Sheer Abandon (29 page)

“Oh God,” said Martha, and buried her head in her hands. And then Chad called again.

“Darling, I’m sorry I bawled you out. It’s natural you should be nervous. Absolutely natural. But you’re doing so well. And we’re all behind you. All right?”

“Yes, Chad.”

“Good girl. And call Jocasta back, will you? Soon as you can.”

God, thought Martha wearily, he’s got a hide like a whole herd of rhinos. “Yes, Chad,” she said again.

“Oh, and Janet called me, said she’d suggested a media course for you. Excellent idea, should have thought of it myself. I’ll get HO to book it for you. It’ll help you a lot. Right, well I’ll leave you to make that call.”

“Yes, Chad.”

She seemed to be stuck with it; she couldn’t fight this lot. And when she got back to her flat that night, her father had written to her; she recognised his beautiful handwriting. She stood there, reading, tears in her eyes.

…People keep coming up to us, saying how much they hope you’ll be selected, and how proud of you we must be. Which we are, my darling, so very proud. And we’re being extremely discreet, of course. We both send you very much love. See you in a day or two.

How could she turn her back on that, tell them she wasn’t going to do it after all?

And after all, she thought, her panic receding again, why should she? She had this great new opportunity; she had wanted it so much. She couldn’t throw it away. Not now.

Millions of girls, millions of girls…

Jack Kirkland smiled at Janet across his desk, gestured to her to sit down. “Thanks for sparing the time. I just wanted to run something past you.”

“Oh yes?”

“We seem to have got young Martha back on the rails. I really wouldn’t want to lose her. It’s not so much herself that’s valuable to us—God knows how she’ll turn out—it’s what she represents, youth, a corner in the professional business world, a—”

“Jack, I’m sorry, but if you just want to talk about Martha Hartley, I have to be in a committee room in ten minutes—”

“No, no, of course not. Sorry, Janet. No, I think we’ve got Eliot Griers on board.”

“Oh, really?” Eliot Griers was the Conservative member for Surrey North; he was deceptively soft-spoken, savage in debate, and had been promised a position in the shadow cabinet by Iain Duncan Smith, which had never materialised.

“Yes. He’s confident he can talk his constituency party round. Enough of it anyway. How would you feel about that? Personally I’d be delighted. High profile, very clever, he’s more of what we need.”

“Well, obviously I’d be extremely pleased. He’s very clever, no doubt about that. Surprised though. Last time I spoke to him, he went on and on about how courageous we were, seemed in no mind to join us.”

“That was before he didn’t get his shadow cabinet post. He’s very bitter about that. Of course he’d want a seat on the top table, so to speak. He’d be coming in very much at our level. A spokesman for the party in a big way. We’d make a big song and dance about him.”

There was an almost unnoticeable pause. Then: “So why are you asking me?”

“Well, he’d be very visible. I wouldn’t want you to feel in any way sidelined.”

Janet stood up, pushed her chair back rather vehemently. Her eyes looked dark and almost angry.

“Jack, I would hope I’m above such things. What I care about, above all, is the party and its success. I am not in this thing for personal gain. Women mostly aren’t, you know. They have other concerns.”

“So you say, all of you. I’d personally beg leave to doubt it. I’ve always regarded you as pretty ambitious, Janet.”

“Of course I’m ambitious. But if you think I’m looking for the top job in any party, you’d be wrong. I do have another life, you know. I’m not married to Westminster.”

This was a slightly cheap jibe, given Kirkland’s failed marriage. He flushed. “Good,” he said. “As long as you don’t have a problem with Griers. I was only clearing the deck, so to speak.”

“Yes, and I appreciate it. Sorry, Jack. No, Griers would be nothing but good news.” She hesitated, then said, “His marriage is all right now, is it?”

“Oh, that stuff years ago? Gossip, Janet, nothing more. I’ve spoken to Caroline, lovely girl, she’s right behind him in every way. And like you, he’s got a very attractive family, always a help.”

“Well, he seems just about perfect then,” said Janet. “Thanks, Jack. I really appreciate your…thoughtfulness. I’d be more than happy to have Eliot Griers on board.”

Several people serving on the Joint Committee on Human Rights with Janet Frean that day remarked that she didn’t seem in the best of tempers.

“You’re a star,” Ed said, “an absolute star. I’m so proud of you.”

She’d been afraid of seeing him after the weekend, afraid he might sense there was something wrong, something worrying her. He read her so well.

“Ed, don’t. I’ve got such a long way to go. I may never get elected at all, I—”

“I know all that,” he said. “I’m just proud of you for having a go.”

“I wouldn’t have without you,” she said. “I’d still be dithering.”

“Nah. You’d have done it anyway. I know you.” He smiled at her, raised his glass. “Or I’m beginning to. To the Right Honorable Martha. Long may she reign.”

It was a perfect May evening; the light brilliant, the air cool and clear, drenched with a recent shower. They were sitting on Martha’s balcony, drinking some champagne Ed had brought round.

“Are you all right?” he said suddenly. “You seem a bit edgy.”

“Oh—oh, I’m all right. I was a bit…worried about something.”

“Not any longer?”

“I don’t seem to be, no,” she said, half surprised.

“Well, that’s being with me. Cure for any amount of worry, I am. Give us a kiss. And now look at that, will you? Rainbow.”

And indeed there was, glancing down from a newly black sky onto the shimmering buildings across the river.

“Well, that should do it, even if I don’t. Melt your troubles away like sherbet lemons or whatever it is.”

“Lemon drops. Oh Ed—how did I ever manage without you?”

“I have absolutely no idea,” he said complacently. “You know what I was just thinking? I’ve never been to bed with a politician. Could you put it in your manifesto, do you think? Sex for the masses?”

“Certainly not,” she said, “just the chosen few.”

“Well, here’s the first of the few. All ready and waiting.”

And as she took the hand he held out and followed him inside, laughing, she thought that he would never agree to her giving up politics again, either.

Clio looked at Jeremy as he put a white wine spritzer down in front of her; he was pale and seemed very tired. He smiled at her almost nervously and said, “Well, how are you?”

“I’m…fine. Considering.”

“Good. Is it all right at the Salters’? What did you tell them? About us?”

She looked at him; he was sweating slightly. She was surprised. Why should he care so much? She supposed it was all part of his arrogance, not wishing to appear in any way less than perfect.

“I told them we’d separated. I had to. Why else should I need somewhere to stay? And my job back.”

“Your job back?”

“Well, yes. I have to live, Jeremy. I’m not the sort to demand huge alimony payments. And anyway, I love my job. There seems no reason to give it up now.”

“You decided that? Without consulting me?”

“Why should I consult you? You made it perfectly clear our marriage was over. I don’t see what it has to do with you.”

“I was…upset,” he said. “And I—I’d like you to reconsider. Well, both of us to reconsider.”

“What do you mean?”

“That we should—should try again.” She stared at him; this was the last thing she had expected. “Clio, I was very hasty. I said a lot of harsh things and I really don’t want to live without you. I don’t want our marriage to end.”

“Jeremy, on what basis? I mean, do I still have to give up my job?”

“No,” he said quietly, after a long pause, “no, you don’t. That was…unreasonable of me. I can’t face life without you, Clio. I came to see very quickly that I…well, I do still love you. I want you back. I really do.” He waited, as she stared at him. “What do you say?”

“I—I’m not sure,” she said. “I mean it was a bit of a shock, all that. But—you mean I can go on working and everything?”

“Yes, you can.”

It was tempting. So very tempting. The thought of living alone, of making her own way again, might be attractive in theory, but in practice it was scary. She was used to being married, to living with someone, considering them. And he had made several huge concessions. She had never heard him apologise before. To anyone. Clearly he had missed her considerably. Even allowing for the fact he would have found it so hard to admit to his colleagues and their mutual friends that their marriage was a failure, this was pretty astonishing stuff.

“Well,” she said again, “as long as I could work…”

“You can work, Clio. I promise.” He stopped and looked at her. “Of course I would hope it wouldn’t be for long. That we should be having children pretty soon. I mean, that is a given, as far as I’m concerned. And you too, I’m sure.”

Clio knew the moment had come, that she couldn’t go on any longer, deceiving him, when he had made such huge concessions to her.

“Jeremy,” she said, “Jeremy, I’m afraid that isn’t going to happen. Or almost certainly isn’t going to happen.”

He stared at her, his face absolutely puzzled.

She took a deep breath.

“I’ve got something to tell you, Jeremy, something I should have told you a long time ago. Should we talk here, or would you like to go back to the house?”

“Let’s talk here,” he said. His face was expressionless.

Clio moved to sit beside him. She took his hand and, feeling sorry for him, as she had never thought to be again, her voice surprisingly steady, she began to tell him.

Chapter 17

         She hadn’t seen Ed for almost a week. He’d been filming out of London and she’d missed him horribly. He’d called her a couple of times, but rather briefly, saying he was frantic. It had been unnerving—she felt eighteen again. Had he gone off her? Had he found someone younger or prettier, someone with curly hair and a small nose? Probably. She wanted to see him, talk to him, be with him, have him. She really, really wanted to have him. Maybe she never would again, maybe that had been the last time…

Her phone rang.

“I just wondered if you could give me a lift to Suffolk this weekend, Miss Hartley. I ought to visit my mum and my car’s completely fucked up.”

“I hope you don’t use that sort of language in front of your mother.”

“Of course I don’t. Also, I have this girlfriend down there I really want to see. She’s the most fantastic lay and I’ve been missing her a lot.”

“Well, I’ll have to look at my diary. Let’s see…Yes, I think I could just about fit you in. Now I do warn you, Ed, I’m horribly busy. I’ve got to see the Centre Forward people, I’ve got to do an interview with the local paper, and Norman Brampton has asked my parents and me to supper on Saturday evening. I’m sorry—”

“That’s OK. I could come along, say I was your secretary. Hold your microphone while you address your adoring public.”

“Yes, that’s a really good idea.”

“Or I could gate-crash the wild evening at the Bramptons’. That sounds really cool. We might even be able to sneak upstairs after the dessert.”

“Yes, that’s an excellent notion too.”

“Or how about we leave early on Friday and spend the night at some luxury hotel off the M11? We could have dinner on the way.”

“Now that is clever. You’re on.”

“That’s my girl. You’re really living dangerously these days, aren’t you?”

If only he knew how dangerously. Or rather, if only he never would.

Tension, trauma, the delight of finally being with Ed again had made her overexcited; she came swiftly, heard herself shouting as she did so, as the bolts of pleasure shot into her, bright, dazzling, ferocious. Later, it was softer, sweeter, and very slow; and after that, she lay curled against him, her arm across him, and told him how happy he made her.

She woke to find him shaking her, saying, “There, there, it’s OK, shush, shush. You had a bad dream,” he said, as she stared at him. “You were crying, talking in your sleep—”

“Talking? What did I say?” she asked sharply, terrified.

“Oh, just a lot of nonsense. Nothing that made any kind of sense.”

“Yes, but what?”

“Just a lot of words,” he said, folding her into his arms again, “rubbishy words. Go back to sleep.”

But she was too afraid for that, and lay awake until dawn, watching him and wondering whatever he would do or say, if he knew.

She felt much better in the morning. She bought a pile of papers and they sat reading them over breakfast, Martha drinking orange juice and coffee, Ed eating what the place called a full English. He kept offering her bits of it, feeding her mushrooms and tiny slivers of bacon on his fork.

“I’ll have you overweight in no time,” he said, grinning. “Tell you what you did say last night. When you were asleep.”

Terror hit her. “What?” she said. “What did I say?”

“You said, ‘Treacle tart,’” he said, “and then you said, ‘Chips, please.’ Pretty incriminating stuff, wouldn’t you say?”

“Oh shut up,” said Martha, and threw a bread roll at him.

They parted at the Coach and Horses, where she was meeting Colin Black; he said he’d call her at her parents’ house in the morning.

Clio sat on her new beanbag in her new sitting room and stared at her new television. She couldn’t, at this precise moment, quite think why she had got it; it was only Jeremy who had watched TV, but when she had bought the stereo, the young man had said they had special offers on televisions and she had suddenly thought that, actually, she would be on her own a lot and she wouldn’t be getting Jeremy’s supper or catching up on paperwork or returning phone calls, which were all the things she did while he watched it, because she’d have time to do that whenever she wanted, and maybe she’d even be rather bored sometimes, and a television might be a good idea.

She looked up at the bare windows and at the blinds still in their Habitat bags, then she wandered into the kitchen, put on her new kettle, made herself a cup of coffee in one of her new mugs, and wondered however she was going to survive her new life.

He had taken it quite well, really. He had listened to her quietly and politely and at the end they had agreed that the only thing was to part. He wanted a chance at least of having children, and clearly, with Clio, it was very unlikely. And she was (equally clearly) not quite the person he had thought; although the deception had initially been very minimal, almost nonexistent, it had grown disproportionately fast, in the end becoming so tragically huge that he could not contemplate trying to cope with it.

Chlamydia. It was rather a pretty word. It could almost be a girl’s name. It certainly didn’t sound like the name of an ugly, loathsome disease. A disease that appeared to have rendered her totally infertile.

Of course she didn’t know if it had. There was still hope. But the two last gynaecologists had both expressed grave doubts. Her fallopian tubes appeared completely blocked. And it was absolutely her own fault. She had slept with several men she had hardly known, and had contracted, in blithe ignorance, this awful, symptomless, unsuspected thing that had come back to haunt her when it was—probably—far too late to do anything about it. One of the things she most longed for, motherhood, was to be denied her: all as a result of some foolish, irresponsible behaviour when she was eighteen years old.

It was on the trip to the island that it started. The dreadful need to know that men—any man—could want her, find her sexually attractive.

She hadn’t expected sex to matter so much. She had just thought it would be a wonderful trip, meeting lots of people, seeing fantastic places; it hadn’t struck her that with hundreds, thousands of young people wandering untrammelled by any kind of discipline all over the world, pleasure of every kind must include sex in a big way. No one had thought to say, “Now look, Clio, everyone will be having sex all around you, all the time.” Or even tell her that she was very unlikely to return a virgin. Why should they? She had grown up in an extraordinarily uncommunicative family, repressed by her father, suppressed by her sisters, made to feel less pretty, less clever, less interesting than she actually was. She had gone to an all-girls’ school, and had never developed much of a social life, largely because she was shy and overweight and, when she did go to parties, would find herself bypassed for the other sorts of girls, the skinny, confident ones who knew exactly how to exploit their own attractions. After a few miserable experiences of standing in corners, talking to other dull girls, it became easier just to say she wouldn’t go. Of course her sisters had made even that worse, had commented on her weight and the fact that she didn’t seem to go out much, and told her she should learn to deal with her shyness, not give in to it.

“It’s a form of arrogance,” Artemis had said once, “thinking everyone’s going to be looking at you,” and Ariadne had said yes, quite right and why should they, for heaven’s sake. “Just forget about yourself for once, Clio, think of other people instead.”

That had been bad enough; it was worse when they tried to be kind and help her with her hair and makeup and suggest diets; none of their advice ever did any good. She’d had one boyfriend in her last term at school; she hadn’t even liked him, but he was someone to go to the cinema with and to take to the end-of-term dance. He had kissed her a couple of times, which she had found revolting, but nothing worse than that; the best thing he had done for her was tell her she was pretty, and she had liked his best friend a lot, which had goaded her into dieting, so that by the time she actually set off on her travels she had lost about a stone, and although comparing herself with the other two she felt she was the size of a house—she took a size fourteen and they clearly took tens—she knew she did look much better. Almost pretty in fact.

And because the Thai food was the opposite of fattening, she had lost another half stone by the end of the second week on Koh Samui. She caught sight of herself in a cracked mirror in someone’s hut one morning and thought she was almost not fat anymore; her hair had gone lighter with the sun, and she was brown and—well, she began to feel just a little bit self-confident, less apologetic about her appearance at least.

Although that was a long way from being sexy.

It was only when she went to Koh Phangan, for one of the full-moon parties that everyone had told her were so wonderful, that she had felt hopelessly, helplessly virginal. She had watched them in the darkness, against the background of the throbbing music, all the wonderful skinny brown bodies, enjoying one another, and although she had started talking to a very sweet boy, who was obviously also a virgin, and they had kissed a bit, nothing else had happened and he had fallen asleep on the sand after smoking a lot of dope. Clio was still at the stage of refusing dope—there were all sorts of scary warnings that the Thai police were at the parties undercover, offering spliffs and then arresting people who took them—but she had gone on drinking rather a lot. And in the end she had felt so wretched and sick that she had gone back to the hut and lain on her bed all alone, wondering if she might go on to Sydney much sooner than she had planned.

And had gone back rather miserably to the relative homeliness of Koh Samui.

Then something wonderful happened. The next morning, as she drank some very nasty coffee on the veranda of the hut, Josh suddenly appeared. Gorgeous, sexy, charming Josh.

He had been up in the far north. It was amazing, he said, he’d done a three-day trip walking through the jungle—“It was uphill mostly, miles and miles, eight hours a day, and incredibly hot and humid, I was practically hallucinating about a shower and my bed.” He had done a four-hour boat trip to an elephant village, where they stayed for several days. “But it was getting a bit like hard work, so I decided to come down here.”

Clio offered him some of the disgusting coffee and they sat on the beach and he went on talking about his trip.

“They’re really poor up there; they live in these little huts, off the ground, with animals living underneath them. They wear proper tribal gear, with wonderful headdresses and then Snoopy T-shirts underneath that the tourists have given them. You’d have loved it, Clio.”

She knew why he said that and it hurt: because he saw her as a swot, not the sort of sexy girl who pulled a different bloke every night. But she managed to smile, and say it sounded wonderful.

“It is,” he said with a grin. “You feel you’re in another century as well as another place. There’s no contraception, of course, so there are absolutely loads of children. The poverty’s dreadful and quite little girls are sent south and sold into prostitution. Very sad.”