The Pitcairn Perspectives by Philip Spires - HTML preview

Edward Pitcairn confronts his granddaughter

 

One good point about the conduct of this project was the care to which our agent managed his physical resources. With the older members of the household this was not to prove crucial, but with Elsie Pitcairn, who always downloaded software updates to her mobile as they became available, it was essential that our software was also reinstalled on her phone regularly. Some of the system updates are effectively rebuilds of the entire system, so our resident app also is sometimes erased. Our operative, however, made sure the new links to our software were always available to her and, because of the relationship of trust that had been developed, Elsie would usually cooperate within a day or two by clicking on that all important link to reinstall our app. Her trust in the link appeared to be a direct consequence of what we originally interpreted as her trust in her colleague in the Off Uking Palace group. With the benefit of hindsight, which is always easier than analysis, it is possible that Elsie’s cooperation was conspiratorial.

At least that is what our analysis had been until this particular day, a morning when Edward decided to confront his granddaughter, “to get things out into the open,” as he himself had put it the night before, as he mumbled to himself in bed. The meeting took place just a day after Edward’s ox tongue on white with Geoff Sullivan in La Fenice, the greasy spoon cafe on Essex Road. Elsie’s app, as evidenced by the verbatim transcript that follows, was working, as was the remote control of the phone’s camera, which also allowed some visually sourced contextual observation to be included. But what was worrying, apart from the content of the discussion, was the fact that Elsie’s behaviour throughout suggested that she was aware of the monitoring, even to be consciously facilitating it. The proceedings were transcribed by one of our own monitoring clerks, so the significance of these words is still secure knowledge. Further comments have been appended by an informed observer who reviewed the file. The original document has the attributed source of each observation.

There was a knock on the bedroom door. “Just a minute,” called Elsie. She had not yet bothered to dress, was still propped up in bed and, having decided to lie in, was reviewing her social media via her phone. As she rose, she placed the phone carefully on the corner of the table by the window, the corner that protruded furthest into the room.

“It’s only me…” Edward Pitcairn’s voice sounded especially weak on the far side of the Edwardian panelled door.

“Just a minute, grandaddy,” she said, taking some care apparently to ensure that her phone’s resting place was safe. Elsie quickly crossed back towards her bed and, almost in a single movement, retrieved a one-piece smock, a large, floor length black and brown batik garment with highly decorative arabesque decoration from the back of the chair at her bedside and flung it over her head, allowing the fabric’s own weight to fall about her. She took the four steps to the bedroom door, turned the squeaking white ceramic handle and pulled, revealing Edward Pitcairn through the open doorway on the landing, looking rather small, obviously tired and, for the first time, noticeably stooped.

“Am I disturbing…” It was not a question. He was already crossing the threshold into the room.

“No, grandaddy. Come in. Sit down. You don’t look well.”

Edward Pitcairn stopped in his tracks. He paused and gave his granddaughter the kind of sidelong stare, almost out of one eye, that said, “And bloody obvious why” without uttering a word.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s the yoga. I seem to have got used to having my foot in my mouth.”

“Don’t worry, Elsie. I’ve learned that you soon have to get used to such things. And look at what you’re wearing. I feel quite at home.” Familiarity momentarily brightened his voice.

“You are at home. It’s your house.”

“You know what I mean. It’s like being back in Indonesia. Though what you are wearing is not exactly from my neck of the woods.” Elsie asked a wordless but understood question. “It’s from Madura,” said Edward, taking a detailed interest in the garment’s design, “north of Java. It’s a very different culture up there.”

“Here, sit down,” she said, pulling the chair that a minute before had been the bedside hanger for her gown and placing it next to the large, Victorian table with spirally worked legs that occupied the entire width of the room’s double window. The chair legs screeched across the floorboards, momentarily overloading the mobile’s microphone. The tabletop was covered with files, make-up, various bags, ornaments, papers, at each end a couple of Anglepoise lamps (seventies Habitat vintage, specifically purchased second hand) and at least two unwashed coffee cups with dregs from the night before. The telephone that she had so carefully placed sat precariously on the very edge of that same table, fortuitously positioned as luck would have it, or perhaps deliberately placed for maximum coverage. She cleared a space large enough for his supporting forearm to rest and set the chair, so it faced her bed. Elsie helped Edward toward the seat, into which he flopped with an over-loud, overdone sigh. She then retreated to her bed, which was single and set against the side wall, so she could sit across it, her back to the wall, her legs drawn up folded onto the mattress at her front, facing her grandfather.

“This feels a bit like an official visit,” she said.

“It is. Am I really that transparent?”

“I think the last time you knocked to come into my room was over a decade ago.”

“You make it sound like I come here often…,” he said with an ironic smile.

She smiled back, her genuine affection for him both lengthening and broadening the gesture. “You made some phone calls for me, I hear.”

He nodded. “Funny, I thought I was going to kick things off... I told Gem yesterday. So, you spoke?” Elsie’s nods acknowledged his words. He continued, “But I didn’t get anywhere…”

“Surprise, surprise… I’m not going to claim any benefits anyway. I…”

“It’s your entitlement, Elsie.”

“I know, I know. But I also know that it works like a branding iron within places where I work. If I carry on and apply for work, I can spin the story that I am just seeking something better, between jobs and the like. If I sign on, I become unemployed and therefore, in the eyes of many, unemployable. They won’t even look at me. The cv will go in the bin.”

“How did it come to this?”

“You know and I know that I got busted by the police, carted off like a carcass, cuffed and charged.”

“Resisting arrest…”

She nodded. “Make it up as you go along.”

He paused, looked long and hard at her, but there was sympathy in his expression, not even a suggestion of judgment. It was a gesture she seemed to acknowledge with a nod of thanks. “It’s such a bloody mess…”

“Bloody? Not yet. But that might change.”

“How on earth did your employer get mixed up in it?”

“I have no idea. Well, let me rephrase that. I have every idea. Let me rephrase that. I know precisely how it came about.”

Edward Pitcairn did not speak. The silence that he managed asked his question, which was implicitly understood.

“I gave my personal details only to the two officers who took my statement, one male and one female, obligatory, of course. The name of my employer was written on that official document, which ought to have stayed official, and confidential.”

“But it didn't…”

“Obviously.” She paused but Edward waited for her to continue. “Even before I was back at work on the Monday morning, they had already been told about the content of the statement. The woman who sacked me was kind enough to send me a text a couple of days ago. She said that she was briefed on the Sunday evening in a phone call with one of the directors. She was told then she would be tasked with letting me go. She told me they had used our meeting to assess her management skills. Let’s say I didn’t congratulate her.”

“But the newspaper article didn’t appear until the Tuesday…”

“And she was told two days before it was published to quote its detail to me.”

“But why? What does anyone gain from sacking you?”

Elsie laughed a little. It was a smirk that judged. “Nothing whatsoever to do with publicity. Nothing whatsoever to do with besmirching the company name. Nothing at all to do with tabloid mud getting thrown. Nothing at all to do with me, professionally, or my performance in my job.” She paused. Edward clearly had anticipated what would follow. “You-know-who on the board and his mate both are donors to the Tories. Our group, Off Uking Palace, has repeatedly publicised the link between a certain minister and the obviously remunerated easing of planning rules in East London. My face suddenly did not fit. I had trodden on toes, so they wanted to see the back of me…”

“Face, toes, back… Any other part of your anatomy involved?”

Elsie laughed. “I could say they got on my tits, but it would be inappropriate in mixed company.”

Edward inserted a lengthy pause, his mind clearly elsewhere for a while. He seemed to be scrutinising his granddaughter’s appearance. For a moment, she seemed uncomfortable. “You know,” he said, “you really are like Penny. You have the same mannerisms, the same direct way of cutting crap.”

“I wish I had got to know her better…”

“You were young. It’s hard to believe she’s been dead nearly seventeen years…”

“It’s funny, but I can hardly remember being around when the two of you were together. Christmas, birthdays, yes, but never really any time when the three of us spent any time together. Of course, you were away quite often…”

“I suppose I was. Australia wasn’t exactly around the corner, I suppose…but then Elsie, you were only seven when Penny passed away.”

The silence lasted several seconds. Edward was clearly lost in memories. Elsie clearly was wondering how to broach the subject. Eventually she spoke. “Tell me about Gina.”

The direct stab threw him. He had not come to be pilloried. Though sitting, he almost visibly stumbled before he found words offered to stall. “You mean Dr. Chupesi?”

“Grandad, I know what I am talking about. You know what I am talking about. Let’s cut the crap or cut the scene. Let’s talk about Gina. Mom told me years ago. I never met her. I am interested…”

Edward Pitcairn muttered something about “media people” under his breath before continuing. “Gina Chupesi was very good to me…”

“Euphemism…”

“OK, so we slept together! Is it a crime?”

“Did grandma know?”

“I suppose she did…”

“You never told her?”

“Not as such… Not in so many words… But ours was an open relationship.”

“Sounds pretty closed to me.”

Edward gave another of his histrionic sighs. “We were children…”

“Here we go… children of the sixties, living the usual list, free, open, free love, peace, power to the people, ban the bomb!”

“Yes, all of that, yes. But you misinterpret the word ‘open’. As we used it, the term meant ‘no questions asked’.”

“So did you ever ask grandma if she was having an affair?”

Edward thought for a moment. “It didn’t really arise…”

“…because she never was, was she?”

Edward shrugged. “Not to my knowledge. She was not as interested in the physical side of marriage as I was.”

“Was she frigid?”

“Most certainly not! But she had a very rough time with Gemma. She didn’t want another pregnancy…”

“And there was no birth control in the sixties?”

“Of course, there was…”

“So you looked elsewhere.” Elsie paused, looked directly at Edward, leaned forward slightly and then settled back against the wall. “Repeatedly.”

“Your grandma and I were always deeply in love with one another. We expressed things in different ways. Being who I am, I would probably have gone on the prowl even if our sex life had been the best ever….”

“You were just made that way…”

“I suppose.”

Elsie did not interject. There was no malice in her words, only an apparent curiosity, calculatedly naïve in order to draw as much from him as possible. She thought there would be more to follow, but Edward Pitcairn used the pause to change tack, to address the question that prompted him to confront his granddaughter that morning.

“Else…”

“Now I know you want something. The diminutive to prepare the ground…” She smiled.

“Media people,” he muttered. “Elsie, I’ve been meaning to ask you…”

“About Geoff Sullivan. I know.”

Momentarily, he was speechless. He had clearly thought for hours how he might broach the subject of Elsie’s relationship with Geoff, who, as was obvious, was also still sharing her mother’s bed a few times each month. What he had not expected was that his granddaughter might actually take the lead in the discussion. There followed what sounded like a long silence, but which in reality lasted all of four seconds. He made an open armed gesture, just a lift of the forearms, opened palms, fingers spread. “Well?”

“It’s not what you think.”

“That’s not what I heard the other morning.”

She did not reply straight away. Edward Pitcairn seemed to see this as an expression of embarrassment, a silence that sought a way of ending itself but found none. Later study of the moment interpreted the same reticence as Elsie Pitcairn retaining control of the exchange. She wanted him to continue, presumably to divulge his interpretation before she offered anything more.

“It was pretty clear to me, Else. It was obviously quite a… a passionate encounter.”

“Did you mention it to Mum?”

Again, he thought long and hard about his answer. “I thought I had better talk to you first I didn’t want to upset her…”

“It’s an open relationship…”

“Elsie…”

“Between you and me, that’s what ‘open’ means. She knows. She knows I am sleeping with Geoff.”

Edward Pitcairn was utterly flabbergasted, rendered speechless, his lips mouthing soundless words beneath expressionless eyes, like the reflex actions of a severed head. “She knows?” he said eventually.

“I’m trying to protect her.”

He looked on again in disbelief. “Did you say protect? From what?”

Now it was Elsie’s turn to pause. She had not moved during the conversation, having planted her back against the bedroom wall, her feet on the bed before her and her arms clasped around her knees, the folds of her voluminous but strangely stiff robe remaining almost sculpted by her inactivity.

“Geoff is not all that he seems.”

“I was just about to say that,” he commented, his voice indicating that reality might just be receding into the distance at speed.

“He’s not telling the truth. To anyone,” she said. Now this was news to us. We had been wondering about Geoff Sullivan’s apparent conquest of Gemma’s daughter, an apparently purely physical relationship that had begun only a few days before. There seemed to be something manufactured about the way things happened, an arguably deliberate absence from home on Gemma’s part, to attend an out of hours meeting at work, a fabrication as things turned out. Elsie, who usually drank alcohol only in moderation, had bought in beers and wine and told Geoff that she knew how disappointed he would be about her mother’s not being at home. She had decided, she told him, to make up for the disappointment by cooking him a meal and having a chat. She had him in bed before she had even lit the gas. Geoff Sullivan, of course, was the complete sucker, taking the bait and swallowing it whole. He needed no introduction to Elsie because they had already been attending meetings and demonstrations together for some months, but he ought to have noticed that this was just a little too good to be true, a little too much out of character to be sincere. It must be recorded here that this was an error of judgment on his part.

A full verbatim transcript is available via a secure logon, so to avoid repetition let us summarize the next few minutes. Edward related his story about discovering that Geoff was visiting a building near The Angel which, apparently, he used as a mailing address. He described the lies about the phone calls he had made during the meeting that led to the café on Essex Road. He also described how Geoff had bluffed his way through his non-recognition of Penny Pitcairn’s identity, despite claiming to have attended a school where she had worked, but where she had only been known by her maiden name.

Elsie proceeded to surprise Edward, saying that she had suspected Geoff Sullivan for some time, suspected his motives, then his sincerity. What had triggered the suspicions had been Geoff Sullivan’s consistent tendency in meetings, in public gatherings, in discussions of anything to do with Off Uking Palace to advocate the most confrontational tactics, always expressed in the most provocative language. And, given his lead, when others followed, there developed a momentum that would become hard to oppose and impossible to halt. From the point of view of the campaign, this was tactically not subtle, even at the time judged unproductive. Elsie and others had wondered whether Geoff’s aim was always to provoke the campaign to extreme, potentially headline-grabbing action that could then be used to further the opposing standpoint’s position. She and others involved in Off Uking Palace had deliberately started to feed him with false information, which, days later, had appeared in the media, or had found its way back to its originators, confirming that it had been leaked to a third-party. Elsie had taken matters into her own hands, her own bed, in fact, having spoken about her suspicions with her mother, who recalled similar behaviour from him when they worked together on Brexit, anomalous behaviour that at the time had been dismissed as merely part of the overall confusion that surrounded the issue. The two of them had talked and agreed on their strategy to trap their prey.

“And it was Geoff who leaked the details of my police statement to the press.”

Edward’s surprise had gradually subsided as the story progressed. “Do you think he’s a policeman? Something like the demonstration unit from a couple of decades ago?”

“He might be. But he seems too unguided for that… I think he’s a private operator.”

“What, in it purely for himself? Selling information?”

“No, private in the sense that he works for a private agency.”

“Funded by Uking.”

“Precisely. Among others, no doubt.”

“It would explain a lot. For some reason, someone had been employing him to inform on Gemma’s Brexit work. The Uking job came up and he was the perfect match to do the work, having already established a relationship with the family. It seems he might have been simply retained with a different brief.”

Again, Edward and Elsie shared the silence, a calm during which she remained statuesque, but saw Edward become a veritable effervescence of ticks and twitches. He scratched his head, rubbed his neck, adjusted his position on his chair, sighed, rubbed his eyes. It took about a minute for Elsie to realize he was crying and, manfully trying to hide it.

“Edward, are you all right?”

“That same stupid question…”

“I’m sorry…”

He wiped his eyes on his sleeve, then bowed head taking several seconds to return close to a vertical. “I thought…”

“You thought I might be being as duplicitous as you were?” Elsie’s tactics were certainly not defensive.

Edward was suddenly aggressive. “That was below the belt.”

“It’s the only place that counts, grandad.”

Edward by now was not capable of hiding the tears that rolled down his cheeks. Elsie rose from her interrogatory pose on the bed, retrieved a box of tissues from the mantelpiece behind her grandfather and handed it to him. She took a couple of the paper handkerchiefs in her hand and dabbed his cheeks. Edward Pitcairn closed his eyes and cried harder. “Dying isn’t a whole lot of fun,” he said, taking the tissues from her grasp and thus allowing her to regain her pose facing him. “You feel rejected by life, ousted by the same force that continues to sustain those around you. You start to feel estranged, separated, rejected, but confined almost, as if you might contaminate the air that others breathe. It’s as if people are pushing you towards the exit, don’t want any more to do with you.”

“Edward, I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’m sorry. But there have been many things that have not been said over the years…”

“How would you know about ‘years’?” There was a new aggressive impatience in the voice. What he wanted to say was no longer in the words he chose, but in the manner in which he spoke them. “Frankly you know nothing about my relationship with my wife, you know nothing about how difficult a child your mother proved to be, just how much strain Penny was under…”

“But I do know that your response too often was to make yourself scarce. The history is not debatable.”

“I had a career. I had responsibilities… I was fixing bloody history myself!”

“And you liked eating Italian.”

There was a moment when Edward seemed ready to hit her. If he had mustered any strength, he probably would have. But, only seconds after the anger subsided, he announced, sounding both exhausted and defeated, “I’m tired,” and, for the first time visibly a broken man, he hobbled towards the door.

“Can I help?”

“Apparently not,” he said.