Mrs Harris, MP Read online

  Eighteen uniformed chauffeurs scattered and ran to their wheels, almost with the purpose and cadence of pilots in a scramble. Eighteen starters were pressed. Eighteen engines whispered into action. Then, silently the cavalcade moved off, crossing Chelsea Embankment and on to the bridge, emerging into Battersea Bridge Road. There a surprised late worker, homeward bound, looked upon the procession with astonishment and was reminded of a line of British tanks he had once seen in the war, screeching and grinding through a village at night. These were not exactly tanks he was looking at, but the equally inexorable progression was the same.

  He had no way of knowing, naturally, that it was Bayswater carrying the war into enemy territory and using snob value as his secret weapon.

  Once across the river the exquisite vehicles detached themselves or, as Bayswater who had driven for an Air Marshal in the war had put it, peeled off and disappeared down the side streets of Battersea.

  Seen from the reverse side of the coin, this was what it was like, say, as registered by William Osborne, master plumber, his wife Daisy and her mother Elsie, as they sat in their living-room transfixed by a film made in 1949 showing on the telly, as the doorbell rang.

  ‘You go, Mum,’ Bill Osborne said to his wife. ‘I’ll tell you if he manages to get away.’ The hero at that moment was in full flight from the villains.

  Reluctantly Mrs Osborne detached herself from her chair and went to the front door where, opening it, she found herself confronted by two of the most gorgeous apparitions, one mechanical, the other human, she had ever encountered. Parked in the street was the longest, shiniest, smartest motorcar, seemingly taking up half the block. Standing before her was a creature far handsomer than the one she had been watching on the screen; a tall man in uniform with a fine, craggy face, noble brow, commanding nose and piercing, deep-set grey eyes. The hair at his temples was grizzled and receded on his head in beautiful waves, one hand was gloved, the other was bare and clutched his uniform cap.

  When he spoke it was with the deep, mellifluous note of the organ in Westminster Abbey.

  ‘Good evening, madam. Do forgive me for disturbing you at this hour, for I can hear that you are watching the telly. But it’s important. My name is Tom Peckett; that is to say, Peckett, I’m called. I drive for Lord and Lady Woolmanston.’

  The voice, the name, the reference finished off Daisy Osborne and she shrieked for her husband. ‘Bill! Bill! You’d better come out here at once.’ Plumber Osborne hurried on to the scene.

  ‘I was just apologizing to your wife for disturbing you,’ and here Peckett repeated his introduction and then went into his pitch. ‘We are members of the Chauffeurs’ United in support of Mrs Harris, your Centre candidate for Parliament. “Live and Let Live” is her motto and that’s more than anybody else has ever offered us. If you could spare me a moment of your time …’

  The voice, the uniform and the presence of the car had done their work as Bayswater had felt certain they would. ‘Would you care to come in a minute?’ Bill Osborne invited. ‘Daisy, take Mr Peckett’s hat. Granny!’ he shouted into the living-room, ‘Turn off that damn racket. We’ve got a visitor.’

  Mrs Osborne in a complete twitter followed them in. ‘Won’t you have a cup of tea? I’ll put the kettle on.’

  ‘I regret,’ replied Mr Peckett sonorously, ‘I’m afraid I haven’t the time’ (fifteen minutes had been the period allotted by Bayswater on the average per visit) ‘but if I might just sit down for a short chat with you.’

  And thereafter to an audience who missed not a word, he expounded the beautiful theory evolved by Ada Harris of the necessity for the enjoyment of life, how it was to be achieved and what it could mean to Mr and Mrs Osborne, their three kiddies asleep upstairs, and Granny.

  When, after his permitted span, he had completed the spiel, he climbed back into the driver’s seat of the Rolls, watched in awe by the family who had come to the door with him. He drove off with three votes for Ada Harris.

  Elsewhere deployed in their various areas, Trimper, Beesworth, Badgall, Timson, Scudder, Adcock, Willis, Litching, Pilk, Glover, et al. were carrying on similar good works.

  The next day, Charlie Smyce taxed Mrs Harris with what was going on. He said, ‘Say, have you got a boy friend by the name of Bayswater?’

  Mrs Harris who, although she had not smelled out Smyce’s treachery, was not too enamoured of him as a person, had replied, ‘Mr Bayswater, you mean. I wouldn’t think he’d answer to boy friend, if you called ’im that. ’E’s a very dignified gentleman.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it, but did you know that he and a lot of his pals were driving around Battersea last night in a fleet of Rolls-Royces, ringing doorbells and soliciting votes?’

  Mrs Harris had stared at him as though she could not believe her ears. ‘Mr Bayswater did that? For me? John Bayswater?’ And suddenly she began to laugh and laugh, and laugh as though she could not stop herself, until Smyce watching her at first with irritation and later more narrowly, detected what must have been a touch of hysteria, for there seemed to be tears in her eyes as well. He said, ‘All right, let’s cut the cackle. You’ve got to tell him to stop. I’m the one running this campaign.’

  Mrs Harris’s laughter assumed a more normal tenor. ‘You tell ’im,’ she said. ‘Since you’re running it.’ And, thereafter, even she noticed that meetings were less frequent and less populated. But that was before she went on television, of course.

  9

  The appearance of Mrs Ada Harris, charwoman to the élite of Eaton Square on the commercial programme called ‘Mother Hubbard’s Household Hints’, turned out to be a sensation, but not in the manner in which Mr Joel Schreiber, unfamiliar with the sensitivity of British elections, had expected. The message came across all right, but the resulting scandal threatened to blow the programme off the air, and Mrs Harris clear out of the constituency of East Battersea.

  ‘Mother Hubbard’s Household Hints’ was presented by a chatty, sympathetic middle-aged character named Hattie Hubbard and was viewed by some millions of women each day at two o’clock in the afternoon as an excuse to dawdle over their own chores and perhaps pick up a few shortcuts to getting burn off the bottom of the saucepan, or cleaning the lavatory bowl.

  From time to time, Hattie presented a guest on the programme, an expert of some kind perhaps on floor polishing, or a film star known for an agreeable home life, or just a housewife chosen at random. Part of her success was built upon her motherly presence and the ease with which she was able to involve her guests in gossipy conversation.

  The representative from the programme called at Mrs Harris’s house to invite her; in all innocence she accepted and duly appeared two afternoons later clad in her overall and dust-cap, armed with broom, mop, wash-rag and duster. She and Mrs Hubbard went wandering about for a half-hour over several studio sets in the shape of bedroom, drawing-room, and kitchen nattering all the while as Mrs Harris demonstrated some tricks she had learned for the more speedy elimination of dust and dirt, the making of beds, removal of grease from dishes and other professional secrets every amateur housewife longs to penetrate.

  But subtly, as they progressed, the conversation began to take a turn towards what Mrs Harris thought about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The majority of the viewers recognized her from her pictures in the papers and there, right in their own homes, was Ada Harris, the militant char declaiming her rousing theory of ‘Live and Let Live’.

  And what was more, that incredible instrument, the television camera, incapable of telling a lie had probed through the exterior of Mrs Harris and exposed to public view what it saw, an honest, decent and hard-working woman who had lived and suffered, while disclosing a minimum of the dross that dilutes human good will. She might have mortal failings or weaknesses, but the prying lens uncovered no dark corners, hypocrisies or slyness; only a burning sincerity.

  Even before the show was off the air, the telephones were ringing and the studio switchboard was clogged. The
majority were ecstatically congratulatory, but there were also stricken cries of ‘Unfair, unfair! Not cricket!’ and angry protests from headquarters of other Parties. The unwritten rule against unauthorized political speeches on TV by candidates had been bent, lacerated and broken. Who had permitted this outrage? How had she got away with it? What was to be done about it?

  The hue and cry was taken up by the newspapers. Indignant letters were written which brought forth replies in favour of Mrs Harris. Two camps emerged and it seemed as though the fat was really in the fire.

  However, the char who was standing for Parliament on a platform of ‘Live and Let Live’ had been indelibly impressed upon the minds of millions of housewives.

  Hugh Coates telephoned to Sir Wilmot Corrison, still ailing at his country home: ‘Hello, Corrison. Is that you? Look here, what the devil are you trying to do, double-cross me? What do you mean putting that woman on television? You can’t get away with this.’

  Unfortunately although Sir Wilmot’s fever had disappeared, so had his voice and nothing emerged but a croak which infuriated Coates still more until Lady Corrison took the instrument and said, ‘My husband can’t talk on the telephone, Mr Coates, but he says not to worry, everything will be all right. You want votes taken away from Labour, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, dammit,’ Coates exploded, ‘but not from us as well. Even my wife said she wished she could vote for her,’ and hung up.

  While Sir Wilmot had ordered ‘no television’, he figured that Smyce must have felt that they needed a little extra pressure in the district and was well satisfied with what he thought was his agent’s cleverness.

  And just as the hullabaloo over the broadcast was threatening to get out of hand, there occurred on the following Tuesday, just six days away from the election, the sensation that knocked the pros and cons of the matter out of the heads of every man, woman and child in the British Isles and united the country as it had not been since the declaration of war.

  * * *

  One of the reasons for the success of the French national newspaper L’Étoile and why its appearance at the breakfast table of every third Frenchman in the Republic was a must, was the uninhibited and often savage column by one who signed himself ‘Comte St Juste’. The column was social, political, economic, philosophical and naughty, in fact anything that happened to cross the mind of its perpetrator. It spared no one, including Governments and heads of State, foreign as well as domestic. Hardly a week went by without an essay arousing the ire of someone, including the very Frenchmen who read it. But like all such features which become a habit, they considered it good for their foies to have the bile stirred up and would not have done without it.

  The actual identity of the ‘Comte St Juste’ was a well-kept secret not only for the value of mystification but to save the actual writer from an occasional caning at the hands of an irate victim or, for that matter, spare him Government reprisals. Not even those connected with the paper were certain. The delivery and processing of the manuscript was achieved in secrecy. Suspicion sometimes centred upon Monsieur de Latocque, the Editor himself, but of course he denied it vigorously. Suffice it to say that the daily article was the first item to which not only subscribers turned, but diplomatic circles and editors of foreign newspapers as well.

  On the morning in question, Frenchmen read what ‘St Juste’ had to say with a smile of satisfied amusement, for the author had chosen to sound off on some of the vagaries of English politics, brought to light by the forthcoming British election. ‘St Juste’ was known to enjoy twisting the lion’s tail and his audience enjoyed it even more, particularly when, as on this morning, the appendage was given a pretty good yank.

  No such amusement was reflected in Fleet Street when the copies of L’Étoile, airmailed to London, appeared upon the desks of the executives of newspapers. The Editor of the Daily Express, glancing through the article, caught a name which fell familiarly upon his eyes. He read the piece through, hardly able to believe it, then banged his fist on his desk, and yelled, ‘Why, the so-and-so bastard!’

  He snatched up the telephone, ‘Get hold of Robbins! I want a translation of something as fast as he can get it out.’

  In a matter of twenty minutes, Robbins was back with a sheet of copy-paper in his fingers, breathing heavily and demanding to know, ‘Who the hell does this fellow think he is?’ The Editor thereupon sat down to suffer infusions from his liver, endocrine and adrenalin glands, stimulated by the following paragraphs:

  The exact mental age of our beloved cousins from across the Channel may be estimated by their introduction to the hustings of a gay, but otherwise wholly illiterate charlady by the name of Mrs Ada Harris, who is representing the so-called resuscitated Centre Party from the constituency of East Battersea, situated across the river, no more than a good golf drive from the pseudo-intelligentsia of Chelsea.

  It is not clear whether this politically minded Mrs Mop is to represent only the woes of her notoriously underpaid sisters in that ancient and exclusive gentleman’s club, the House of Commons, or whether her presence there can be counted upon to clean up and perhaps add a bit of polish to the economic and social absurdities in which the British find themselves enmeshed at the current writing.

  The joke of bringing a House of Parliament down to the knee level of a London scrubbing woman is an amusing one but goes ill with the pretensions of the country to join a market in common with nations of Europe whose older and wider culture must find such horse-play quite intolerable.

  This innocent charwoman, whose political philosophy appears to be derived from maxims to be found in Longman’s First Primer, of course cannot succeed of election. Her choice may be rightly interpreted as an indication of the depths below sea-level attained by current British political thinking. A hundred years ago the Editor, purple in the face, would have reached for his quill pen and dipped it in venom to reply. Now, the Editor, equally puce of complexion, reached for his dictaphone, shouting into it: ‘Editorial – Page one.’ The article that followed ought to have blown out all fuses.

  Similar scenes were being enacted in other newspaper offices and the following morning the ‘Comte St Juste’s’ admonitory essay became the best distributed piece of literature in the British Isles, accompanied by retaliating blasts in local and national papers, ranging from the merely scornful to the righteously rabid.

  The Daily Express and the Daily Mail were patriotically vituperative; the Telegraph sarcastic; The Times historical, pointing out that before the Reform Bill of 1832 (according to Lord Russell’s recollections) a wealthy and eccentric peer, who happened to own several Pocket Boroughs in their entirety, had nominated one of the waiters at White’s who happened to be a favourite of his, a fellow named Robert Mackreth, for a seat in the Commons which he obtained and occupied. The Guardian was disdainful in the most exquisite prose and the Labour press took the remarks directed at one who toiled with her hands as a personal insult.

  If never before, the various shades of political thought and influence had been able to fasten on to something upon which they agreed, the nation was united now and the class-warfare temporarily abandoned in favour of turning upon the common enemy. The inhabitants of the British Isles, when their morning papers were spread out before them, could not have reacted more violently had they learned that de Gaulle had appeared at Dover, Folkestone, Newhaven, or any other Channel port, at the head of an armada.

  Indignation spread like wildfire wherever press or radio reached, from John O’Groats to Land’s End. British European Airways noted cancellation of hundreds of reservations to Paris, French restaurants in Soho and elsewhere in London reported a drastic falling off of business and the perfume counter of Harrods was practically deserted. The scratching of pens was audible all over the land as hundreds of indignant letters were sent off to The Times.

  If such words as these, or similar ones in intent, were spoken once by the head of the house about to crack his breakfast egg, they must have been repeat
ed at least a million times:

  ‘Damn, bloody cheek, this frog-eater! Who the devil does he think he is? We don’t need any foreigners telling us what to do. Here, listen to this … Who do we know in East Battersea, darling, that we might have a word with about helping this woman?’

  10

  From that moment on Mr Smyce and his reluctant satellite Chatsworth-Taylor were swept away in the boiling sea of reaction to the ‘St Juste’ comments and the editorial replies.

  They were knocked down, rolled and tumbled the way the giant ocean comber will overwhelm swimmers on a beach, washing them up half-drowned in the sand at the water’s edge. The agent could no more halt or dissipate the effect of the tremendous outpouring of sympathy and support for Mrs Ada Harris than King Canute could have expected to be obeyed in his instructions to the sea.

  The Party workers, on the other hand, realizing that for the first time in their somewhat drab political careers, they were on to something alive and a good thing, were in a state of perpetual ecstasy. As busy as any beavers they worked at sorting out the invitations that came flooding in the wake of, for the moment, the most popular woman in Britain.

  Receptions and soirées were the order of the day. Her presence was implored to open bazaars, bestow blessings upon charity dos and address luncheons. She was wanted for more and more meetings, rallies, conferences and what-not. Supplied with a car and driver, she was rushed on a tight, split-second schedule from one engagement to another, en route attracting almost as much attention as the Beatles. No newspaper would risk so much as a single edition without a picture of Mrs Harris doing something, so that her spare figure, her face beneath the grey curls, the apple cheeks now always flushed with excitement and her small, naughty eyes alive with the fervour and the fire, were as familiar sights to Londoners as their own Royalty.

  And, indeed, even as Royalty, often when her equipage was halted in traffic, passers-by in the streets would applaud her and there would be cries of ‘We’re with you, Ada! Keep it up! We’ll show those blasted Frenchies!’