Sheer Abandon (15 page)

“No,” she said quietly, “no, I do. I’d love to have a child. But—”

“But what? Is there something you haven’t told me, Clio? Something I ought to know?”

“No. No, of course not.”

But there was. And he was going to have to know sooner or later. It was incredibly wrong of her not to have told him before. She stood there, staring at him, willing up the courage to say it—and failed totally.

“I agree,” she said, quietly. “Yes. Yes, we should. Let’s—let’s try to have a baby. Before it’s too late.”

Chapter 9

         What was she doing, even thinking about it? For God’s sake, was she completely mad? How had this even begun to happen, let alone managed to sweep her along on this huge, breaking wave that had left her fighting for breath, absolutely terrified—and yet desperately, wildly excited?

Actually, of course, Martha knew very well. It was a congruence of everything that mattered to her: her own ambition, an infinitesimal but dangerous boredom with the law, a sense of emptiness in her personal life; and the sheer irresistible force of four very powerful people all telling her they needed her. Just the same, it still seemed a very scary thing for her to do, to consider actually moving into politics.

It had begun—well, when and where had it actually begun? In that hospital ward with poor Lina dying? In the House of Commons that night, when she had found the atmosphere so beguiling? Or when Paul Quenell, the senior partner, had asked if she would like to become part of his team working on a new client of his, the Centre Forward Party: “It’s a new political party, might interest you, breakaway from the Right—”

“Ah,” she had said, “Chad Lawrence, Janet Frean, that lot,” and he had been so impressed by her knowledge of them that it had given her an almost physical excitement to be so carelessly close to the corridors of power. That had been a very big factor.

She had gone to the House of Commons several times to meet them, had grown familiar with its complex geography, had listened to debates from the public gallery, had slowly begun to understand how it worked. She had got to know Chad and Janet rather well, even Jack Kirkland a little. Kirkland fascinated her, his passionate idealism, his scowling intensity, his gift for oratory, and the way, just occasionally, he would suddenly and visibly relax, start listening rather than talking, and even laughing when something amused him: a great bearlike infectious laugh. They were so hard to resist, these people, possessed of a quality she could only rather feebly call charisma, that made you want to impress and please them. And then when you did, you felt absolutely fantastic, clever and starry and—God, it was all so schoolgirly!

It was madness, total madness, and she knew it, with her life already so overstretched, her time so limited, her commitment to her work so necessarily intense. It helped that the party was officially a client, but she found herself proofreading their policy documents, suggesting likely supporters, and attending schmoozy lunches or dinners, or even—occasionally—drafting press releases on their behalf. It was partly vanity, she knew, vanity and excitement that she, Martha Hartley, had become someone in at the centre—or near the centre—of something so important, so high profile, in however modest a capacity.

But there was a serious side to it too, of course, in that she believed in them; she felt she was involved in something that could actually help the likes of Lina and her family, trapped in a cycle of deprivation. It was the kind of thing that she thought she could be proud of—and that her parents could be proud of too.

And there was also the fact that she seemed to have tumbled into her natural habitat. She loved the way politics was a world of its own, loved the villagey atmosphere of the House, the way everyone knew everyone else, the way people could be screaming at one another across the Chamber one minute and sharing a bottle of claret the next; she loved the way it ran on gossip and inside knowledge and deals and what she had once described to Marcus as a live game of chess.

They had, from time to time, suggested she think about going into it at the sharp end herself. “You’re a natural, I’d say,” said Chad, looking at her one evening on his return from a protracted and fruitless struggle with a local constituency. “We should parachute you in somewhere. You’d love it, I know you would.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she had said, laughing. “I don’t know anything about it.”

“Rubbish. It’s not rocket science. Common sense and energy are the main ingredients. And being moderately articulate, I suppose. All of which you are. You should think about it.”

How could she not respond to that? To one of the most famous politicians of his day, telling her he would like her to join his party?

It was all extraordinarily exciting.

Martha was sitting at her desk one morning in late January when her phone rang.

“Hi,” said a voice, “this is Ed Forrest. I don’t suppose you remember me. You gave me a lift up to London, one night last year.”

She did remember, of course: beautiful, charming Ed. “Ed,” she said, “how lovely to hear from you. I thought you were in Thailand or something.”

“I was. But I’m back now. And I thought I should call you. Fix a date. I said I’d buy you a drink. I felt bad, never doing it, but I kind of ran out of time. Sorry.”

“Ed, it’s quite all right. I haven’t been harbouring a grudge against you all this time.”

“I didn’t think you had,” he said. “You don’t seem that sort of person. And anyway, I’d really like to see you again.”

“Well, that’s a lovely idea,” she said, hesitating. But what was the harm? What on earth was the harm? “It—it would be nice,” she said. “Only it will have to be—let’s see—the end of the week. Like Friday.”

Maybe he’d be busy. They always were busy on Fridays, people his age. It was the beginning of the weekend, it was for getting drunk, making a noise, planning the rest of the weekend.

“Friday’d be cool,” he said. “Where should we go, do you think? Smiths? Or do you go there all the time?”

“Why should I?”

“I’m told lots of you city types do.”

“Well, this one doesn’t. But I like it there.”

Now, how stupid was that, she thought, putting the phone down. When she could hardly find the time even to breathe? Yes, she should cancel it. Or postpone it anyway.

He was sitting at a table just inside the door, in the dim light and raucous noise of Smiths, and she felt a shock of pleasure just looking at him; she had forgotten how absurdly beautiful he was. He was very tanned, and his blond hair, shorter even than she remembered, was bleached with the sun and he was wearing a suit, a dark navy suit, with a pale blue open-necked shirt. The smile, the wonderful, heart-lurching smile, was as she remembered, and the intensely blue eyes, and ridiculously long blond eyelashes.

He stood up, came forward to greet her. “Hi. You look great.”

She wished she had worn something less severe than her black suit—although the white Donna Karan top she had changed into was quite sexy. “Sorry I’m late,” she said, feeling suddenly foolish.

“That’s OK. I thought you probably would be, doing lots of high-powered things.”

“Well, I wasn’t,” she said and laughed. “I was waiting for a cab and discovering my phone was very low. Which is why I didn’t call you.”

“It’s cool. It’s good to see you. You look great. What do you want to drink?”

“Oh…” She hesitated. “White wine?”

“What do you like? Chardy?”

“Um—yes, that’d be nice.” Actually, she hated Chardonnay.

He loped off and came back with two glasses and a bottle of Sauvignon. “What happened to the Chardonnay?”

“I could tell you didn’t like it. So I took a flier on the Sauvignon. Am I right?”

“Absolutely right,” she said. She felt suddenly almost scared. How on earth did he read her so well? Already?

Three-quarters of an hour later the bottle was empty; and to her infinite surprise she had told Ed about what he called “your life-changing changes.” His response had been predictably low-key and approving—and she heard herself agreeing, as the noise and smoke level in Smiths rose, to have a meal with him.

“But I mustn’t be long,” she said. “I’ve got a lot of work to do.”

“What, tonight? Why?”

“Well—because it’s got to be done. Sorry, Ed. I really do have to be home by around ten.”

“You must take time to eat,” he said. “If you don’t, you’ll get ill and you won’t be able to work. Anyway, we’ve still got lots of ground to cover.”

“I know,” she said, suddenly remorseful that they had hardly discussed him, apart from his travelling experiences. “I want to know about your plans.”

“I’ll tell you while we eat. Come on, where shall we go?” Martha considered his probable disposable income, and that he might not let her contribute.

“There’s a very nice Thai place just down the road,” she said, “called the Bricklayers’ Arms.”

“Doesn’t sound very Thai.”

“I know. But trust me.”

“OK. I’ll just go and pay for the wine.”

“Can I—”

“Of course not,” he said, and his blue eyes were genuinely shocked.

She smiled at him. “Thank you,” she said. “It was the nicest Sauvignon I’ve had for a long time.”

“That’s good,” he said. “I really wanted you to like it.”

He had been for several interviews, since he got back. “And today, just today I got a second interview somewhere, and I think I got the job.”

“Ed, that’s great! Where?”

“With an independent television company; I want to be a researcher. And funnily enough,” he said, nibbling on a rice cracker, “the first programme I’d be working on is about politics. So knowing a politician myself would be a big help.”

“Ed,” she said laughing, “no way am I a politician.”

“No, but I bet you will be,” he said. “More wine?”

It was almost midnight when they left the restaurant.

“It’s been such fun,” she said. “Thank you. Let me know about the job. And if you get it, I could certainly arrange for you to meet some MPs.”

“You could? I’ll tell them that.”

He got the job; Chad Lawrence agreed to see him, and arrange a tour of the House for him. “But there’s a price tag on this, Martha. You’ve got to join us.”

“Oh, Chad, shut up.”

“I won’t. Why should I help you get yourself a toy boy for nothing?”

She did the tour with Ed, then said she would buy him dinner. “I owe you one.”

They went to Shepherd’s, where she felt like an old hand, pointing out various politicians to him, telling him morsels of gossip. Almost against her will, she heard herself agreeing to see him again.

“I’ll see if they’ll let you come into the office,” he said. “They’ve been interviewing young people about politics—that would interest you, wouldn’t it? You could see some of the tapes.”

She spent a couple of hours there, talking to Ed’s colleagues, and liked them very much—a young, aggressive, feisty lot. She was intrigued by the creative mind, the way it said “Let’s try” and “Why not?” rather than “That’s not possible” and “We’d have to find a precedent.” She enjoyed the way they grabbed ideas out of the air and pushed them around, rather than looking at the facts and lining them neatly into shape. Ed had let her see some of the tapes of his political interviews and she was fascinated—if a little shocked—by the way they were put together, taking remarks out of context, editing out what they didn’t like.

“That’s really rather dishonest,” she said, laughing, as they watched the rough tape of the first interview, and then the neatly clipped result.

“That’s television for you,” said the producer, grinning. “Let’s go for a drink, shall we? Maybe we should interview you.”

“Me! I thought this film was about young people.”

“You are quite young,” he said. “For an MP, anyway.”

“I’m not an MP,” she said. “I’m simply involved with this new party.”

“We could say you were an MP, a new one.”

“No, you couldn’t,” she said.

“Well, let’s go for a drink anyway.”

That was when she began to feel bad. She stood in a Wardour Street bar with Ed’s arm round her shoulders—she liked that, it was the first time he had touched her apart from some very brief goodbye kisses—chatting to them, and they were joined by a few more of his friends, all in the same business, and they thought it was odd, the relationship: she could see that. In their early to midtwenties, most of them, how could they relate to a woman who must seem to them already nearly middle-aged? And it wasn’t only her age that set her apart. They were just starting out on their careers, many of them not sure what they wanted ultimately to do, some of them still working for nothing, as runners, hoping to get proper jobs. How could they talk satisfactorily to a woman so successful that she was one of the highest earners in the country? Which they seemed to know she was. Clearly Ed had been talking about her.