‘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.
‘Good,’ judged William Heyden. Feeling he should say more he added: ‘Pity about the American inauguration.’
‘Couldn’t be helped,’ said Smallwood, philosophically.
The two men sipped their whisky.
‘It isn’t going to be easy,’ admitted Smallwood, suddenly. ‘I made a number of promises because I had to. There will be a lot of people waiting for the first slip.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Heyden, who thought the Premier had over-committed them but didn’t know the man well enough to suggest criticism. ‘We’ll have to watch ourselves.’
‘We must let the departments and ministries know the new feeling,’ said Smallwood. ‘Particularly the permanent people who think they can ignore us and make their own policy.’
‘A gentle hint?’ said Heyden carelessly.
‘No,’ Smallwood corrected him immediately. ‘A positive directive.’
FOUR
The mid-Channel passport check was always the most dangerous part, the moment when, despite the previous occasions, there could be a sudden challenge and they would be trapped aboard the ship, unable to run.
They had learned to time the public announcement about the immigration office and in the last few minutes preceding it Edith became increasingly nervous, sitting tense and upright and abandoning any attempt at conversation. There were no outward signs from Charlie, except perhaps in the way he drank the habitual brandy, not in spaced-out, even sips, but in deep swallows, so that the barman had already recognised him as a drinker and was standing close at hand, waiting for the nod.
They made an odd couple, she restrained, carefully coiffured and with the discreet but expensively maintained elegance of a Continental woman unafraid of obvious middle age, he baggy and shapeless in a nondescript suit, like a dustcover thrown over a piece of anonymous furniture about which nobody cared very much.
Edith started up at the metallic-voice broadcast, coming immediately to Charlie for guidance. Unspeaking, he led the way out into the purser’s square, then paused by the perfume and souvenir shop.
‘Don’t worry,’ he encouraged her.
She appeared not to hear.
What he wanted appeared almost immediately and he smiled at Edith. She looked back, without expression.
The smaller child was already crying, overtired and demanding to be carried. The mother, face throbbing red and split by sunburn, tried to push it away and by mistake hit the other girl, who started crying too, and immediately an argument began between the woman and her husband.
‘Perfect,’ judged Charlie.
He moved quickly now, his hand cupping Edith’s elbow. He could feel the nervousness tighten within her as they wedged themselves behind the squabbling family and began edging closer to the immigration office.
‘It’ll be all right,’ he assured her emptily. She remained stiff by his side, staring straight ahead.
The children caused the expected distraction, filling the tiny room with noise. The parents’ row spilled over to the immigration officer at a query about the children being entered on both passports and Charlie and Edith passed through in the wake of the official’s anticipated anxiety to regain order in the file of people.
‘Works every time,’ said Charlie, still holding Edith’s arm and leading her back towards the bar. She was still
