Callie took a seat in the back row of chairs and looked around at the others waiting for the meeting to begin. A middle-aged lady seated at the front was wearing a dog collar and a benign expression. There were a group of three students, an elderly couple and a man who seemed to be asleep. It didn’t look as though it was going to be a very lively meeting, but just as she wondered if it would be cancelled or if perhaps she should sneak out and give it a miss, the door opened and four men came into the room. One of them was Councillor Claybourne and the others looked very much like the men who had been with him at the FNM rally and who had laid into David Morris.
Everyone turned and looked at the new arrivals, apart from the man who was asleep, and there was a general air of unease as the group took their seats in the middle of the room. There was no way Callie was going to leave now, although she did check how close she was to the way out, just in case it turned out to be a more exciting evening than she had expected!
At seven-thirty, exactly, a door at the back of the room opened and Ted Savage, his wife and a thin man who Callie did not recognise, came in and took their places behind the table. It was the thin man who started the meeting, standing up and introducing both himself, as the local constituency chairperson, and Ted Savage as the MP. Mrs Savage was seated to one side of the table and clearly wasn’t worthy of an introduction. She looked around the room, checking out every person and smiling at them, although the smile looked a bit strained when she saw Claybourne, and Callie. Then she dutifully took out a notepad and pen, making it clear she was at the meeting in her role as an assistant rather than a wife.
Once introduced by his chairperson, Savage stood to talk to the people in the room. Smiling genuinely and engaging with everyone, apart from Claybourne and his group, who he studiously ignored. It was interesting that they clearly knew each other. Claybourne, for his part, sat with his arms crossed and a smirk on his face.
Savage was a good speaker, talking eloquently about the suffering around the world, telling them that people needed to find a safe place to live, that they had a right to it and that we, as a rich country, had a duty to help. He touched on the tragedy of those who had drowned trying to reach the safety of our shores and explained that he had spoken with the prime minister about how having a more open immigration policy and allowing a greater number of refugees to claim asylum could help reduce people trafficking and so stop the dangerous flow of migrants coming across the Channel.
He got an enthusiastic round of applause from his wife, the students and the vicar, but it wasn’t loud enough to wake the sleeping man.
At the end of his talk, Savage turned to leave, but Claybourne sprang to his feet.
“Not going to open the floor to questions?” Claybourne asked. “I didn’t have you down as a coward, Ted.”
Savage turned back, with a resigned look on his face.
“I am happy to answer reasonable questions, Councillor, but I won’t stand for any abuse.”
“Abuse? I’m not here to abuse anyone. I’m just here to put the working man’s point of view.”
“What makes you their representative?” It wasn’t Savage who asked the question but one of the students.
“At least I am one of them, not just a parasite living off my parents while pretending to study art.”
Callie wondered if Claybourne actually knew the girl as her face flushed, suggesting his barb had hit home. Claybourne turned back to Savage.
“The working man, from Hastings that is, has a right to a job, and a home too, you know. Bleeding-heart liberals like yourself, who want to take in all-comers, people who’ve never lived in this country, never paid taxes here and who will overwhelm our NHS, you will deprive the rest of us of our rights. Rights that we’ve worked and paid for.”
There was a murmur of agreement from Claybourne’s cronies.
“Of course, Hastings’ people have the right to a job and a home here, and we need to make sure that they have them,” Savage answered, surprisingly evenly. “And we have to make sure that the NHS can cope, as well, but some of these people have been through hell, their homes and families have been destroyed. They are in fear for their lives. They have rights too, they have the right to life – everyone has the right to that.”
Whilst Savage was being remarkably controlled, his chairperson was clearly worried by the confrontation and trying to usher him out. Interestingly, it was Mrs Savage who seemed most angry at the disruption, glaring first at Claybourne and then at her husband, as if he should take control and stop the discussion.
“And what if your constituents disagree? Are you prepared to stake your career on that?” Claybourne asked Savage.
“Yes,” Savage replied and he turned to leave the room.
“We’ll see what they say come election day, then,” Claybourne called after him as Savage left the room, his wife and the constituency chairperson scuttling after him, Mrs Savage looking more than a little rattled by the exchange.
Claybourne clearly felt he had had the better of the argument and left the meeting room grinning like a
