Free Paper Money by Ken Follett Page A

flourished in the grammar school, he remembered. He had been the leader of the gang, the one who organized playground games and classroom rebellions. Until he got his glasses.
    There: he had been trying to remember when in his life he had felt despair like this; and now he knew. It had been the first day he wore his glasses to school. The members of his gang had been at first dismayed, then amused, then scornful. By playtime he was being followed by a crowd chanting “Four-eyes.” After lunch he tried to organize a football match, but John Willcott said: “It’s not your game.” Tim put his spectacles in their case and punched Willcott’s head; but Willcott was big, and Tim, who normally dominated by force of personality, was no fighter. Tim ended up stanching a bloody nose in the cloakroom while Willcott picked teams.
    He tried to make a comeback during History, by flicking inky paper pellets at Willcott under the nose of Miss Percival, known as Old Percy. But the normally indulgent Percy decided to have a clampdown that day, and Tim was sent to the headmaster for six of the best. On the way home he had another fight, lost again, and tore his blazer; his mother took the money for a new one out of the nest egg Tim was saving to buy a crystal radio kit, setting him back six months. It was the blackest day of young Tim’s life, and his leadership qualities remained stifled until he went to college and joined the Party.
    A lost fight, a torn blazer, and six of the best: he could wish for problems like that now. A whistle blew in the playground outside the flat, and the noise of the children ceased abruptly. I could end my troubles that quickly, Tim thought; and the idea appealed.
    What was I living for yesterday? he wondered. Good work, my reputation, a successful government; none of these things seemed to matter today. The school whistle meant it was past nine o’clock. Tim should have been chairing a committee meeting to discuss the productivity of different kinds of power stations. How could I ever have been interested in anything so meaningless? He thought of his pet project, a forecast of the energy needs of British industry through to the year 2000. He could summon no enthusiasm for it. He thought of his daughters, and dreaded the idea of facing them. Everything turned to ashes in his mouth. What did it matter who would win the next election? Britain’s fortunes were determined by forces outside its leaders’ control. He had always known it was a game, but he no longer wanted the prizes.
    There was nobody he could talk to, nobody. He imagined the conversation with his wife: “Darling, I’ve been foolish and disloyal. I was seduced by a whore, a beautiful, supple girl, and blackmailed . . .” Julia would freeze on him. He could see her face, taking on a rigid look of distaste as she withdrew from emotional contact. He would reach out to her with his hand, and she would say: “Don’t touch me.” No, he could not tell Julia, not until he was sure his own wounds had healed—and he did not think he could survive that long.
    Anyone else? Cabinet colleagues would say: “Good God, Tim, old chap—I’m terribly sorry . . .” and immediately begin to map out a fallback position for the time when it got out. They would take care not to be associated with anything he sponsored, not to be seen with him too often, might even make a morality speech to establish Puritan credentials. He did not hate them for what he knew they would do: his prognosis was based on what he would do in that situation.
    His agent had come close to being a friend, once or twice. But the man was young; he could not know how much depended upon fidelity in a twenty-year-old marriage; he would cynically recommend a thorough cover-up and overlook the damage already done to a man’s soul.
    His sister, then? An ordinary woman, married to a carpenter, she had always envied Tim a little. She would wallow in it. Tim could not contemplate that.
    His