A Parliamentary Affair (68 page)

Eight hours after bidding Miranda good night Andrew Muncastle sat at the kitchen table with his wife nibbling at toast and sipping coffee, half listening to the radio and pretending to read
The Times
and the
Daily Mail,
as the au pair fidgeted with Barney. The child instantly sensed something was amiss. He was awkward and clumsy, spilling a cup of milk on his shirt so that it needed changing and crying in frustration at his own inability to articulate his feelings. Outside the kitchen door loomed the figure of a uniformed policeman.

The au pair understood she had to remove the child to school as quickly as possible and was impatient with him. At last the door banged shut behind them as light bulbs flashed, and the kitchen went quiet. Tessa leaned across and turned off the radio.

‘Don’t you have an early meeting, dear?’ she asked quietly.

Andrew folded
The Times
with an impatient movement. ‘It’s Monday. Prayers aren’t till eleven. Gives the most distant chaps time to get in from Tavistock or wherever.’ Gloomily he stared at the agency photograph of Yeltsin on the front page. In due course the
Daily Mail
and
The Times
would have a graphic account of his own doings; neither Murdoch nor Conrad Black were under orders from Miranda’s owner.

Tessa was waiting, like a plaster saint. God. Her style was effective. Catholics learned a lot from the disciplines of their childhood; they could wear you down with that pained reproachful
silence. He glowered at her resentfully, but she sat prim and correct, in a patterned blouse buttoned up to the neck and a dull long skirt. And three sets of knickers, for all he knew.

‘There were quite a lot of calls for you last night, as you predicted,’ she started again. If he would not volunteer information she would have to drag it out of him. ‘The phone has been off all night, and as you can see we have some visible protection. It might help, before going out there to face the rat-pack, if we were to agree a line.’

He was silent, head in hands, staring at the table. Outside there was a rumpus and a bulb flashed at the window. With a grimace Tessa rose, pulled down the blinds, and poured herself more coffee. The two sat in the half gloom.

‘You owe me an explanation, Andrew. It’s no use wishing you were halfway round the world; you’re here with me in London and in a minute you have to leave. What do you wish me to say to them?’

Andrew looked at her; she was startled at the dislike in his red-rimmed eyes. He had clearly been awake most of the night.

‘My God, Tessa, but you have summed it all up very neatly. I do wish I were halfway round the world. In fact Barney and I have the chance to be exactly that.’

He turned to her at last, and explained Miranda’s offer, as she turned white and gripped the edge of the kitchen table to steady herself, and forced herself to breathe.

Not far away in the River Room of the Savoy, Miranda was also at breakfast, with Lynn Barber once again, and Valerie Grove and Lesley White of the
Sunday Times.
The smartly dressed women journalists, hastily summoned by phone call, were drinking champagne, tucking into fresh lobster and laughing uproariously.

‘Honest! He’s coming with me to Australia.’ Miranda reached for the steel claw-crushers. The dismembered bodies of two large lobsters lay scattered on a platter before the women.

‘But how did you persuade him?’ Barber had an envious gleam in her eye. Miranda picked up another claw and placed it at right angles in the crusher, then slowly forced the steel closed. Pink flesh oozed out of the cracks in the shell. She placed the claw in her mouth and sucked. The obscenity was unmistakable and had her audience clutching themselves in merriment. ‘Might have guessed! Miranda, you are a case!’

Barber, ever the journalist, wanted facts. ‘You’re going to marry him – is that it? Is he going to divorce his wife?’

‘Dunno about the former yet, but definitely yes to the latter. There’s no love lost as far as I know. Not been a proper marriage for years.’

Had she been pressed Miranda would have been hard put to find evidence for her certainty. She was sure in her own mind that Andrew had agreed to marry, but in the absence of a date for the event it seemed wisest to demur. At any rate, he was leaving with her, and that would be enough commitment for the moment.

‘And he’s going to give up politics for you?’

‘Uh-huh. That didn’t need much persuading. They get paid peanuts, you know. Not enough to keep body and soul together. He’s keen on the idea of a more interesting job in the sunshine, as well as having me for breakfast, lunch, dinner and tea.’

‘What more interesting job? Being your lapdog? You must be joking, Miranda. Are you sure that “We are in love and we’re going to get married” story’s going to stand up in the cold light of day? He wouldn’t be the first politician to say one thing in bed and another on the doorstep the following morning, you know.’

Had Miranda been sober she would have been furious. As it was, liberally tanked with champagne since the early hours, everything said to her sounded incredibly funny, and added to the 
delight with which she greeted the wonderful new day. She waved the remains of the lobster claw at her friends.

‘You’ll see! Got myself an Englishman. Going to be a respectable married lady. Got to show me some respect!’ Lesley White raised her glass.

‘I wish you both well, Miranda,’ she said sincerely. ‘The question is, when are we going to get a photo of you two lovers together? And is he going to resign his seat and cause another by-election?’

‘No idea. Details not worked out yet. Don’t know.’ Miranda giggled. She reached for the bottle. ‘Have ’nother one. Sugar daddy’s paying for this lot. Bless his cotton socks.’

Once as a child Tessa had been taken to a bullfight in Spain. Although she had been dragged out screaming in the last few minutes, as the black bull, flanks heaving and wet with blood, had crashed in the sand, in her darkest moments she would confess that the hour leading up to that climax, the feinting and parrying, the teasing and testing, had forced its way into her imagination. There was something sacrificial about it, like the agony of Christ, though on Golgotha there was a higher purpose in all that suffering, and death Conferred eternal life: at Easter the occupant of the dying earthly body was the winner. Not so in the
corrida
. In that battle of wills and strength the bull was bound to be the loser. If a person locked in a similar battle of wills had prepared properly and was guided by higher instincts, then the unthinking animal would again be bound to lose. This Monday morning she felt herself, if not the matador, at least his assistant, prodding and goading, looking for an opening beneath the withers to slide in a disabling
pic
, then another, jumping out of range, weakening the beast until it slid to its knees and acknowledged her superior will. At that point she would stop.

There was no matador here, but a growing mob of press now gathered outside their house baying for blood. The moment Andrew left he would be set upon and destroyed. Unless, of course, he followed the plan of action she would set out for him.

‘There will be no divorce, Andrew. You have to understand that.’

‘But why not? We could be free of each other by Christmas, and you could do what you want. No more politics, no more living in the public eye. You’ve always said how much you dislike it.’

‘I promised to marry you till death do us part. Promised before God, and I meant it. I thought you did too. If you want to divorce me, Andrew, you will find it very difficult. I will fight you every step of the way, I swear it.’

She waited. It clearly had not occurred to Andrew that she was going to be uncooperative; he had planned for no such eventuality. In his arrogant world, most women did what men told them. At a guess he had done little planning of any kind. How slightly he knew his wife, her strengths. She felt emboldened.

‘And this idea of giving up politics, Andrew. You’re not serious, surely? It’s been your life, your ambition. You’re well thought of and making rapid progress. Your family are immensely proud of you. Would you seriously give all that up – a career which you have built up with such effort yourself?’

‘I will have a better job down under. More money for a start.’

Tessa pressed home her advantage. ‘At the beck and call of your girlfriend, no doubt. I bet you haven’t seen a contract, have you? All on her say-so. That’s fine, but how long d’you think it will last? What happens when she gets fed up with you? Where will you be then, after throwing up your career for her? Your sacrifice won’t make her respect you – on the contrary. Strong women get cheesed off pretty quickly with men who are too easy to dominate. The thing that made you so attractive to her, Andrew, is first of all you’re somebody else’s husband, and secondly that you’re tied to your job and needed here. Doubly unavailable, see. If once she won that battle to take you over, she
would lose interest sharpish. When her ardour cools, where will you be then – in the Cabinet with the high regard of all your colleagues, or a beach hum somewhere on the other side of the world?’

Under the onslaught Andrew struggled to recapture the vivid imagery of the previous night. ‘It isn’t like that, Tessa,’ he said weakly. ‘She wants to make a home for me and Barney. New life together. I think I deserve it.’

Tessa sat up straight and prayed for strength. How typical that he should assume possession of his son. Never before had she used the child, and for the rest of her life she would confess the next few moments as a gross and venal sin. But if her husband was to be saved from himself, if his feeble nature was not to destroy their home, his career, their future, she had no choice.

‘You will not get Barney,’ she said. There was a steely edge to her voice. ‘Don’t even think about it. I will fight you for my marriage and my good name – indeed for your good name, come to that – but as God and all His angels are my witness I will fight you for my child. I swear it. You’ll not get Barney. No, not ever. My God – you just took it for granted that I’d hand him over, didn’t you? At least it means you care about him – that’s something. But if you persist in your crazy idea of giving up politics and getting a divorce I will ensure that you never see our child again. I’m sure I will have the backing of your family on that. Do you understand?’

Her husband was totally taken aback by the ferocity in her voice. His son was his continuity, his guarantee of posterity, as he was his father’s and grandfather’s. His son carried his name, was part of him, of his future. Surely she could not fight him over Barney? He was not a baby and a court would often agree that a boy could be with his father, especially if a well-provided home was in the offing. But Tessa ought to see that he needed his son.

She did. It was dawning on Andrew that his wife had thought all this through with far more care than he had. Her advice on many local political issues had always been shrewd. Perhaps she understood the lie of the land; maybe her perspective, devoid of sexual passion but deeply rooted in all the values he had believed they shared, was sounder than his own. Maybe she knew how to stop him in his tracks better than he did himself.

He could not imagine getting bored with Miranda, ever. Yet Tessa probably had a point about Miranda growing bored with him. Habits do not change; Miranda would continue to have her pick of men. Winding up as Miranda’s whining cast-off a million miles from home was a picture both ugly and depressingly plausible.

He glanced at his wife with guarded admiration, but he was not yet ready to give in, not by a long chalk. A warning bell sounded in his head. He decided not to attempt to browbeat her.

‘The law is not so simple these days, Tessa,’ he remonstrated mildly. ‘The courts will take Barney’s best interests into account. I think I’d put up a good case for taking him with me.’

She picked up the faint change in tone and responded in kind. ‘Not if I put up a fight, Andrew. With a child that young it is usual to give control to the mother. I could hardly be called a bad mother, whereas your liaison with Miranda could be placed by a clever lawyer in a most unsuitable light. You can see that.’

‘And you would have a clever lawyer.’

She nodded. There was no point in arguing about that. ‘Look, this isn’t a sudden thing,’ he attempted to explain. ‘Miranda and I have been talking about my going to Australia for some time. I can only apologise for deceiving you. But she’s a grand girl, we are very close, and I’m sure our love will last.’

‘That’s what you said when you married me,’ Tessa said softly.

The barb struck home. It was his inconstancy, not Miranda’s, that was now called into question: his weakness, his pursuit of pleasure, his ability to be easily distracted from long-term goals. Yet of all the qualities he most admired single-mindedness was the most significant. That gave rise to
the ambition and self-discipline which had resulted in his apparently effortless rise in the Commons. It marked him out from other men.

He passed a hand wearily over his eyes. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said quietly. ‘I seem to have promised myself to two women at the same time. I don’t quite know what to do. It’s going to take a while to sort out. Can you be patient?’

‘To the grave,’ she said simply, but it was an offer, not a threat, a restatement of belief that the future could be better than today. On the table was a clear choice between honour and dishonour, between promises kept and broken, between duty and pleasure. He felt almost grateful.

Tessa’s expression was sympathetic. It crossed Andrew’s mind that she must be a good actress, so much under psychological control, when underneath she must feel like tearing his eyes out. What a pity these conspicuous talents were not on display in the bedroom. Some women pretended to enjoy sex even when they hated it, just to keep their partners happy. Had Tessa managed at least that, he would never have linked arms with Miranda that fateful night after the ambassador’s party, never known how other people loved, how he could love.