Children of the Master. Andrew Marr

Unless I’m badly mistaken, you’ll do it very well. And then come down to the Wallace and have a pie and a pint, and tell me all about it, and meet the boys. I’ll have warmed them up nicely for you. Promise.’

      And indeed, Petrie had been around long enough to know the drill. When a politician enters a house looking for support, what’s the first thing he doesn’t do? He doesn’t talk about politics.

      He began with a retired couple, long-standing party members and well respected in the city centre branch, where he had least support. ‘No point trying to pull the wool over your eyes; you know why I’m here,’ he told them at the doorstep. After he’d been invited in, his eyes flicked desperately around the living room for the photographs. Yes, there they were. A middle-aged couple in the sunshine, somewhere abroad – could be Australia, could be South Africa – but not dressed for a holiday. And another picture, of a grinning boy and girl with dirty knees, in the sweatshirts of the local school. So, one grown-up child overseas. Don’t see them enough. Cost of air travel. Prestwick. And another one who still lived nearby, hence the grandkids. The local school – that was the way in.

      ‘Those two look a bit older than my Callum, but he loves it there. Whose are they?’

      ‘They’re our youngest, Katy’s. They’re a wild pair, but they’re lovely kids. They come around every weekend. The swings. A kickabout in the park. Poor George is going to give himself a heart attack with those kids one day. But you wouldn’t have it any other way, would you George?’ George looked uncertain, but nodded dutifully.

      ‘And didn’t I hear that your older girl went off abroad and made something of herself?’ said Davie, guessing wildly.

      ‘Aye, she married a computer whiz-kid from Dundee, and they’re off in San Francisco, living the high life. No kids. She Skypes us every week, and that’s great, but we hardly ever see her.’

      ‘Skype, eh? Didn’t have you down as a computer guru, George.’

      George raised his mottled, hound-dog face. ‘I’m no guru, Mr Petrie. But even though I’m retired, I haven’t got all day. Let’s cut to the bloody chase, shall we? You want to be our candidate?’ With that, he began to cough uncontrollably.

      ‘Aye, I do. Because the local hospital’s bloody useless, George, and you know it as well as I do,’ said Davie, revelling in his own quickness.

      A quarter of an hour later, after consuming some home-made gingerbread and a mug of tea, David Petrie felt he had them in his pocket. There was always the danger that some big figure from London might arrive and blow them over, but they seemed too prickly and too proud of the town for that.

      The second home visit was rather harder. Elspeth Cook, stern matriarch, was something of a legend in the local party. Her angry divorce years back had split two branches in bits. She lived in one of the few harled prefabs from the 1940s that were left on the outskirts of Glaikit. The veteran of many Labour conference speeches, she had the uncompromising face of a class-war fighter who felt more sure of herself the more she was defeated. Davie felt nervous as he knocked on her door. He barely knew her, and he was all too conscious that he didn’t have a plan.

      The snarl of a terrier – a Westie called Rosa, with a nasty nip – greeted him as the door opened.

      ‘Aye, aye,’ said Mrs Cook. ‘Thought you’d be round. Fancy yourself as a politician now, do you, wee Davie?’

      The pictures in her crammed, overheated front room told a very different story from those in the house he had just left. An anti-apartheid poster from the 1960s; a framed appeal for support for miners’ wives and children from 1982; and a tinted portrait of Keir Hardie – probably worth a bit. The only personal photograph Davie could see showed an unappealing young woman, her face as expressionless as a bar of soap, wearing steel spectacles. This would be the daughter, Bunty. She was, as they said round here, affectionately enough, ‘a big daftie’ – not necessarily educationally subnormal, but profoundly dim. Not much scope for idle banter there.

      But Elspeth Cook turned out to be not quite what Davie had expected. ‘Right now, you’ll sit down there. You and me have to have a good talk. I’ve got a new batch of potato scones, and a big boiling of tea. So park your arse and prepare yourself for fearsome Granny Stalin.’ She grinned broadly.

      A few minutes later, after they had polished off some warm scones dripping with butter, she got down to business. ‘See, Mr Petrie, I’m one for the workers. That’s the basis of my socialism. Two sides: us and them. You may think that’s a wee bit simplistic, but the more I look around, the more it makes sense. I’m no communist, and I’m certainly no Trot. I know change takes time. But what I can’t quite get my head around is why, though you’re a nice-looking boy, right enough, I should vote for a boss as our next candidate, rather than young Pat Connelly, who’s a worker after all. One of us.’

      ‘Well, I’m scarcely a boss. I started laying bricks for my dad. There isn’t a job – electrics, plumbing, joinery, plastering – that I can’t do better than most of the lads on the sites. All I’ve done is work hard and give work to local men and women who need it. I’ve always been on the side of the underdog. What’s so wrong with that?’

      ‘Come on, son. The way I hear it, you’ve been sucking up to the councillors and officials for years, just like your dad, and cornering a nice wee profit all round this town. You pay your men the minimum wage, but no’ much more. It’s a great big new hoose you’ve built for yourself. No’ objecting, mind. But you’re hardly a proletarian, darling, are you?’

      Davie put his case again, with all the eloquence he had. He made a lot of eye contact, and they had some good laughs, but at the end the redoubtable Elspeth seemed unmoved.

      ‘I’ll be honest, pet, I like you more than I thought I would. But I’m voting for Pat Connelly, and I’ll be telling the rest of the comrades to do the same.’

      Davie walked back up the road – he’d deliberately taken the bus rather than driving – and reflected on the size of this blow. Granny Stalin was much loved hereabouts. She was a real character, a good woman. There must be a way in.

      As he stared idly through the bus’s grimy windows at the familiar chip shops, charity outlets and a derelict-looking estate agent’s, Davie remembered something Murdoch White had said the previous evening. ‘See, the simplistic view of politics is that it’s all about blackmail and arm-twisting – find a fellow’s weak point, scare the living daylights out of him, and you’ve got him for life. Well, in my experience that’s sometimes true, but it’s only part of the story. Friendship and guilt work even more strongly. Do a guy a favour, and you’ve got him for a year. Make him do you a favour, and you’ve got him for ten. A branch party isn’t just a collection of individuals. It’s a family, a tiny tribe. And like any family it has its feuds and its leaders. All you need to do is understand the feuds, and make your mark with the tribal leader.’

      Elspeth Cook was certainly the tribal leader. He couldn’t let her go. So when he got off at the stop by the council chambers, instead of heading straight to the Wallace, he went in.

      Bunty. She wasn’t handicapped, just good, old-fashioned, stupid. He knew she had a job, of a kind, at the council. Works? Administration? He’d often seen her pale, round moon of a face, with two expressionless currant eyes and a limp, wet mouth that never closed, behind her formidable mother at branch meetings, at the GMC, even at conference.

      ‘Can I do this? Can I really go this far?’ he asked himself. But he had no choice.

      He found her quickly enough, sitting behind a Formica desk, staring dully at a computer screen.

      ‘Hello, Bunty. Remember me?’

      Bunty stuck a fat white forefinger into her mouth, licked it slowly, then took it out and drew it across her jumper. A little lump of goo sat at the edge of her mouth.

      ‘Aye. You’re Mr Petrie, right enough. Or you were yesterday. I’m no’ stupid, you know.’

      ‘I know that, Bunty. Now, I