Sacred Hunger - Barry Unsworth [194]
Kemp looked down for a while in silence. His anger had gone, leaving a certain familiar sense of desolation. ‘No, you need not,’ he said. ‘I know well enough who they are. For us, you see, the issue is simple, in spite of what you say. We are ready to guarantee an income for the Governor, whomever he be, that will make him independent of the assembly. But the real change must come in the workings by which the decisions of the Council are put into effect. The Council has the power, the statutory power, to disallow local legislation even when backed by the Governor. If there is delay, it must be because some person or persons are obstructing the procedure. This is not a question of legislation, it is a question of influence. That is why you were approached in the first place, so that you could use your voice behind the scenes.’
But how strong was this voice? he wondered, looking at the rouged and sorrowful face before him, with its thick eyebrows and slight, incongruous simper. And how often, and how earnestly, was it being raised? It had been his private belief for some time now that Templeton was taking bribes from the opposite party too. Men like this, grown old in the practice of chicanery, were difficult to frighten for long; they could not easily believe that the streams which had nourished them so long could dry up. In the purlieus of Westminster bribes were paid like pensions, long after it had been forgotten whose interest was secured by them …
‘We want results,’ he said quietly. ‘We are tired of waiting. It is possible that you imagine we would rather pay you for nothing than risk your disfavour by ceasing. If so, you had better disabuse yourself. That may have been the case in the time of my predecessor, but I assure you it is not the case now. I take the view that when a man’s friendship has not helped us we have nothing to fear from his enmity.’
He got up, looking squarely at the man before him. ‘You, on the other hand, have much to fear from ours,’ he said. ‘Put on wisdom with your wig today, Sir William, and ponder my words well. I trust I make my meaning clear to you?’
‘Abundantly crystalline, sir, curse me, translucent,’ Templeton said, meeting the other’s gaze with tolerable firmness.
On this less than cordial note the two men parted. Kemp found his chairmen waiting in the courtyard with the sedan, as instructed; but he paid them and sent them away, feeling the need for air and movement.
He left the Albert Gate on his left and began to walk towards Hyde Park Corner, crossing the Westbourne by the little wooden footbridge. After a while he became aware of a stinging sensation in his right hand and saw that the palm bore shallow lacerations which were bleeding slightly. He could not at first understand this, then he realized that it must have happened during his interview with Templeton: he had clenched his fist so tightly that he had cut himself with his nails. Only the right one, he thought vaguely – he had been holding his cane with the other. Increasingly these days he found himself becoming aware of overwrought feeling through some discomfort felt later, rather as one is woken by some pain in the night.
He had the wall of the park now on his left. Across from him, on the opposite side, there was a row of small houses, then the White Horse Inn with St George’s Hospital beyond it, fronting on to Knightsbridge. He crossed the road and turned off alongside the hospital garden, which ran into Grosvenor Place. This had no buildings at its lower end, giving directly on to the open heathland known as Five Fields. Kemp stood for a while here looking out over the ponds and brick kilns.
It was a quiet corner. The rumble of carts and coaches on the