David the Ruthless

       Study weakness, particularly in your friends.

      The Master

      Mary certainly wasn’t ready. The following morning she listened to her husband’s explanation of their unexpected guest’s presence with an expressionless face. She made breakfast for Mr White, with the minimum of words and a few tight smiles. Fergus was hammering a football up and down the corridor, a tiny freckled fury in a Celtic shirt, while Callum sat at the kitchen table, swinging his feet and eyeing their visitor.

      ‘What’s your name?’

      ‘My name is Mr Murdoch White. I’m a friend of your daddy’s.’

      ‘That’s a silly name. And no you’re no’. Why are you staying in the spare room?’

      ‘I’m in the Labour Party, like your daddy. And we’re going to make your daddy a very important man. Would you like that, Callum?’

      ‘My daddy’s already got a heid the size o’ an elephant’s arse. That’s what Mr Smedley says. Mr Smedley’s a teacher. And he’s a coon … a coon … a …’

      ‘A councillor, Callum,’ said Mary Petrie, without the ghost of a smile.

      But Callum was now in full flow. ‘Mr Smedley’s my teacher and he’s a coonsollar, and he disnae like Daddy. We call him Mr Smelly.’

      ‘That’s a bit rude, young man,’ said Murdoch White.

      ‘Well, he is smelly. He’s got a smelly bum. He says everybody’s got a smelly bum. But they don’t.’

      Suddenly concentrating, White pushed his plate away. ‘This Mr Smedley. Does he ever – touch you, Callum?’

      ‘For goodness’ sake, Mr White, let the boy alone,’ said Mary, her face crimson.

      ‘No, he’s just smelly. But he rubs his thing. He doesn’t think we can see, but we can. He sits behind his desk and he rubs his thing.’

      Mary gaped. Murdoch White smiled, and took out a small notebook from his jacket pocket. At this point a bleary Davie arrived in the kitchen. He had a list longer than his arm of people to see, but he had to get down to the office first, and check that everything was moving forward. There were still houses to be built.

      White turned to him. ‘So. Councillor Smedley. The teacher. A Labour man, of course – couldn’t be anything else, around here.’

      ‘Aye, Wally Smedley. Smelly Smedley, the kids call him. Been around for years. No friend of mine, but.’

      ‘Oh, I think you’ll find he’s going to be a great supporter.’

      ‘Wally Smedley? With respect, Mr White, you don’t have the local knowledge. I’m telling you, he’s not one of ours.’

      ‘With respect, Mr Petrie, I think you’ll find that I do, and that he is. Just ask your most observant son here.’ He left to go upstairs, ruffling Callum’s hair as he went.

      ‘I don’t like your new friend, Dad.’

      Davie arrived at the newly built two-storey office behind the superstore where his business was now based. Waiting for him on his desk were the minutes of the last meeting of the planning committee, with half a dozen paragraphs highlighted in bright-green marker pen. His secretary had left a few ‘must read’ emails on his screen. The timber suppliers in Alloa hadn’t been paid, again. The local bank had closed and there was now a useless head office up in Glasgow, but Davie had a private number, and spent a stressful but useful few minutes on the phone. A foreman had phoned in sick. One of the bungalows in James Murphy Close was taking in water after the heavy rain.

      It took him an hour to escape. A routine morning. Success was delegation, he reminded himself – delegation with just a whiff of fear behind it.

      Back at the house, Murdoch White had returned downstairs, established that the boys had left for school, and asked for another round of toast. After he’d scraped his plate and she’d made a second pot of tea, Mary finally asked him, with impeccable good manners, how long he hoped to be staying with them.

      ‘Well, I’ve got a life of my own, Mrs Petrie. I wanted to get back to Arran, but I think I’ll stop here for as long as Davie needs me. I have to keep an eye on things, don’t I? Just so long as the contest’s hanging in the balance. Say – a month?’

      Mary Petrie was quite a woman. She had taken nervous horses over high stone walls. She’d played on in a hockey match for half an hour with a cracked shinbone. She’d won an essay prize at university by not sleeping for a week. She’d shut her ears to the protests of her distraught parents so she could marry a hairy-arsed builder from the grotty little town she now lived in. She’d given birth twice without an epidural – not even gas and air. But in all her long life Mary Petrie would never do anything as remarkable as she did now. What she did was – nothing. She didn’t reply. Nor did she gasp, goggle, throw the teapot or scream. She just gently replaced a carton of milk in the fridge, and began to rub away the marks around the sink. Then – ‘A month it is, Mr White,’ she said. ‘If you can stand us, you will eat with the family. But no more smoking in this house, if you please.’

      Taking her measure, the former foreign secretary stood and nodded. ‘Here’s my proposition, then,’ he said. ‘I will stay until your husband has been selected as the prospective parliamentary candidate for Glaikit. On the evening of the general election I will come back and accept a glass of whisky, and light one small cigarette. Agreed?’

      ‘Agreed,’ said Mary. ‘And while you’re here, you can help the boys with their homework, too.’

      ‘Your boys, Mrs Petrie, are very vigorous, and seem quite intelligent. But I’m afraid they are beyond help.’

      When Davie returned to the house, he put his iPad on the kitchen table.

      ‘Mr White, I’ve made a kind of wee spreadsheet. All the party members in the five branches who really matter. Here are the ones who I know will back me whatever happens. Here are the ones we need to win over. In the last column there are just a few notes. Nothing much.’

      ‘Well, we’re off and running then,’ said White. ‘I’m going to go down to the council building and sniff around a bit. You can find me at the Wallace Bar at lunchtime.’

      ‘The Wallace? That’s a bit rough for the likes of you, Mr White.’

      ‘It’s where the union boys drink. At least it was ten years ago, the last time I passed through this godforsaken hole. And I’m a Crusade man myself. Fully paid up. Happened when the bastards gobbled up the draughtsmen’s union. Buy you a pint of 80 Shillings if you happen to stop by.’

      ‘No, I don’t think so, Mr White. I wouldn’t be welcome there. But I thought the idea was that you were going to come around with me.’