A Parliamentary Affair (32 page)

That Miranda Jamieson had arrived earlier on the arm of dapper Mr Frank was no surprise – and no use to
The Globe
either. From time to time he perked up, then crouched and wrote, and dreamed of a warm bed. His fingers were freezing and a dripping nose was defeating a grubby handkerchief. Whoever thought the job of an investigative journalist was glamorous should try it for real.

The emergence of the newly promoted Environment minister Roger Dickson with Elaine Stalker, of all people, had aroused his curiosity. He remembered her from his Warmingshire stint, though she arrived there just as he left. Anne Cook had done a terrific job on her that morning in
The Herald
. Might be worth following up.

Betts was making ready to pursue them when he caught sight of a more familiar face, his own deputy editor’s. In truth he heard Miranda’s noisy laughter pealing down the lobby first, but it was her all right, her black jacket open, flaunting herself, she who thought she was too good for an ordinary working journo like himself. Humiliating that stuck-up bitch would be a pleasure. Who the devil was
she going home with this time? Pulling up a scarf around his face he turned away so she should not see him.

Not Matthew Frank. Taller, better-looking. Another bloody MP! Feeling frisky tonight, obviously. It did not take Betts long to place Muncastle, and to observe the unduly friendly and familiar way in which, arms linked, the gilded pair headed off down the promenade. No wonder she had warned him off. Bloody nerve. Not that she would stop him: she was not a censor, not the arbiter of all that was fit to print. Press magnates were swapping around so fast that she might not be his boss for ever. A little illicit knowledge was always useful.

Betts hesitated, chewing his moustache. His ears were white and numb: that wind would freeze the balls off a brass monkey. He was torn. The Stalker combination was also prime material, well worth following. Probably better, because both were MPs, and one a minister. He licked his lips in anticipation and sniffed hard. Pulling the scarf around his mouth and cursing Thwaite, Miranda,
The Globe
and the unrelenting hunt for unvarnished truth, he set off at a fast trot in the direction of the receding figures of Stalker and what, if his luck was in, was her paramour. It would make a fine story.

It would have been possible to have called a taxi from inside the hotel and to have waited in the glowing warmth. Both Roger and Elaine knew that; instead by mutual consent both wanted to walk and talk, away from prying eyes and company. For a moment they were silent, heads bent into the wind. Then both spoke at once:

‘Roger, what did you think about
The Herald
this –?’

‘I was sorry about that awful article –’

The unity of their thoughts made both laugh, comforted. They walked on. Gusts of cold, wet air blew eddies of sodden litter around their legs. A late tram clanked in the distance, its lights jerky and unreal. By this hour most of the illuminations along the sea walk had been turned off, those that remained casting garish green and red neon over their backs.

Dickson stopped and leaned over the metal railings and looked out at the invisible sea, hearing it roar in the distance. In intervals when the wind stilled he could smell seaweed and brine. At this point the esplanade was dark and deserted. Elaine came to his side and he pulled her close, his arm round her protectively. From behind they could not be recognised.

‘It was a horrid article. I don’t know how you put up with it.’

She was grateful, but shrugged. ‘What option do I have? If I sued it’d take years, with no guarantee of winning. I don’t have the spare cash to risk. I have to remember that these pieces are only written because I’m getting noticed, which I suppose is a good thing, isn’t it?’

‘It’s a high price to pay for fame.’

‘It’ll happen to you; just watch. When you become better known and are a target worth pillorying. I mean’ – she corrected herself hastily – ‘you are worthy of attention now, so you should be careful.’

He wanted to kiss her very badly. Their position was some way from the main hotels, whose lights twinkled behind them. Out on the black horizon a fishing vessel lay at anchor. Her body was close to his, so close it made him ache with longing and regret. With an almost involuntary movement they clung together for comfort, as animals will in a warm stable when all is cold outside. He could feel her misty breath filling the air between them.

Slowly she turned to him, for these days she could almost read his thoughts. Her head tilted back, her earrings tinkled. She opened her mouth, showing bright teeth gleaming in the dark, and smiled. She spoke for him:

‘I love you so much, Roger Dickson, and I want to go to bed with you, right now. I’m thinking lewd thoughts about you, all mixed up with honey and sweat and the very taste of you. I would like to take you deep into me, and make love to you all night.’

He spoke softly as if from far away. ‘It isn’t possible. If we were to go to a hotel we’d be open to blackmail. You know that.’

‘I know. The danger is exactly the same for me as it is for you. However, there’s one chance. If you kiss me, properly, now, I will return to my virginal bed content. For the moment.’

What choice did he have? There in the northern chill night he bent his head and complied, tongue upon tongue, grasping her tight, reaching under her coat to feel her breasts, getting as close as he could in substitute for what he so desperately wanted, remembering that first time when she took him into her mouth, in a gesture so simple, so audacious, so submissive that he still cried out with the shock of its recall. He could not say to her, ‘I love you.’ Not now, not ever. Not just because he belonged to a wife – Elaine understood that, and it would not of itself have stopped him – but because to say it implied a commitment to Elaine, to this affair, that he could not give.

What had started as a bit of fun had slowly turned into a central part of his life, but he was not about to abandon everything he had worked for to plunge himself and his family straight into a divorce. That had been ruled out absolutely at the beginning and was still ruled out. Caroline did not hold a candle to Elaine, but Caroline was an excellent politician’s wife, competent, friendly and self-effacing; he had nothing to reproach her for, nothing at all, no case he could or would make against her. To be frank, as he admitted to himself, Elaine would have made a pretty hopeless political wife. She would have been competing all the time, laying demands for the right to have her own opinions instead of dutifully supporting him as he needed. The idea was ludicrous, considered only briefly and as quickly dismissed. If his wife ever wanted a divorce, that might be a different matter. Dickson was perfectly aware that he would not have stayed unmarried for long, would soon have been saying ‘I love you’ to some female. He shut out of his mind the thought that, even in these circumstances, Elaine would still not have been suitable.

Yet he was caught: for the trouble was, he did love Elaine. That did not mean he had taken leave of his senses. He loved her dearly, and he was never going to tell her.

At last the embrace was spent. Roger said gruffly: ‘I’ll find you a cab. The hotel over there’ll have a phone, or a rank. Come on.’

It was so cold. She slipped her gloved hand gratefully inside his. Walking quickly away from the promenade, the two failed to notice Betts a hundred yards away. But he had noticed them, and was smiling.

At the moment of waking Boswood knew he was in trouble. Every joint and limb ached. His eyes were sticky and hurt when he rubbed them. As the alarm buzzed, he tried to roll over, only to fall back in misery at the crashing sounds of a noisy building site at full pelt inside his head. Slowly he eased himself into a sitting position, desperately running fingers over his feverish forehead and tried to clear a dry rasping throat. A bout of flu had been threatening all week, but regular doses of aspirin had kept it at bay. Now it was back with a vengeance.

Carefully Nigel slid his feet to the edge of the bed and felt for his slippers. By now his head was pounding hard in syncopated rhythm with his heartbeat. Damn Peter for leaving him in a mess. There must be a doctor in the Imperial somewhere. He reached for the phone and dialled the desk. As a languid young man answered, Boswood realised with a groan that he could not respond.

His voice had gone. Kaput, finished. This morning’s orator was silent. He could produce only a painful whisper. At the other end of the phone an irritated voice was asking him to speak up.

‘I can’t!’ he almost shouted. What came out was a strangulated squeak. ‘I’ve lost my voice! Boswood here, room 312. Can you get me a doctor, quickly?’

Elizabeth Murless had cold thin hands and humourless steel-blue eyes. Small, slight, fair and rigidly Scots, Dr Murless had trained in Glasgow and not been best pleased to find herself as a GP
trainee south of the border in the wilds of Blackpool. She surveyed the stricken Cabinet minister with an unsympathetic air.

‘You have laryngitis, minister. Nothing serious. I should make less fuss about it if I were you. I’ll give you a prescription. No need to stay in bed unless you’re feeling really poorly. Just don’t talk much. I know that’s hard for a politician, but it’s the only cure, do you hear?’

‘But I have to make a speech,’ Boswood whispered miserably.

‘Not today, you don’t.’ Dr Murless was firm. ‘If it’s that important, somebody will have to read it out for you. Sorry; but, if you try, your voice will give out in no time and you could strain your vocal cords, is that understood? Won’t do you any harm to rest quiet for a few days. Most politicians, in my opinion, talk too much anyway.’

So do doctors, Boswood reflected murderously, but decided against using precious breath on the woman.

As soon as she vanished he was on the phone again. Within half an hour, during which he showered gingerly and dressed, Roger and Andrew were in the room, anxious expressions on their faces.

‘You’ll have to do it, that’s all,’ Boswood croaked, thrusting the speech into Roger’s hand. ‘We will all be on the platform as planned. It’s your big chance. Good luck.’

Dickson began to protest, but Boswood was right. It was much too late to cancel the morning’s debate. The simplest damage-limitation exercise was to do as Boswood suggested. It was not all bad news; the goodwill engendered by his boss’s plight might smooth the way for Roger’s introduction.

Fortunately the Environment team were not the first on duty. By 10.30 Sir Nigel Boswood, blowing his nose vigorously and trying not to look sorry for himself, was assembled with the rest of his team at the side of the enormous blue-draped platform, as a debate on Sunday trading drew to its usual inconclusive close.

From his vantage point, half hidden, Roger surveyed the conference with mixed emotions. The old-fashioned hall contrasted oddly with the ultra-modern ziggurat of the podium. Behind the speakers a thirty-foot envelope wall, almost to the height of the gilded ceiling, carried a suitably anodyne slogan and the party’s symbol so hugely and elaborately portrayed that it was only recognisable as a flaming torch from far away, or on television, which was the intention. That the platform took up space which might have been filled with several hundred more seats for delegates was unimportant. The whole edifice was awe inspiring to those nearby and quite terrifying for speakers from the floor, and fulfilled its purpose of making all ministers seem godlike.

Roger watched as the party workers, now filling the hall, laid claim to the best places and determinedly shoved cameramen and photographers out of the way. These people would be judge and jury on him. By lunchtime, if all was well, he would be feted and congratulated. He in turn warily admired the delegates, those volunteers who gave time and money year after year without thought or hope of reward except to see their side win. Democracy could not function without their efforts, yet many harboured furious anti-democratic urges. Roger reflected with a shiver that anyone who contemplated granting the British people a referendum need only spend an hour or two in the company of Mr Bloggs from Darlington or Mrs Bloggs from Dartmouth to know how dangerous it might be. Dickson agreed with Attlee’s view that such devices were for demagogues and dictators. For the moment, to its credit, the party was led by neither.

All too soon it was the turn of Boswood’s team, which trooped on to the platform as the chairman shook hands. A swell of noise filled the hall as delegates shifted, yawned, changed seats, read newspapers, headed for the loo before the next session. Behind the ministers and party worthies were rows of seats filled with portly councillors and area chairmen. Tessa Muncastle was there in a dark-blue dress, a simple gold cross at her neck. Next to her Caroline looked hale and hearty in fine
tweed, her long muscular legs gracefully crossed. Alison Carey sat on the other side, wearing an almost regulation outfit of blue suit, dark tights and black patent shoes. Alison had checked the Secretary of State’s health a moment earlier and ascertained that he was not likely to pass out on the platform under the glare of television lights; his pulse was shallow and fast and his temperature a little too high, but there was no sign of heart distress.

‘Provided you behave yourself and don’t get too excited you should survive the next ninety minutes without disaster,’ she had whispered to him severely. Boswood decided glumly that he did not care for this fearsome new breed of women medics. He preferred the days of bumbling old fools with whiskers who knew nothing and dispensed only worldly wisdom which could then safely be ignored.

Once ten feet up on the platform, watching the swirl of noisy movement, Roger became aware of how dramatic and overpowering is the main hall of Blackpool’s Winter Gardens in the full flow of Party Conference. He found himself staring at a sea of upturned faces. He felt sick at the pit of his stomach and swallowed hard to steady himself. Not for years had he felt nerves, not since his maiden speech in the House. In a few minutes those thousands of eyes would be fixed in one direction. All the cameras would be glaring at him, not at Boswood, staring up his nostrils, trying to detect a glimmer, whether terror or disagreement or pretentiousness or boredom: anything interesting or unwonted in his facial expression, for tomorrow’s inside page. Once the media interest started it would never stop. Never again would he be able to relax completely.