abluestocking (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
abluestocking) wrote2011-10-19 12:07 am
abluestocking) wrote2011-10-19 12:07 am
FIC: Liminality
Fandom: UK Politics
Title: Liminality
Ship(s): Tony Blair/Alastair Campbell
Word Count: 3,184
Rating: PG
Summary: In the wake of the 1994 Labour leadership election, Alastair Campbell is faced with a choice. For my 50-fic party at the meme.
Note: The timing and sequence of the events in this fic - and many of the details - are drawn from Alastair Campbell's The Blair Years. I therefore acknowledge its influence, but also declare that this story is fictional and makes no claim to truth.
Disclaimer: This is a creative work of fiction, composed of fictional characters inspired by the public personas of living people. No injury or disrespect is intended to the persons named. If you've found this by googling yourself or someone you know, stop playing on the Internet and go run the country.
Liminality
Liminality: from the Latin word līmen, meaning “a threshold”. A psychological, neurological, or metaphysical subjective state, conscious or unconscious, of being on the “threshold” of or between two different existential planes.
introduction
Something is bothering Peter.
Peter is as charming as usual, but as he faces Alastair and Fiona across their dinner table, there is the slightest of hesitations in his manner, a man gauging his effect and planning his moment. Peter is always a bit circumspect, but this has the look of something more.
Alastair exchanges glances with Fiona. She’s seen it too, if the quizzical narrowing of her eyes is any indication.
For two hours, Peter hints, introducing topics and slipping in side comments, approaching something and then sliding away again. Alastair is amused; he sits back and watches, waits for Peter to come to the point.
At the end of dinner, Peter sets down his glass, and Alastair resists the urge to lean forward.
“I wonder,” Peter says, and the half-smile on his face might mean that he is well aware that Alastair has noticed his manoeuvring, “if you have considered a career change.”
“Not recently,” Alastair says, and laughs. “I’ve finally made it in this fucking business. Why would I?”
“I wonder,” Peter says, “if you might.”
Fiona pushes her plate aside. “Is this an offer?”
“It could be,” Peter says, and he is not looking at Fiona – she might no longer exist – but at Alastair. “Tony Blair needs a man like you.”
Alastair feels his eyebrows shoot up. “Tony Blair does need a man like me.”
“Would you consider it?” Peter asks.
Fiona opens her mouth, but Alastair beats her to it. “No fucking way.”
It is two days after the leadership election.
Wednesday, July 27, 1994, afternoon
Boxes, boxes everywhere; Anji and Murray, looking overwhelmed. Flurries of movement and bustle, as John Smith’s papers and possessions are collected and moved out. The remnants of a life well-lived, now detritus waiting for disposal.
“He’s in the Shadow Cabinet room,” Anji tells him, setting down her armful of papers and coming over to greet him with a big hug. “His office is worse than this, so he’s in there for the time being. He’ll just be a minute.”
Tony has asked him to come and see him. Alastair has come, because what else can you do when the new Leader of your Party asks to see you?
Anji’s air-kisses linger on his cheeks as he waits. There is the slightest touch of unreality in the room. At one level, the bustle and whirlwind is palpable, with a bubbly Anji and a quiet Murray the centres; at another level, the activity seems hollow and out-of-place, that of children dressed in their parents’ clothes, or alternatively of carrion-eaters perched on the bones of a behemoth.
Alastair shakes his head to clear it. It has been two months since John’s death. What could have been is no longer - what will be has begun. The time of mourning cannot go on forever, and John wouldn’t want it to. The time of the future has arrived.
Murray ushers out Tony’s preceding appointment, a union general secretary who wrinkles his nose at Alastair on his way out. Alastair looks at him mildly, and smiles. His smiles tend to unnerve people more effectively than profanity.
Tony stands up to greet him. His smile is larger than Anji’s, which Alastair hadn’t been sure was possible. There is still the hint of play-acting about him, which Alastair tries to blink away; perhaps it is the way he shrugs on the charm, easy and young and welcoming, or perhaps it is the way he stands, resting a foot on a packing-box with nonchalance a shade too calculated.
There is no tortured preparation, as with Peter.
“I’m going on holiday tomorrow,” Tony says. “I still have a few key jobs to sort out, and the most important is you.”
“I’m honoured,” Alastair says. “But as I told Peter...”
Tony sails on, smiling all the while. “I want the best. Only the best. And the best is you.”
There are so many objections, so many reasons why this would be the maddest choice Alastair has ever made. He raises them all.
Somehow he ends up promising to think about it while he’s on his own holiday.
It is six days after the leadership election.
Wednesday, July 27, 1994, evening
“And you’re thinking about it?” Incredulity and disapproval war in Neil’s voice.
Alastair pushes at his dinner with his fork. “I just said I’d think about it. I haven’t said I’ll do it.”
“Well, you’d be mad to,” Neil says, sitting back in his chair. “Completely mad.”
“I suppose,” Alastair says.
Neil crosses his arms, telegraphing friendly exasperation. “I’m not saying he wouldn’t be lucky to have you. But you’re in the perfect position. You control your own career. Hell, you could be the next Paxman. Give that up to be a glorified press secretary?”
“I know,” Alastair says.
“Giving all that up to take one of the shittiest jobs known to man,” Neil says, disgustedly. “You’re mental, that’s what you are.”
“I haven’t decided yet,” Alastair says, and refuses to meet Fiona’s eyes.
It is still six days after the leadership election.
Thursday, August 4, 1994
They are on holiday in the south-east of France, in a little town called Flassan, at the foot of Mont Ventoux. It is a beautiful summer; the sky is impossibly blue, and the climate is perfect. Alastair thinks it should be easy to forget, surrounded by such beauty, the choice waiting for him back at home.
It isn’t.
Fiona has made her opinions known. Strongly. They fight in the evenings, in hushed undertones, trying not to wake the children. Alastair’s arguments are not helped by the fact that he’s only half convinced himself. And yet...
He rings Tony on Thursday afternoon, while Fiona is in the bedroom with Grace and he’s watching the boys play.
Tony asks him if he’s been thinking about it.
“I have,” he says. The boys are laughing. Seven and five; if he takes the job, how often will he see them?
“And what do you think?” Tony says.
“I think,” Alastair says, slowly. “To be honest, I still have strong misgivings. I need the rest of the month to decide.”
There’s silence on the other end of the line. Alastair can almost hear the quick wheels of Tony’s mind turning over.
“We’re in Toulouse,” Tony says, finally. “We should come over and meet up with you.”
Alastair chews at his lip. “Neil and Glenys are coming down next week. I don’t know...”
“All the more reason,” Tony says. His voice is light, but Alastair can hear the stiffness. “Neil will try to talk you out of it, because he’s your friend and he knows it will be a difficult job.”
“Perhaps he’s right,” Alastair says.
Tony sighs, little puff of air. “I promise, it will be different. I want the best, and I’m going to get the best. It will be different.”
Fiona comes out of the bedroom, raising her eyebrows at the sight of Alastair on the phone. “Tony?” she mouths.
Alastair nods. “Tony, I...” He hesitates, looking up at Fiona,. “If you want to come down, we’d be happy to see you.”
Fiona’s eyebrows shoot up. Alastair ends the conversation quickly, Tony’s cheer and his own pleasantries mixing together dizzily.
Fiona sinks down on the sofa next to him. He braces himself for another fight, but after a moment, she simply sets her hand on top of his, resting on his knee.
“Are you going to do it, then?” she asks, and her voice is tired.
He stares at his boys, playing together on the floor, and turns his hand, wrapping his fingers around hers. “I don’t know.”
It is two weeks after the leadership election.
Tuesday, August 9, 1994
“That was Cherie,” Fiona calls, over to where Alastair is chasing Grace around the table. She is fifteen months, and she runs faster than Alastair, if somewhat unevenly. He scoops her up and puts her on his hip; she giggles up at him.
“What did she say?” Alastair asks.
Fiona’s face is taut, giving nothing away. “They’re on their way. You’ll need to meet them in Avignon and drive them back.”
Grace toddles away as Alastair goes to fetch his keys.
In Avignon, he helps Tony get the luggage into the Espace, as Cherie and her mum help the sleepy children. There are only a few battered cases.
They drive back to Flassan. It’s very late, and the women fall asleep along with the children.
Tony sits up front with Alastair. He’s quiet, so as not to wake his family, and he looks a bit tired himself. But his eyes still have that flash, and his smile is still warm; as if he is Alastair’s best friend, as if he is sure that Alastair has been looking forward to seeing him all week.
Alastair isn’t entirely sure that he hasn’t.
It is nearly three weeks since the leadership election.
Wednesday, August 10, 1994
It’s a beautiful day. The hills of southeastern France stretch under their feet, and Mont Ventoux looms over their heads. The sky is impossibly blue. Alastair is on holiday.
Tony walks beside him, breeze ruffling his hair, hands waving.
They’ve left their families down in the village, after a morning in the sitting room with Fiona and Cherie talking about the situation, while the children played outside.
“Governments can do things,” Tony had said, keeping his eyes on Alastair as if he was the only person in the room. “In opposition, it’s what you say, more than what you do. I need someone who understands that, someone who can strategise what to say, how to say it, and how to get the media to cover it.”
Cherie, smiling, somewhat strained; Fiona, eyes sharp, unconvinced.
“I have tactical minds,” Tony had said, as Alastair watched him alternate between charm and earnestness. “I have many tactical minds. But I need a strategic mind. I need you.”
Now they are alone, in the hills of south-east France.
Alastair’s not sure what else Tony can say. He’s told Alastair how much he needs him. He’s assured Alastair that he will raise the salary for the position, although it still won’t come near his current salary. He’s played “the country needs you” card. He’s used all his charm and persuasion, employed flattery and promises of power.
It’s gratifying, but is it enough?
They walk in the hills together, and talk about the Labour Party’s relationships with the papers, about Alastair’s relationship with Gordon Brown.
They stop on the top of one of the steeper hills, looking out over the view. Tony is quiet for once. Even in stillness, his body betrays the urge to move; but he stands on the edge, and is silent.
After a long minute, he says, without turning to look at Alastair, “I’m thinking of scrapping Clause 4.”
“Are you,” Alastair says, because one must say something.
“Yes,” Tony says simply, and his mouth slants up.
Alastair meets his eyes when he turns, and Tony must see something there, because the smile grows, becoming a touch mischievous. “Enough,” he says. “I mustn’t bore you. Shall we go back down?”
They go back down. They play football with the children; Tony’s boys are slightly older than Alastair’s, and they run circles around Tony, while he laughs. Alastair’s boys tag along, a bit of hero worship in their eyes, and it’s five-year-old Callum who scores the winning goal.
At dinner, Tony tells stories about being sworn as a Privy Counsellor along with John Prescott, and makes the entire table laugh by imitating John’s reaction to palace flunkies trying to order him about.
Even as he laughs, Alastair can feel Fiona’s eyes falling on him, then flicking away; Cherie’s eyes, anxious and yet a bit bored; Tony’s eyes, charming and warm and calculating.
It is nearly three weeks since the leadership election.
Thursday, August 11, 1994, morning
Neil and Glenys have arrived.
Neil is inclined to bluster. “Why live your life at the beck and call of a bunch of shits?” he asks, scowling tremendously.
Alastair has to bite back a smile.
Glenys’s eyes are shrewd. “It’s hard, isn’t it?” she asks. “With all the possibilities opening up, with a new leader who wants you so very badly, it’s hard to say no.”
“Of course he’s going to say no,” Neil says, impatiently. “He can be whatever he wants. He’s not going to throw all of that away.”
“But he might be able to change things,” Glenys says. “He might be able to make a difference.”
Alastair is tempted to say that “he” is standing right there, but he just smiles and suggests another cup of tea.
It is three weeks since the leadership election.
Thursday, August 11, 1994, afternoon
Cherie’s mum’s holiday is over, and in the great chaos that has now become Alastair’s family vacation, he is the one with the car that can drive her to the Marseille airport.
At the last moment, Tony comes along.
It is still three weeks since the leadership election.
Thursday, August 11, 1994, evening
They are on their way back from the airport; two men, silent, in a car together.
“I had a breakdown in 1986,” Alastair says, abruptly.
Tony looks over, eyes unreadable. “I know.”
Alastair holds on to the wheel a bit more tightly, looks straight ahead. He tells Tony about it, in all its bloody detail: the drinking, the stress, the depression; the fear, the loathing, the darkness.
Tony sits quietly and listens. He doesn’t venture any comments. He doesn’t put a hand on Alastair’s arm, or make soothing noises. He listens.
“I’m a stronger person now,” Alastair says, watching the French road spin by. “But I cracked under the pressure, and the pressure of the job you want me to do would be much worse. It would be a risk.”
Finally, Tony speaks up. “I’m willing to take that risk,” he says.
Alastair breathes, and breathes again.
~//~
The silence that falls upon them could have been awkward, but somehow it isn’t. They drive down the French roads in companionable silence for a few minutes, lost in their own thoughts.
After a while, Tony breaks the silence. His usual buoyancy is quieter now, but when Alastair steals a glance sideways, he can see the smile playing about his lips.
“I’m going to scrap Clause 4,” Tony says. He tips his head back against the seat and watches Alastair over the curve of his shoulder.
Alastair feels his pulse begin to race, almost against his will, and he sees the smile around Tony’s mouth grow more pronounced. Damn the man, he doesn’t miss anything. He saw Alastair’s reaction to that announcement yesterday, and he sees it again this afternoon; and as always, he knows just how to play it.
The realisation brings reluctant admiration, more than frustration, and recognition of the steel behind the charm. Alastair has known for a while now that Tony is more than a charismatic face; he is also an astute politician, an expert manipulator, and an excellent leader of men. He has the potential to be great, with a formidable political intellect hidden behind the eager mobile lines of his face and the light tenor cadences of his voice.
That is why Alastair supported him for Leader. That is what Alastair sees when he looks at him.
Later, Alastair will look back and imagine that he was self-aware enough to see the rest as well. The foibles, the egoism, the messianic fervour; all that would require such careful handling over the years, all that would eventually sour the New Labour project and cause such headaches for himself and others. But did he really, in that car, on that day?
“I’m going to scrap Clause 4,” Tony repeats – and it’s not the action being taken, it’s the boldness and the audacity, the modernisation and the vision, that goes straight to Alastair’s gut – “and you’re going to help me.”
It’ll be a fight, and a good one, and Alastair’s blood thrills; but more than that, it’s the fact that Tony wants that fight, that he sees it as vital, that right out of the post Tony wants to strike out for a new politics, a new party, a new vision.
“Am I,” Alastair asks, his own voice sounding a bit rough to his ear.
“You are,” Tony says, and his voice is certain, and his eyes glint.
Alastair breathes, and thinks, and drives; but even as he thinks, he can feel the smile beginning to pull at the corners of his mouth, and he can no longer stay in this in-between, this transitory stage, between the end and the beginning.
“I suppose I am,” he says –
And Tony’s face breaks out in a smile, wide and sunny and free –
And Alastair finds an answering smile on his own face, as reluctance gives way to recklessness –
And they race down the French road into the sunset: toward Flassan, toward Fiona and Cherie, toward Neil and Glenys, toward the present and the future and all that will come, together.
It is three weeks since the leadership election.
epilogue
Back in Flassan, Alastair telephones Peter. “Tony talked me into it,” he says, without prelude.
“Excellent,” Peter says, sounding pleased, like a cat that has just been stroked. “It’s the best choice, for both you and the party.”
“I suppose we’ll be working together, then,” Alastair says.
“Yeeees,” Peter says, sounding thoughtful. “I do hope we don’t fall out.”
“Now there’s an odd thing to say,” Alastair says, and laughs.
~//~
When Alastair tells Fiona, she looks at him in silence for a minute, then turns and goes into the bedroom.
Alastair has the distinct feeling they’ll be talking later, once the menagerie that has taken over their holiday has dispersed. He sinks onto the sofa, absent-mindedly moving the stuffed bear that has been left there.
His daughter toddles over to him and pulls at his sleeve; he picks her up and bounces her, listening to the way she laughs, infectious baby giggles and scrunched-up eyes.
~//~
Alastair is driving the Blair family to the railway station. They leave at 4 AM, a confused muddle of bags and sleeping children. Tony is wearing holiday shorts and a suit jacket.
As the train readies for departure, Tony stands in the doorway. “Together, we can change the face of British politics for a generation, and change the world while we’re at it,” he says – and the door shuts in his face, and he jumps back.
Alastair waves as they pull away.
~//~
“Are you going to do it?” Neil asks.
“Yes,” Alastair says.
“Well, it’s good for Tony,” Neil says, spearing a piece of toast vengefully. “It’s bad for you and it’s bad for your family.”
“Neil,” Glenys says.
Alastair stares out the window, at Mont Ventoux rising overhead. “I’ve told him I’ll do it,” he says, quietly. “He’s serious about winning, but to win he needs help. He needs me. And I can’t... I can’t say no to that.”
~//~
It is three weeks since the leadership election.
It is the first day of the future.
~//~
Title: Liminality
Ship(s): Tony Blair/Alastair Campbell
Word Count: 3,184
Rating: PG
Summary: In the wake of the 1994 Labour leadership election, Alastair Campbell is faced with a choice. For my 50-fic party at the meme.
Note: The timing and sequence of the events in this fic - and many of the details - are drawn from Alastair Campbell's The Blair Years. I therefore acknowledge its influence, but also declare that this story is fictional and makes no claim to truth.
Disclaimer: This is a creative work of fiction, composed of fictional characters inspired by the public personas of living people. No injury or disrespect is intended to the persons named. If you've found this by googling yourself or someone you know, stop playing on the Internet and go run the country.
Liminality
Liminality: from the Latin word līmen, meaning “a threshold”. A psychological, neurological, or metaphysical subjective state, conscious or unconscious, of being on the “threshold” of or between two different existential planes.
introduction
Something is bothering Peter.
Peter is as charming as usual, but as he faces Alastair and Fiona across their dinner table, there is the slightest of hesitations in his manner, a man gauging his effect and planning his moment. Peter is always a bit circumspect, but this has the look of something more.
Alastair exchanges glances with Fiona. She’s seen it too, if the quizzical narrowing of her eyes is any indication.
For two hours, Peter hints, introducing topics and slipping in side comments, approaching something and then sliding away again. Alastair is amused; he sits back and watches, waits for Peter to come to the point.
At the end of dinner, Peter sets down his glass, and Alastair resists the urge to lean forward.
“I wonder,” Peter says, and the half-smile on his face might mean that he is well aware that Alastair has noticed his manoeuvring, “if you have considered a career change.”
“Not recently,” Alastair says, and laughs. “I’ve finally made it in this fucking business. Why would I?”
“I wonder,” Peter says, “if you might.”
Fiona pushes her plate aside. “Is this an offer?”
“It could be,” Peter says, and he is not looking at Fiona – she might no longer exist – but at Alastair. “Tony Blair needs a man like you.”
Alastair feels his eyebrows shoot up. “Tony Blair does need a man like me.”
“Would you consider it?” Peter asks.
Fiona opens her mouth, but Alastair beats her to it. “No fucking way.”
It is two days after the leadership election.
Wednesday, July 27, 1994, afternoon
Boxes, boxes everywhere; Anji and Murray, looking overwhelmed. Flurries of movement and bustle, as John Smith’s papers and possessions are collected and moved out. The remnants of a life well-lived, now detritus waiting for disposal.
“He’s in the Shadow Cabinet room,” Anji tells him, setting down her armful of papers and coming over to greet him with a big hug. “His office is worse than this, so he’s in there for the time being. He’ll just be a minute.”
Tony has asked him to come and see him. Alastair has come, because what else can you do when the new Leader of your Party asks to see you?
Anji’s air-kisses linger on his cheeks as he waits. There is the slightest touch of unreality in the room. At one level, the bustle and whirlwind is palpable, with a bubbly Anji and a quiet Murray the centres; at another level, the activity seems hollow and out-of-place, that of children dressed in their parents’ clothes, or alternatively of carrion-eaters perched on the bones of a behemoth.
Alastair shakes his head to clear it. It has been two months since John’s death. What could have been is no longer - what will be has begun. The time of mourning cannot go on forever, and John wouldn’t want it to. The time of the future has arrived.
Murray ushers out Tony’s preceding appointment, a union general secretary who wrinkles his nose at Alastair on his way out. Alastair looks at him mildly, and smiles. His smiles tend to unnerve people more effectively than profanity.
Tony stands up to greet him. His smile is larger than Anji’s, which Alastair hadn’t been sure was possible. There is still the hint of play-acting about him, which Alastair tries to blink away; perhaps it is the way he shrugs on the charm, easy and young and welcoming, or perhaps it is the way he stands, resting a foot on a packing-box with nonchalance a shade too calculated.
There is no tortured preparation, as with Peter.
“I’m going on holiday tomorrow,” Tony says. “I still have a few key jobs to sort out, and the most important is you.”
“I’m honoured,” Alastair says. “But as I told Peter...”
Tony sails on, smiling all the while. “I want the best. Only the best. And the best is you.”
There are so many objections, so many reasons why this would be the maddest choice Alastair has ever made. He raises them all.
Somehow he ends up promising to think about it while he’s on his own holiday.
It is six days after the leadership election.
Wednesday, July 27, 1994, evening
“And you’re thinking about it?” Incredulity and disapproval war in Neil’s voice.
Alastair pushes at his dinner with his fork. “I just said I’d think about it. I haven’t said I’ll do it.”
“Well, you’d be mad to,” Neil says, sitting back in his chair. “Completely mad.”
“I suppose,” Alastair says.
Neil crosses his arms, telegraphing friendly exasperation. “I’m not saying he wouldn’t be lucky to have you. But you’re in the perfect position. You control your own career. Hell, you could be the next Paxman. Give that up to be a glorified press secretary?”
“I know,” Alastair says.
“Giving all that up to take one of the shittiest jobs known to man,” Neil says, disgustedly. “You’re mental, that’s what you are.”
“I haven’t decided yet,” Alastair says, and refuses to meet Fiona’s eyes.
It is still six days after the leadership election.
Thursday, August 4, 1994
They are on holiday in the south-east of France, in a little town called Flassan, at the foot of Mont Ventoux. It is a beautiful summer; the sky is impossibly blue, and the climate is perfect. Alastair thinks it should be easy to forget, surrounded by such beauty, the choice waiting for him back at home.
It isn’t.
Fiona has made her opinions known. Strongly. They fight in the evenings, in hushed undertones, trying not to wake the children. Alastair’s arguments are not helped by the fact that he’s only half convinced himself. And yet...
He rings Tony on Thursday afternoon, while Fiona is in the bedroom with Grace and he’s watching the boys play.
Tony asks him if he’s been thinking about it.
“I have,” he says. The boys are laughing. Seven and five; if he takes the job, how often will he see them?
“And what do you think?” Tony says.
“I think,” Alastair says, slowly. “To be honest, I still have strong misgivings. I need the rest of the month to decide.”
There’s silence on the other end of the line. Alastair can almost hear the quick wheels of Tony’s mind turning over.
“We’re in Toulouse,” Tony says, finally. “We should come over and meet up with you.”
Alastair chews at his lip. “Neil and Glenys are coming down next week. I don’t know...”
“All the more reason,” Tony says. His voice is light, but Alastair can hear the stiffness. “Neil will try to talk you out of it, because he’s your friend and he knows it will be a difficult job.”
“Perhaps he’s right,” Alastair says.
Tony sighs, little puff of air. “I promise, it will be different. I want the best, and I’m going to get the best. It will be different.”
Fiona comes out of the bedroom, raising her eyebrows at the sight of Alastair on the phone. “Tony?” she mouths.
Alastair nods. “Tony, I...” He hesitates, looking up at Fiona,. “If you want to come down, we’d be happy to see you.”
Fiona’s eyebrows shoot up. Alastair ends the conversation quickly, Tony’s cheer and his own pleasantries mixing together dizzily.
Fiona sinks down on the sofa next to him. He braces himself for another fight, but after a moment, she simply sets her hand on top of his, resting on his knee.
“Are you going to do it, then?” she asks, and her voice is tired.
He stares at his boys, playing together on the floor, and turns his hand, wrapping his fingers around hers. “I don’t know.”
It is two weeks after the leadership election.
Tuesday, August 9, 1994
“That was Cherie,” Fiona calls, over to where Alastair is chasing Grace around the table. She is fifteen months, and she runs faster than Alastair, if somewhat unevenly. He scoops her up and puts her on his hip; she giggles up at him.
“What did she say?” Alastair asks.
Fiona’s face is taut, giving nothing away. “They’re on their way. You’ll need to meet them in Avignon and drive them back.”
Grace toddles away as Alastair goes to fetch his keys.
In Avignon, he helps Tony get the luggage into the Espace, as Cherie and her mum help the sleepy children. There are only a few battered cases.
They drive back to Flassan. It’s very late, and the women fall asleep along with the children.
Tony sits up front with Alastair. He’s quiet, so as not to wake his family, and he looks a bit tired himself. But his eyes still have that flash, and his smile is still warm; as if he is Alastair’s best friend, as if he is sure that Alastair has been looking forward to seeing him all week.
Alastair isn’t entirely sure that he hasn’t.
It is nearly three weeks since the leadership election.
Wednesday, August 10, 1994
It’s a beautiful day. The hills of southeastern France stretch under their feet, and Mont Ventoux looms over their heads. The sky is impossibly blue. Alastair is on holiday.
Tony walks beside him, breeze ruffling his hair, hands waving.
They’ve left their families down in the village, after a morning in the sitting room with Fiona and Cherie talking about the situation, while the children played outside.
“Governments can do things,” Tony had said, keeping his eyes on Alastair as if he was the only person in the room. “In opposition, it’s what you say, more than what you do. I need someone who understands that, someone who can strategise what to say, how to say it, and how to get the media to cover it.”
Cherie, smiling, somewhat strained; Fiona, eyes sharp, unconvinced.
“I have tactical minds,” Tony had said, as Alastair watched him alternate between charm and earnestness. “I have many tactical minds. But I need a strategic mind. I need you.”
Now they are alone, in the hills of south-east France.
Alastair’s not sure what else Tony can say. He’s told Alastair how much he needs him. He’s assured Alastair that he will raise the salary for the position, although it still won’t come near his current salary. He’s played “the country needs you” card. He’s used all his charm and persuasion, employed flattery and promises of power.
It’s gratifying, but is it enough?
They walk in the hills together, and talk about the Labour Party’s relationships with the papers, about Alastair’s relationship with Gordon Brown.
They stop on the top of one of the steeper hills, looking out over the view. Tony is quiet for once. Even in stillness, his body betrays the urge to move; but he stands on the edge, and is silent.
After a long minute, he says, without turning to look at Alastair, “I’m thinking of scrapping Clause 4.”
“Are you,” Alastair says, because one must say something.
“Yes,” Tony says simply, and his mouth slants up.
Alastair meets his eyes when he turns, and Tony must see something there, because the smile grows, becoming a touch mischievous. “Enough,” he says. “I mustn’t bore you. Shall we go back down?”
They go back down. They play football with the children; Tony’s boys are slightly older than Alastair’s, and they run circles around Tony, while he laughs. Alastair’s boys tag along, a bit of hero worship in their eyes, and it’s five-year-old Callum who scores the winning goal.
At dinner, Tony tells stories about being sworn as a Privy Counsellor along with John Prescott, and makes the entire table laugh by imitating John’s reaction to palace flunkies trying to order him about.
Even as he laughs, Alastair can feel Fiona’s eyes falling on him, then flicking away; Cherie’s eyes, anxious and yet a bit bored; Tony’s eyes, charming and warm and calculating.
It is nearly three weeks since the leadership election.
Thursday, August 11, 1994, morning
Neil and Glenys have arrived.
Neil is inclined to bluster. “Why live your life at the beck and call of a bunch of shits?” he asks, scowling tremendously.
Alastair has to bite back a smile.
Glenys’s eyes are shrewd. “It’s hard, isn’t it?” she asks. “With all the possibilities opening up, with a new leader who wants you so very badly, it’s hard to say no.”
“Of course he’s going to say no,” Neil says, impatiently. “He can be whatever he wants. He’s not going to throw all of that away.”
“But he might be able to change things,” Glenys says. “He might be able to make a difference.”
Alastair is tempted to say that “he” is standing right there, but he just smiles and suggests another cup of tea.
It is three weeks since the leadership election.
Thursday, August 11, 1994, afternoon
Cherie’s mum’s holiday is over, and in the great chaos that has now become Alastair’s family vacation, he is the one with the car that can drive her to the Marseille airport.
At the last moment, Tony comes along.
It is still three weeks since the leadership election.
Thursday, August 11, 1994, evening
They are on their way back from the airport; two men, silent, in a car together.
“I had a breakdown in 1986,” Alastair says, abruptly.
Tony looks over, eyes unreadable. “I know.”
Alastair holds on to the wheel a bit more tightly, looks straight ahead. He tells Tony about it, in all its bloody detail: the drinking, the stress, the depression; the fear, the loathing, the darkness.
Tony sits quietly and listens. He doesn’t venture any comments. He doesn’t put a hand on Alastair’s arm, or make soothing noises. He listens.
“I’m a stronger person now,” Alastair says, watching the French road spin by. “But I cracked under the pressure, and the pressure of the job you want me to do would be much worse. It would be a risk.”
Finally, Tony speaks up. “I’m willing to take that risk,” he says.
Alastair breathes, and breathes again.
~//~
The silence that falls upon them could have been awkward, but somehow it isn’t. They drive down the French roads in companionable silence for a few minutes, lost in their own thoughts.
After a while, Tony breaks the silence. His usual buoyancy is quieter now, but when Alastair steals a glance sideways, he can see the smile playing about his lips.
“I’m going to scrap Clause 4,” Tony says. He tips his head back against the seat and watches Alastair over the curve of his shoulder.
Alastair feels his pulse begin to race, almost against his will, and he sees the smile around Tony’s mouth grow more pronounced. Damn the man, he doesn’t miss anything. He saw Alastair’s reaction to that announcement yesterday, and he sees it again this afternoon; and as always, he knows just how to play it.
The realisation brings reluctant admiration, more than frustration, and recognition of the steel behind the charm. Alastair has known for a while now that Tony is more than a charismatic face; he is also an astute politician, an expert manipulator, and an excellent leader of men. He has the potential to be great, with a formidable political intellect hidden behind the eager mobile lines of his face and the light tenor cadences of his voice.
That is why Alastair supported him for Leader. That is what Alastair sees when he looks at him.
Later, Alastair will look back and imagine that he was self-aware enough to see the rest as well. The foibles, the egoism, the messianic fervour; all that would require such careful handling over the years, all that would eventually sour the New Labour project and cause such headaches for himself and others. But did he really, in that car, on that day?
“I’m going to scrap Clause 4,” Tony repeats – and it’s not the action being taken, it’s the boldness and the audacity, the modernisation and the vision, that goes straight to Alastair’s gut – “and you’re going to help me.”
It’ll be a fight, and a good one, and Alastair’s blood thrills; but more than that, it’s the fact that Tony wants that fight, that he sees it as vital, that right out of the post Tony wants to strike out for a new politics, a new party, a new vision.
“Am I,” Alastair asks, his own voice sounding a bit rough to his ear.
“You are,” Tony says, and his voice is certain, and his eyes glint.
Alastair breathes, and thinks, and drives; but even as he thinks, he can feel the smile beginning to pull at the corners of his mouth, and he can no longer stay in this in-between, this transitory stage, between the end and the beginning.
“I suppose I am,” he says –
And Tony’s face breaks out in a smile, wide and sunny and free –
And Alastair finds an answering smile on his own face, as reluctance gives way to recklessness –
And they race down the French road into the sunset: toward Flassan, toward Fiona and Cherie, toward Neil and Glenys, toward the present and the future and all that will come, together.
It is three weeks since the leadership election.
epilogue
Back in Flassan, Alastair telephones Peter. “Tony talked me into it,” he says, without prelude.
“Excellent,” Peter says, sounding pleased, like a cat that has just been stroked. “It’s the best choice, for both you and the party.”
“I suppose we’ll be working together, then,” Alastair says.
“Yeeees,” Peter says, sounding thoughtful. “I do hope we don’t fall out.”
“Now there’s an odd thing to say,” Alastair says, and laughs.
~//~
When Alastair tells Fiona, she looks at him in silence for a minute, then turns and goes into the bedroom.
Alastair has the distinct feeling they’ll be talking later, once the menagerie that has taken over their holiday has dispersed. He sinks onto the sofa, absent-mindedly moving the stuffed bear that has been left there.
His daughter toddles over to him and pulls at his sleeve; he picks her up and bounces her, listening to the way she laughs, infectious baby giggles and scrunched-up eyes.
~//~
Alastair is driving the Blair family to the railway station. They leave at 4 AM, a confused muddle of bags and sleeping children. Tony is wearing holiday shorts and a suit jacket.
As the train readies for departure, Tony stands in the doorway. “Together, we can change the face of British politics for a generation, and change the world while we’re at it,” he says – and the door shuts in his face, and he jumps back.
Alastair waves as they pull away.
~//~
“Are you going to do it?” Neil asks.
“Yes,” Alastair says.
“Well, it’s good for Tony,” Neil says, spearing a piece of toast vengefully. “It’s bad for you and it’s bad for your family.”
“Neil,” Glenys says.
Alastair stares out the window, at Mont Ventoux rising overhead. “I’ve told him I’ll do it,” he says, quietly. “He’s serious about winning, but to win he needs help. He needs me. And I can’t... I can’t say no to that.”
~//~
It is three weeks since the leadership election.
It is the first day of the future.
~//~