Mrs Harris, MP Read online

  He had successfully negotiated the crossing of Bond Street when he was surprised to hear the voice of Hugh Coates saying, ‘Splendid lunch, my dear fellow, and I’m delighted to learn that there’s a possibility of your letting go that corner site. But I should be most interested to know the real purpose of this meeting, since I gather that we are not about to tour Regent’s Park for our health.’

  Bayswater should not have been surprised, since it was he himself who had switched on the intercom from the back of the car to the driver’s box, after drawing up to the hotel, in order to be able to receive Sir Wilmot’s instructions. Owing, however, to the fact that these had been issued verbally during the spreading of the blankets, neither he nor Sir Wilmot had thought of cutting off communications.

  The intercom was a one-way affair which could be opened and closed only by means of a switch situated by the jump seat, and Bayswater wondered whether he ought to stop and advise Sir Wilmot of this oversight. But then his ear picked up the voice of his employer, ‘Exactly. I have discovered that about the only safe place to talk these days, where you know you’ll be private and can’t possibly be overheard, is in a moving car. There’s something I wanted to discuss with you, for your ears alone.’

  Bayswater’s duty was clear: to stop the car and correct the situation. But at this point, being a human being, he found himself sorely handicapped by a burning curiosity as to what it was that two tycoons-cum-politicians might have to say to one another which was only safe to discuss, as Sir Wilmot had suggested, in the soundproof box of a moving car, cut off by thick glass from the chauffeur in front. He told himself that if he were to knock on the window and make signs, or pull over, go to the rear and switch off the microphone, it could but only embarrass his employer and even make him look somewhat of a fool in the eyes of his guest.

  And, furthermore, he knew such was his own discretion that anything which reached his ears was as safe as though locked in an underground vault in the Bank of England. Hence he did nothing but pay attention to his driving and, steering the car through side streets and byways to avoid the traffic, shortly entered Regent’s Park, where he heard Sir Wilmot say, ‘Now, my dear Coates, how would you like to win the constituency of East Battersea?’

  Coates must have apparently been thunderstruck at this, East Battersea perennially returning a Labour member, for he made no reply and Sir Wilmot continued: ‘I have the figures here from the last election. Labour won the seat by a majority of roughly four thousand. We Centrists forfeited our deposit. But supposing this time we could peel five or six thousand votes from Labour? You’d be a cert with a majority of between two or three thousand.’

  Hugh Coates’ snort rattled the diaphragm of the speaker at Bayswater’s ear. ‘What! With Chatsworth-Taylor! A tennis-player as your candidate? As for drawing votes from Labour, all he’ll do is cost you another deposit, old man.’

  ‘But suppose it isn’t Chatsworth-Taylor, supposing we were to put up a candidate who would attract votes?’

  ‘Oh,’ and then there was another silence. ‘Then have you such a candidate in mind?’

  ‘Yes, I have.’

  ‘Ah – what would be the price?’

  ‘Well, we’d very much like to have Fairford Cross – but, of course, your man there is much too strong for us.’

  ‘Ah, I see,’ said Hugh Coates. And, of course, the point was that not only did he see immediately what was at the back of Sir Wilmot’s mind, but also a good deal further to the futility of it. Unless a miracle happened, the Centre Party would never again come to power in England. Fairford Cross would not work a second time and he could well afford to let Sir Wilmot have it in return for the shock that would be administered to the Labour Party if the Tories were to capture East Battersea. It was rather like exchanging an already doomed and useless pawn for a bishop or a castle in a chess game, always provided that Sir Wilmot could put up a candidate who could definitely split the vote and let the Tories in.

  Coates asked, ‘Who is the candidate that you propose?’

  In the machinations which had carried him into his present position as well as affluence, Sir Wilmot had discovered that a startling surprise or a resounding shock, when you were trying to put something over which had questionable features, was often highly effective.

  He said, ‘As a matter of fact, it’s my charwoman, a Mrs Ada Harris, a lady in her sixties, and a highly respected resident of East Battersea.’

  John Bayswater came within just one thousandth of a millimetre of ramming the prow of the Rolls-Royce into the rear of a taxi in front of him, something he had never in his life done before. In spite of the near catastrophe that the mention of Ada Harris’s name had come close to causing, he was very glad that he had left the intercom open. Ada Harris? Stand for Parliament? Had he indeed heard correctly? Of all people, Ada Harris! What the devil was on his employer’s mind?

  Bayswater now grimly set himself to the task of splitting his personality and letting the automatic chauffeur part of him drive, while the man listened even more intently to the speaker, so as not to miss a word. He was not long in finding out.

  ‘Your charwoman! My dear Corrison!’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Sir Wilmot, ‘my charwoman. She’d take from six to seven thousand votes from Labour, guaranteed. It means we’ll run stronger in the constituency than ever before, but you’ll be in.’

  The direct, frontal shock attack had worked. The fact was that the smooth confidence of Sir Wilmot had shaken Coates at least to the point where he was prepared to be convinced and said, ‘I think you’d better explain …’

  And forthwith, for the benefit of John Bayswater as well as his fellow politician and plotter, Sir Wilmot did. He began now from the beginning, the morning when he had been taken ill and recounted the entire story of Mrs Harris’s speech, her slogan, the effect it had had upon him and the idea it had given him for a possible deal. And since Coates was well aware that Sir Wilmot was nobody’s fool and an opponent worthy of his own talents, the story sounded credible. To add to this Sir Wilmot further had the report from Philip Aldershot of his impressions gained by his first meeting with Mrs Harris which was to the effect that he thought they might indeed bring it off. He concluded, ‘If you saw the woman, which I’m sure you will eventually if we come to an agreement, I’m certain you would feel exactly as I do.’

  What was genuinely astonishing was that the hypnotic power of Mrs Harris’s slogan, ‘Live and Let Live’, coupled with Sir Wilmot’s vivid description of her, actually was still potent at second-hand, for there was a long silence of reflection on the part of Coates and far from deriding Sir Wilmot he was thinking deeply. East Battersea was a most tempting prize.

  ‘And from us you would expect … ?’

  ‘I’m sure you would be able to persuade old Woolam to stand down for this election. After all, he’s getting on in years and probably would be delighted for the opportunity to retire. You’ve had the Committee there in your pocket for years. Nobody has more influence in Fairford Cross than you. If you were to put up someone like either Westerly or Bunderson – I happen to know that both of them are very unpopular in the county – I have no doubt that our Major Kempton would breeze through.’

  Hugh Coates maintained his silence to this and to tip the scales Sir Wilmot added, ‘As for that corner site at West Holborn you want, I’m sure we can come to an arrangement which will please you there.’

  ‘But look here, old man,’ Coates suddenly burst out, ‘what if this Boadicea of the dust cloth should happen to get herself elected?’

  And now the full extent of the naughtiness of the plot being hatched around his friend was made clear to Bayswater when his employer replied almost as explosively, ‘Impossible, my dear fellow! We’d never let it happen. You’d have my guarantee on that. We’ll conduct a limited campaign and only in the Labour strongholds. In effect it would be Labour campaigning against Labour, with our candidate the more attractive one. She’ll be speaking to her own kind. We
’ll keep her out of your district and ours as well.’

  ‘Who’ll handle the campaign?’

  ‘Fellow by the name of Charlie Smyce. Rather a viper, but just the man for this. Up on all the ins and outs. Knows which side his bread is buttered and will do exactly as I say.’

  ‘You’d put her on television?’

  ‘Positively not! I said a limited campaign which we will control.’

  A bit of jungle seemed suddenly to descend and surround the two men as they went back to their atavisms and Coates said in an ugly and savage voice, ‘If you were to double-cross us there might be some very unpleasant consequences.’

  In just as savage and ugly a voice Sir Wilmot replied, ‘We wouldn’t care to be disappointed at Fairford Cross either.’

  Glancing up at his rear vision mirror, Bayswater saw them glaring at one another for a moment. Then the glare was replaced suddenly by a smile and their upper arms moved in the gesture of shaking hands.

  And now Bayswater was faced with a genuinely terrifying dilemma. He was in possession of every detail of a vile plot on the part of two political wheeler-dealers to make use of and humiliate an innocent woman for their own nefarious purposes. But supposing Sir Wilmot discovered the open switch and realized that Bayswater had heard all? With two such powerful men one never knew what might happen, or what vengeance they would take, both on Mrs Harris and himself. He must do something.

  Acting almost under inspiration, he drew the car over to the side of the road, got out and opened the rear door.

  Sir Wilmot looked up in surprise and some irritation. ‘What’s the matter, Bayswater?’

  The chauffeur was half inside the car. ‘Rattle, sir. I suspect it’s this jump-seat,’ and he lifted and fussed under it, and so doing with his shoulder and concealed from the two men at the back, managed to flip closed the switch of the intercom. ‘That’s got it, I think, sir. Sorry to disturb you, but it would have got worse.’

  He restored the seat, closed the door, returned to the driver’s box and started the car.

  He had been just in time, for in a few minutes through the mirror he saw the lips of the two men moving in earnest exchange, though of course now not a sound reached him, and then he saw Sir Wilmot reach forward to the intercom switch.

  ‘That will be all now, Bayswater. Will you please drive us first to Coates’ Industries House and then I’ll go on to the office.’

  Beads of sweat stood out on Bayswater’s brow, but he had the information that would save Ada Harris.

  He could hardly wait for Thursday night and the tea-and-telly session to nip this nasty plot in the bud by revealing everything he had heard to Ada, so that she could be prepared to turn the candidacy down cold when it was offered her.

  But, being a confirmed bachelor, Bayswater was a creature of habit. Thursday night was the night on which he saw Ada Harris. It was also the night that Sir Wilmot invariably stayed in town. With the elections still some time away and few candidates announced, there was not all that much of a hurry. Thursday night, then, would do very well.

  Except, unfortunately, it wouldn’t.

  Without being at all clairvoyant a sinking feeling in Bayswater’s stomach began long before he drew up in front of Mrs Harris’s house, or that is to say as close as he was able to get to it. For even as he swung into the beginning of Willis Gardens that Thursday evening, he was aware that all was not as he was accustomed to seeing it. What was unusual was the large amount of parked cars.

  And, furthermore, when he had found a space for his vehicle, he was disturbed not only by the number of cars, but by their quality – definitely posh. Obviously some kind of a do was on in the neighbourhood and with further unease he saw that not only was this so, but that it centred upon the modest doorway of No. 5.

  With deep misgivings he entered, at which moment a flash bulb went off in his face, temporarily blinding him, but not stopping his ears to the hubbub of a party; the clink and clatter of dishes and glasses, the murmur of many people and little shrieks and cries of congratulation.

  When the dazzling image had begun to fade and he was able to look through the two green spots that had covered his eyeballs, he found himself gazing at a tableau consisting of Ada Harris clad in her mob cap and overalls, clutching a mop, faced by press and film photographers and men holding up microphones in front of her. She had a huge spray of purple orchids pinned to one shoulder and was looking ecstatically happy. Likewise crowding about her was a group of people, none of whom he had ever seen before. They seemed pleasant enough with the exception of one sour-faced chap in a suit of clothes too big for him, whose looks he didn’t like one bit, and though he was not aware of it, in the days to come he was to enjoy them less and less.

  One of the men holding the microphone shouted, ‘Colonel, would you make that speech again, please? We didn’t get a very good tape on the first one. All ready now! Let her go!’

  An elderly gentleman of military bearing stepped slightly forward, cleared his throat and said, ‘Mrs Harris, by unanimous agreement of the Executive Committee of the People’s Centre Party of East Battersea, I have been delegated to accept you as our candidate for Parliament, one who will, we are sure, return us a winning seat in the forthcoming elections. May we congratulate you and wish you the best of luck.’

  ‘That’s good! That’s good!’ shouted the man with the microphone. ‘Now, Mrs Harris, your reply.’

  For one horrible, blinding moment John Bayswater fancied himself in church at a marriage service, where the Minister asked something like ‘If anyone know aught why these two should not be joined together in Holy Matrimony, let him speak now or else forever hold his peace’, and in the same revelation saw himself tearing up the aisle crying, ‘Wait! Wait! I protest against this marriage! Hear me out!’ But, of course, this was only one of those half nightmarish fantasies. Besides which, it was also too late.

  For he heard Mrs Harris say, ‘I’m honoured and I’ll do me best.’

  Not far from her side Mrs Butterfield was sobbing loudly and there was a patter of applause and cries of ‘Hear, hear!’

  ‘That’s fine,’ said the man with the microphone. More flash bulbs went off and then photographers and film men began to pack up their gear. Mrs Harris saw him, still standing looking somewhat dazed and bewildered in the doorway.

  ‘John,’ she cried, ‘John Bayswater! What do you think, I’m going to be in the Government! It’s all ’appened so fast my ’ead is still spinning. Come over here and meet these kind people.’

  And thereafter Bayswater found himself engulfed in introductions to the Battersea Executive of the Centre Party; to their agent, a Mr Smyce, the one he didn’t like the look of, to another named Philip Aldershot who seemed rather a better sort. Champagne was handed round, reporters were still scribbling with pencils and notebooks and through it all he realized that Ada Harris was as happy as a child and just as innocent. How could he possibly disillusion her?

  Coupled with what he had overheard in the car, what had happened and was happening was no mystery. Undoubtedly prompted by the arguments over the telly the week before, Ada had sounded off in front of Sir Wilmot and put the idea into his head to use her for his naughty scheme. He knew why she was so thrilled and excited. She had a fund of simple common sense and native London shrewdness, along with a love of her world and intense fellow feeling and sympathy for the people who inhabited it, but little opportunity to apply it. He was certain that she had not the slightest idea of politics, or elections, or even how Parliament operated. She probably had no more than an idea that once she became a Member of the House of Commons, she would be provided with a platform.

  Bayswater was sufficiently experienced and cosmopolitan to know that there was nothing intrinsically crooked or even illegal about many political deals. They happened all the time, from the pairing of Members in the House to some of the shenanigans that must have gone on at the time of the recent change in Prime Ministers. Except at the end of this one there wou
ld lie a broken heart and it would be Ada’s.

  Just as Sir Wilmot had promised, she would not be allowed to win and the sour-faced fellow whose name Sir Wilmot had said was Smyce, was there to see that she didn’t. Somehow he must find a way to warn her of what he had heard and spring her from this monstrous trap before it closed upon her irrevocably bringing defeat and disappointment.

  But how? With all the chatter and hubbub about him he could hardly speak, much less hear himself think, and so he drifted away out back to Ada’s kitchen, to try to gather his wits together and evolve some kind of plan.

  He had been there only a few minutes, producing, testing and discarding ideas, when he heard a stirring at the door, and looking up saw that it was Mrs Harris, a new and strange kind of Ada he had never encountered before. It was not only that she looked bizarre, her apple cheeks flushed with champagne, and the enormous cluster of violently purple orchids flowering on her shoulder; there was an odd timorousness about her that was quite alien to one who with the brashest confidence would step in where not only angels, but devils might fear to tread.

  She stood then for a moment framed in the doorway and he had the feeling for an instant of an alien creature, bird-like and fluttering. Then she came forward and said something which never in a thousand years he would have expected to have heard from her and which smote him to the centre of his being, loosing a curious kind of inner trembling within him.

  It was nothing more than the simply phrased question, ‘Ain’t you glad for me, John?’

  Now John Bayswater was as certain as the sun would rise the next day that he would let his tongue be cut out before he would ever tell Ada Harris how she was being taken in and made a fool of. For this pain would be far greater to bear than that of any defeat at the polls. She must never know and, in the protective instinct that suddenly overwhelmed him, he was aware for the first time of the measure of his fondness for her and the lengths to which he felt he would go to spare her any suffering or unhappiness.