A Parliamentary Affair (48 page)

Karen’s eyes filled with tears of self-pity but she shook them away. It was about time she behaved as an adult – that was the advice being flung at her from all sides. An adult would head straight for the drinks cabinet. A whole cupboard full of whisky and wine and liqueurs. She walked over and picked up the bottles, examining them with mingled curiosity and defiance.

There was the Tia Maria, and ouzo, from Greek holidays. Or Drambuie – that was her favourite, when her parents allowed. She poured a little into a glass and took a swallow. It slid down remarkably easily, and a warm surge began to spread from her stomach. She began to relax; it was at least something to do. A feeling of well-being started to take hold, replacing the desolation she had brought home with her. A casual thought surfaced in her mind which suddenly felt like a great idea. Maybe she should get drunk: that’s what adults did when they felt miserable.

She would have to find out sooner or later how much she could take without passing out. After all, she argued with herself grimly, she was discovering how much emotion she could handle: maybe it was time to establish her physical capacity as well. The still small voice packed up entirely and was replaced with a demonic whisper somewhere behind her right ear. It would be perfectly safe to get thoroughly drunk in the house on her own – far better than doing it inadvertently in public and making a fool of herself. The matter was decided forthwith.

Her legs began to feel a bit wobbly and for safety’s sake she carried a couple of half-full bottles of liqueur and a glass to the sofa, flopping down with a giggle, her coat flapping around her. A pile of newspapers and magazines on the arm slipped haphazardly to the floor. It didn’t matter. There was no serious problem: no Betts here tonight. No horrible man pushing his fingers, and worse, inside her. Her brain locked on disapprovingly. ‘Worse’? That was not being very adult. It had a name:
penis
. Shocked, she said it out loud, and toasted it with another drink, then said it louder, and cackled at her own boldness. Other horrible words flitted through her brain like plankton under a microscope, wriggling and changing shape and swimming away out of reach. Each time she caught one she said it, then shouted it:
Court case! Rape! Jury!
The picture slithered into her mind of what would happen if
she carried, out her threat to report him. She would have to stand up in court, in the witness box, wearing her best clothes, and tell everybody exactly what he did. The horrible details. That moustache all wet and slavering, reeking of tobacco. His hard bony hands, and the triumphant look on his face. Not for herself alone could she stand up in court, not in a million years: not even to stop him ever trying it again on anyone else. She would rather die.

It wouldn’t stop him, or other men either. Whatever happened men would try it on, and use their superior strength, pretending they had not heard the woman’s protests. Some men even preferred it that way. It excited them more if the woman struggled. The whole business was sickening.

Karen could hear herself whimpering, but the demonic voice was ready with further hissed advice. She was not yet drunk enough: total obliteration was possible, but she had to get a lot more down first. Right to the point where she passed out. She poured another drink.

How good she had tried to be. Other kids faced with the same combination of parental neglect and adult indifference would have done something really
stupid
. That was the word both the school doctor and the agent had used: stupid. It was true, yet she bitterly resented Sparrow’s lumping her in with all the nation’s yobbos. Wildly she looked around. What would constitute doing something really stupid here? Breaking all the windows, maybe, or setting fire to the house. That would make them sit up and take notice. It would cause a lot of trouble. Experimentally she tossed a few cushions around, then stopped. That was all she was capable of, these days, causing trouble. Not only for herself. What would happen if that
Globe
freak let it out? Her mother and Roger would be all over the newspapers. And Sparrow knew. How did he know? Maybe Roger had told him. It would all be known about soon. It was all her fault; she should have been a better daughter. With a maudlin sob she told an almost empty bottle that she had done her best: without help, which seemed never to be forthcoming, she did not know how to do it any differently. It might be better to put a permanent end to all this misery. At least Jake, wherever he was, was no longer twisted and weeping in pain.

An overwhelming urge to explain before it was too late pushed her unsteadily towards her mother’s desk. She would not be home tonight and that was fortunate: looking in the mirror Karen realised with a satisfied grimace that she was already in quite a state. Angrily she tossed off another glass of Drambuie, sat down and rooted around for paper and a biro, and began to write. Putting something on paper became a monumental necessity. Her hands would not obey without a struggle and the resulting scrawl was a mess. So what: no teacher would be writing a report on its legibility. Its content would be clear enough. Then they would all be sorry.

As she finished and stood up, the chair fell over. She gazed around the room and tried to focus. It was a bit of a tip now. She shrugged heavily. She was dreadfully weary. After all this miserable introspection sleep was still the best remedy and was calling her insistently. The little voice agreed and urged her stumbling up the stairs, the coat now trailing, half on and half off, one sleeve caught. At the top she stopped. In the bathroom cupboard there might be something to help. The evening had been a voyage of exploration: the drink had gone down nicely and left her feeling floaty and a bit silly, marginally less dismal, certainly less guilt-ridden. If she never woke up she no longer cared. That would teach them. A couple of her mother’s Mogadons would round everything off perfectly. What a pity it was so difficult to see them in the gloom, or to remember how many she had taken already.

A sleepy glow began to suffuse her body as the burden of a fearful day slipped slowly from her shoulders. Leaving the conscious world would be a pleasure, and so easy.

At the entrance to her mother’s bedroom Karen stumbled heavily and nearly fell. It seemed wisest to take the hint and not try to go any further to her own room. The swaying bed was wonderfully big, bigger than her own, with a vast inviting eiderdown. She half fell on to it, dragged off her coat and pulled the coverlet roughly over herself.

Her face was close to the edge of the bed and her bleary glance fell on the telephone. Maybe she had gone too far and she was going to die: perhaps she ought to ring Samaritans or something. At least they would listen. Yet what did it matter if she did die? That might solve a lot of problems, for everyone else as well as herself. She would no longer be around to get in everybody’s way. In truth there wasn’t much to look forward to. Perhaps giving up was the solution. To bow out was a much more attractive idea than living any longer in that crazy, unwholesome world beyond the four heaving walls of her mother’s bedroom.

One more clever notion came into her addled brain. Groggily she reached for the telephone. Dredging up some remaining energy she fished clumsily in her coat pocket and after several false tries found a piece of paper. She dialled the number on it with a grim smile, slowly rubbing her eyes.

‘Hello,’ said a voice. ‘This is the North-West Warwickshire Conservative Association, Tom Sparrow speaking…’ Now she would tell them: tell them all. Emboldened by drink and hopelessness Karen Stalker let loose exactly what she thought of Tom Sparrow, Roger Dickson and all their doings, dimly aware that her slurred words were emerging uncontrolled and distorted. The tablets seemed to be working. With a final lunge she managed to replace the handset. There was no more to be said, ever.

Then she tugged the soft, warm eiderdown over her face, and at last let go, sliding rapidly down and down and down, where there was no more thought and no more pain and no more tears. Only oblivion, and peace.

Roger Dickson pulled on his shoes and heaved himself to his feet with a long sigh. ‘I never want to leave, Elaine. I don’t know about you, but you make me feel so special.’

‘Then you’d better keep coming, hadn’t you?’ Elaine understood her hold on this man. Coquettish teasing and flirtation were still the order of the day. Soon it would be two years since Roger Dickson had entered her life. ‘I shan’t turn you away. Make the most of it while you can.’ It was always ‘you’ and ‘I’. Two separate people. Never ‘we’. ‘We’ was for couples, recognised and acknowledged as a single entity. Married people or partners, people seen together. She used ‘we’ when she meant herself and her husband, the Stalkers: ‘we have a child’, ‘we have a house’. With Roger she was a single, independent person. So was he. And yet that made their deepest coupling, its physical joining of body and limbs, sliding into place as one, all the more powerful. Only then, in animal darkness, loving each other without words, was union possible.

He came to her and kissed her on the forehead, then held her so close, as if to absorb her into himself, into his very body. She put her hand inside his coat and jacket, searching for the warmth, and rested her fingers on his shirtfront near his heart. Everybody else she met had an appearance. Roger had a feel, too, and a taste. All five senses could be satisfied by him, sometimes all at once. As he spoke she could feel his heart pulsing under her fingers, rub her cheek against his five o’clock shadow, taste still his sweetness in her mouth, smell his skin, his soft odour which was subtly different when he left her, hear his breathing, sense the nearness of his body and pull the whole impression all together by standing back and looking, fixing her last picture of him each time in her mind.

That private view was precious. He was so successful now outside, was photographed more, and was changing slowly in response to the demands of his public image. His hair was a little shorter and always trim, and he had lost a bit of weight. He smiled a lot now, but a broad grin, not that gentle half-smile which revealed his struggling soul, only for her. He chose his clothes with more care and his suits fitted better. Spent more money on them, most like. Her private Roger was becoming less and less part of his persona. She was conscious of the danger of losing these secret images and fought all the more fiercely to retain them in her mind. She wondered with a twinge of jealousy whether
Caroline had the same problem, or whether, seeing Roger daily, she noticed these changes at all. It was getting harder.

He started up. ‘May I use your phone? I forgot to check the answerphone back at the office. I can leave a message on it for Tom, too. Save me a bit of hassle in the morning.’

‘Certainly – go ahead.’

It was nothing unusual; she turned away politely. From his briefcase he took a touch-tone gadget which enabled him to listen to the tape at the other end. He rang once, listened, frowned. Made a note. Listened again. Pulled the handset away from his face, looked at it, puzzled. Looked up at her.

‘Elaine, what’s your daughter’s name?’

‘My daughter? Karen. Why?’

‘She appears to have left a message on my answerphone. Very peculiar, I can’t make it out. Why would she do that?’

‘I’ve no idea. She’s supposed to be at home swotting for her exams. Why on earth would she be leaving a call on your number?’

‘Hang on, I’ll wind it back and you can listen for yourself.’ He pushed buttons and handed her the phone. ‘I’m afraid she sounds drunk. I hope it’s nothing serious.’ Dubiously, as if it might bite, Elaine took the phone. ‘If I repeat what she says, will you write it down? When would this have been recorded?’

‘Let’s see – the office will have closed about six, and that’s the fourth message on the tape. Seven? Eight? Not that long ago, anyway.’

Increasingly alarmed, Elaine listened to the tape. ‘Something about drinking. Wanting to speak to you, Roger. Why should she want to do that? … Rude about your agent. But she’s never met him, as far as I know. How peculiar. Being very rude indeed … Well, I didn’t realise my little girl knew words like that!’

Silence. Elaine gasped, sank to her knees, eyes wide with horror. ‘Play it again. The bit at the end, not all of it.’ She listened once again, then scrambled to her feet. ‘She says she has taken tablets. Mogadon. She must be at home. There were a few left in a bottle in my bathroom. Oh, Christ, Roger, she’s trying to kill herself. God in heaven!’ Cradling the phone in the crook of her neck as if it were her lost child, Elaine turned beseechingly to her lover, tears streaming down her face. ‘Oh, no, no. Not Karen. Not Karen as well. We lost Jake. Not Karen. No, no. Why? Why – what’s going on?’

‘Are you sure that’s Karen – quite sure?’

‘Yes. She sounds very strange, but that is her. I think I’ve got it, Roger. If she’s phoned you, or has talked to your agent, then she must know there’s a connection between us. Maybe that’s what she is trying to tell us.’

Roger was rough. ‘Never mind that.’ He seized the phone from her. ‘First we call the police and an ambulance. Will they have to break in? Let’s hope to God she’s at home, not somewhere else. Think where else she might be.’

Elaine’s mind dissolved in a confusion of names, numbers, terror and panic as Roger spoke quietly to the police, gave Elaine’s name and address, explained that she had had a phone call and feared that her teenage daughter might have done something foolish. All in a clear, sensible, authoritative voice. ‘Who, me?’ He hesitated, ‘I’m just a friend. Mrs Stalker is here but she is very upset.’

Elaine seized the phone from him, gabbled, her voice all out of control, her fear sliding down the line. Confirmed. Yes. The MP. Please, at once. She would leave for home immediately. In the States. No need to contact him yet. Her daughter had sounded drowsy. Time? Oh, not sure. Not long ago. Yes, right away.

‘Try phoning home,’ Roger suggested, ‘It may all have been a joke, though it didn’t sound like one to me.’ Elaine tried, allowing the phone to ring a dozen times. No answer.