Griff’s team took a table each and, although the process was slow, it was running smoothly. Once Giles had made a complete circuit of the room, deftly avoiding Fisher, he rejoined Griff.
“You’re two hundred votes down in Arcadia Avenue, and about two hundred up on the Woodbine Estate, so it’s anybody’s guess.”
After Giles had done another circuit of the room, only one thing was certain: Simon Fletcher was going to come third.
A few minutes later, Mr. Hardy tapped the microphone in the center of the stage. The room fell silent and everyone turned to face the town clerk.
“Would the candidates please join me to check the spoilt ballot papers.” A little ceremony Griff always enjoyed.
After the three candidates and their agents had studied the forty-two spoilt papers, they all agreed that twenty-two of them were valid: 10 for Giles, 9 for Fisher, and 3 for Fletcher.
“Let’s hope that’s an omen,” said Griff, “because as Churchill famously said, one is enough.”
“Any surprises?” asked Seb when they returned to the floor.
“No,” said Griff, “but I did enjoy one the town clerk rejected, Will your girlfriend in East Berlin be getting a postal vote?” Giles managed a smile. “Back to work. We can’t afford one mistake, and never forget 1951 when Seb saved the day.”
Hands began shooting up all around the room to show that the counting had finished on that particular table. An official then double-checked the figures before taking them up to the town clerk, who in turn entered them into an adding machine. Giles could still remember the days when the late Mr. Wainwright entered each figure on a ledger, and then three of his deputies checked and double-checked every entry, before he was willing to declare the result.
At 2:49 a.m., the town clerk walked back to the microphone and tapped it once again. The momentary silence was broken only by a pencil falling off a table and rolling across the floor. Mr. Hardy waited until it had been picked up.
“I, Leonard Derek Hardy, being the returning officer for the constituency of Bristol Docklands, declare the total number of votes cast for each candidate to be as follows:
Sir Giles Barrington 18,971
Mr. Simon Fletcher 3,586
Major Alexander Fisher 18____”
As soon as Giles heard the word eighteen and not nineteen, he felt confident he’d won.
“—994.”
The Tory camp immediately erupted. Griff, trying to make himself heard above the noise, asked Mr. Hardy for a recount, which was immediately granted. The whole process began again, with every table checking and rechecking first the tens, then the hundreds, and finally the thousands, before once again reporting back to the town clerk.
At 3:27 a.m., he called for silence again. “I, Leonard Derek Hardy, being the returning officer...” Heads were bowed, eyes were closed, while some of those present turned away, unable even to face the stage as they crossed their fingers and waited for the numbers to be read out. “... for each candidate to be as follows:
Sir Giles Barrington 18,972
Mr. Simon Fletcher 3,586
Major Alexander Fisher 18,993.”
Giles knew that after such a close result he could insist on a second recount, but he did not. Instead, he reluctantly nodded his acceptance of the result to the town clerk.
“I therefore declare Major Alexander Fisher to be the duly elected Member of Parliament for the constituency of Bristol Docklands.”
An eruption of shouting and cheering broke out in one half of the room as the new member was raised onto the shoulders of his party workers and paraded around the hall. Giles walked across and shook Fisher’s hand for the first time during the campaign.
After the speeches were over, Fisher triumphant in victory, Giles gracious in defeat, Simon Fletcher pointing out that he’d recorded his highest ever vote, the newly elected member and his supporters went on celebrating throughout the night, while the vanquished drifted away in twos and threes, with Griff and Giles among the last to leave.
“We’d have done it if the national swing hadn’t been against us,” said Griff, as he drove the former member home.
“Just twenty-one votes,” said Giles.
“Eleven,” said Griff.
“Eleven?” repeated Giles.
“If eleven voters had changed their minds.”
“And if it hadn’t rained for twenty minutes at six thirty.”
“It’s been a year of ifs.”
23
Giles finally climbed into bed just before 5:00 a.m. He switched off the bedside light, put his head on the pillow, and closed his eyes, just as the alarm went off. He groaned and switched the light back on. No longer any need to be standing outside Temple Meads station at 6:00 a.m. to greet the early morning commuters.
My name is Giles Barrington, and I’m your Labour candidate for yesterday’s election... He switched off the alarm and fell into a deep sleep, not waking again until eleven that morning.
After a late breakfast, or was it brunch, he had a shower, got dressed, packed a small suitcase, and drove out of the gates of Barrington Hall just after midday. He was in no hurry, as his plane wouldn’t be taking off from Heathrow until 4:15 p.m.
If, another if, Giles had stayed at home for a few more minutes, he could have taken a call from Harold Wilson, who was compiling his resignation honors list. The new leader of the opposition was going to offer Giles the chance to go to the House of Lords and sit on the opposition front bench as spokesman on foreign affairs.
Mr. Wilson tried again that evening, but by then Giles had landed in Berlin.
Only a few months before, the Rt. Hon. Sir Giles Barrington MP had been driven out onto the runway at Heathrow, and the plane took off only after he’d fastened his seat belt in first class.
Now, squeezed between a woman who never stopped chatting to her friend on the other side of the aisle, and a man who clearly enjoyed making it difficult for him to turn the pages of the Times, Giles reflected on what he hadn’t missed. The two-and-a-half-hour flight seemed interminable, and when they landed he had to dash through the rain to get to the terminal.
Although he was among the first off the plane, he was almost the last to leave baggage reclaim. He had forgotten just how long it could take before your luggage appeared on the carousel. By the time he was reunited with his bag and had been released from customs and finally made it to the front of the taxi queue, he was already exhausted.
“Checkpoint Charlie” was all he said as he climbed into the back of the cab.
The driver gave him a second look, decided he was sane, but dropped him off some hundred yards from the border post. It was still raining.
As Giles ran toward the customs building, carrying his bag in one hand and his copy of the Times held over his head in the other, he couldn’t help recalling his last visit to Berlin.
When he stepped inside, he joined a short queue, but it still took a long time before he reached the front.
“Good evening, sir,” said a fellow countryman, as Giles handed over his passport and visa.
“Good evening,” said Giles.
“May I ask why you are visiting the Eastern sector, Sir Giles?” the guard inquired politely, while inspecting his documents.
“I’m seeing a friend.”
“And how long do you plan to stay in the Eastern sector?”