Chapter XVI The First Prophecy

 

 

 

 

 

While still in the cab I tried to contact Meena, but again she was not responding. I left her a brief message about Emil’s mishap.

As soon as I arrived at the Civic Centre I saw an ITN TV camera crew on the steps outside. The journalist had been chatting to passers-by on the street. Then he saw me as I came sweeping up the steps briefcase under my arm. With that unnerving instinct he sensed I must have been a Council official even though he did not know who I was.

“Excuse me, Sir, are you a member of the Framden Borough Council?”

I should have said no but that would have been a lie and I would have looked foolish if that same team discovered later that I was a Councillor.

“Yes.”

“Could I have your name, Sir?”

“Peter Axtell.”

“Councillor Axtell, is it true that you will be the new Chairman of the Planning Committee?”

What???!!!

“I’m sorry but I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“Sir, you are aware, are you not, that Councillor (he consulted his notes here) Emil Kapacek has resigned following an incident in the Council chamber?”

“I’m sorry but I can make no comment at this time.”

“I understand. Are you about to see Councillor Grayson?”

“I still cannot comment at this time.”

“Can I ask if you will be able to make a comment soon? We have had no comment from anyone on the Council on this incident all afternoon.”

“I am sure that there must be some unfounded rumour about my colleague Councillor Kapacek….” I ventured.

I was immediately shot down in flames. “You are aware, are you not, Councillor Axtell, that ITN has already shown a film of the incident as filmed by an amateur American tourist?”

My head was reeling. I was out of my depth. I saw Jim running down to me from the top of the steps.

“Not now,” I said to the TV journalist. “Maybe later.” I pushed past him up the steps.

Jim grabbed me by the arm and led me from the top of the staircase summit through the rotating doors of the building and then along the side staircase that led to the Members’ section and the Leader’s Office.

“Best not to say a word at the moment, Councillor,” he murmured emphatically in my ear as we pounded up the stairs and along the corridor. “This is enough of a mess already. I tried to catch you before you left, Sir. Councillor Grayson has been desperate to talk to you.” I suddenly remembered Jim’s desperate waving as I had been rushing out the building.

“What happened to Councillor Kapacek?” I asked.

“Caught with his trousers down, Sir. With a young lady from the Press Office, would you believe? In the Mayor’s own chair. Just after we met, Sir, and I was looking for the key to the Mayor’s Parlour. You remember, Councillor. I was asking if you had the key. You suggested that Councillor Kapacek still had it. I wish I had gone down there straight away. This could have been kept quiet then. Instead I get dragged away. A party of American tourists had been booked to visit the Civic Centre. What do they think we are, a museum? Anyway, our usual guide was away that day so they ask me to take them round. I thought: “Right, let’s start with the Council Chamber”. I had the key and knew it was accessible. The worst is I opened the main door to the chamber and then without looking inside I switched on the light and stood aside for all the tourists to let them in. Suddenly there was a commotion. I could hear the American ladies, screaming and giggling, Sir. So I turned round and looked and….. Councillor, I just can’t describe it. They were in the Mayor’s Chair and all I could see at first was a lady’s back, dressed in something blue. Then behind her I saw Councillor Kapacek. I remained rooted to the ground as the young lady’s legs were spread around him. I thing you understand the rest. The lady was like a gazelle. She sprang up without looking round, gathered her scattered under clothes and ran like mad in her blue dress, through the open door to the Mayor’s Parlour. Actually, I think she showed great presence of mind. Certainly had all her wits about her.”

“And Councillor Kapacek?” I asked.

“Well, Councillor, he just remained there seated.”

“In the Mayor’s seat?”

“Yes, Councillor, in the Mayor’s seat.”

“He didn’t move?”

“I don’t think he could move, Councillor. His trousers were round his ankles.”

I felt horror at first and then guilt. Firstly, I was the first who had misbehaved in that chair. I remembered too that I had been trying to warn Emil that Jim was searching for the key to the Mayor’s Parlour and then I had forgotten. I felt instinctively that I had let him down.

Just then we had reached the Leader’s Office suite. I went in. Jim remained in the corridor.

Ted’s secretary was still working, despite the fact that it was out of office hours. She was typing a press statement. As I came in she smiled at me sympathetically, picked up the phone and pressed the button. “Councillor Axtell is here.” After a second she announced, “Please go in.”

Inside the room were Ted Grayson, Andy Trosser and Emil Kapacek. One of the legal officers was also in attendance.

“Emil, are you OK?” That was a stupid question. The ever bumptious witty Emil was sitting there like a crumpled flower. He looked completely broken.

“Emil. What happened?”

He smiled at me weakly but remained silent.

“I don’t think that is a matter to be discussed now,” said Grayson. “He’s told us everything that we need to know; in fact more than enough. Of course, he has resigned from all his posts in the Council except actual membership of the Council. As we can imagine a by-election in these circumstances would be a disaster for us.”

“I want to resign from the Council as well, Ted.”

“Well you have no say in the matter,” Ted replied brutally. “If I were you I’d say as little as possible. We now have to consider where we go from here. Andy?”

“Right, Ted, I’ll sum up what we have agreed. Firstly, we gloss over the pictures in the media and simply state that Emil has resigned for personal reasons. Secondly, Emil disappears for a couple of weeks or so until the hullabaloo dies down. Remember, Emil, if your wife still refuses to allow you to return home then stay at my place tonight and get yourself a ticket to visit that cousin of yours in Prague that you suggested. Go on one of those cheap flights that fly from Luton or Stansted as you are far less likely to be spotted by the press there. Then lie low until we tell you. Three, we send an internal memo to all the Councillors in our Group, saying that from now on the Mayor’s Parlour is strictly out of bounds to all Councillors except in the presence and at the invitation of the Mayor, and ditto the Council Chamber except when it is used for formal Council meetings. All group meetings for any party will now take place in one of the other Council halls, but not the Council chamber.”

“Four,” Andy was pressing on relentlessly, “Peter you become the new Chair of the Planning Committee and our representative on the GLA Transport Committee. You, Peter, are now responsible for the conduct of the public meeting on the Pinkerton Plaza Development, which we announced earlier today. We cannot back out of that now. Agree, Peter? Five, for a period of two weeks all links between Councillors in our Group and the media will be filtered through the Press Office or through me personally. This is to prevent any of our members being ambushed by the press into commenting on this matter. Six, we call an emergency group meeting for tomorrow evening in the Mandela Room of the Civic Centre. Anything else?”

“No, Andy. I think you have summarized it perfectly. Perhaps it’s a smaller consideration at the moment, but who do we propose as Peter’s deputy on the Planning Committee?”

“Let’s leave that for the moment, Ted,” said Andy. “The Group meeting on Friday evening should confirm Peter’s appointment. Then the name of the Vice-Chair can emerge.”

“One question for now,” I interjected.

“Yes, Peter?”

“Who will now chair the public meeting? I thought maybe the Mayor, as it is his ward.”

“Forget it,” said Andy. “Donald is speechless with rage. It’s as if this incident was a personal affront to him and him alone. At one stage he even insisted that we replace his Mayoral Chair. Silly fool! That would be utter stupidity and make us even more of a laughing stock than we are already. In any case I know for a fact that the Mayor is attending the opening of the new swimming pool on June 30th as many of us will be there. So that’s out. What about asking Owen Draycott?”

We all nodded. Except for Emil, who sat there as if in a trance. He looked like a man just condemned to the electric chair. Yes, Draycott, the hard-working and respected MP, as Chairman. That would be a good idea.

“OK Peter, it’s your baby,” said Grayson. “You invite him. If you don’t have his phone number and e-mail, my secretary will give it to you. OK Andy, time to smuggle Emil out of here.”

Emil and I embraced. Apart from the fact that he had been my friend and political mentor for many years there was the immense feeling of guilt at the fact that it was me who had initiated the abuse of the mayoral chair. I had been virtually shagging Meena in it. All poor Emil had done was to complete what I had started in that chair. Obviously after my sudden departure he had had the crass idea of imitating me and moved himself and his posh totty seductress to the mayor’s throne. “There, but for the grace of God, go I,” I thought as I hugged him. “I’m so sorry, so sorry, Emil. I’m as devastated as you are.”

He was not aware that I felt equally guilty that I had not warned him about the keys.

“I’ll be all right old boy,” he half-whispered, half sobbed in my ear. “You look after yourself. Don’t let any of these bastards and bitches stab you in the back. And your secret is safe.” He gave me a brave and meaningful smile as he dislocated himself from my embrace, picked up his briefcase and went out of the office with Andy.

 “Why the hell did you leave him alone in that chamber with that Sweetman woman!” Ted Grayson suddenly turned on me in his empty office. “He seemed drunk. The two of them must have got plastered. You didn’t ply them with drink, did you? What on earth possessed them to fuck in that chair? (I wriggled uncomfortably in my seat.) And then these fucking American tourists! What a stupid idea getting these people to tour our civic buildings!” I waited patiently for Ted to rumble through his outburst. I suddenly remembered the laughing and shouting Americans whom I passed in the lift on my way to the Framden Journal earlier that afternoon. Good Lord! I realized suddenly that I had run into them immediately after they had surprised Emil.

“And the humiliation! On us; on me personally. On Framden Council. We will be a laughing stock for years! In fact all Councillors will be. We will never live this down. God, what a fucking mess!”

Don’t be such a spoilt baby, I thought. Think, man, think!

 “What is going to happen to the Press Officer concerned?” I asked. I was personally worried that she might spill the beans on me and Meena. Then the Council would be mired in even more scandal. And my political career would be in ruins. Possibly my professional one too. Or I could be blackmailed, I suddenly thought with cold perspiration bursting out on my forehead. A second blackmail! How did I end up in these ridiculous situations? I did not dare to answer that question. Probably because it was staring me in the face.

“Well we have made a deal with Susan Sweetman. Firstly, she is quite unrecognizable in that film and, provided Emil stays quiet, there is no reason to expect that she will be recognized. We have agreed quietly with her that we will give her 3 months’ notice and a hefty pay off as well as a good reference, if she keeps her mouth shut and does not approach the media. Emil confessed he had had sex with her before a couple of times. So she has form.”

“She might be tempted by the money the papers can offer,” I commented.

“She might, she might not, but ultimately she would lose a lot career wise,” Ted Grayson answered. “In any case she is only of nuisance value to us, in terms of recurring negative publicity. Personally she can’t really harm anyone except herself.”

I swallowed silently. Strictly this was not true. She could harm me. Very badly. In the short term, however, that was good news. If she went along with this deal then she was less vulnerable to blackmail than I was. I was safe on that front for the time being.

“Sorry about that outburst, Peter. Of course it’s not your fault. Welcome to the inner sanctum then, the Cabinet. It’s not the most pleasant way of being foisted onto that body but life’s like that.”

“I feel so sorry for Emil though,” I said. “And for his family.”

“His family, yes. But not for him. How dare he embarrass us like this! We will not live this down for many years. His wife must have known about his earlier shenanigans, but she has obviously had enough. She has told him never to come back home. It’s a mighty fall. We are all going to suffer, even you as his successor. Just imagine the barracking and the jokes at that public meeting. Owen should be a strong chairman. Just what we need. Don’t forget to fix it with him.”

I made my way to the Members’ Room. Some of my colleagues surrounded me and plied me with questions and opinions. There were some extraordinary stories suggesting who the mysterious woman was with Emil, including nearly every woman councillor you could think of. I could see now how embarrassing this was going to be for women Councillors in particular. It occurred to me that it would be a good idea to make a statement to the effect that no woman Councillor was involved but even that would not end the speculation. One guy even suggested that a large scale sex party had taken place and that Ted Grayson and myself were part of the proceedings. I soon cut him short. I reminded them not to say anything of their views and wild imaginings to the media. I also asked them if anyone had seen Meena. They all shook their heads.

I decided to make my way home but to drop in on Meena on the way. On the civic centre stops I was accosted again, this time by about five journalists and two TV crews. I merely told them that I could make no comment and that a press statement would be issued by the Council chief press officer (not Susan Sweetman of course) shortly. I was tempted to confirm that I was the new Chair of Planning but realized that this would only be unnecessary grand-standing by me and I would be breaking party discipline by talking to the press off my own bat.

I got to my car unscathed. For some minutes I thought of dropping round to Emil’s house to comfort his wife and even drove to the corner of their street. Then I noticed the media scrum parked outside their door and thought better of it. After all I might be as unwelcome in the house as Emil was, as she always assumed that we were an incorrigible pair of womanizers and that I was a bad influence on Emil. Why tempt fate? I rang her home number tentatively and caught an answer phone message. I left her a message of sympathy and a promise to come round and assist with anything if she needed me and rung off.

On checking my phone I found that three further messages that had been left. I recognized our home number as one of them, so I quickly rang home to reassure my Mother. She had not seen the news but her friend Salcha had heard that latest scandalous story from Framden Council and had rung her. I told her not to answer any phone calls but to wait for the caller to leave a message. She could then ring her friends back and reassure her but on no account should she talk to the press or television. Another message was from the Evening Standard and the third from a local radio station. I ignored them.

Then I drove to Meena’s house. Outside her parents’ house I stopped the car and phoned her on the mobile again. Then at last she answered the phone.

She obviously recognized my number because without further ado she just barked “What do you want? Just leave me alone.”

“Meena, I know you’ve been hurt by what happened. However, the sky has fallen in since then. We have to talk.”

“Go away. Leave me alone.”

“Meena, I understand. If you don’t want to talk in front of your parents, that’s fine. Just now I’m in a car just outside your house. Come on out and we’ll talk in the car.”

“Tomorrow. Come back tomorrow.”

“Meena, please come and talk to me. You may get nuisance calls from the press. It’s really important. Or else let me in.”

There was a moment’s silence as she reflected. “I’ll come out,” she said.

She was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, certainly not the demure tasteful clothes that she normally wore. I imagined that she had probably torn off her clothes in a bout of self-disgust immediately after our adventure in the Council chamber. She had probably had an instant shower to “purify” herself.

She sat beside me in silence staring forward with a sullen melancholy look. She had definitely been crying. I too was silent for a minute. Then after an interval…

“Meena?”

Silence.

“Meena? Are you feeling OK? You’re not ill?”

There was just a grunt this time as she shifted her body for a moment in the passenger seat.

“Meena, please? You’re not mad at me, are you?”

“Well perhaps I should be, Peter. Actually I’m a big girl now. I’m mad at myself, for being so stupid.”

“Please don’t hate yourself. I thought you were beautiful. We’ve done nothing wrong.”

“I was fucking stupid!” (It was very rare for an expletive of this kind to escape Meena’s chaste lips.)

“Well I admit we were both a little mad. Just got carried away by each other. But wasn’t it enthralling as well? Meena, it was for me. It was unforgettable. We were just driven.”

“We were just drunk.”

“Well we had a unique experience at least.”

“So unique that half the Council watched it. Peter, I’m going to resign from the Council.”

“No way, Meena! Whatever you may personally feel (and we can discuss that), if you resign now the media will think you were connected with Emil’s disgrace. They still don’t know who was with him and we’re all keeping quiet, including Emil.”

“Well that oaf deserves everything he can get. Sitting there watching us and jerking off. When I ran out of the Council chamber I muttered every curse in Hindi against him that I could think of.”

“Well, Meena, it certainly worked.”

Suddenly she laughed. We both did. It was a laugh that broke the intense stony passage that she had passed through. It was a short laugh but it ended a chapter. Now she was practical again.

“Well it did, didn’t it? I hated that man with every fibre in my being. He had humiliated me. Now I don’t even have the luxury to hate him heartily. I actually feel sorry for him.”

“And with good reason. He’s finished. He may even resign from the Council. His wife has refused to let him in the house. He’s disappearing for a fortnight at least. He’s visiting his Czech family.”

“Oh my God! Poor man.”

“Behind him he’s left enormous collateral damage. Framden Council is the centre of media attention. It is also a total laughing stock. In fact every Council in Britain will be a laughing stock now. And we have the added problem of a media hunt for the person that was shagging him.”

“Well we know who it is, don’t we. Why doesn’t she come forward? Otherwise, we’re all going to be suspected.”

“Now be careful here. At the moment we’re all keeping quiet, including Emil. She probably has family.”

“Well she should have thought of that before she put her mouth where her brain should be.”

“Just remember, Meena. For us it’s better this way. If the media spotlight falls on her, what might she say about us? Think of the money she could make”

The enormity of this disgrace had obviously not occurred to her until now. Now it struck her like a bolt of lightning. “Oh my God! I just want to resign. I do. I do.” She buried her head in her hands.

“Now get a grip on yourself, girl. All we did was to have a kiss and a cuddle.” She looked at me angrily. “Sorry, admittedly the setting was a little bizarre...”

“I just want to resign! Please let me go.”

“Secondly, if Emil and this Sweetman woman are keeping quiet and the rest of the Council don’t know the details anyway, there is nothing to connect us personally to what happened. Even if it is recorded that we both attended the meeting beforehand. Just don’t say anything to the press. We are all going to maintain a wall of silence. Ted’s just sending out a memo about this to all our Group members. That wall will protect us and them. There will not be a chink for anyone to see through the armour. We are safe.”

“No. No. No.” She was shaking her head again, back in the pits of despair.

“Meena, get a grip on yourself,” I called again. I shook her but she kept shaking her head and shouting “I’m going to resign”. I was about to slap her face to steady her.

Then I changed my mind. I steadied her head and planted a kiss full on her mouth. Not an erotic kiss. Just a full face lips to lips encounter to stifle her outbursts. She struggled for a second against this embrace, trying to recover her breath. Then she stopped her rambling and the shaking of her head and steadied herself.

“The third thing, Meena,” I went on, “is that you and I are a team now. We already were before. But now more so than ever. We are bound together inseparably. Your Mother was right in predicting this but she obviously never expected the actual turn of events.”

“Peter, that’s very nice of you and I like you and, it’s true, I’ve always fancied you rotten. I’ve always found your bad boy image a bit of a challenge. But I’m sorry. I can’t imagine you as my permanent partner. Forget it”

“Meena, don’t misunderstand me. I am not the marrying kind as you know only too well. I fancy you too and we have been friendly for more than a year now. But I’m talking about something a little wider. We are a team and not just because we are friends and have worked closely together in the last elections. We are a team because we are both politically ambitious. But we are not rivals to each other in any way, as your career is no threat to mine or mine to yours. We can work in tandem not just because of circumstances but because we plan it that way. We are a natural political team. And potentially a very formidable one. Like Brown and Blair before Blair seized the leadership. Nobody can separate us. So I cannot survive if you fall by the wayside and you cannot survive if I fall.”

“Brown and Blair hate each other,” she said.

“Well we don’t know that for sure, and certainly not when they were building up their careers. Even now it’s a love-hate relationship poisoned by their ambitious minions. It’s like Henry II and Becket. It’s like Louis XIII and Richelieu working together while their guards challenge and fight each other in the streets of Paris. Brown and Blair are still bound by a secret pact that goes deeper than the Granta meeting. Their acolytes may snap at each other but the two are likely to remain in their loveless embrace. Potentially we have the same, but we get on better.”

“Perhaps,” she mused. She was calmer now and obviously thinking more clearly. Amazing what a good kiss can do.

She listened attentively. “They’ll just think we’re sleeping together.”

“Let them think what they like. They will never really know. And what is wrong with them thinking we are lovers. They may see us as a sexual item. Us being engaged, let’s say. What’s wrong with that?”

“No, no, no. No way. All the women Councillors know you are a sexual predator, Peter,” she smiled wryly. “You’ll be getting in their pants all the time and then my reputation will suffer. I will be seen as a joke. I like this idea of a partnership, but we must keep them guessing. We must keep it a working relationship, because otherwise the whispering will intensify. Our partnership must be political yes, emotional maybe, but physical - never.”

“You mean I can’t stroke that gorgeous little body of yours? Caress your breasts, smack your bottom, and make wild passionate love to you?”

“No. Well, not publicly anyway”, she grinned. “And I’m not in to your smacked bottoms either, you perv. That’s a bit too kinky, all that fetish stuff.”

 “OK. As you wish, ” I laughed. “But partners we are. Look what’s happening. Today’s events will shake up a few people and shatter the present pecking order in the group. Ted will not last more than a year. Everyone will be jockeying for position. If we two are a team we could be the core of a sizeable group as you have your friends and I have mine. It will be a strange alliance but it will be powerful and it will work. And it will work because nobody will know what has kept us together.”

“Nobody except Emil and that Press Officer.”

“Emil will remain quiet. He is a friend of long standing. And Susan Sweetman will keep her head low. As long as she doesn’t feel threatened.”

“OK,” she nodded. “I agree. We are a team. Next year we must both be in the Cabinet.”

“Next year, Meena, one of us could be Leader of the Group.”

Meena looked at me silently with an enigmatic smile. It was sinking in now. All those possibilities. Power in the Council. A seat in Parliament, perhaps?

“Yes. OK.” She took on that look of cute admiration I saw in her two days ago. “So, tell me, Peter. How do we seal this partnership? With a handshake or with a kiss?”

“I think we already sealed it earlier today in the Council chamber.”

She gave me a black look. Before she could protest I gave her another kiss. We clung together. Although the kiss was heartfelt it was not a product of sexual chemistry but of a working political partnership. Like a kiss at a wedding. The kiss that bound medieval kings when treaties were signed; the bear hug that bound Communist Party leaders in the Cold War days. 

As she got out the car I threw in a final word of encouragement. “I know you don’t like spanking and all that, Meena, but one more word about resigning from the Council and over my knee you go. Just remember that”

And that did evince a generous smile!

Suddenly I felt better again. After all, I suddenly realized again, I was now Chair of the Planning Committee. Emil’s sad fate was my gain. A sort of ugly schadenfreude gripped my being. I quivered internally with my good fortune. And Mum would be pleased.

Suddenly it struck me. Those Russian witches last night were right about their first prophecy. I was now Chair of the Planning Committee. In less than 24 hours from their prediction! How weird?!