The Line of Beauty - Alan Hollinghurst [184]
On the nine o'clock news they were talking already about a Tory landslide. Nick had another huge whisky, and felt a familiar relief begin to smooth down the bleak edges of the day. He felt he was missing the regard that was due to the bereaved, the indulgence, like a special sad prize, that was given to boys at school when the news came through. He even wondered for a while about a toot, but he knew he didn't want the irrelevant high spirits of coke. Drink showed more respect for the night, and seemed ready to mediate, for three or four hours, between the demands of grief and current affairs.
The election unrolled at its own unsatisfactory tempo. For ages the pundits sat in the studio, waiting for results to process and pronounce on. The tedium of the four long weeks of the election reached its purest form in their attempts to summarize and predict. Various old maxims and traditions were rehearsed, with a consoling effect of pantomime. Reporters were seen, perched in a dozen town halls with nothing as yet to report. Below them, out of focus, the tellers at their long tables were racing to finish, so that another game seemed to flourish on the back of the main contest. They were going to show the Barwick declaration later on, and for five seconds Nick saw the council room in the Market Hall and the not quite familiar figures at work; then there was a film clip showing the main candidates canvassing. Gerald's style was one of crisp confidence, striding through the square with glancing "Good morning"s, like a boss coming into an office, and not listening to anything that was being said. The inexperienced Alliance woman, by contrast, got snagged in well-meaning debate with Tracey Weeks, who she was slow to realize, and on camera was reluctant to acknowledge, wasn't all there. It was sad that the Barwick electorate should be exemplified to the nation by old Tracey; Nick distanced himself from his home town with a cagey laugh, though he was very curious to see it on TV. It had a steady provincial look to it, surprised but not overwhelmed to have been noticed by the outside world. It wasn't exactly the place he knew.
Later Nick was downstairs -when Catherine called out, "It's Polly Thing!" and he rushed back up and leant over the back of the sofa—the returning officer was already speaking. Polly Tompkins was standing for Pershore, traditionally Tory but with a strong SDP vote in '83; he couldn't be sure of getting in, and Gerald, who admired Polly, warned that his age might tell against him. Nick had read an article about young candidates—of the hundred and fifty or so under thirty the dry expectation was that half a dozen would get elected. Standing in the middle of the stage, fat and hot in a double-breasted suit, Polly could have passed for forty-five; he seemed camouflaged in his own elected future. Nick couldn't decide if he wanted him to win or not. It was a spectacle, and he looked at it with untroubled cruelty, like a boxing match. It would be good to see him smacked down. Nick supposed the candidates must know the result by now, since they'd been at the count; but perhaps not, if it was very close. Now Polly was staring out into the challenge of the lights, the invisible millions who suddenly had their eyes on him. The tiny Labour vote was announced, and he gave a heartless wince of commiseration. And now his own name was being said, "Tompkins, Paul Frederick Gervase"—("Conservative" in murmured parenthesis)—"seventeen thousand, two hundred and thirty-eight votes": the word votes shouted over a roar of triumph so quick that Polly himself seemed not to have worked it out—there was a moment's blankness in his face, and then you saw him give in to the roar and grin like a boy and raise two fists in the air—he was monstrous, Catherine said, "God . . ." in her dullest tone, but Nick felt his grin turn wistful with unexpected pleasure as the returning officer fought on against the noise, "And I therefore declare the said Paul Frederick