Boris Johnson - Bosferatu! The vampire heart of Covid
Boris Johnson used to joke that he admired the Mayor in Jaws because – a few people may have been killed – but at least he kept the beaches open. But the Covid enquiry reminds us that he’s closer to Dracula.
In the Bram Stoker’s novel., newly qualified solicitor Jonathan Harker is sent to Castle Dracula by his employer Peter Hawkins, who has been buying a London property on Dracula’s behalf. Hawkins claims in his letter of introduction that an attack of gout prevents him from travelling but Dracula is already aware of the substitution (“I bid you welcome, Mr Harker,” he says) and Harker already suspects that the muffled coach driver who brought him to the castle might have been Dracula in disguise. Hawkins’ letter ominously introduces Harker as “full of energy…very faithful.” In a Westminster context Hawkins appears to be throwing Harker under the bus.
The unofficial silent film Nosferatu merges the characters of Hawkins and Renfield making it clear that Harker’s employer was a Dracula groupie. In the novel we hear no more about Peter Hawkins until Jonathan Harker has returned to England. Mr Hawkins, still suffering from gout, asks Jonathan and his new wife Mina to come and live in his house near Exeter Cathedral. “I have left to me neither chick nor child,” so he makes Jonathan a partner and rewrites his will to make them his beneficiaries. That is on the 17th September, and by the 18th September Hawkins is dead!
So the novel leaves it ambiguous. The little we see of Hawkins is positively Dickensian, but could his generosity be motivated by guilt? And is his sudden death a natural one? Gout sufferers are at increased risk of cardiovascular disease, so it could have just been a heart attack. Or is it a case of Dracula disposing of a security risk?
Which brings us back to Boris. In the novel, a cluster of deaths which coincide with Dracula’s arrival in England.
17 September: The mother of Lucy Westerna dies of fright. 18 September. Peter Hawkins is found dead. 20 September, the father of Arthur Holmwood (Lucy’s fiancée) dies after an illness. On the same day Lucy also dies. As Dr Seward puts it, “the angel of death…has been flapping those grim wings with some purpose as of late.” Can it all be coincidental? Or is Dracula clearing out the old who, in Johnson’s words, “have had a good innings.”
Dracula is at heart a civil servant’s novel*. Stoker devotes a full page to the remarkable foresight of Lucy’s mother. Her solicitor, Mr Marquand, tells Van Helsing that she had left her estate to Arthur Holmwood – Lucy’s fiancé. If she had left it to her daughter, Lucy would have died without making a will, leaving her property intestate. From Van Helsing’s point of view, this makes it easier for Holmwood to deal with the undead Lucy’s body, even though they were not married. From Stoker’s point of view, it would have been easier to have them married but he instead he concocts this remarkable bit of legal foresight. Possibly a bit of Inheritance Tax planning, but mirroring Peter Hawkins’ timely transfer of his estate to Jonathan Harker.
*Stoker’s first publication was ‘The Duties of Clerks of Petty Sessions in Ireland’.
Death sweeps through the crew of the Demeter, poor old Mr Swales with his broken neck on the steps at Whitby, Lucy’s mother, Peter Hawkins and Lucy herself. A cause for concern? But then we recall the words of Sir Patrick Vallance from December 2020: The Prime Minister, “says his party ‘thinks the whole thing is pathetic and Covid is just Nature’s way of dealing with old people – and I am not entirely sure I disagree with them. A lot of moderate people think it is a bit too much.’” At the same meeting Johnson was believed to have said: “Why are we destroying the economy for people who will die anyway soon.”
Lucy seems to be the exception, but of course Dracula has plans for young Lucy. And she’s only the first. Dracula later tells Van Helsing and his other pursuers: “You, with your pale faces all in a row, like sheep in a butchers! Your girls that you all love are mine already!”
For Johnson, the population were just “jackals to do his bidding.” He was only persuaded to lockdown Britain when he realised his foodsource might be compromised by an unchecked pandemic. But all the time he was calculating how many of us he could do without.
In the end, Dracula is undone because Jonathan Harker slashes open the coat pocket where Dracula keeps a hoard of bank notes and gold coins. Dracula is only able to grab a handful back. Like Dracula, Johnson’s libidinous urges are undone by his shortage of cash. And he leaves behind him a trail of women, laughing at him with ribald coquetry, “You never love!”
Johnson was undone because he partied while people were dying. But isn’t that what Dracula does?
