To Play the King by Michael Dobbs

Author:Michael Dobbs
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
Published: 2014-04-29T16:00:00+00:00

Twenty-Six

A royal conscience is like a wind upon a field of corn. It might cause a ripple but usually passes to no lasting effect.

The House of Commons attendant entered the gentlemen’s lavatory in search of his quarry. He had an urgent message for Tom Worthington, a Labor MP from what used to be a mining constituency in Derbyshire before they closed the mines, who prided himself on his working-class origins in spite of the fact that it had been more than twenty years since anything other than ink and ketchup had stained his hands. The lavatory was inescapably Victorian with fine antique tiles and porcelain, sullied only by an electric hot-air drier at which Jeremy Colthorpe, an aging and notoriously pompous Member from the pretentious shires, was drying his hands. “By chance seen Mr. Worthington, sir?” the attendant inquired.

“Can only handle one shit at a time in here, my man,” Colthorpe responded through his nose. “Try one of the bars. In some corner under a table, most likely.”

The attendant scurried off as Colthorpe was joined at the wash basins by the only other man in the room, Tim Stamper.

“Timothy, dear boy. Enjoying party headquarters? Making an excellent job of it, if you don’t mind my saying.”

Stamper turned from the basin and lowered his head in appreciation, but there was no warmth. Colthorpe was known for his airs, purporting to be a leader of local society, yet he’d married into every penny, which only made him still more condescending toward former estate agents. Classlessness was a concept Colthorpe would never support, having spent most of his life trying to escape from its clutches.

“Glad for a chance to speak with you actually, old chap,” Colthorpe was saying, his smile more a simper as he searched keenly in the corners of the mirror for reassurance that he and Stamper were alone in the echoing room. “Confidentially, man to man,” he continued, trying to glance surreptitiously beneath the doors of the cubicles.

“What’s on your mind, Jeremy?” Stamper responded, mindful that during all of his years in the House, Colthorpe had never done more than pass the time of day with him.

“Lady wife. Getting on a bit, seventy next year. And not in the best of health. Brave gal, but finding it more than ever difficult to help in the constituency—it’s damned large, forty-three villages, don’t you know, takes some getting round, I can tell you.” He moved over toward Stamper at the basins and started washing his hands for the second time, trying to evince confidentiality but clearly ill at ease. “Owe it to her to take off some of the pressure, spend a little more time together. No way of telling how long she may have.” He paused while he worked up a considerable lather as if he were always meticulous about hygiene and to emphasize the depth of his concern for his wife. Both effects were wasted on Stamper who, when Deputy Chief Whip, had seen Colthorpe’s private file, which included reference to the regular payments he made to a single mother who used to tend bar in his local pub.

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