Political Death (14 page)

Elfrida Carter-Fox was a child who fully understood the concept of awards. Some basic instinct enabled her to shine at precisely those activities most likely to be rewarded publicly with prizes. "Will it be a silver cup like I won with my running? Or a book of fairy tales like I got for my Progress? Or..." 

Harry Carter-Fox had his eyes closed with exhaustion, although he was not asleep: he found it increasingly difficult to sleep even during the short hours he was able to spend in bed. His depression about the possible outcome of the election in his constituency had not lifted. The Sunday polls might be showing a small shift to the Tories nationwide but it was not reflected in the soundings taken by his workers in Bedford Park. Harry Carter-Fox knew he was being squeezed between the excellent centrist Liberal-Labour candidate an Asian lawyer who had been to Harrow and a rogue Tory Independent so far to the right that he would make Archie Smyth's views seem positively moderate.

Harry was meditating on his mistakes: "Should I have made that fighting speech about pensions at the party conference?" he wondered. "Olga was worried at the time." For a moment he had a gratifying image of the Prime Minister calling him 'the conscience of the party' as he congratulated him at the end of it. But did the conscience of the party necessarily get re-elected? Certainly HG had skipped away from his side pretty swiftly after that, before a single camera had a chance to record them together.

Elfi's piping voice caught his attention, and Harry frowned. He wanted to say to Olga above Elfi's head (in French) that this concentration on prizes was surely unwise, but unfortunately he could not remember the French word for prizes. Furthermore, he had a gloomy feeling that his daughter would already know it, since at the age of seven she had already won two of them for French.

"You would never think that all television used to be live!" groaned Guthrie Carlyle to Jemima. They were old friends from Megalith days. "I don't trust my panel one inch. The live camera is bound to bring out the worst in them."

"Who have you got? Melvyn? Germaine? David Mellor? That sort of person?"

"For God's sake, Jemima, we're talking elections here. No one who has ever expressed even the teensiest weensiest opinion of any sort is allowed even to peep round the door of this programme. Given that Germaine has expressed more or less every opinion, it's terribly unfair, and of course Mellor and David Melvyn, whoops, correction, are out of the question. I can't even get Jamie Grand as chairman and he'll chair anything that moves because he's already chairing the panel of the Garrick judges, given that he's moonlighting these days as dramatic critic for the Sunday Opinion. I suppose, Jemima, that you' "I am a very political person," said Jemima firmly. She had so far done nothing for the Labour Party during the election, but disliked having to admit it.

It was due to the election that the Garrick Awards ceremony was being shown more or less live on Sunday night; normally an edited version would have been put out on the Monday. The remaining evenings before the election were occupied by a series of lavish political commercials in which it could be said that the various parties presented themselves with awards.

Where Randall Birley and Millie Swain were concerned, Jemima was still at this point unaware that they had not arrived together. But she was transfixed by Randall's voice. He did not bother to moderate it. "Betsy, yes Betsy Wright. My agent, just to remind you. Have you any objection if I have supper with my agent from time to time?"

Millie on the other hand was trying to whisper, except that emotion made her voice difficult to control and thus audible. "But you were so late! I was there for ages before I just pushed off. Why did you give me your key if you don't expect me to turn up? I think I'll give it back to you, by the way, then if you want to stay out half the night with someone else including your agent of course you won't have any problems, will you?"

Jemima, uneasily aware that Randall must be lying if he had told Millie that he had spent his evening with his agent, wished that she had not overheard this conversation. In an attempt to stop it, she turned around and smiled as charmingly as possible at Millie. Fortunately the angle of her head enabled her to ignore Randall. Jemima was on the point of making some anodyne remark about hoping Millie would win (perfectly sincere: like Charley Baines, Jemima really did hope that Millie would win) when the lights dimmed. Cy Fredericks came on to the stage.

Much later there would be those who described Cy Fredericks's speech as deliberately provocative. Mack McGee, as publisher of the Sunday Opinion, would have been far more suitable, expert as he was on long homespun speeches which left everyone secretly grateful they had not had an Aberdeen upbringing. No, Cy was a disaster. After all, someone had to be responsible for what happened next: a noisy disruption of the ceremony by the "Garrick' protesters. Not cheerful Cynnie and glamorous Margaret Rose but others in the media world who had genuine invitations to the occasion, discreetly distributed round the auditorium . Even Jemima, Cy's devoted friend in spite of everything (which encompassed a good deal) wondered why he had chosen this particular function to make a courageous stand. Generally speaking, courageous stands were no part of Cy's pattern of behaviour. However this particular controversy had evidently touched a nerve.

"Proud to associate myself with the manly name of Garrick," he began. The words aroused a torrent of cries, "Garrick Pigs! Garrick Pigs!" from all corners of the auditorium and his next remarks were drowned.

Of course there were also those who said that Cy was innocent of provocation since he had not for one moment understood the issue at stake. The kind of woman Cy Fredericks so passionately admired Lady Manfred, for example, the elegant chairman of the Arts Council had no wish to belong to any club since they were already ruling the Establishment effortlessly.

As for the unfortunate choice of the word 'manly', Jemima for one was quite prepared to believe that it was a coincidence. She had noticed before how Cy homed in on words he associated with Britain's chivalrous past. This was especially true when he was making speeches; "Arthurian' had been a previous favourite. It was a pity, in a way, that it had been superseded. "The Arthurian name of Garrick' might have led more to puzzlement than protest.

Order was not restored for some time. It was certainly not restored before poor Jamie Grand had waded through his long chairman's speech, full of careful allusions to winners and losers in dramatic literature. The babble of protest and counter-protest made it difficult to follow, even supposing it had been easy to follow in the first place.

"Humour and loss: let Beckett lead us by the hand," Jemima heard him say during a temporary lull. However, viewers at home, in contrast to those at the Trumpet, had the full text delivered to them. This was because Guthrie's cameras, resolutely denying the oxygen of publicity to the anti-Garrick protesters, had perforce to close in on Jamie Grand with no possibility of cutaways.

"What on earth's happening to that fucking panel? This is their chance to pull their weight," Guthrie Carlyle exploded, driven beyond endurance by Jamie Grand's lecture and definitely not prepared to let Beckett lead him by the hand. For one ghastly moment Guthrie, who tried not to swear, feared he was close to a live mike. But he was spared that particular trauma.

At home, Elfi Carter-Fox, who believed in airing her knowledge where possible when watching TV, was busy relating the sad story of Thomas a Becket to her parents. "You see, you have to be very very careful about wishing bad things to people, in case bad people hear you, like four bad knights' But her father had at last been granted the gift of sleep by Jamie Grand's lecture and Olga was too preoccupied with her own agonised, unvoicable thoughts to listen to either Jamie Grand or her daughter.

At the Trumpet it turned out that Guthrie's so-called anodyne panel was also nothing but trouble. Really, it would have been far, far better to have the professionals, however allegedly political Germaine, Melvyn, David Mellor and company. A glass box had been built within the Trumpet auditorium, so the panel could be seen (but not heard) by those in the audience, as they made their illuminating comments on the awards. The idea was that these comments would be cut, at relevant moments, into the programme. In the event, the audience at the Trumpet found themselves treated to a fascinating dumb show which made it clear the panel itself contained at least one anti-Garrick protester. When the first (male) fist was raised and the first hank of hair (also male) was demonstrably pulled, Guthrie thought it wise to plunge the whole panel into darkness so that the Trumpet audience should not watch further events.

This, as it turned out, was an unwise decision. For at that very moment, for some reason no one ever discovered, the panel now shrouded in blackness found itself live on television. Among the confused sounds, "You bitch!" was the first audible cry and things went downhill from there.

"Mummy, Daddy, the television's broken," said Elfi Carter-Fox. But she did not regain her parents' attention until she asked brightly, "What does "sod off" mean? I know what a sod is, we have sods in our garden..."

Jemima Shore began to think that she would have to present her own award for the Best Actress in a TV Serial in Period Costume amid a hail of bar racking For the individual protesters had staggered their interventions to prolong them as much as possible. This meant that the chucking-out process was also prolonged.

John Barrymoor got up to receive the prestigious Doctor Johnson Independent Voice Award, for the third time in a row. His awesome presence, that shock of hair which still trailed wisps of glory of its former fiery red, and his undimmed blue eyes bent fiercely upon the audience, had the effect of calming everybody. It was either that, or the last protester had been evicted. Barrymoor's speech was comparatively short (for him). To Jemima, it bore a particular significance. He spoke of corruption, the need to root it out, to expose scandals and treacheries 'however ancient'. He concluded menacingly, "There is no statute of limitations where evil in high places is concerned," and stalked from the platform amid a tempest of applause.

This time it was Elfi, of the Carter-Fox family, who had fallen asleep. Her long eyelashes were fanned out on her petal-pink cheeks. Olga's heart churned with love for her daughter, whose prattling voice was for once silent. Olga pulled Elfi to her; over the child's head, her eyes met those of Harry.

"What is that dreadful communist snooper hinting at? I don't like it, Olga, I don't like it one bit," Harry said. "I wish I could have a cigarette. No, don't worry, I'm not, repeat not, going to slip. It's socially irresponsible. What an example to Elfi!"

"Elfi's asleep. You know, Harry, I think maybe you should have a cigarette. Listen to what I have to tell you."

Olga Carter-Fox had been telephoned personally by Burgo Smyth that afternoon while Harry was in the park with Elfi. It was a call whose message she had not yet fully digested. She had tried in vain to reach Millie to pass on the horrifying news about the discovery in their childhood home, but her telephone remained obstinately on answer. Olga had therefore postponed telling her husband, but she did not think she should do so any longer. Even if John Barrymoor was so far referring only to her mother's revelations before her death, the media explosion on the subject of Franklyn Faber must come soon.

Olga switched off the television. Why on earth had she thought she wanted to watch her sister, with her successful career and her wonderful lover, receive a prize?

"Darling," she said, "Burgo Smyth rang me up this afternoon' Painfully, Olga noticed on her husband's face that look of hope with which a junior politician wontedly greets the news that a senior minister has been trying to make contact. Swiftly, Olga Carter-Fox put an end to those expectations.

As it happened, by switching off the television at that juncture, Olga did not miss watching Millie get her prize. For Millie Swain did not receive an award for her performance as Viola. Exactly as Charley Baines had predicted, it was Randall Birley who scooped the awards from Twelfth Night both as director and actor. Clearly, the judges had found Best Actress to be one prize too many. For that matter, Charley Baines did not win either, but he consoled himself that Su Waggoner had also been pipped at the post by an ageing raffish actor named Charles Paris playing Davies in The Caretaker (with words, many but not all of which were supplied by the author).

For Jemima Shore, however, the drama of the evening was not over. It was Helen Troy herself, on stage growing from a small tramp to a delicious star, who presented Randall Birley with his Best Actor Award. As Helen Troy began to speak "My friend, my very dear new friend' there was a rustle behind Jemima. For a moment she feared that it was yet another demonstrator. But the protest, if it was a protest, was of another sort. The noise was caused by Millie Swain pushing her way out of the row, under the cover of the heavy applause for Randall Birley, or was it for Helen Troy? Or for what was perhaps a new combination?

It was quite a while after that the ceremony, at last, at very last, drew to a close. Yes, thought Jemima, you could say with Randall Birley that award ceremonies were boring if you got (or gave) an award and even more boring if you didn't. She could not blame Millie Swain for exiting, even if it was hardly politic under the curious eyes of the whole theatrical world and television.

Cy Fredericks was bustling past her with Mrs. McGee -a homely but not undignified figure in a tartan skirt and waistcoat on his arm: "Jem, my gem, come with me, we are all going to the Ivy, you remember." Cy had not actually mentioned this plan before, but he was obviously in need of company if the party would otherwise consist of the McGees and himself. Jemima was prepared to go along with him for want of anything better to do, when she felt a savage grip on her upper arm.

"No, you are not!" said the voice of Randall Birley in her ear. "You're my prize. I'm going to take you home."