to him in a room full of the buzz of conversation was an effort. Unlike the Chancellor and Stamper, he'd not been told of the plans for an early election, but he was no fool. When a Treasurer is asked how a party living on an overdraft might raise ten million pounds in a hurry, he knows that mischief is afoot. His well-lunched face was flushed as he craned his neck to look at the others.
'Can't be done. So soon after an election, immediately after Christmas and just about to go into recession ... I couldn't raise ten million pounds this year, let alone this month. Let's be realistic, why would anyone want to lend that sort of money to a party with a slim majority about to get slimmer.'
'What do you mean?' Urquhart demanded.
'Sorry, Francis,' Stamper explained. 'The message must be waiting on your desk. Freddie Bancroft died this morning.'
Urquhart contemplated the news about one of his backbenchers from the shires. It was not entirely unexpected. Bancroft had been a political corpse for many years, and it was time the rest of him caught up. 'That's a pity, what's his majority?' Urquhart had to struggle to provide any form of punctuation or pause between the two thoughts. They were all too aware of his concern, how the lurid headlines of a by-election campaign had a habit of creating a new national mood, usually at the Government's expense as their candidate was put to ritual slaughter.
'Not enough.'
'Bollocks.'
'We'll lose it. And the longer we delay the worse it will be.'
'The first by-election with me as Prime Minister. Not a great advertisement, eh? I was rather hoping I'd be riding the bandwagon, not being shoved under its wheels.'
Their deliberations were interrupted by a sallow-faced youth in much-creased suit and crooked tie, whose reluctance to invade what was clearly a very private confabulation had been overcome by the Liebfraumilch and a bet made with one of the lissom secretaries, who had wagered her bed against his bashfulness. 'Excuse me, I've just joined the party's research department. Can I have your autographs?' He thrust a piece of paper and grubby pen into their midst.
The others waited for Urquhart to move, to instruct that the youth be keelhauled for impudence and dismissed for ill-judgement. But Urquhart smiled, welcoming the interruption. 'You see, Tim, somebody wants me!' He scribbled on the paper. 'And what are your ambitions, young man?'
'I want to be Chancellor, Mr Urquhart.'
'No vacancy!' the Chancellor insisted.
'Yet . . .' the Prime Minister warned.
'Try Brunei,' Stamper added, in less frivolous tones.
There was more merriment as the piece of paper did its round, but as the banter died away and the youth retreated in the direction of a deeply blushing secretary, Urquhart found himself staring into the humourless, uncompromising eyes of Stamper. Unlike the others they both knew how important was an early election. If recession and overdraft were the brush of the noose around their necks, then the news of the by-election had come as the sound of the trapdoor-bolt beginning its final slide. There had to be a way out, or else.
'Merry Christmas, Tim?'
Stamper's words sighed with the edge of perpetual Arctic night. 'Not this year, Francis. It can't be done. You must recognize the fact. Not now, not after the King. It simply cannot be done.'
PART TWO
New Year
Buckingham Palace 31 December
My dearest Son,
Today I begin my first full year as the King, and I am filled with foreboding.
Last night I had a dream. I was in a room, all white, in soft focus as things sometimes are in dreams, a hospital I think. I was standing beside a bath, white like everything else, in which two nurses were bathing my father, old and wasted, as he was before he died. They were treating him with such tenderness and care, floating him in the warm water, he was at peace, and so was I. I felt a calm, a serenity I have riot felt for many months.
Then there appeared another nurse. She was carrying a bundle. A baby. You! Wrapped in a white shawl. But even as I reached so eagerly for you the nurse, and the two others attending my father, were gone. I held on to you but without support my father was no longer floating but suddenly submerged in the bath, water washing over his face, his eyes closed. I reached for him with one arm, but you began to fall. To help him, save him, I had to allow