Roskov, Book 2, page 23
‘My folks are in the mid-west, small town, and they have guns, so I don’t worry about them. And … they don’t worry about me, or give a shit; they think some of the movies I make are sinful.’
‘Hard to be happy, when we worry about the consequences of being happy, the consequences for those we care about.’
‘What do we do tonight?’
‘A quiet night in if you like, or a nice restaurant – not that I know of any here.’
My mobile trilled, so I reached across for it. ‘Sorry.’ I hit the green button.
‘It’s Trish, and I just had the politician you met on the phone, that Shadow Home Secretary. He wanted to know if you could do a function tonight, Labour Party.’
‘Hold on.’ Phone down on the duvet, I said to Alicia, ‘We have an invite, Democrat politicians, fat old guy you met that first night here.’
‘Well … do you want to go?’
‘I want to do my bit for the Democrats, yes.’
‘Me too.’
I lifted the phone. ‘When and where?’ I wrote down the address, 8pm to be there, soon calling my snapper. ‘Can you do 8pm, Labour Party bash?’
‘Sure. But they’re usually boring as fuck.’
‘You can snap me and Alicia with the old farts.’
‘See you outside.’
‘Will they let you in?’
‘If you ask them they might.’
‘8pm. In fact, come to the hotel, come with us.’
At 7.45pm we were ready and downstairs, people smiling at us as they came to use the restaurant, and the manager had handed me the money, less the cost of the coat and jumper.
Mickey turned up on time, and we joined his taxi. He explained, ‘You were in the morning paper, plus you’ll be in the glossy mags this weekend.’
‘What happened to the guy who hit me?’
‘Charged with assault, and in the papers – got sacked from his job today they said.’
At the venue, many people arriving, Mickey jumped down first and got ready. Waiting, I paid the taxi driver and thanked him, and we finally stepped down, my hand helping Alicia as Mickey snapped away. That caused heads to turn our way.
At the door I said, ‘Roskov plus two.’
‘I got Roskov plus one.’
‘I brought a photographer from The Sun newspaper.’
The security man waved us in, and we attracted odd looks as we walked inside, finding a large dark room with a stage and a microphone, many round tables, some quite large. At the moment, most of the men were stood near the bar chatting.
I spotted the Shadow Home Secretary and walked over to him, shaking his hand as people puzzled us.
‘Glad you made it, adds some spice to a dull meeting.’
I thumbed over my shoulder. ‘My photographer, from The Sun.’
Posing, we were snapped, the flash causing heads to turn as Tony Blair walked over. He was young for a labour leader, who were traditionally all old and decrepit.
I shook his hand and introduced Alicia, and we posed for a snap, another flash. ‘We’re glamorising your boring function.’
He laughed. ‘We are getting younger and more lively, my shadow cabinet is … free from too many grey hairs. And they say that you’ll support us at election time…’
‘My father was true Labour and I followed in his footsteps, so you get my time for free, a few celebs thrown in. Alicia here is a Democrat.’
‘Good to know that she’s not a spy.’
‘She’s only a spy in her movies,’ I quipped. ‘Today we visited a hospital in Leicester, the one I often visit, but it made Alicia cry.’
Alicia told him, ‘Cancer victims, just teenagers.’
He nodded solemnly. ‘Never and easy task, to face it, and what do you say to a child?’
‘What are the speeches like?’ I asked.
‘Same as you see reported.’
‘Put me up first then.’
‘You?’
‘Why not? I’m a Labour supporter, and I can speak – I was school president for many years.’
‘Nothing … controversial?’
‘Certainly not.’
‘Oh, OK, I’ll chat to them now. Due to start in a few minutes. Do you … have anything prepared?’
‘In my head.’
When he walked off, I suggested to Alicia, ‘Quick cameo sketch? It may be seen Stateside…’
‘What do I say?’
Heads close and whispering, I detailed what I wanted her to say in response to my lead, making her smile, and we rehearsed it in whispers. She was a top actress, and remembering lines was part of the job.
A nervous Tony Blair finally came back, and he led us to the stage.
He received a loud applause as he took the microphone. ‘Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, but before we get started with the listed speeches we have with us tonight a young Labour supporter, Ricky Roskov from Leicester, someone who generally who avoids the limelight.’
I walked up with Alicia to a modest applause, surprised faces staring up at us from the front row.
Alicia began, ‘Thank you, Mister President,’ causing a chuckle.
I leant in. ‘No, no, he’s not a President like America, we have Prime Ministers.’
‘Thank you, Mister Prime Minister.’
‘No, no, he’s not Prime Minister yet, he’s in opposition, hoping to be Prime Minister next year.’
‘So … how will he get me a room in Buckingham Palace then?’
They laughed.
‘He can’t. Not yet.’
‘Is there a function with the real Prime Minister we can crash?’ she complained.
‘They would be Republicans, but I’m a Labour supporter, what you call Democrats in America. We’re here to help promote the Democrats.’
‘Ah, what you said, brush off the dandruff and dye their hair.’
They laughed.
‘Well, yes, but that was the old Labour Party, we now have a new and vibrant younger Labour Party leader, fresh ideas. In the past, we only used very old and grey Labour men, to avoid scandals with secretaries.’
They laughed.
‘Did Margaret Thatcher have a sex scandal?’
‘Not … not really, no,’ I said, shaking my head wide-eyed as people snickered.
‘So who’s the Prime Minister?’
‘John Major, and he’s what us British call a safe pair of hands.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means that for his term in office he avoids … doing things, any … things, like … making decisions.’ They laughed loudly. ‘That way he can’t be criticised for – you know – doing something.’
The front row were now in hysterics.
‘So what’s the point of a safe pair of hands?’
‘Ah, my American friend, you have much to learn. Politics in Britain is about getting to the end of the week without any bad newspaper stories, not about … doing things.’
‘And they get paid for that?’
‘They do, and us British taxpayers are always complaining about that aspect of the job. But the Conservative MPs, what you call Republicans, they all have six jobs and six salaries, and sometimes they sit in Parliament when they’re bored.’
‘So here in England, being a politician is a part-time job?’
The audience sucked in their breath and laughed.
‘It is for some, yes, and they get rich from it as well. But I will chat to the Queen for you about that room. Promise.’ She walked off stage as they clapped.
I adjusted the microphone. ‘Tony Blair, let’s hope that if you win, and when you win, that none of your cabinet refer to you as being … presidential.’
‘Oooooh,’ echoed around the room, grins hidden.
‘And let’s hope that on a daily basis … that you do actually take a risk … and do something. And since I may not get the chance, ever again, to address you all, I can speak my mind a little.
‘I’ve told many people … that someday I’d like to do something in politics, but I don’t see myself as someday being an elected MP, perhaps an MEP. Instead, I want to actually do something.
‘The father of the twins I’m dating discussed with me my time as school president, and my desires to do something in politics, yet I was making money modelling and acting.
‘He told me … do something local in your home town, one street at a time. So I have been involved in my home town of Leicester, and I’ve been donating money to a charity that was originally meals-on-wheels but has become more.
‘Now they have a few part time ladies visiting the old lady pensioners in Leicester, the vulnerable ones, and simply sitting and chatting with a cup of tea, that precious yet cheap commodity that all pensioners seek … someone to talk to.
‘I also paid for a security man to check up on people, and I sometimes do the rounds with him. We even found a dead body, the old lady having been murdered by her daughter. That security man does a bit of painting, he fixes a few locks, and he sits down to chat to the pensioners.
‘And I feel good about it, because I turned a Mercedes car advert into a tangible, physical and real benefit for pensioners in my home town, something that I could look at, touch, listen to.
‘If I was one of you lot, if I was a junior minister, then I’d be a small cog in a large wheel, and I’d not get to meet the people I actually help. I may not be able to help many, but I can see the immediate results … and I can meet the people that I help.
‘And in my home town … I visit the local hospital when I can, popular in the ladies’ wards, where my time costs me nothing but where I do make a difference … if only for a few minutes … a difference to teenage girls dying of cancer.
‘The twins’ father, he offered some money for my charity, but I said no. I told him … when you see a fish floundering on the shore, do you put in back in the ocean, or do you send money to someone that may, one day, put a fish back in the ocean for you?
‘At the moment, I like doing it myself, and making a difference, but in the months ahead I’ll be making a few documentaries for the European Union about the good work they do, the freedoms and benefits that the young people of this country now enjoy.
‘I’m being paid to make the documentaries, but I would do them for free … because it’s something I believe in. As a common Leicester boy, I have girlfriends in Sweden, friends in Germany and Denmark, I have a business here and one in Sweden, and I fly around Europe without a second thought.
‘The problem … is that it all came at a price, a price that has long since been forgotten by the younger generations. But we only need to look at Bosnia … to know that history repeats itself.
‘They said … that there would never be another holocaust. They were wrong. And ten years from now, we’ll see it all again. But we won’t see it here in Europe, because there’s safety in numbers.
‘The problem … is that the absence of conflict here is not noticed till something like Bosnia comes along. The problem … is that a free man does not know he’s free, whereas a confined man has a clear definition of his confinement.
‘How do we tell the youth of today how lucky they are, when they all take what they have for granted, when their parents did the same?
‘Tell a man that he can use his local park to walk his dog … and he’ll puzzle that. Of course he can use his local park. Tell him he can’t use it any more, a fence put up, and now he understands what he had – and has now lost.
‘So in the absence of conflict, how do you measure the population’s happiness – about the absence of a conflict? How do you measure an empty space, a quiet field, a safe road to drive down, when there’s nothing threatening there?’
I loudly added, ‘The reason that there’s nothing threatening there … is because our grandparents removed all the fences and all the monsters for us.’
They applauded loudly.
‘So how I make a documentary about an empty space … will be my next task, to try and think up how I communicate that empty space to the current generation. I may use some sexy models to grab the headlines.’
They laughed.
‘And, Mister Blair, hopefully never referred to as being presidential … I may call on you to help explain a blank space. Thank you for allowing me to speak.’ I walked off to a loud applause.
Blair closed in as I returned to Alicia. ‘You prepared that speech?’
‘Had no time. If I had time it would have been better.’
‘Jesus, you have to come work for us in communications.’
‘As I just said, I’d get less done behind a desk. But I will help you with the marketing at the next election.’
‘I’ll help you with the EU project, yes, something we both believe in.’
Many people wanted to say hello, and to comment on my speech, and only then did I notice the lone cameraman in the corner.
Quitting at 9pm, the speeches very dull, we had done our bit - us pretty people had been seen with the old men, and we headed back to the hotel. In the hotel bar we made sure that we were seen, to keep the manager happy, Smirnoff-Roskovs sampled.
In the morning we packed up, we checked the room and we checked out, and we used our trusty minibus driver to take us to Heathrow, soon checking in, a short wait for the flight to Berlin, and half the passengers were German, all smiling our way.
One was a junior minister in the EU, and he came to say hello in Departures, and to then chat about politics.
Landing in Berlin, we got a taxi to the hotel, not so worried here about security. Room checked, Alicia made a call, and her friend wanted us to come straight around. Luggage left, we got yellow taxi, a Turkish driver that “kind of” knew the way to the address, and we only got lost once.
Finally getting the correct “Strasse”, we found a woman waiting in a warm coat next to a high hedge, and behind the hedge we found a nice turn of the century three-storey house with around twenty rooms.
Alicia hugged her old friend, soon chatting away rapidly as we walked up the drive. Inside, dogs patted, I was introduced to the rich husband, the man around thirty-five. And he lived with his parents. Still, it was a big house, and a very nice house.
He introduced his parents, warm smiles for me and handshakes, questions of Mexico as they poured wine for us, German wine, their own family brand; Dortmon. They also had vineyards in France, and many houses in the south of France.
Snacks were brought out by maids, and Alicia chatted to her friend and to the husband as I chatted to the parents.
The father gave me a quick tour, fantastic old paintings peered up at.
‘Did this house survive the war?’ I asked.
‘Some damage, repaired to look like the original.’
‘Where were these paintings during the war?’ I asked.
‘My grandfather got them to Switzerland, he feared that the Nazis would want to sell them. You see, the rich families were expected to support the Nazi and hand them jewellery.’
‘What did your grandfather do during the war?’
‘He worked in a bank, he had no choice, people got told what they would do.’
‘My grandfather was a Jew, taken from a train heading to the death camps.’
‘I saw this on the TV, yes. There were many babies taken, and some escaped to Sweden and Switzerland. My grandfather’s house keeper, she was Jewish, but he got her to Switzerland, hidden a truck with these paintings.
‘And there he had an illegitimate child with her. After the war he was here, she was not seen again, maybe to travel to Israel. She did not write, and she knew the address.’
‘How old was your grandfather in 1945?’
‘He would have been around forty, my father already a few years old.’
‘I will have to bring Jacqueline Dupont here, she will love the wines.’
‘It would be an honour to meet her, yes.’
Maid on hand and stood ready, we sat at a table for a chat, the husband, Karl, explaining the family business structure; they had just purchased a hotel in the south of France.
I told him, ‘If you want some publicity I can go visit it, or we can do a brochure for you. I was thinking of the next Mercedes adverts, and I wanted a warmer climate and some nice scenery, so maybe your hotel.’
‘That would be fantastic, yes, to have the next Mercedes adverts shot there.’
‘You have pictures of it?’
He fetched them, and I had a look with Alicia. ‘I like the terrace, and the curving road, good to shoot the drive-away in a Mercedes.’
‘You decide the location?’ the father asked.
‘They listen to me, I produced everything; the sketch, the actors. Jacqueline was my choice, then I replaced the first lady to be cast opposite me with the twins.’
‘And this advert in Copenhagen?’ the father asked.
‘I produced it all, yes, some of the editing. And I’ve been thinking of a movie, with Jacqueline and the twins, a comedy based on the Mercedes adverts. It was going to be set in the south of France, so we could use your vineyards and property.’
‘What movie?’ Alicia asked.
‘I had an idea for a comedy sketch, but … in my head it’s an hour long.’
‘That’s not a two-minute advert,’ she noted.
‘Before I do it I want to recruit more models for my agency in Sweden, then use the movie to showcase them. But Mercedes would supply the cars, and Smirnoff would put in money as well –now owned by Diageo.’
‘Can you write me into it?’ Alicia asked.
‘You’d have to be an FBI agent in your thirties.’
‘I could do that, hair cut and dyed.’
‘I need to write it all down, refine it, then get some financing, but it would be cheap enough.’
‘Small Indie film could be done for less than a million dollars,’ Alicia noted. ‘I can get some backers.’
I told them, ‘I can get the actors to work on a promise of usage. And the twins’ father, he knows a lot of rich people. And he’s rich, he has an apartment in London, Regent’s Park.’
‘Our locations are free to you, we benefit afterwards,’ the father suggested. ‘People always want to visit film locations.’
