dress herself and sit reading by the window, watching people going by in the street below. Once or twice she even asked to go to school and they took her, only to have to collect her again when after a few hours she became too tired. They borrowed a wheelchair from the Red Cross and one sunny day took her on a boat ride from Westminster pier to Kew.

  ‘Oooh look, Dad, there’s your parliament.’ She always referred to it as ‘your parliament’ or ‘Dad’s parliament’, as though Thompson owned the place.

  They waved and the people on the terrace waved back. His visits to parliament were becoming infrequent; he had not set foot in the chamber for six weeks. His front bench colleagues were understanding, and lately the whips had given him leave of absence. Once a week he caught the train to Sheffield, did his surgeries, fulfilled a few local engagements, but he was only going through the motions. ‘How’s the little person doing?’ people would ask. They meant well, but he wished they wouldn’t ask. Eventually, the enquiries stopped.

  That boat trip was her last proper outing. Gradually the good days became rarer. The drugs she was prescribed made her drowsier. Each evening, after school, Lucy would race to the bedroom and climb into bed with her sister. A touching little scene. They would lie together, arms around each other, watching Harry Potter videos with Clarence the teddy bear propped up between them. More often than not Catherine had nodded off before the end.

  Elizabeth’s mother came to stay. Sitting with Catherine and telling stories about life in the old days. The days when there were no Harry Potter videos, houses were lit by candles and oil lamps, ladies wore tight corsets and dresses that came down to their ankles, and when rich people had servants in white caps and pinafores and travelled in horse-drawn carriages.

  Elizabeth dug out the family photo albums and they would leaf through pictures of the good times they had on what they called ‘our island’. Lucy and Catherine playing on the beach. Building what they called their Stone Age house. Drawing faces in the sand with moustaches made of seaweed.

  ‘We were so happy there,’ said the little person. ‘Maybe if we hadn’t moved away I wouldn’t have Malfoy in my head.’

  ‘We’ll go again, just as soon you’re well enough,’ they said, but they could see she didn’t believe them.

  * * *

  Little Sunshine slipped away on a bright spring day when the local park was alive with daffodils a
nd pink blossom on the cherry trees.

  Outside their front door life had been going on as normal. Each morning in the street below, tiny school persons in smart uniforms, oblivious to the cares of the world, scootered along the pavement, their mothers scurrying to keep up. In the evening, from the direction of the park, childish laughter. Every fifteen minutes or so a bus passed by on its way to Sloane Square. In quieter moments, from the direction of the river, the sound of a helicopter or a low-flying plane on its way to Heathrow was briefly audible. And always the low hum of traffic. Gradually, however, external noise was filtered out and the apartment became a silent place whose inhabitants crept from room to room, communicating with each other in morose whispers, occasionally embracing wordlessly. Towards the end curtains remained drawn as if no one wanted to be reminded that in the world outside there was sunshine and happiness.

  Day and night they took turns to sit with her, clutching a pale, lifeless hand – Granny, Grandpa, Fred, Elizabeth, Lucy and, in the final days, a succession of Macmillan nurses. For the last week she did not eat, sitting up occasionally to sip water. Morphine was administered through a drip attached to her arm. Her little face, radiant to the end, wreathed in blond curls, grew thinner and paler.

  ‘Daddy, I can see angels,’ she whispered as she drifted in and out of consciousness on the last day.

  It was more than Fred could bear. Tears streamed down his face. ‘Oh please don’t go, Little Sunshine. Please stay with us. Please, please stay.’

  ‘Don’t be upset, Daddy. They have very kind faces. They will look after me.’

  That was the last thing she said.

  * * *

  The funeral was at St Luke’s on Sydney Street. By request it was a small affair, family and close friends only. Elizabeth’s parents, a couple of aunts, a handful of neighbours. From Fred’s side, no relatives. Parents long gone. A stepsister last heard of five years back in Australia. The Labour Party was his family: Jock Steeples, Mrs Cook and Stephen Carter, his closest friends in parliament. Vera Clarke and Ronnie Morgan from Sheffield. From Catherine’s school, teachers, classmates and the choir, two dozen little shiny-faced people in their smart blue uniforms. The little white coffin, topped with daffodils cut that morning from her grandparents’ garden, entered the church followed by her distraught parents and her tiny sister, Lucy, clutching Clarence the teddy bear who still had his head bandaged.