Engleby. Part 18

And if they managed somehow to get there, how would they know what was true?

It's my dearest, most pa.s.sionate wish to revisit, re-experience and do better.

With every atom of my being I long to be nineteen again.

Who in the whole world, if they were given a single wish, would not choose for the dead to live? Those you have known to breathe again and you to walk among them.

Who wouldn't give all they own to be that age again, living in those days of hope but knowing what you later learned. To meet once more those bright-eyed girls and boys, to use them with the kindness of age but the vigour of nineteen.

But if I can't manage this simple manoeuvre through the dimension of time that we poor, incompletely evolved h.o.m.o saps can't fathom or bend to our will, why should anyone else?

And even if they did, why should we listen to what they claimed to find?

I opened up my notebook, folded the pages over, and began to type on the plastic keyboard.

Tony Ball didn't like the piece much; he thought it was 'a bit pipe-sucking. A bit too much on-the-one-hand-on-the-other.'

Margaret liked it, though.

'You're so funny, Mike. And that piece with Jeffrey Archer was hilarious.'

'It wasn't meant to be.'

'And Ken Livingstone.'

'That was meant to be serious, too.'

Margaret gave me the look of exasperated affection that was starting to get on my nerves. You're a funny boy, but I don't mind, it seemed to say: you can't fool me, because I understand you.

Anyway, I stuck the piece, along with three others, in for some more press awards, and I got another commendation, which meant another lunch, this time at the Savoy, where someone from the Mirror Mirror threw up at our table. threw up at our table.

I was sufficiently p.i.s.sed off by Tony Ball, though, that when I read in the Observer Observer that three journalists from the that three journalists from the Telegraph Telegraph were starting a new daily newspaper, I rang them up and arranged to go along and see them. were starting a new daily newspaper, I rang them up and arranged to go along and see them.

To be honest, I also felt that working on the same paper as Margaret as well as living with her, some of the time, was becoming too much. I'd never chosen to be alone, but that was the way things had turned out, and I'd grown used to it.

The new paper's offices were in a modernish block in City Road, near Finsbury Square. I would have thought it impossible for an architect to have designed a building so completely lacking character or distinction. But it had an advantage: it wasn't in Wapping or the Isle of Dogs, where the other newspapers were all fleeing from the trade unions.

Three men in suits were waiting at the end of a long open-plan room on the fourth floor. They explained that they were exasperated by the criminal practices of the print workers and the incompetence of management. A fresh venture could use new (in fact pretty old, but new to England) technology to produce a high-quality paper which the journalists could effectively typeset for themselves, on screen. Press a b.u.t.ton and bingo, out it rolled on fresh newsprint at four or five regional centres, ready for distribution to the hungry public readers who were tired of the Murdoch-Maxwell tat.

I could imagine Terry's indignation. No on-site printing? No hot metal? No back-alley vans? You're'aving a laugh, Mick. Next thing you'll be telling me we've sold Tony Cottee...

The three men told me how they'd blagged millions from banks and pension funds to get the paper under starter's orders. Then they told me all the distinguished journalists who'd agreed to write for it. I'd heard of some of them.

'Who's going to be your features editor?' I asked.

They hadn't got one yet.

'What's the paper going to be called?'

They didn't know, but possibly. The Nation The Nation.

'Who's going to be the editor?' I asked.

'I am,' said the oldest of the three. He'd previously edited the Investors Chronicle Investors Chronicle. 'And what do you think you could offer us?'

'What I do now, I suppose. What other feature writers have you hired?'

'None yet,' said one of the younger two, a solemn, dark-haired man of about my age. He looked like an archdeacon after lunch; in fact, he looked as though he was struggling to stay awake. Despite having it written down in front of him, he couldn't get the hang of my name and ended up triple-barrelling me: 'Mr Ingle-Engle-Anglebury.' This wasn't promising.

'We may not have feature writers as such. All our reporters and specialists will contribute to the features pages.' This was the third man, a zippier proposition with an explosive vocal style and narrowed eyes.

It was a b.l.o.o.d.y odd triumvirate. They seemed to have nothing in common with one another, for a start. Also, no one had heard of any of them except maybe the older one, a little, if you read the City pages. Having tried once, I never did. The articles weren't real journalism, they read as though the reporter had gone along for lunch then taken dictation from the company's PR office.

I couldn't imagine anyone with a proper job on an existing newspaper throwing it in to take a chance with these jokers, unless...

'How much are you paying?' I said.

'We recognise we have to pay at the top end of the market, or above,' said the boss. 'How much are you paid at the moment?'

I was so surprised by the question that I told him.

'We could do better,' he said. 'To give you an idea, the head of a small department would get thirty-five thousand and a car.'

Well, I don't know. There hadn't been a newspaper started from scratch for more than sixty years, and the financial, technical and talent problems were surely insurmountable. But I was tickled, I admit, by the Three Stooges by their posh voices and expensive grey suits; by the money they'd already raised and by the way they seemed to be making it up as they went along trying to convince themselves as much as me that what they were saying was more than make-believe.

What it came down to was this. The old 'can't do' sub-Soviet Britain, where you waited three weeks to get your phone mended, was dead. That was their belief and their proposition. The country had changed, and the change was somehow connected to people like Plank Robinson grossing half a mill. From now on: forget early closing, go-slows, strikes and demarcation you can do what you want. We've become America. Enjoy!

We left it that I'd write a job description for myself, along with an a.n.a.lysis of how the other dailies handled features and how a new paper could do better. Then I'd send it to them, with a note on what I wanted to be paid and so on.

On the way down, in the lift, I met a bearded man with large blue-rimmed gla.s.ses who told me he'd be working on the listings pages the 'what's on' bit they planned for the back. If I came to work at the new paper, he said, I should perhaps come and stay the weekend with him in Suffolk. He and his wife had lots of guests and they were very 'easy-going'. Blimey. I couldn't wait to get through the swing doors and onto City Road again.

I never got round to sending in my application. The listings bloke had put me off. Also, the more I thought about it, the more ridiculous the whole thing seemed. I didn't give it better than one chance in ten of getting through to launch.

Word got out, though, that I'd been to see them. I was called in by the managing editor of my rag, a ravaged trembly old hack called David Terry, known as DT's, who raised my pay to 32,000 and gave me sole use of a Peugeot 405.

It was the first car I'd had since the 1100 had finally conked out, so my trip to City Road hadn't been wasted.

It's General-Election time again. Midsummer Folly has taken the country in a gentle grip, and Tony Ball has sent me on the road. I had a day with Bryan Gould and Peter Mandelson, the Labour campaign organisers, who spent most of the time trying to neutralise wild remarks made to the press by Ken Livingstone. Now that Ken's an MP he seems to feel licensed to foul the nest at will and even the hardest heart (mine) grew weary of laughing at Bryan and Peter's anguish. 'Oh G.o.d. What now?' Peter would say to Bryan as the hotline rang once more. They were good to me, though, P and B, and let me into all their meetings.

'What are you going to do if you lose?' I asked Gould.

'Go into the country and find out what people want, then develop our policies to meet their aspirations,' he said.

I'd never thought of politics like that. I thought you stood for what you believed and if the voters didn't like it, then tough luck. But I could see the attraction of doing it the other way round: like looking at the football league and seeing who was most likely to win, then becoming their supporter.

I don't really understand British politics, I must say. It's a bit silly for me to be writing about it. You'd have thought that nowadays most people would want some sort of market economy to get the motor turning vigorously, then buckets of free health care from the resulting tax take. Not so. Anyone who prescribes that that mixture is viewed as pathetic, 'not having any policies' and not really being part of our island history. No. As of May 1987, a true Brit wants either a) socialism with as few deviations as possible from a command economy (Kinnock); or b) a Malthusian free-for-all, in which survival of the fittest takes on a quasi-moral dimension (Thatcher). mixture is viewed as pathetic, 'not having any policies' and not really being part of our island history. No. As of May 1987, a true Brit wants either a) socialism with as few deviations as possible from a command economy (Kinnock); or b) a Malthusian free-for-all, in which survival of the fittest takes on a quasi-moral dimension (Thatcher).

What a very odd people we are. Do you think we've read a book between us? Looked abroad? Learned anything at all? You have to wonder.

Off I go on the 'Battle Bus' with Mr Steel and Dr Owen. To general derision, they preach a middle way. They're considered to have ducked the question. Another problem is that they don't convince as a twosome. It's a mariage blanc mariage blanc. There's no heat, just a winsome cordiality. (Bet they have separate bedrooms.) Back home, Steel stays up drinking cider with the beardies; Owen's on the phone to orotund Roy Jenkins who I think is going to lose his seat and concentrate on building up his stocks of Pomerol.

The other day I was with Margaret Thatcher. She's a rum one. I think she may be a natural scientist, like me. Or did she read Chemistry? Actually, that would explain it.

To prepare myself, to fill in the background, I had lunch with a man called Alan Clark, whom I'd rung a couple of times for his opinion of other politicians I was writing 'profiles' of. Most of it was unprintable, but I'd used the odd 'quote', always off the record. So for instance, in my article on an incoming minister, it might go: 'For all his high reputation as an organiser in Whitehall, the new Minister for X is not without his critics. As one colleague put it: "He's a pushy little Israelite who had to go out and buy the family silver."'

Mr Clark had accepted my invitation to a sw.a.n.ky French restaurant near the Opera House in Covent Garden.

'What's so great about Mrs Thatcher?' I said. 'Is she very clever or what?'

'Not particularly, no. She intimidates people.'

'Who?'

'Howe, Baker, Channon. Fe-owler.' He p.r.o.nounced the name in imitation of the way the man himself said it.

'What about you?'

'What about me?'

'Are you frightened of her?'

'I don't like this food. Waiter. Take this away.'

'Monsieur does not like the sea ba.s.s?'

'No. It died in the water.'

'Would Monsieur like something else to-'

'No. Just take it away, will you.' He lifted the plate up and thrust it at the waiter.

'I'm sorry about that,' I said. 'This restaurant's supposed to be-'

'Do you honestly like French food?' said Clark.

'No, not at all. But I thought you would.'

'I like it in France. Not this chi-chi nonsense.'

I breathed in deeply. I wanted to go to the toilet. 'Mrs Thatcher, then. Do you... Do you like her?'

'Like her? Christ.' He probed at an interdental cavity with a restaurant toothpick. Then his face relaxed a little. 'she has a certain provincial s.e.xuality, I suppose. Women of her type often do from that Nonconformist background. s.e.x for them is a way to bettering themselves, certainly not a pleasure. Yet there's something... Something there, and she seems to know it.' her? Christ.' He probed at an interdental cavity with a restaurant toothpick. Then his face relaxed a little. 'she has a certain provincial s.e.xuality, I suppose. Women of her type often do from that Nonconformist background. s.e.x for them is a way to bettering themselves, certainly not a pleasure. Yet there's something... Something there, and she seems to know it.'

'But are you frightened of her?'

'Yes, I suppose I am.'

'Though you're cleverer than she is.'

'G.o.d, yes. It's hard to explain. She has a peculiar force.'

'Who else is any good in your party? Geoffrey Howe?'

'Howe? Christ, no. I'd let him tie up the codicil to my auntie's will in Swansea, that's about all.'

So it went on ('Wykehamist a.r.s.e-licker', 'poor man's Enoch', 'tub of kosher lard' and so on), but by allowing him to choose the wine, I managed to stretch out our meeting to the respectable time of two-fifteen before he rose abruptly from the table and strode off down Bow Street.

I waited for my first sight of Mrs Thatcher in the flesh with several other journalists on a Midlands factory floor. I honestly forget what it produced. Pins and needles, pottery, brake linings. Something that entailed a fair amount of clanking, anyway.

I've always liked factories. The paper mill held no fears for me.

Factories are good for friends.h.i.+p. One of the hardest things about being alive is being with other people.

Take Alan Clark. His face was deeply lined, but his hair, while greying, was thick, like a young man's. And his suit, though presumably expensive (I can't judge these things; I'm not a clothes man) was... Well, there was too much flannel and pinstripe, just too much suiting suiting. And I didn't want to see his teeth and his uvula. And his hand with the hairs on the back of the fingers wrapping round the gla.s.s... He was physically over-present. His molecules extended too far.

In factories, all being well, you don't hear that much. To be heard, people have to call out. You're alone, but it's companionable. I like the floors of factories, the pocked cement slab with pools of oil and small puddles of water; I like the stained tea mugs and the low grade paper towels. I like the way it's all stripped back, undecorated and it doesn't matter if you make a mess.

I don't suppose many of the journalists there that day had ever worked in a factory. They didn't know, like me, the secrets of the brew-room and the toilet break and stores where Fat Teddy used to have a twice-weekly knee-trembler with Mrs Beasley from the back office. Through a side window on the factory floor, you could see her emerge from the stores, all flushed, smoothing down her skirt, checking things off on her clipboard in a pathetic dumbshow of normality.

Mrs Thatcher's entourage consisted of about a dozen men in dark suits with carnations, blue rosettes or both. They talked to one another behind their hands as they waited; perhaps they were checking for halitosis or remarking on each other's ties. Should they all have gone for yes-man's Tory blue, or did a splash of daffodil show greater self-confidence? They stifled laughter. Each time one of them gave way, he immediately coughed and straightened up: his tie, his face, his spine. Even the older ones made repeated attempts at looking more dignified as they waited; then a whisper would start, and a giggle pa.s.sed through them, making them look like ushers at a gay wedding.

From the machine room, the procession entered. There was a factory foreman in a brown coat, a couple of pinstriped youths and the sixty-year-old local MP the undersecretary for postal orders or similar, who looked grey, shattered, as though he hadn't slept for weeks, padding in on rubber-soled shoes, gesturing and talking to his leader.

She herself wore a check woollen suit and moved with a purposeful bustle from the hips, head slightly to one side the combination of forward momentum and strained patience that had struck fear into the chancelleries of Europe and the barracks of Buenos Aires.

Standing well apart from the others, she addressed the gathered press about the qualities of the local candidate, the postal-order chap. Then she moved on to Europe and the economy and her desire for low taxes. When she spoke of the Labour Party, her voice hit a different frequency. It stopped modulating like normal speech and seemed to lock on to some short wavelength, perhaps favourable to dogs but hard on the human otic nerve. It was bad luck that she stood beneath a sign that said 'Ear defenders must be worn'.

When she'd finished her address, the supporters applauded showily, and it seemed surly of the press to keep their hands in their pockets, as their tradition of impartiality required.

Some of the local hacks then asked her trick questions about the town's hospital and schools and so on, but she swatted them in the direction of the MP, whom she once more endorsed. She said he was sure to win. Or else, you felt.

I managed a few moments alone with her later on.

'And this is Michael Watson,' said the grinning young minder, pointing me towards the Prime Minister, who was sitting on a sofa with her knees together in the office of the factory manager.

I sat down on a hard chair opposite.

'Do you read a lot of books?' I said.

Her eyes shot up to the minder. Her hair was like fine wire wool at the front, lacquered, though thin. There was a trace of orange in the colouring that I hadn't expected.

She smiled slightly and inhaled, tilting her head again fractionally, like a cardinal who had decided, on balance, to grant an indulgence to a pilgrim. In private, her voice was gentle and low, an excellent thing in woman.

'I like to read biographies. I recently read one of Disraeli. One doesn't have as much time to read as one would like.'

'Do you believe in G.o.d?'

'We are a Christian family. We go to church.'