A Scandalous Man. Gavin Esler
The puffy face broke into a grin.
‘He always wanted to be the centre of attention. If Robin Burnett were invited to a wedding, he wanted to be the bride. If it was a funeral, he wanted to be the corpse. What happened to Robin was a classical tragedy. His fatal flaw was pride. Arrogance. He thought he could get away with it. And he very nearly did.’
The voice-over continued.
‘That barbed tribute from one of his contemporaries. But when we asked the current Conservative leader Michael Howard to give his reaction today, it was not forthcoming.’
There were pictures of Howard smiling vacantly in a crowd of Tory supporters in some south of England market town, ignoring shouted questions.
‘What do you think of Robin Burnett’s apparent suicide attempt, Mr Howard?’
Grin, grin. Shake, shake.
‘Are you worried it reminds voters how the party lost its way under Mrs Thatcher?’
Grin, grin. Shake, shake.
‘About the Sleaze Factor?’
The Art of Political Zen. For Michael Howard, if he pretended it wasn’t really happening, then it wasn’t really happening. But it was happening. More voice-over.
‘A Conservative party spokeswoman said Michael Howard was too busy focusing on the current election campaign to be bothered by what she called “a figure from the distant past.” The spokeswoman then read out a single-line tribute.’
The TV report cut to a picture of a young Tory woman in a blue suit reading in a dull voice from a piece of paper. She must have been about Harry’s age, too young to remember who his father really was.
‘Our sympathies go out to the Burnett family at this difficult time. We intend to respect their right to privacy.’
That was it. She folded the paper and walked away. The voice-over picked up again.
‘Twenty words – just twenty words in tribute to one of the intellectual fathers of the modern Conservative party. All this shows that Burnett’s mixed legacy is not forgotten, though some wish that it were. The Conservatives are desperate to distance themselves from everything the Burnett scandal symbolized. Political amnesia – you might say – is today’s ailment of choice.’
The report then cut to old footage of Harry’s father brushing back luxuriant black hair with his left hand, grinning broadly as if at a great joke and pounding the rostrum at a party rally. Harry noted the date. It was less than a month before he was born. A strap across the pictures said April 1979. His father was speaking.
‘Our mission is to get government off the backs of the British people.’ The deep baritone was resonant with conviction, almost as if he were in the room. It made Harry shiver. On the TV screen his father pointed at the audience, as if at each person individually. It was a clever trick.
‘To the people of Britain I say this. We intend to turn you loose – you – and you – and you – each and every one of you – to do what you can do for yourselves and for your families and for your country. Our mission is to take the dead hand of government out of your pockets, out of your wallets, off your backs – to lift the burden of the state from the British people and to set the people free!’
The audience took up the refrain.
‘Set the people free! Set the British people free!’
Harry sipped the whisky. He knew what was coming, and he felt for the TV remote control. There were more shots of Robin Burnett, this time canvassing in his Gloucestershire constituency. He was thin and angular, handsome in a way, with a glow of certainty about himself and his message. The commentator was saying something about Burnett’s personal closeness to Mrs Thatcher, to the Americans, his charisma, his intellectual background as an economist.
‘Some tipped Robin Burnett as a future Prime Minister. But that all fell apart in the late eighties in a scandal which seemed to symbolize the rottenness and arrogance at the core of …’
A newspaper picture of a young woman appeared. She was wearing a striped bikini and high heels.
‘… a woman called Carla Carter who …’
The woman’s backside was stuck out towards the camera, and she looked over her shoulder while her tongue licked her red lips. Her hair was big and wavy. Harry hit the off button. He did not need to hear any more. Ever. He drained the whisky and decided to try another.
‘And why not?’ he said aloud to his father’s image in the photograph with Leila Rajar. ‘Funny, isn’t it? If they had got a sniff of you and the delicious Leila, that would have perked up the obituary, yes? That would have given them a very different kind of scandal. I wonder how much I’d get for this picture now, eh?’
The alcohol was doing its work. His hand felt for the Macallan.
‘And while we are on the subject of totty, should we invite the delish Leila to your funeral? Or your hospital bed? Does she even know you are close to death? Maybe someone should tell her? Maybe it should be me?’
Harry picked up the whisky glass and began to mooch around the rooms one more time. He was drawn back to the study. On the desk under the window facing the heath there was a silver grey Sony Vaio laptop computer connected to a laser printer and to a broadband router. Harry switched on the printer but it required a password. He switched it off again. He had never considered his father might be surrounded by so many modern gadgets, but then he supposed that he hadn’t really considered his father much at all. The bookshelves bore a number of biographies and political books, many of them by former colleagues, some with friendly inscriptions.
‘To Robin. In memory of better days. Nigel.’
‘To Robin, the man who made it all possible! Best wishes, Margaret.’
‘To Robin. The man who got out at the right time!!! Pity the rest of us!!! Norman.’
‘The Bastards!!! Don’t let them grind you down!!! Best, always, J. H.’
Harry found a ready-made pizza in the freezer and stuck it in the oven. He tried to imagine his father eating a frozen pizza, but that was impossible. A lot of what he was seeing simply did not add up. While he waited for the pizza to cook he freshened up the whisky and searched through his father’s DVD collection. Old Bogart movies. Brief Encounter. Reservoir Dogs. Pulp Fiction. Blue Velvet, the complete edition of Twin Peaks, and Mulholland Drive. The Player.
‘Tarantino and David Lynch? Robert Altman? Jesus. Pizza? Plus Leila Rajar? Who knew, eh, dad? Who knew?’
Harry ate the pizza, more confused about his father than ever before. He lay back on the sofa in the main room, determined to get raging drunk. He turned the volume down on the television and fell asleep where he lay. It was a deep, undisturbed, whisky sleep.
When Harry woke, it was with a start. It was hours later, his tongue was furred and his mouth tasted of sour alcohol. The middle of the night. Harry tried to check his watch but his eyes were sleepy.
Something about the room felt strange, like a chill. He shivered. He sensed someone watching him and shook himself awake. Then he caught sight of a blur. It was a woman. A young woman with a small rucksack and spiky brown hair. Harry shook himself again as the woman broke into a run and burst through the room towards the front door. She was carrying the Sony Vaio laptop from the study under her arm plus papers and files and the silver-framed photograph of his father with Leila Rajar. Harry sat upright, startled, and then leaped after her. The young woman ran as Harry stumbled. It was as if he were trapped in a pot of thick oil, unable to move, while she ran from the room like a faun leaving behind a whiff of her