This is the second of three extracts from The Candidate, written by former People's National Party (PNP)Member of Parliament, Douglas Manley.
REFLECTING ON his countrymen's undying faith in the personal touch, Mr. P composed a carefully non-committal recommendation which did not appear to favour one individual over another and could be given to anybody.
This was accepted without comment, but a few men attempted to gain an extra edge by going to Dibella and asking her to get Mr. P. to write a special letter for them. They were not successful in this, but they did succeed in bringing the whole project to her attention.
In response to this information, she got out her camera and announced her intention of doing a pictorial series, covering the actual pipe-laying and Tiny Tim's curry goat feast, to celebrate the completion of the project.
"It will make a total package, should be good, especially with Tiny Tim and his feast, and you pontification when you turn the water on!"
"Well," said Mr. P defensively. "I may not turn the water on. Perhaps we will get a Minister to come out and do it."
"Even so, you are the MP, and it's in your area, so I'm sure you'll have ample opportunity to pontificate."
"You mean, whenever I speak in public I pontificate?!" Mr. P. was indignant.
"I didn't say that quite but still, let's face it, there is a tendency, a proneness to what seems to be an occupational disease," she insisted.
"Perhaps certain occupations bring out certain characteristics in people."
"Maybe... politicians pontificate, so do lawyers, teachers tend to be bossy and so forth."
"Well, don't say that too loud or you'll get into trouble," he warned.
She laughed. "Well, anyway, it should be a good piece, lots of straining muscles laying pipe. Tiny Tim and his curried goat should be very colourful."
"And both Turville and Rose at your beck and call," he said a trifle spitefully.
She paused at this information.
"Will they be there?"
"You better believe, each one trying to suggest that the whole thing was his idea his baby."
"Whose idea was it?" she queried.
"Not sure that I really know; seems to have arisen out of a meeting held in Cocoa Walk. The idea of a petition seems to have come from Miss Vi, as near as I can figure. Certainly it seems the sort of thing she would do quick to get the political mileage out of every situation."
"Useful knack that," Dibella commented.
"Oh sure, and she has it in full measure. Makes her a good combination with Rose. He is solid and straightforward, she is up to all the tricks, takes his good qualities, solid but not very glamorous, and puts a bit of shine on them!"
"I wonder if this team spirit will go a little further on a more personal level?"
Mr. P laughed and said "There you go again! Never knew a woman who wasn't an inveterate matchmaker."
NOT ONE OF THEM
"Well, what's wrong with that? Somebody has to help people get together!"
"Face a fact, she is not exactly a sex symbol, and second, I am sure he has a wife or baby mother or something tucked away, ready and able to repel all invaders. Besides, what about you, haven't I heard rumours about your involvement in certain quarters? More than one quarter as a matter of fact? I don't know everything, but I do get some news, you know. Not totally ignorant despite what you may believe!"
"You have a funny way of showing it."
"If you stop and think, my feelings have been made known from time to time if not by me, by others." There was no laughter as he spoke.
She accepted this without comment. Sometimes it was best not to get too deeply involved in certain subjects, and she had not forgotten the scolding she had received from one of his adherents, or his refusal to reprimand the man in any way, thus giving tacit approval to what had been said.
It was an episode she preferred not to think about, though she was forced to recall it from time to time as people reminded her that she was, after all, a foreign reporter and, however friendly, basically not one of them.
She was not going to be put off by these considerations, however, and the pipe laying scheme was made to order for her she would take maximum advantage of it.
Already she could see the pictures in her mind's eye the men straining at the pipes, Mr. P, a finger raised as he made a teacherly exposition, Tiny Tim with his mouth open, wolfing curried goat. Perhaps she might even get the two rivals to be photographed hauling on a length of pipe. They might not like it, but she doubted either one would have the nerve to refuse, not in front of the large crowd which promised to be there.
In her mind she even began composing the headlines for the article which would appear in the press: 'Water for the people!' might do nicely. With luck, if she got some really dramatic pictures, she might even be able to put together something for one of her overseas contacts.
She continued to speculate cheerfully about the journalistic possibilities, without addressing the immediate intractable human problems involved.
Indeed, few of the major participants had paid adequate attention to this aspect of the matter.
A SERIOUS PROBLEM
The first to hit a serious problem was Pat Walters, with Turville himself. He had casually agreed that he would have to shut the latter's mouth, without giving due consideration to his anger and frustration, or to have the effect that the revelation of his own anger might have.
Obviously Turville had been talking out of turn, shooting off his mouth to be more precise, and he would probably suffer more when the matter was fully exposed. Nevertheless, Pat Walters had also been put in an embarrassing position and he was not at his most tactful when he spoke with his accomplice.
He met him as usual when Turville came in to make out the weekly paybill. He gave the papers to the clerk who would prepare them to be signed and sent to the accounts department; then the two sat in his office.
For a moment nothing was said as Turville watched the Mayor fiddling with a brass paper weight on his desk, composed of the familiar figure, "See no evil, Hear no evil, Speak no evil."
Finally he lost patience. "OK, I see your three monkeys, but what's on your mind!"
"These monkeys are important right now. You know about the petition to take water down to Cocoa Walk?"
"Of course I know all about it, a survey is going to be done soon, I haven't met the team from town yet, but I will when they come, I'll be right there to greet them and to pilot them right through the district. What's that got to do with your monkeys?"
"We had a deal, didn't we?" the Mayor reminded him.
"You mean about the road? Yes, so what about it?"
Paul Walters tapped one of the monkeys. "Speak no evil?"
The other man looked flustered and defensive. "I don't get you. What's that got to do with the pipeline?"
"Nothing, my friend, and everything you have tied us up!"
"Me! Mas' Pat, I don't know what you going after, but you not making any sense. I don't understand you at all and I don't know what you have with that ugly monkey and me!" Turville protested.
"Speak no evil I gave you a share in that contract. I didn't have to, but I did."
"So what, you said yourself that you needed a front man, that was me."
"And you were glad to get it."
"Yes, I took it of course, who wouldn't?"
"But you didn't speak no evil. If you didn't like something, come to me, not every Tom, Dick and Harry."
"What the backside you talking about?"
"I warned you that I would be checking on you. You laughed and promised there would be no trouble, right?"
"Right and there is no trouble, so what's your problem?"
"I have three problems," said the Mayor. "One, you have been cheating on the work. Two, you have been running you mouth, and three, certain people have found out about it. That is where you have tied us up!"
"I hope you don't make those statements in public," Turville said threateningly, "or you'll be hearing from a lawyer in the next post."
"Stick a pin..." The Mayor waved a hand in the general direction of the clerk with the paybill... "Say seven loads of gravel charged on the paper, five dropped on site according to people in the area. That's bad enough. I give you a break and you run you mouth, say I have you arse in a vice, and worst of all you make certain people, certain Labourite, hear about it!"
"Not true, never tell anybody. Where you get a story like that!" Turville's protest was reflexive. "You think I would talk those things to a Labourite? Which Labourite?"
Pat Walters cut him off. "Never mind which Labourite. The man didn't have some vague idea, he knew exactly what was going on. He wasn't guessing, he knew for a fact. Only one place that came from. It wasn't me, so it had to be you."
"Well," shrugged Turville defiantly, "so what difference does it make anyway?"
"You're the one looking selection, not me. That story can be made to make you look bad."
"Nobody can prove anything!"
"Certain people don't have to prove anything. They make an accusation they hear so and so has happened somebody else says yes, he knows it's true, you put two and two together and you get a very ugly four. And anybody who gets to see the paybills will make it look even more ugly. This time you arse really in a vice. You will just have to pay the price."
CUT A DEAL
Turville pricked up his ears. "Price? What price?"
"Well, the person who has the goods on you may shut his mouth if you make a little concession I said maybe, you understand, nothing is final right now."
"Fine, fine, cut the deal and we solve the problem, go ahead!"
"Not so fast, wait till you hear what he wants and who it is especially who it is!"
"Ok, tell me!"
"The person wants a small part of the pipe-laying exercise."
"But that will probably be put out to tender, and you would not be able to divide it up."
"Well, he has figured that a part, a subsidiary road guide the men and equipment actually laying the pipe, could be handled as a different job, since it could be used by vehicles after the main job is done," Walters explained.
"Maybe, I don't know about that. So who is the man?"
'THAT LABOURITE!'
"Why, none other than your good friend Tiny Tim. Who else!"
"Tiny Tim! That Labourite, how could we get away with that? No way!" Turville waved his arms in protest.
"I'm afraid there has to be a way."
"But how does he come into this?"
"Because he was the one who fingered you and then me, and he got it right. Somewhere along the line you let slip something, he picked it up and now he wants his piece of the pie," Walters invited harshly.
"Tim!"
"Yes, Tim! He has it all worked out and he has it right!"
"But who would believe anything Tiny Tim said? He's a born news carrier."
"Plenty people have believed what he has said recently, if the rumours I've been hearing are true. Besides, he can have other people carry the story up front. People who will be believed."
"So the story will fly anyway, it won't make any difference."
"Except that this way he won't back it up. He'll back away, say he doesn't know if it's true. Situation will be bad, but not as bad as if he backs it up, chapter and verse."
Turville reflected. "But what will everybody else say, what about Mr. P, Miss Vi and all the other people in the district?"
"He seemed to feel that if you shut up, he can find a way to muzzle the rest."
"But what will I do? People will expect me to say something."
"That's your problem; you have to find a way to shut up, hard for a man with your mouth, but you'll have to manage. Maybe just a little fuss, not enough to make a difference. Be busy piloting the surveyors through the bush, something like that."
