First Among Equals

They arrived at the hall five minutes before the curtain was due to rise. The occasion was their sons’ pantomime, and both Peter and Michael had assured their parents that they had major parts. It was Charles Kingsley’s The Water Babies, and Michael turned out to be a crab, who although he never left the stage lay on his stomach throughout the entire performance and never uttered a word. Peter, who had spent the week learning his words off by heart, was an unconvincing water baby standing at the end of a row of twelve. His speaking part turned out to be one sentence: “If grown-ups go on eating all the fish in the sea there will be none left for me.” King Neptune fixed his imperial eye on Peter and said, “Don’t blame us, it’s your father who’s the MP,” upon which Peter bowed his head and blushed, though not as deeply as Elizabeth when the audience in front of them turned round and smiled at Simon, who felt more embarrassed than if he had been in the center of a raging debate in the Commons.

At coffee afterward the headmaster admitted that the sentence had been added without the approval of the late Charles Kingsley. When Simon and Elizabeth took the children home that night they insisted on repeating Peter’s one line again and again.

“If the Government did an about-turn and devalued the pound, would the Under-Secretary find it possible to remain in office?”

Raymond Gould stiffened when he heard Simon Kerslake’s question. His grasp of the law and his background knowledge of the subject made all except the extremely articulate or highly experienced wary of taking him on. Nevertheless Raymond had one Achilles’ heel arising from his firmly stated views in Full Employment at Any Cost?: any suggestion that the Government would devalue. Time and again eager back-benchers would seek to tackle him on the subject but once more it was Simon Kerslake who felled his opponent.

Andrew, sitting on the front bench, composed in his mind a sharp reply about his colleagues’ collective responsibility, but Raymond Gould said rather ponderously: “The policy of Her Majesty’s Government is one hundred percent against devaluation, and therefore the question does not arise.”

“Wait and see,” shouted Kerslake.

“Order,” said the Speaker, rising from his seat and turning toward Simon as Raymond sat down. “The Honorable member knows all too well he must not address the House from a sedentary position. The Under-Secretary of State.”

Raymond rose again. “This Government believes in a strong pound, which still remains our best hope for keeping unemployment figures down.”

“But what would you do if Cabinet does go ahead and devalue?” Joyce asked him when she read her husband’s reply to Kerslake’s question reported in The Times the next morning.

Raymond was already facing the fact that devaluation looked more likely every day. A strong dollar causing imports to reach record levels coupled with a run of strikes during the summer of sixty-seven was causing foreign bankers to ask when, not if.

“I’d have to resign,” he said in reply to Joyce’s question.

“Why? No other minister will.”

“I’m afraid Kerslake is right. I’m on the record and he’s made sure everybody knows it. Don’t worry, Harold will never devalue. He’s assured me of that many times.”

“He only has to change his mind once.”

Pressure on the pound increased during the following weeks and Raymond began to fear that Joyce might turn out to be right.

Andrew Fraser had read Full Employment at Any Cost? and considered it a succinctly argued case although he did not agree with all the small print. He personally was in favor of devaluation but felt it should have been pushed through in the Labour party’s first week in office, so that the blame could be left at the door of the Tories. After three years and a second election victory any such suggestion would rightly be considered outrageous.

As Louise’s time of delivery approached she was getting larger by the day. Andrew helped to take pressure off her as much as he could, but this time he did not prepare so obviously for the birth, as he felt his unbridled enthusiasm might have contributed to her previous anxiety. He tried as often as possible to bring the red boxes home each night, but it remained an exception if he returned to Cheyne Walk before eleven o’clock.

“Voting every night at ten o’clock and sometimes on through the night into the next day is one system the rest of the world has not considered worth emulating,” Andrew had told Louise after one particularly grueling session. He couldn’t even remember what he had been voting on—although he didn’t admit that to her. “But as no Government of whatever party has ever seriously considered the idea of limiting the time for ending business ‘the troops’, as back-benchers are known, go on charging through the lobbies day in and day out. That’s why the press refer to us as ‘lobby fodder.’”

“More like a bunch of unruly children,” she chided.

When Louise went into hospital one week early Elizabeth Kerslake assured her there was nothing to be worried about, and two days later Louise gave birth to a beautiful girl.

Andrew was in a departmental meeting discussing Glasgow’s high-rise housing program when the hospital staff nur

se rang to congratulate him. He went straight to his fridge and took out the bottle of champagne his father had sent him the day he joined the Scottish Office. He poured a plastic mug of Krug for each of his team of advisers.

“Just better than drinking it out of the bottle,” he suggested as he left his civil servants to go to the hospital.

On arrival at St. Mary’s Andrew was relieved to find Elizabeth Kerslake was on duty. She warned him that his wife was still under sedation after a particularly complicated Caesarian delivery. Elizabeth took him to see his daughter who remained under observation in an isolation unit.

“Nothing to fret about,” Elizabeth assured him. “We always take this precaution after any Caesarian birth as there are a number of routine tests we still have to carry out.”

She left Andrew to stare at his daughter’s large blue eyes. Although he knew it might change in time the soft down on the crown of her head was already dark.

He slipped out an hour later when she had fallen asleep to return to Dover House, where he had a second celebration in the Secretary of State’s office, but this time the champagne was served in crystal glasses.

When Andrew climbed into bed that night the champagne helped him fall into a deep sleep with the only problem on his mind being what they should call their daughter. Claire had always been the name Louise favored.

The phone had rung several times before he answered it and as soon as he had replaced the receiver he dressed and drove to the hospital as quickly as possible. He parked the car and ran to the now-familiar ward. Elizabeth Kerslake was standing waiting by the door. She looked tired and disheveled, and even with all her training and experience she found it hard to explain to Andrew what had happened.

“Your daughter died forty minutes ago when her heart stopped beating. Believe me, we tried everything.”