A Perfect Spy

Come back ten days with me, Tom. The excited Pym has arrived from Oxford light of heart, determined as a protector of the nation to throw his changeful weight behind the democratic process and have some fun in the snow. The campaign is in full cry but the trains to Gulworth have a way of petering out at Norwich. It is weekend and God has ruled that English by-elections be held on Thursdays, even if He has long forgotten why. It is evening: the Candidate and his cohorts are on the stomp. But as Pym alights bag in hand at Norwich’s imposing railway station, there stands faithful Syd Lemon at the barrier with a campaign car plastered with the Pym regalia waiting to whisk him to the main meeting of the evening, scheduled for nine o’clock in the village of Little Chedworth-on-the-Water, where according to Syd the last missionary was eaten for tea. The car’s windows are darkened with posters saying “PYM THE PEOPLE’S MAN.” Rick’s great head — the one, as I now know, that he had quite likely sold — is pasted to the boot. A loudspeaker bigger than a ship’s cannon is wired to the roof. A full moon is up. Snow covers the fields and Paradise is all around.

“Let’s drive to St. Moritz,” Pym says as Syd hands him one of Meg’s meat pies, and Syd laughs and musses Pym’s hair. Syd is not an attentive driver but the lanes are empty and the snow is kind. He has brought a ginger ale bottle filled with whisky. As they meander between the laden hedges they swallow big mouthfuls. Thus fortified, Syd briefs Pym on the state of the battle.

“We favour free worship, Titch, and we’re mustard for Home Ownership for All with Less Red Tape.”

“We always were,” says Pym, and Syd gives him the hairy eyeball in case he’s being cheeky.

“We take a poor view of ubiquitous High Toryism in all its forms—”

“Iniquitous,” Pym corrects him, sipping again from the ginger ale bottle.

“Our Candidate is proud of his record as an English Patriot and Churchman. He’s a Merchantman of England who has fought for his country, Liberalism being the only right road for Britain. He’s been educated in the University of the World, he’s never touched a drop of the hard stuff in his life, nor have you, and don’t forget it.” He grabbed back the ginger ale bottle and took a long, teetotal draught.

“But will he win?” said Pym.

“Listen. If you’d have come in here with ready money on the day your dad announced his intention, you could have had fifty to one. By the time me and Lord Muspole showed up he was down to twenty-fives and we took a ton each. Next morning after he done his adoption you couldn’t get tens. He’s nine to two now and shrinking and I’ll have a small wager with you that come polling day he’s evens. Now ask me whether he’ll win.”

“What’s the competition?”

“There isn’t any. The Labour boy’s a Scottish schoolmaster from Glasgow. Got a red beard. Small bloke. Looks like a mouse peering out of a red bear’s backside. Old Muspole sent a couple of the lads round the other night to cheer up one of his meetings. Put them in kilts and gave them football rattles and had them roaring round the streets till morning. Gulworth doesn’t hold with rowdiness, Titch. They take a very poor view of the Labour Candidate’s drunken friends singing ‘Little Nellie of the Glen’ at three in the morning on the church steps.”

The car slides gracefully towards a windmill. Syd rights it and they proceed.

“And the Tory?”

“The Tory is everything a Tory candidate should be with knobs on. He’s a landed pukka sahib who toils one day a week in the City, rides to hounds, gives beads to the natives and wants to bring back the thumbscrew for first offenders. His wife opens garden fêtes with her teeth.”

“But who’s our traditional mainstay?” asks Pym, remembering his social history.

“The God-thumpers are solid for him, so’s the Masons, so’s the Old Nellies. The teetotallers are a Cakewalk, so’s the anti-betting league so long as they don’t read the form books and I’ll thank you not to mention the neverwozzers, Titch, they’ve been put out to grass for the duration. The rest are a pig in a poke. The sitting member was a Red but he’s dead. The last election gave him five thousand majority on a straight race with the Tory, but look at the Tory. The total poll was thirty-five thousand but since then another five thousand juvenile delinquents have been enfranchised and two thousand geriatrics have passed on to a better life. The farmers are nasty, the fishermen are broke and the hoi polloi don’t know their willies from their elbows.”

Switching on the interior light Syd allows the car to steer itself while he reaches into the back and fishes out an imposing red-and-black pamphlet with a photograph of Rick on the front cover. Flanked by somebody’s adoring spaniels, he is reading a book before an unfamiliar fireside, a thing he has never done in his life. “A Letter to the Electorate of Gulworth North,” runs the caption. The paper, in defiance of the prevailing austerity, is high gloss.