A Parliamentary Affair (70 page)

‘Look, Barney. It’s true that Daddy has had a girlfriend but it’s over. He’s going to stay with us, and we’re going to stay together as a family. We’ve had a bad time, but it’s all right now. There’s nothing to worry about.’

A big tear detached itself and rolled down his cheek. Tessa fished in his pocket and found a grubby tissue wrapped around a half-eaten sweet.

‘Oh, Barney!’ She laughed, and hugged him.

The child, despite his tears, was comforted. He pointed out of the window. ‘Why are the pho … phot … photographers still there, then, Mummy?’ Barney stumbled over the long word, but persevered and got it correct at last.

Tessa noted with admiration his courage and his determination to do things correctly. With surprised recognition she realised he probably got those qualities more from her than from his father. She was beginning to understand herself, as if a healing light were illuminating every corner of her own soul. Maybe prayers are answered.

‘They don’t believe us when we say there’s no story. And Daddy’s girlfriend is a very pretty lady – was, I should say – so the newspapers are being nosy.’

She was amazed at her own willingness to acknowledge Miranda’s beauty. Why not? Andrew had decided to stay put. There were more important things than superb bodies. And she was not an ugly old woman herself, yet.

Barney gazed at her, sniffing. ‘I think
you’re
a pretty lady, Mummy,’ he offered loyally.

Once Tessa would have coloured and felt embarrassed at any reference to her physical self. Now, fleetingly, she considered how Miranda might have responded.

‘Why, thank you, Barney. That’s the nicest thing anyone has said to me in a long time.’

The child grinned happily. ‘Especially when you smile, Mummy.’

‘What do you mean, it’s all off?’

Miranda stared at him in anguished rage. When Andrew had called her office that morning, before the first editions of the
Evening Standard
hit the news-stands, he had been politely and cheerfully advised that Miss Jamieson was in conference, but would be happy to meet him later that day in the penthouse suite at Wapping, which could be reached by using the private lift in the foyer. For a moment Andrew debated telling Miranda’s secretary to pass on his bleak message and not turn up at all. It would have been an ungentlemanly but effective way of getting rid of her. Yet in the end he owed her an explanation. To the intense curiosity of the secretary he made it clear that he would only attend if the discussion, even its very existence, was entirely private. In any case, the job was half done. By the time they met Miranda would know that, from her point of view, things had gone badly awry; the bunting would have been hidden, the champagne returned to its cellar, the party over. He was not, however, prepared for the savagery of her response. It was immediately evident that she was not sober, and that she had been crying. Her face was red and streaked, mascara running down one cheek, lipstick smudged and blotchy. On the floor were two copies of the
Standard,
the later edition emblazoned with a full-length photograph of Andrew and Tessa, linking arms and tentative, on the doorstep of their home that morning, with the headline ‘
WE’RE STAYING TOGETHER
’, and ‘Minister in sex scandal confesses all to wife’ underneath.

Andrew had not accepted an invitation to sit; this was no time for niceties. Miranda waved the page menacingly under his nose.

‘What the bloody hell’s going on, Andrew? Twelve hours ago you’re fucking me on Westminster Bridge like there’s no tomorrow and promising to love me forever. I came home and started planning a wedding, for God’s sake! I even summoned my girlfriends and we went out for a hen party this morning to celebrate. Then I come back to the office and I am faced with – this!’

She shook the headlines at him in impotent fury, then tossed the offending paper over to the far corner of the room, sending a vase of flowers tumbling wetly to the floor.

His pulse was racing and he pursed his lips. To give himself time to think, he looked around. The penthouse flat was large and glamorous; through one open door he glimpsed a huge bed covered in pink satin, while another door opened on to a windy terrace with a magnificent view. The main room was carpeted in pink and white, with cream leather sofas and armchairs, all oversized and covered in bright silk scatter cushions. Fresh spring flowers filled the room with heady sweetness. A large painting on the far wall showed a helmeted man in an Australian desert landscape. There were no photographs or portraits to give him a clue, but this was surely the newspaper owner’s pad. A substantial bar occupied one corner with more drinks bottles than Andrew had ever seen. On its
polished wood surface an empty glass stood inside a wet ring by a frosted silver ice-bucket. Miranda must have been hitting the bottle hard.

Andrew Muncastle reverted to his most correct manner.

‘I owe you an apology, Miranda. I was simply carried away last night. I cannot give up my job and my home, in the way I let you think. I never intended to, not at any point. I am deeply sorry for any upset I may have caused you.’

‘You’re upset! You! What about me? Anyway I don’t believe you. I just don’t believe you’re that accomplished a liar. If you were I’d have spotted it long before now and never have dreamed of sharing my life with you. Last night you were on cloud nine. You were all ready to drop everything and come with me. Now you’re all lovey-dovey with that mouse of a wife. What happened?’

He examined his shoes, like a naughty boy carpeted by the headmaster. He wondered if the memory of what she had meant to him for nearly two years, the glory he had learned from her, would fade and be lost, or whether her vivacity, joy and excitement would linger. It would be best to put it all firmly out of his mind, of course. If he were to renew his efforts with Tessa and guide her to something approximating a normal sexual relationship he could not have the vivid presence of Miranda in bed with them. Remembering her as she was now, distressed and ugly, might help. He raised his eyes and stared at her stonily, taking in every unhappy detail.

‘My God, Andrew, but you led me up the garden path,’ she spat out bitterly. ‘All these years, and I never fell for anybody. Played the field, lots of men, always had a good time: no kiss and tell either way, and most of them are still friends. No shortage of offers either – I’ve turned down better men than you, Mr Muncastle, more than once. Millionaires, media tycoons, men of real substance, not a jumped-up squirt of an MP like you.’

She sounded as if she were trying to convince herself of his lack of worth. If blaming herself for making a mistake was going to help her Andrew was not about to interfere. He accepted the humiliation of the comparison. After this he would not see her again, and in his world money and media power did not confer status or respect. He felt no compunction to explain the difference to her. There were some things Miranda would never be able to grasp, of which the most significant was that he did not share her hierarchy of values. He dipped his head as if accepting a punishment but said nothing.

Miranda was infuriated by his silence. She came close and stood under his nose so that he could not help looking down at her and thus at her body. His self-control slipped and he swallowed visibly. Her lip curled in a sneer and she pulled off her jacket, slinging it behind her, then reached up and pulled down her low-necked sweater, revealing her breasts. Cupping them in her hands, she jiggled them up and down, running her fingertips up and over the nipples to make them stand up, and threw back her head, as if to invite him to sink his mouth on her neck.

‘That’s all you were ever interested in, wasn’t it? A little bit of humpy-pumpy, that you couldn’t get at home. What’s happened – little wifey opened her legs to you at last, has she?’

‘Stop it, Miranda,’ he said quietly. ‘I can’t be with you, that is all.’

The finality hit her suddenly, and pulling her sweater back into place she flung herself sobbing on to the nearest sofa. Andrew stood helpless, a great ache of guilt numbing him. This was the downside, the price to pay, for the pleasure of her love; her heartbreaking wailing cut him to the quick. He had never, never in his life, aroused such passion in anyone. Nor caused anyone else such pain. And never wanted to again.

At last the weeping subsided and she peered at him from under wet lashes. Her voice was soft and distant.

‘I am thirty years old, and I have made a good life for myself. I have a career and a reputation which I have earned: nobody did it for me. I thought I needed nothing more until I met you, Andrew. Then I realised I needed – oh, I don’t know: something solid, and dependable, and real, and
permanent, and not easily deployed or bent to my will. It had all been too easy. I wanted you because you were different. Can you realise how terrible it is to find out you’re just like all the rest? You have ruined my life, Andrew. You must understand that.’

Time was passing and he felt a twitch of impatience. Back at the office there was work waiting.

‘Oh, come now, Miranda, it can’t be as bad as all that. I mean, after all’ – and he gestured around at the sofas and the pictures –’you’ve still got all this, haven’t you?’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Well, it stands to reason. You were never short of male friends before, and despite your protestations of love for me, at a guess you’re not short now, are you? This flat must have cost a bob or two. What do you have to do to pay for its use, Miranda?’

‘You bastard.’

He pushed home his advantage, hating himself. ‘How does a nice Australian girl achieve all this, hey, Miranda? Isn’t he a bit old for you?’

He expected her to fly at him and in readiness raised his arms to protect himself. For several seconds she sat stock still, staring at him. Then with cold dignity she rose and went to the door to the hall, opening it and standing with her hand on the handle.

‘If you seriously think I am sleeping with the owner, Andrew, you are wrong.’

It was his turn to throw back his head and laugh – a raucous, unpleasant sound. It did not dislodge her.

‘Everybody knows you do, Miranda. Don’t kid me. I turned a blind eye when you and I were … you know. But not now.’

Her voice was low and cool. ‘My God, Andrew, but you are a fool. More than I could ever have guessed. I was not going to tell you this: hardly anybody knows, because I always wanted to make my own way, and I have. And I would prefer that you keep it to yourself, please. The owner is not my lover; he’s my father.’

Muncastle stood dumbstruck. ‘What? But your name is –’

‘Different from his. Certainly. He and my mother split up when I was small and I was adopted by my mother’s new husband. But I’m his daughter all right. You can tell if you see us together, which is why you don’t. When I started in journalism in Australia I did it entirely on my own; only when I wanted to come to England did I ask him for a job. And the Australian editorship is in his gift too, though I didn’t accept until I was sure I could have it on merit alone. He’d make me executive vice-president tomorrow if I wanted it, but I don’t. Not yet.’

‘You never said a word!’

‘Makes a difference, does it? You could have been his son-in-law, Andrew, in line to run the business with my brother, if you had wanted.’

Andrew gasped. The room felt hot and began to swirl in muddled colours around him, as if he were caught up in a kaleidoscope and would be shaken to pieces if it didn’t stop. His mouth opened but nothing came out. Miranda watched him, a mocking look in her eyes. Only now did she know what Andrew Muncastle was made of. It began to feel like a lucky escape.

Miranda Jamieson was a warm and kind woman underneath all her flaunted sexuality. Observing her erstwhile lover gaping and swaying she felt a sliver of sorrow for him. He had been made a fool of, not her. Her integrity was intact: his
amour propre
damaged for ever.

‘Andrew, why do you think I keep quiet about it? If I’m going to marry somebody it has to be for myself, not for who my father is, and not for my money, Goddammit. I thought it was you. I was wrong. And I am sorry I was wrong.’

He moved grey-faced towards the door she was holding open for him. Not the door to a new life, but the confirmation that he was only fit for the old one. At the door he was very close to her and paused.

‘Miranda –’ He had no idea what he wanted to say.

She pulled a wry face. ‘Good afternoon, Mr Muncastle. That’s the way out.’

The door closed with a soft, expensive click behind him.

By the middle of that momentous week Elaine was steeled for coolness in Roger. The Muncastle business must have affected the department and would naturally have made him extremely cautious, though he made no move to break a date with her pencilled in for Wednesday evening. Once Andrew and Tessa Muncastle had faced down the press and the Prime Minister had made it clear no resignation was in the offing the story went off the boil, though no doubt the riper Sunday press would make much of it at the weekend.

It was late, after the ten o’clock vote; as so many times before, Roger came to her flat, though he would not be sleeping over. Two red boxes, oppressive as ever, stood waiting in the hallway. Elaine made him a toasted bacon sandwich then, nose wrinkling at the tempting smell, another for herself.

‘It’s a curious business,’ she reflected, pointing at a collection of well-thumbed newspapers. ‘Some of the papers ignore the Muncastle business entirely, even the tabloids.’

‘Depends who owns them,’ Dickson pointed out. ‘Muncastle’s inamorata is deputy editor of one of the Australian group and a pet of the owner, so my spies tell me. They won’t carry anything on it unless it blows up bigger. And it won’t.’

‘Can you be sure?’

‘She left on the Qantas flight back to Australia this morning. He’s back at work, tail between legs, suitably chastened and refusing to say a dicky-bird. No talk, no story. Finished. We hope,’ he added darkly.

Elaine could not help satisfying her own curiosity, though she had long ceased to consider Muncastle a political rival.

‘Will it affect his career?’

‘Shouldn’t think so, as long as he doesn’t make a habit of it. He’s competent, with all the right connections, and usually steers well clear of trouble. Most of the chaps will regard him as a bit of a lucky dog, given the beauty of the lady in question. We didn’t know he had it in him – it might even help, raising his profile. Sorry, Elaine, you won’t like that, but it’s still a man’s world, I’m afraid.’

Roger finished his sandwich and wiped his fingers on a paper napkin. ‘Thank you! The inner man is well fed. Now then, young lady, what about the rest of me? I can’t stay late tonight, but I have a good hour yet. Come and give your old beast a cuddle.’

He held out his arms to her in a generous, affectionate gesture. To his disappointment the corners of Elaine’s mouth turned down. She settled herself beside him, curling around, fingers playing with his shirt buttons but making no attempt to undo them, resting her head on his shoulder, tucked in, seeking comfort, not sex.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Mike wants a divorce.’

‘Oh, no. Elaine, I am so sorry. On what grounds?’ Head bowed, she explained briefly. Roger sensed her distress. Even if the marriage had long since cooled, its loss was like a bereavement. He pulled her head down on to his shoulder again and kissed the blonde tangle, whispering endearments to her as she wept. There was no question of making love that night. The years they had already shared, and his immediate appreciation of the terrible effect on her, created an obligation to comfort each other, as friends, instead.

At last she was quiet. He shifted his position, holding her hand gently. More needed to be said. ‘Tell me.’

‘I’m afraid, Roger, that you won’t want me now.’

‘Hush, don’t talk like that. Of course I do. And will.’

‘I’m not a risk to you, you know that. But you might think so now that I’m … on my own.’

‘You don’t need to spell it out, Elaine. What we have always had has been over and above our other pre-existing arrangements.’

The words sounded awkward. Elaine wished she could quote poetry which would fit the moment, Browning or Rossetti, sweet and deep and full of love and sacrifice, but nothing came.

‘It’s not your fault, either, but I feel such a failure. I’ve lost Mike. I’ve lost all chance of promotion. I might even lose my seat – it never was very safe and the rumblings are ominous. I don’t want to lose you too.’

‘You won’t. I promise.’

A silence. Then she spoke again, low and sad. ‘What will happen to us, Roger? Will we be found out, like Andrew and his girlfriend? Will it all end in tears?’

‘Why should it? He had an affair with a journalist, which is not smart. Once a teller of tales, always a teller of tales. You and I, on the other hand, have identical motives for staying quiet.’

‘We had. Not any more,’ she reminded him.

‘It makes no difference to me, and it shouldn’t to you.’ His tone was almost brusque. ‘Plan A is to carry on as we are now. And if there is the least hint, Elaine, remember Plan B: deny it and deny it and deny it. If you and I both stick to the same story the press can pin nothing on us.’ She nodded. ‘Any time you want to stop, Roger –’

‘I don’t.’

It sounded almost arrogant the way he said it, as if he were refusing all consideration of change. That was a surprise. Given the horrendous reminder that the Muncastle business had slapped before them it would have been understandable had he suggested lying low for a bit, or made the first moves to end the affair.

A surprise, and risky. ‘You have much more to lose than Muncastle,’ she warned him.

A soft light came into his eyes and he put her hand to his lips, caressing her fingers gently. ‘I know that, Elaine. I have you to lose, and I don’t intend to.’

Now was the moment to tell her he loved her, if ever there was a moment. He waited, and the moment passed, as he knew it would.

‘We are neither of us about to be careless. So can we have less morbid talk, please? Wish me luck for tomorrow night. I have to do
Question Time
and no doubt will have to bat for Britain against the Aussie onslaught on prime-time television, not to mention explaining how the government fully expects to win the next election while ten points adrift in the opinion polls.’

‘If it stays like that I shall definitely lose my seat.’ Elaine had spent the previous weekend on doorsteps in her constituency and had not liked what she heard there.

‘Not only you. As I reminded the Prime Minister, we really must switch into general election mode. Strictly speaking we have a while yet, but next year is quite likely. That means we could be electioneering barely twelve months from now – not long. Leaving everything till the autumn Budget is taking a hell of a risk.’

‘Do you think he knows what he is doing?’

‘The Prime Minister? As well as anyone, I guess. Knowing what to do and doing it are not the same, of course. Still, he has one successful victory under his belt and is keen to add another. I suggested to him the other day after Cabinet that we should be engineering a mini-boom in time for a snap election next spring and he looked quite shocked at the suggestion. There’s a bit of a gap, you know, between being the magisterial all-wise leader of the nation and the tough boss of a fighting party. I don’t envy him trying to be both.’

She eyed him archly. ‘You’d still like to have a crack, though, wouldn’t you? You’re easily the best of the younger Cabinet ministers. You can’t, surely, be satisfied with playing second fiddle – or third, or fourth – to people only on the same level.’

He curled a lock of her hair around a finger and pondered. ‘There’s such a cost, Elaine. To the family, to me personally. Look: part is obvious – I would put Caroline and the children and everyone near me in such danger, in the firing line for terrorists and every crank going. I’m not sure I should blithely do that without thinking it through very carefully. The Prime Minister’s wife had a miserable time when the security bungalow was erected down the garden and the bullet-proof glass went in behind the lace curtains. To some extent that’s already happened. Even you’re a target because of me. I bet the IRA already have this address and have a shrewd idea what I get up to while I’m here.’

She shrugged. ‘You forget I’m still secretary of the backbench Northern Ireland committee. I’m in the firing line in my own right. All MPs are, anyway. The moment you start to think about it, the job becomes impossible.’

Unspoken knowledge hung between them. The Muncastle business was not an exact parallel. Having made a fool of himself with a lover might not affect Andrew’s elevation to the rank of Minister of State in due course, if lie were still judged right for the team; but any revelations about Cabinet minister Roger Dickson’s private life would destroy his chances of moving smoothly towards the highest job in the land. Such evil lies would be said about them both, and despite ‘Plan B’ neither would be able to sue. The outcome was inevitable. Roger would be forced to resign from the Cabinet.

‘We’re running too many risks, my darling,’ Elaine whispered. ‘I just can’t see you as a backbencher, that’s all. Sitting there in prim misery, rushing to do five seconds on early-morning television, dreaming up issues on which to get agitated, writing pompous pieces for the
Evening
Standard
for three hundred and fifty pounds a time.’

With a dismissive gesture she indicated a Mellor article on the leader page adorned with a large photograph of the author.

‘I should charge more than that.’ He was trying to cheer her up, but her mood refused to lift. His voice became mock-stern. ‘Don’t let me down, little lady. I come to you for enjoyment, not for grief. I have more than enough serious matters on my plate without wearying myself with what I would write about if reduced to the back benches.

‘What the hell! That’s almost certain to happen, sooner or later. It all ends in tears, don’t you know that? My job right now is to ensure that we don’t all end up on the Opposition side, and your job is to help me.’

He disentangled himself from her with a suppressed sigh and went to collect his coat. Women who thought too much had their disadvantages. It sounded as if Elaine was beginning to back off. He hoped to God she was not serious.

He knew his own mind. Muncastle’s priggishness had sickened him. The man was an amoral creep whose carelessness had let two women down. He, Roger Dickson, had no intention of getting caught in the same trap. Elaine was part of his whole mental make-up now – part of his inner world, his soul, though he could not willingly articulate that realisation to anyone, least of all to her. He would not give her up without a fight.

He would not give her up at all.

The whips deemed it wisest to let everybody go home early, so Thursday evening’s business was quietly downgraded to a one-line whip. Elaine was feeling battered and groggy and headed gratefully for the empty flat, a microwaved dinner, a warming glass of Glenfiddich for company and the television.

Andrew Muncastle, foolish man, was still on the evening news, though he had slipped from first item to fourth behind the discharge from hospital of poor Marcus Carey. The occasion was an impromptu press conference given by Miranda Jamieson at Sydney airport in which she denounced all British men as half-baked homos. Elaine wondered defensively how much experience the lady had
acquired. Judging from Miranda’s demeanour her comment, at least in part, was to inform Andrew what she thought of him in the most humiliating way possible. You had to admire her nerve.

The commentary was accompanied by more pictures of the Muncastles smiling tentatively at the doorway of their London home. Elaine examined Andrew’s martyred face intently. Beside him, hand clasped in his, his wife looked up at him. Talk of the minister’s resigning had died; the BBC presentation was clearly sympathetic.

Andrew had arrived in Westminster on the same day three years ago as herself. He had met his whip – Roger Dickson, same man – standing beside her in Members’ Lobby. Their backgrounds were different, with Andrew already part of the system through his grandfather, but surely that did not count for much. It was balanced by the fact that as a woman MP she had more to offer, if the party were interested in making itself truly representative of the people who sent them both to Westminster. Yet he had placed his foot firmly on the next rung of promotion each time and was now a settled and, it appeared, indispensable member of the government. How was it done?

She fetched her copy of
Vacher’s
and looked up his entry. He had gained early that precious place on the Select Committee on the Environment which had given him such insight into the department. Elaine had no clear idea how that was done, but the whips must have been involved somehow. Andrew had ruffled no feathers on that committee but had distinguished himself in sharp, ultra-polite interrogation of awkward witnesses. His membership guaranteed that he would be called to speak in tricky debates when he was frequently the only knowledgeable person supporting the government. When at the summer reshuffle a new PPS was required in that department, Andrew slipped easily into the gap. Appointed, in fact, to look after Roger. She had been surprised that her name had not come up. That was odd. Surely it didn’t mean that, given the choice, Roger had chosen this colourless timeserver instead of herself?

It took a long swallow of the whisky to steady her. Of course it meant just that, and for the most obvious of reasons. By the time Roger himself was promoted their affair was in full swing. He would not have contemplated her appointment so close to him: it would have been too risky. And he did not know her well then. Perhaps it had flitted through his mind that, were she unscrupulous, it was too open to abuse.

He might at the least have recommended her name elsewhere; but once he was out of the whips’ office there was no way to do it. It would have sounded highly suspicious had a minister touted around a name, and of an attractive female at that, if he were refusing to appoint her himself.

What about following in Muncastle’s warm footsteps? Andrew’s office on the backbenchers’ committee was of interest to the Snakes and Ladders dining club of which she was not a member; their discreet canvassing, circulated lists of names and organised voting kept out people like herself very effectively. As for the coveted position on the Select Committee and other appointments: Roger’s replacement as Environment whip was Johnson, who had leered at her once and then lost interest. She was clearly not in favour there, though, since she had never had a conversation with the man, it was difficult to comprehend how she might have upset him. Weren’t the whips’ assessments based on fact rather than fiction? Then she remembered that three people from her own region, including Roger, were by then already in the government. There was a crude rationing system to ensure that no area dominated too strongly. On any such calculation Stalker would have been pushed down the list, especially as the most distinguished Member nearby, who just happened to be Roger, probably never mentioned her.