It was a night not simply of entertainment but also of encounter and intrigue – just as Beaverbrook had required. He couldn’t plan such things, of course, but he understood human nature and knew that the inevitable outcome of mixing alcohol and ego was information. And in his world, information was power.
As he turned to mingle with other guests, he found himself pursued. A woman, tugging in agitation at his sleeve. Lady Maud Hoare, wife of Sir Sam.
‘Maxwell, dear Maxwell …’
Whoa, no one called him Maxwell. The girl was nervous.
‘I’m so sorry. I hope it didn’t cause a scene,’ Maud spluttered.
Of course it caused a scene. A splendid one. As Joe Kennedy had just remarked to him, good parties were like battles. They required casualties.
‘It’s just that Sam is so passionate,’ she continued. ‘You know that, being such good friends …’
Friends? Well, scarcely. Friendship wasn’t the sort of game played between politician and press man.
‘Like you, he’s so loyal to the cause.’
Ah, the cause. The great cause to which he had devoted so many of his front pages in recent weeks. The cause of winning! Winning was everything and Chamberlain had won, for the moment, at least. There was to be peace. It had to be so, the advertisers in the Express insisted on it. They wanted a world in which everyone had a little fun and spent a little money, not a world in which every last penny was buried in war bonds or pots at the end of the garden. So far Chamberlain had proved a good bet.
‘And Sam’s under such a lot of pressure …’
‘Pressure? What sort of pressure?’ Beaverbrook’s news instincts were suddenly alert. He laid a comforting hand on her sleeve.
‘He’d never complain, of course, not the type. But, oh, Maxwell, the poor man’s so torn.’
‘Torn?’
‘He’s a good man, a great man …’
Perhaps one day the main man, too. The man to take over the reins. Beaverbrook had a sharp eye for the runners and riders, and Slippery Sam was a man with prospects. In Beaverbrook’s judgement Hoare was a man to watch, a man to be – well, all right, to be friends with.
‘You know what it’s like, Maxwell, so many demands on your time, your energies, your … money.’
Ah, so there it is. The girl had shown her slip.
‘He’s not a man of inherited wealth like Neville or Edward Halifax. He can’t simply run off on grand lecture tours and sell himself like Winston does.’ She made it sound worse than pimping. ‘Sam has to struggle by on nothing more than his Cabinet salary. And it is a struggle, Maxwell.’
What – five thousand a year? A struggle for him, maybe, but a fortune for most.
‘You know Neville couldn’t have done what he’s done without Sam’s unfailing support – you know that, don’t you, Maxwell?’
‘Most certainly,’ he lied.
‘But it’s slowly wearing him down, and I’ve been crying myself to sleep worrying about him.’
‘We can’t have that, Maudy.’
‘Oh, at times I get quite desperate, watching him sacrifice himself. For others. Always for others.’ Her voice had fallen to a whisper, but it was soon to recover. ‘I scarcely know what to do. These are such terribly difficult times.’
How well she had rehearsed it. How easily the lip quivered, the manicured fingers clutched, how readily the nervous sentiments emerged and presented themselves in regimented line.
‘So I was wondering …’
Here it comes.
‘Maxwell, is there any way you can think of that might just – take the pressure off him? Allow him to get on with that great job of his?’
If you were a few years younger, maybe, Maudy, old dear, and not so hideously ugly …
‘I’m a woman, I barely understand these things, while you, Maxwell, are not only a friend but such a wise man.’
Oh, Maudy, you think flattery is the way past my defences? When I am surrounded every day by lapdogs whom I pay to fawn and fumble at every moment in my presence? But present me with a business proposition, that’s another matter entirely. Show me a man who is Home Secretary – one of the most powerful men in the land, the keeper of secrets, the charmer of snakes, the guardian of reputations high and low, a man who has a reasonable chance one day of being placed in charge of the entire crap game – show this man to me and place him in my debt. How much would that be worth? As a business proposition – and fuck the friendship?
‘Two thousand.’
‘I beg your pardon, Maxwell.’
‘Two thousand a year, Maud. Do you think that might help? We can’t have him being distracted, having to work through his worries.’
‘No, of course not, you’re so right.’
‘If I can help him, Maud, be a damned privilege. Ease those worries. Make sure my newspapers are behind him, too – hell, make sure Sam and I are working on the same team, for each other.’
‘And the cause.’ She was breathless now, red in cheek, like a young girl who had just been ravished and loved every second of it.
‘An entirely private matter, you understand. No one must know apart from you and me, Maud. And Sam, of course. Wouldn’t want the muck media to get hold of it.’
‘Of course, of course … I scarcely know what to say, Maxwell. “Thank you” sounds so inadequate.’
‘No, I thank you, Maud. Sam’s a great man. I’m glad to be of some service. Send him to me. We’ll sort out the details, man to man.’ Yes, send him on bended knee, Maudy, and get him used to the position.
Others were approaching. The moment was over, the business done. He had bought a Home Secretary for less than the price of his new car.
‘Be in touch, Maud.’
‘Oh, we shall, we shall,’ she breathed as she wafted into the night.
‘And who was that?’ his new companion enquired, staring after the retreating woman. His voice was deep, carefully modulated, like that of a bishop.
‘A Hoare,’ Beaverbrook muttered.
‘Oh.’
‘But a whore on my White List. For now.’
‘Ah.’ Tom Driberg sucked his teeth. A tall, dark-complexioned figure in his mid-thirties with receding hair that wrinkled in the manner of a studious maharajah, Driberg was one of the many paid by Beaverbrook to ‘fawn and fumble’. To the outside world he was known as William Hickey, the highest-paid gossip columnist in the country, and Driberg was very good at gossip – good at both recording and creating it – although the rules by which he was required to document the misadventures and general muck-ups of the society set were far tighter than those by which he himself chose to live. One of the strictest rules governing the way in which he worked was that he should never, never, antagonize his publisher, and the White List contained the names of Beaverbrook’s intimates who were deemed to be beyond bounds and who would never find their way into the William Hickey column without the copy first being scrutinized by the press lord himself. Gossip was a powerful political currency, and both Beaverbrook and Driberg were keepers of the keys.
‘Busy evening?’ Beaverbrook enquired, almost casually, reminding the other man that he was here to work.
‘A Minister who appears to be canvassing for the support of a young lady who