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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.
