A Parliamentary Affair (66 page)

‘I will make a note of that in my report,’ Freemantle offered weakly. Ingratitude, he called it.

Mrs Farebrother cleared her sore throat and tried to pour oil. ‘Please understand that we appreciate all the assistance. We have felt overwhelmed, that’s all. Swept aside. The little local sensitivities ignored. Not me, but that’s what my ladies say.’

‘There was a pause. Nobody had mentioned the candidate, who sat sombre and silent. The heater hissed dolefully. Mrs Farebrother blew her nose.

Bulstrode heaved a sigh. ‘We’ve been lumbered in my view with a double burden: crass incompetence at Central Office and the effects of the recession. I accept that perhaps we’re being too critical. ’Owever good the campaign, we would ’ave been up against it. Too many people round ’ere ’ave been made redundant. Too many businesses crashed. People lost their ’omes, or even those who ’aven’t worried about it. ’Ere we are, asking for a vote of confidence and it’s no surprise if we don’t get it.’

He gestured at Carey. ‘What upsets me is the thought that Marcus ’ere is going to get all the blame. ’E doesn’t deserve it, Freemantle, and I ’ope you put that in your report, too. In current conditions if we’d put God Almighty up ’e’d ’ave got ’ammered.’

Freemantle leaned back in his chair and put his fingertips together. ‘We are not defeated yet,’ he pointed out firmly. ‘Remember the last general election? The voters showed more sense than all the opinion pollsters put together.’ Nobody believed him. The evidence of the doorsteps was against him. The meeting settled a few necessary arrangements for the following day and broke up.

Almost by instinct Bulstrode and Mrs Farebrother came together and approached Marcus, facing him. Bulstrode spoke for them both.

‘Marcus, you’ve done us very well. I accept that your colour ’as been an ’andicap, but that can’t be ’elped. It’s a wicked world at times. You conducted yourself as we would ’ave wished. Thank you, and don’t blame yourself.’ What were intended to be kind words came out curtly, like a dismissal. Any invitation to carry on, to continue as candidate for the general election, was entirely missing.

Mr Day would be heartily glad when it was all over and his fiefdom returned to slumber. Of middle height, middle age and middle-of-the-road opinions, Trevor Day was happy that his ambitions in life – to be chief executive of a charming middle-sized borough somewhere in southern England – had long since been realised. Necessarily and scrupulously non-partisan, he enjoyed his local status, serving as chairman of Rotary, attending Chamber of Trade meetings, hovering and organising and staying humbly in the background, while others disported on platforms and exposed themselves to public ridicule. No unpredictable electorate was going to turf him out. Provided he kept a clean show on the road in the best tradition of English local government, he could expect to stay in this job for life, and retire contented and appreciated in due course.

There was just time to give last-minute instructions to his counting staff, mainly bank clerks and clerical workers who had done it before. It was approaching ten: the polls would be closing any minute. Policemen were arriving, television reporters were getting ready for a live trail on the evening news, and the school hall was filling up. In one classroom tea urns were bubbling gently, in another a bar with an occasional licence was under the firm control of the school’s governing body. Crisps and hotdogs were already on sale. It was, after all, a grant-maintained school which never missed a chance to turn a handy dollar.

‘Now you all understand what we’re doing. Bit different from usual with nine candidates, though we expect most of them to lose their deposits if they get less than five per cent of the turnout. That means watching for every vote, though.’

‘Nine! Merciful heavens!’ a woman counter whispered to her neighbour. ‘Still, it’s been a real treat. I like that Screaming Lord Sutch. Brings a bit of life into the place. When it’s over I shall try to get his autograph.’

‘My Bernie fancies Miss Whiplash. I think he’s voted for her.’

‘No kidding! You’ll have to get yourself all kitted out with the gear, then, if that’s what he likes.’

‘Been a bit of trouble, though. I suppose you’d expect it with a black candidate. The National Front ought to be banned.’

‘Yeah, you’re right. My granddad fought people like that in the war. He says if they got half a chance they’d put us all up against the wall and shoot us.’

‘Well, we’re doing our bit for democracy tonight, and that’s for sure. What’s Mr Day saying?’

‘… and when we’ve done the first count, which ensures that all the papers are there and the totals agree, we put them all back in the ballot boxes, shake them up a bit, then count again. So the first time we don’t sort into candidates, the second time we do. Is that clear?’

On cue on the dot of ten the Liberal Democrat Party made its entry, jackets adorned with outsize rosettes like huge orange cartwheels. Nicholas Spencer was taller than most of his supporters, eyes bright with anticipation, his acceptance speech ready in his pocket but already learned off by heart. His wife hovered beside him, her face rosy with pride.

At the door a gaggle of wildly dressed supporters of the Monster Raving Loony Party, leopard-skin tights, pink leather boas, silver top-hats and all, pushed their way inside to the genial
amusement of the police. This lot were not the problem. They had put up two candidates in order to get double the number of tickets to attend the count, and were clearly intending to have a ball. Their merriment was infectious, provided they did not get too drunk. Trailing alter them came Lindi St Clair, Miss Whiplash, leaning on the arms of a sullen boyfriend, posing for photographers and exposing acres of goose-pimpled flesh. She made a fuss about being made to leave her whip at the door, but was mollified when a handsome police inspector informed her that everyone would recognise her magnificent features without it.

A bedraggled group in one corner were munching wholegrain sandwiches and drinking homemade lemonade. The Greens knew their day had come and gone, in Britain, in Germany, in Europe. All the main parties made green noises. Still, they had done their best.

The inspector wandered over to Day. ‘I don’t suppose our fascist friends will arrive till the pubs close,’ he commented.

The two were old friends from Rotary. Day grinned ruefully: ‘Which candidate did you have in mind – the National Front or Mr Parrot and his cronies?’

‘Parrot!’ The policeman nearly spat out the word. ‘I wish fools like him were disqualified from standing, but they’re not. Only peers and idiots – and he’s none of those. He works for you, doesn’t he? What possessed him to get involved?’

Parrot had attracted more attention in the last three weeks than in the thirty years he had worked in a dusty office at the town hall. ‘Search me,’ Day shrugged. ‘He took us all by surprise.’

The ballot boxes began to appear as the Conservatives, ragged but cheering each other up, came into the hall to quick glances and whispers from the counters. Marcus and Alison, quiet and dignified, walked hand in hand. You had to admire that Carey bloke. Courage, if nothing else. Take a good look, we’ll not see him again round here.

For the next forty minutes the black boxes arrived thick and fast, banging and clattering their contents on to the long wooden tables. Trevor Day took his jacket off and set to. The swish of paper filled the air as the old-fashioned system swung into action, watched by apprehensive activists. No button-pressing here, simply small white slips of paper marked with that single X against the voter’s choice, in slowly rising heaps.

Marcus Carey approached his Labour opponent and shook hands. Together they stood, notepads in hand, peering over the shoulders of the counters, disconsolately checking their support. Each batch of twenty-five votes contained some nine or ten for Marcus and two or three for the Labour candidate, who laughed hollowly and shoved his pad back in his pocket. For both the numbers brought the same message. The Liberal Democrats were collecting nearly half the vote and that would put their man well ahead, on track for a famous victory.

‘Awful campaign, wasn’t it?’ The Labour man was friendly. Now the contest was over there was no point in being otherwise.

Marcus was staring at the piles of votes. ‘Makes you feel very strange, don’t you think, looking at all those crosses? People voted for me whom I’ve never met, yet they know all there is to know about me, or think they do.’

His opponent shrugged. ‘I’ve never looked at it quite like that. Perhaps I will if I’m ever selected for a winnable seat.’ That hurt, though it was not intended to. Marcus continued, struggling to put into words the sense of a sacrament that comes at the count to many candidates. ‘I feel I owe them all a huge obligation, especially the ones I don’t know personally. They put their faith in me. And I’ve let them down.’

‘Don’t talk like that.’ The other man spoke sharply. There was no need for party banter; that Marcus was exhausted was all too apparent. ‘You’ve been the victim of prejudice, and people like you and me are both in business to fight it. Don’t let the bastards get you.’ He dropped his voice. ‘If you
ever feel like joining us, let me know. You put up a good fight. Though I can’t guarantee you’d have an easier time on our side, to be honest.’

Before Marcus could reply there was a shout from the main door and a crashing sound outside. The socialist jerked his head in the direction of the noise. ‘Here come the real enemy.’

In the doorway Big Dave was arguing loudly with a policewoman half his size, baiting her. In his pocket was a ticket which he would produce eventually, but for the moment belligerence was much more fun. Behind him menacing grunts egged him on. The inspector strolled over, a cold glint in his eye.

‘Can I help you gentlemen?’

‘Yeah. We wanna come in and the bitch won’t let us.’

‘WPC Collins is only doing her duty. Official tickets only while the count is on.’

With a yell, five yobs pulled out their tickets with a flourish. The policewoman looked relieved and the inspector frowned.

‘Right, but any sign of trouble and you’re out, do you hear?’

The skinheads swaggered inside, followed by Standish and the diminutive Parrot sporting Union Jacks in their buttonholes. The inspector eyed them both with disgust.

Parrot took one look at the crowded hall and scuttled into a corner. There he sat for the remainder of the count and would not budge. Standish stood hesitantly on the threshold. He did not look forward to facing Bulstrode and his erstwhile friends. The whole election campaign had been truly dreadful. He wished he had applied for a postal vote and gone on holiday instead.

‘Keeping funny company these days, aren’t we, Mr Standish?’ enquired the inspector coolly. The solicitor would probably be wise to keep away from Rotary dinners for a while.

The evening seemed to last for ever, yet it was all over too quickly. At last Trevor Day buttoned up his jacket once more and climbed on to the platform, to announce that Nicholas Spencer had come top of the poll as expected, more than doubling the Liberal Democrat vote, ahead of Marcus, who was 12,000 down on Nigel’s last result. Most of the lost Tories seemed to have transferred straight to the Old Etonian. Labour was philosophical about the halving of their own vote, accepting that they had been out of the frame from the start. Then the fun began. Mr Parrot was next with 611, then the Greens with 466 and the better-known Loony, Lord David Sutch, collected 278. The official National Front candidate took 133, Lindi St Clair 72, ahead of the other Raving Loony at 60. The latter four had taken slightly over 1 per cent of the vote between them. The Liberal majority represented a swing from Marcus Carey to his opponents of just under 25 per cent. Compared with Christchurch, it was not bad: except that the seat was lost, and possibly for ever.

Nobody except Freddie and his girlfriend retained sufficient energy for a last drink.

Alison Carey handed Marcus his coat, ‘Come on, let’s go.’

He shrugged her off. ‘I’m going to walk back. I need some fresh air – be on my own for a bit. I won’t be long.’ Outside the cold air assailed him, but at least it had stopped raining. God, what a mess the whole business had been. His face stung from the humiliation, from the names he had been called, from the furious aggression his colour had brought out in so many people. Now he knew what it meant to be on the receiving end of racial hatred. It was inexplicable; he had given them no reason; he had conformed intimately to all their norms. What more did they want of him? 

The skinheads caught up with him at the corner of the darkened High Street and dragged him without a word into a deserted alley. First they pulled off his coat and played Sir Walter Raleigh with it, forcing Marcus to tread it repeatedly into a puddle. Then they taunted him to put up his fists against the smallest of their number, and, when he shook his head and wearily refused, stood behind him breathing foully down his ear and did it for him, holding his body upright as blows slugged into his face and chest. He gasped as ribs crunched and gave way, and sagged in their arms and tried to cry out; a huge paw covered his mouth. As the stars sizzled and rushed towards him he prayed they would
get bored quickly. Then they let him fall into the wet gutter, and kicked him with cries and whoops of laughter, dancing around until lights were turned on neighbouring houses. At last they ran off into the night and he was silent and lay still.

‘Could I speak to Andrew, please?’

The Australian accent made Tessa go cold. She had always known the moment would come when Andrew’s mysterious girlfriend, whoever she was, would simply turn up. That he had a girlfriend she had suspected for some lime. The contrast was too strong between his vigorous appetites in the first years of their marriage and his complete acquiescence more recently in her celibacy. These days he did not touch her, nor bother her in any way, nor beg or plead, nor even criticise. Their public embraces were no more than the brushing of lips on cheeks, though done with courteous regard. Different bedrooms suited Andrew’s strange working hours and excited no comment; for so long had separation been part of their lives that she had stopped agonising about it and it appeared that Andrew no longer noticed.

Tessa had prayed, but it was hope against hope that Andrew had simply forgotten the pleasure of sleeping with a woman. His job was all-absorbing, yet parts of his deepest soul must be left untouched by red boxes and folders marked ‘Secret’. That was a consolation, oddly enough, for she could admire her husband the better for not being entirely absorbed by his career. She knew Andrew too well after nine years of living with him and was certain that quietude had not replaced longing. A lover, however low-key, would have satisfied his animal hunger. That he had someone, somewhere, who was the regular object of his affections and servant of his needs, she had no doubt. One person, not several, not one-night stands, for he was not the sort to take stupid risks; someone who left him content and better able to meet life’s other challenges. Otherwise he would have turned on her; their neutered marriage would years ago have broken up in bitter acrimony.

Tessa could hear her own breathing, rapid and shallow. The voice at the other end of the phone gave nothing away, yet within an instant Tessa knew this was the woman. The tone was strong and self-confident, as if the owner were used to getting what she wanted. Andrew would be drawn to a woman like that – indeed, one element in her own attraction a decade ago was that he could
not
have his way with her, that she was strong enough to refuse him. Inside him was still the hesitant little boy who liked to be told by women what to do. Her heart skipped a beat as she wondered if the woman were married, but suspected not: Andrew would shy away from too many complications.

Tessa listened carefully, aware that she was gripping the phone too tight, as the request for Andrew was repeated. A foreigner: that would fit. Andrew would be enticed by somebody different from his frosty English wife. A foreigner would hold an MP in some higher awe, which would suit Andrew’s ego perfectly. He might even kid himself that a foreigner didn’t count. In his traditional world strangers and women were not on the same plane as chaps he knew well, and did not deserve or receive quite the same consideration.

A spasm of irritation seized Tessa. The woman had made no attempt to ingratiate herself. It was as if Tessa herself didn’t count, even to a rival. That, too, fitted. Andrew’s lover would long since have picked up his offhand attitudes to his official partner. The person on the other end knew Andrew, wanted Andrew, thought like Andrew and would have no truck with anybody lesser like herself.

‘It’s a bit late,’ Tessa played for time. Her voice sounded high and unreal. This was not really happening. ‘I’m not sure if he’s still up. Who shall I say wants him?’

‘Just tell him Miranda, will you? I’m sorry to bother you, but it’s urgent.’

So that was it. Miranda who? Tessa racked her brain for a name from the Commons, a research assistant perhaps, but drew a blank.

‘Miranda? Will he know who is calling? Is it business?’ The voice was testy.

‘Yes, he’ll know. And it’s personal, if you don’t mind.’

This must be serious, to be phoning at eleven on a Sunday night, to share nothing, to insist on speaking to him and to ignore her presence. Suddenly Tessa felt anxious. Whatever was going on, she
was in it too. As the wife. That meant that her first duty was to protect Andrew. Her own needs were secondary.

‘Just a minute. I’ll go and get him.’

Her husband was in an armchair. In his lap fluttered a draft of the latest White Paper, annotated in biro and fluorescent marker. He had fallen asleep and was leaning awkwardly to one side, his pen on the floor. Tessa looked at him for a few seconds, her heart fast and shallow, a salty taste in her mouth. This was the last moment the fragile edifice of their marriage would be intact. She bent over him and shook his shoulder.

‘Andrew, phone call. Says it’s urgent.’

He was awake in an instant and half out of the chair, papers scattering. ‘Who is it?’

She knelt on the floor at his feet like a supplicant, gathering up paper. Straightening to hand him the folder, she looked him in the eye and took a deep breath.

‘Miranda. She sounded worried.’

There! It was done. In four words Tessa had admitted she was aware of Miranda’s existence, knew all she needed to know of the relationship with her husband, and declared that she for one was prepared to stand by him.

His face turned to stone. Without a word he went out of the room and to the phone, closing the door after him. Tessa stood motionless and pondered, listening to the indecipherable murmur of his voice. Then quietly, deliberately, she opened the door and stood waiting, back to the wall, watching her husband.

‘I don’t believe it,’ he was saying flatly.

Miranda was exasperated. It had been tough enough getting through the wife’s head that she needed to speak to him; now it was plain that Andrew was failing to put two and two together at his usual speed. ‘You go and get the first editions then, Andrew. We’re all over the place, you and me. Photos from that do in Blackpool – I guess that’s the only time we’ve been seen together, though I can’t be sure. Somebody’s shopped us.’

‘But why?’

‘Oh, don’t be so
dumb.
Because you’re an important personage these days, minister. You’re worth exposing. And somebody may have it in for me, too. I haven’t done my job without treading on a few toes. The question is, what do we do now?’

‘I need time to think. Wait – I’ll see you in half an hour. Not your place – oh, the middle of Westminster Bridge, Parliament side, that will do. Will you be there?’

He glanced over his shoulder. Tessa was listening impassively. Not that it mattered now, keeping things from her. She would know when she saw the papers. He jerked out ‘Goodbye’ and put the phone down.

‘I have to go out,’ he said brusquely. ‘I’ll explain later – in the morning. There may be a lot of phone calls. If they bother you, Tessa, take the phone off the hook. The only ones of importance are from the department. All the rest are “No comment” – understood?’

She nodded. She understood all too well. It was better that
she
rather than
he
answer the phone, or take the decision to disconnect it. Already Andrew was treating her as if he were a general briefing his troops before a battle. It was a compliment in a way, knowing he could rely on her. Tessa turned her mind to what might happen in the next few days, and what she might hope to salvage – for herself, for Barney and for Andrew.

Very slowly, hearing it click and burr, Miranda put the phone down. On her lap the first edition of
The Herald
blared the headline ‘
POLITICIAN IN LOVE TRIANGLE WITH JOURNALIST
!’ with fuzzy photographs of herself and Andrew, side by side at that party, not looking at each other, but clearly joined by the smiling ease with which they occupied the same space. They must have been spotted in
the background of a picture whose original subject was somebody else. The story was lively enough. Allegations that Andrew Muncastle, minister for housing at the Department of the Environment, was having an affair with the deputy editor of
The Herald’
s arch-rival
The Globe
were padded out with tittle-tattle. Tessa was pictured doing the meals-on-wheels rounds in Hampshire villages, the photograph Andrew had insisted should appear on his election address. His grandfather Sir Edward Muncastle stared from the page in a picture dredged from obituary files. The old man was facially similar to Andrew with the same patrician glare. Miranda was also shown more prominently, on the arms of Matthew Frank and in earlier pictures with several other well-known men, suggesting that she cast her favours both widely and indiscriminately. Extracts from a candid interview she had given to Lynn Barber of the
Independent on Sunday
three years ago were widely quoted. Over a Rabelaisian lunch at Simply Nico, Miranda had confessed to frank amazement at British male manners, remarks which now sat bleakly next to the revelations of her association with one of Her Majesty’s most
po-faced
ministers. The implications were clear; she was either a liar or a fool. This led to lively speculation about her boyfriend’s tastes fuelled by concentration in all the photographs on Miranda’s munificent cleavage.

‘You can’t expect me to be impressed, sweetheart,’ said the other person in the room with her.

She turned and faced him, hands on hips. ‘There are times when you think I live for work alone. I don’t. He’s a fine chap in his own way. I’ve become more than keen on him, if you must know.’

The Globe’
s proprietor chuckled. ‘There’s not much I don’t know, Miranda. You and your British boyfriend are in a mess. But then, when I look at you, my beauty, I too am besotted. You just tell me what you want and your sugar daddy will assist. My offer is still open, though not for ever.’

She was wary. ‘He doesn’t know about you. I don’t want to tell him.’

The owner shrugged. ‘That’s up to you, baby. I guess you’re about to find out what your playmate is made of, aren’t you?’

‘Yeah.’ She was pensive. Then she bent over the owner, and kissed the top of his head. ‘You’ve been good to me. I’ll give you an answer. Soon.’

With a touch of annoyance Andrew realised that he had chosen the wrong side of Westminster Bridge for his tryst. The taxi would have to trail all round the roundabout and come back. He searched in the gloom; several figures had chosen a late stroll on the bridge on a fine moonlit spring evening as a way of blowing away the blues, or bowing to them. None was obviously Miranda.

The magnificent river front of Sir Charles Barry’s Westminster masterpiece was lit up all along its length. Its image floated like a fairytale castle on the shimmering waters of the Thames. On a Sunday hardly anyone was active inside, though the lights were on in the Speaker’s apartments under Big Ben. Somebody else working late.

‘Hi.’

She was at his elbow, and linked her arm in his. Together and silent they leaned over the bridge, arms resting on the parapet, and stared into the water below. Green lights under the arches to warn shipping turned the heaving swell a lurid yellow. On the far side the lights of St Thomas’ Hospital, white and clinical, lit up the sky. Behind stood the former Greater London Council building, home to London government for a century until Margaret Thatcher, despairing of its powerful opposition to her, abolished it. Now hidden under scaffolding it had become a lifeless chrysalis, awaiting its metamorphosis into a Japanese hotel.

For several minutes Andrew and his lover huddled together, each trying to draw warmth from the closeness of the other. At last she spoke.

‘You seen the papers?’

He had gone via Victoria station, his coat collar up high, and bought a fresh inky copy of
The Herald.
He nodded. ‘I imagine it’ll be in all of them tomorrow.’

‘Not in ours. The owner won’t have it. Not that it matters; our story’s now public property.’ He was deeply troubled. ‘I really don’t know what to do, Miranda. I suppose we have been lucky this past – what? – two and a half years. Not lucky – careful. But I always thought, with you in the business, that we’d be left alone.’

‘Think again, lover; no one is immune.’ She was less upset than he was. To his puzzlement in the moonlight she looked almost serene.

‘It’s all very well for you to be so casual about it. You don’t have a family and a career to worry about.’

Miranda turned, leaning back across the parapet, letting her coat fall open. At the same time she half raised one leg. He gasped as she rubbed her toe slowly and provocatively against the other shin in open invitation. She was laughing quietly, and as he watched incredulous she moved a moist tongue over her lips, her teeth gleaming in the gloom. He could feel himself becoming aroused – here, in public, as if she were a cockney tart charging a tenner a trick, and he ready to accept.

‘For God’s sake, Miranda, what do you think you are doing?’ He tried to pull her coat closed.

‘Reminding you.’

‘Jesus, not here. And we can’t exactly go back to your place, can we? It’ll be crawling with photographers.’

‘We could, if you wanted.’ She rubbed the leg again.

He bent down with a swift movement to push her leg down, but she was quicker, and closed her thighs, trapping his hand inside the muscular warmth. He knew from the triumphant grin on her face that she was wearing no pants, as he would find if he moved his fingers only a fraction upwards. Then she pulled his head down to hers and kissed him hard and full on the mouth, lingering for several moments till he gave in, and held her close, pushing himself against her. Helplessly he knew he could not simply go home that night; he would have to have her.

‘That’s better,’ she murmured, stroking his hair. ‘You could come back with me, and it wouldn’t matter. Remember my previous proposition. I’ve been offered a top job in Australia, editing the top women’s magazine. My first editorship, and I’m going to take it. If I make a success of it, and I will, the next step would be something similar in New York –
Vanity Fair
or
Tatler,
perhaps. Big money, big job. But I can’t do it alone. I need you, Andrew. You can be executive editor or whatever you want to call yourself. Your salary would be five times what you get here, and never mind the chauffeur-driven ministerial car, you can have three – a Mercedes, a Cadillac, a Bentley – you name it. And staff at your beck and call. You need to prove yourself a bit of course, the owner won’t promote duds, but if you fancy a particular niche for yourself you say so. That’s my offer and it’s better than anything else you’ll get this side of the next century.’