by E J Greenway
“It wasn’t just Jeremy.” Rodney replied, in a softer voice. “I asked Bronwyn to have a follow-up meeting with him on Thursday evening, the rebels are having a meeting this week.”
“You asked Bronwyn?” Anthea gasped. “Why are you trying to undermine me?”
“I'm not trying to undermine you, I asked Bronwyn because she’s Chief Whip...”
“That’s exactly why you shouldn’t have asked her!” Anthea’s pink cheeks flushed crimson. Rodney's expression hardened but she obviously wasn't about to be stopped by a mere threatening glare. “I mean Jesus Christ, d'you think I was born under a bloody rock, you asked Jeremy to speak to Fisher because you wanted me kept out of the picture so you could take all credit for defeating the Government!”
“Now wait a minute!” Rodney yelled cutting her off and jumping out his chair. “That's a terrible thing to suggest! Perhaps I should have asked you and not Jeremy, I was going to tell you - of course you weren't going to be kept out of it, how could you when you're the one who's going to have to attack the Bill in the Commons?”
Anthea sniffed out a laugh. “Spooky, that's exactly what I thought! Hadn't stopped you up to now though, had it? I wondered why you were taking such a continued personal interest in this, damn the consequences for silly old Anthea who will be a laughing stock in the press for not being in control!”
“THAT’S NOT TRUE! Is this just because I didn’t promote you and now you feel threatened by Bronwyn?” Rodney shouted furiously as he smacked the bare surface of the desk. He winced with the instant pain as Anthea jumped and fell silent, her chest heaving and her enraged expression still set like concrete.
I’ve gone too far, Rodney thought, but he held his ground. It was said, and was a valid question. He saw hurt in Anthea’s eyes, but she didn’t lose her composure.
“Look, it all boils down lack of trust!” Anthea shouted. “I said I would give it thought, but you wouldn’t wait!”
“Do not forget, Anthea, who you are talking to!” Rodney snapped again. “This is something I could well do without today of all days when I’ve got every journalist in Fleet Street out for blood! If anyone is being selfish it’s you, don’t you realise I’ve got to be on top form for this speech? I called you in to reassure me, not shout and lecture! I am first and foremost your leader and your friend second when we are in this place, so you will watch what you say! Anything I do I do for the good of the party and it wasn’t done out of spite or malice…!”
“Oh, blah, blah, blah! I don’t buy that ‘it’s for the good of the party’ crap like others do, Rodney, I know you! I can’t believe you don’t trust me, after all this time!” Anthea persisted reproachfully as Rodney’s fuse finally burnt out.
“Ok, ok, if I don’t trust you then why the hell would I tell you that you aren’t this other woman Jenny’s going to reveal tomorrow?”
Anthea gaped, her eyes wide. “Well, if it’s not me, then that’s...none of my business. You’re right, you’re leader first, friend second. You’ve made that perfectly clear.”
“Fine, I won’t tell you then.” Rodney looked back at the speech on his desk and read the first line. He read it again, then again, as Anthea stood by the door, unmoving. Glancing up he saw her hand hovering above to door knob. She spoke, in a small voice, and a slight smile tugged at his lips.
“Would it help to...talk about it?”
For a moment Rodney paused. He sighed. “Ok, well...years ago, I had a…a one night thing. She was married, with a daughter. It wasn’t something I was proud of, it just happened after a party. Then, two years ago, it happened again, with the same woman. I didn’t tell Jenny about it, it was before we got together, but somehow she must have found out after our break-up, maybe accidentally from her mother.”
“Why would Rosie know?” Anthea demanded. “Is it a story Dickenson’s stolen from the Engager?”
“No, not exactly.” Rodney closed his eyes as he braced himself, thumbing his speech edgily as it lay on the desk. “I suppose I shouldn’t blame Jenny for how she’s feeling. You see, the married woman – I said she had a daughter – well, the daughter was Jenny. It was Rosie. Rosie Lambert.”
*****
The Deputy Leader flicked the cigarette stub into the Thames as he leant against the wall of the Embankment watching throngs of tourists taking one generic photograph after the other. The Elizabeth Tower, which houses Big Ben, is one of the most photographed landmarks in the world, and he wasn’t surprised. The architecture of Parliament fascinated him; it looked stunning from across Westminster Bridge, especially lit up at night, and the power contained in its walls was such an incredible political aphrodisiac he wondered if he would ever be able to bring himself to leave. The place was like an addictive drug which gave such a sense of euphoria that to give it up would be the equivalent of going cold-turkey. No wonder so many wrote their memoirs; it was a way to hang on to that special link, to live in the past that little bit longer when the Westminster village was everything even if you were nothing. Colin Scott hoped he was a long way off from writing memoirs or publishing his diaries. He made notes and wrote down dates, vowing one day to tell his side of the story, but the story for him had barely begun. Rodney Richmond’s, he hoped, would soon reach its damning conclusion.
Colin pressed the speed dial button on his mobile again but with little hope of a successful connection. His private detective had gone AWOL and since Thursday there had been a deafening silence. On the face of it, it seemed fine; Colin had enough evidence on Rivers and Culverhouse to cause trouble within a matter of days. Problem was, he hadn’t paid the detective everything he was due. He didn’t care about the guy’s welfare, but something must have happened to make him fail to return for his cash. As expected, he was informed by the automated message that the mobile he had called was switched off and to please try again later.
“Look I don’t just turn up at anyone’s request, you know, Colin.” A gruff voice sounded a few feet away as Colin furiously ended his call. He turned and greeted the old man with a cold stare.
“Yes, well, I think you owe me an explanation, don’t you, Geoffrey?” He replied curtly as he moved to a free bench, an eye kept firmly on his surroundings.
“I owe you shit.” Dickenson snorted distastefully, lighting his own smoke as he continued to stand, his ageing frame shivering in the autumnal chill. “She was keen to get it out into the public domain, as was I. I don’t pay out thousands to simply sit on a story on someone else’s say-so.”
Colin turned to face him and threw him an accusatory glare. “You publish something you promised to keep under wraps and risk my leadership chances by doing things your own way!” He spat in the strained voice of a man very much aware of being spotted.
“It’s my paper, Colin, not yours. I can print what the hell I like and when, within the law, although to say that’s an ass is putting it mildly!” The editor retorted indignantly. “Anyway you should be thanking me, now was a perfect time. Rosie’s Arnold stuff was good, but not nearly as good as this. A bad run for Richmond is just what you need; you should be grateful to me for today, and for Saturday’s interview.”
“Yes but you said...”
“I said what I said, Colin, and you’re more naïve than I thought. I’m a journalist, not Father fucking Christmas. I still want you to be leader but don’t push me. You need me but I need you for bugger all.” Sir Geoffrey blew a smoke ring and produced a deep, chesty cough. “I’m getting too old for this shit, I really am. If you think you can control my paper from the outside then I’ll find a more worthwhile contender for leader. Steven Sharkey’s looking a more credible by the day. You may have used my paper just to piss off Richmond but I haven’t formally declared support for you yet. I need assurances from you that you will force a challenge soon.”
If Dickenson’s fragile support was already beginning to splinter Colin knew he had to swallow his pride and back down. It also meant taking a leap of faith.
“Ok, ok, fine.�
�� Colin clasped his hands as a pigeon landed by the bench and began to peck around his feet. “It’ll be soon. I’m still re-building my support, it’s a diplomatic process, not that you would know much about that! This is strictly off the record – but I may have some interest in a stalking horse against Richmond, someone who’s...malleable enough to do as he’s told.”
“Would this someone be Tristan Rivers?” Dickenson smiled acerbically. “Because we’ve got some very interesting stuff on him.”
Colin froze as the editor told him gleefully that McDermott had shown him all the evidence pointing to Rivers’ affair with a glamorous Shadow Cabinet minister and that he was still very much married. McDermott’s ‘source’ had given the paper enough proof of Rivers’ gambling and serial adultery to keep the paper’s sales shooting through the Canary Wharf roof, and for a very reasonable fee too. Colin felt sick. The lack of calls all made sense now. All that money wasted! The turncoat bastard!
“A little bit more sleaze is excellent shit to smear in Richmond’s face, especially after yesterday and today.”
“You can’t print it! Not yet!” Colin he hissed. Dickenson’s sanctimonious tone was annoying the hell out of him. “Yes, he’s to be my stalking horse, I have a plan for Christ’s sake!” Nowhere in his plotting had he anticipated telling the editor of a national newspaper about his scheming but he had been left with no choice. He gambled, telling him everything; what he anticipated happening in the first then second ballot, how he had planned to ruin Rivers at just the right moment if he didn’t follow his instructions to the letter. It had been perfect: he was to be the saviour of a leadership rocked with dissent and scandal and the Party was to thank him by giving him the ultimate prize.
“So the stuff came from a job for you, then?” Dickenson chuckled. “Never mind grubby journalists! Fuck, you’re bloody mad! But you know what? I think it’s so damned crazy it might just work.” He sounded pleased with himself, as if simply rubber-stamping something which Colin should have run by him in the first place.
Colin exhaled slowly, flooded with relief. At least this way the evidence wouldn’t go to waste, but if he ever saw that detective again he vowed to get his money back one way or the other, then perhaps have him killed.
“Fantastic.” He said, nodding. “So you won’t be printing the Rivers stuff then, until I give the go-ahead?”
“Not quite, mate.” The editor said slowly.
Colin tried to speak but he was beaten to it.
“You know me by now, Colin. I’ve got money to make, a business to run, newspapers to sell to punters thirsty for scandal and sensation. I’ve now got this great story – a saga almost – where a top Tory hires a private eye to spy on another top Tory for his own ambition, digs the dirt on his own side, discovering that his colleague had a string of affairs until one day his wife couldn’t take it no more and kicks the two-timing sod out on the street just as he’s trying to get himself an winnable seat. Years later he tells Anthea Culverhouse, the Tory Leader’s unrequited bit of skirt, that he’s divorced when in fact he had previously begged Mrs Rivers not to divorce him, to stop everything being dragged through the courts in return for him not fighting a custody battle for their son. Culverhouse then buys the lies and sleeps with Rivers after feeling sorry for him for being sacked – and I’m saying ‘sacked’ whether Rivers likes it or not - while all the time the Deputy Leader is plotting with him to overthrow every thinking woman voter’s pin-up. And you’re telling me to sit on all of this? Now I know this plan of yours is mad, but for me to ignore a story like this would be fucking lunatic.”
The old man began to laugh mockingly and Colin felt his anger surfacing. He was being played, the situation spiralling out of his control. “Come on, Geoff, don’t be a...stop laughing, you old bastard!”
Dickenson clapped him on the shoulder, his eyes watering. “Now before you get your big blue knickers in a twist and screeching like a girl in that high-pitched yelp of yours, I know I said I would help you, and I will, but let’s get one thing perfectly clear. My paper and my readership comes before anything, including getting you lot back into power, so I’m going to make a deal with you.”
“What do you want?” Colin said cautiously after a pause. He was sick to the back teeth with deals, especially ones thought up by other people, but he calmed himself.
“I’ll give you until the day after the Cornish vote.” Sir Geoffrey began. “Give Richmond his moment of victory or whatever, abstain if you like, I don’t give a rat’s ass, but if Rivers doesn’t declare by then, it’s all appearing in the first edition the next morning, how you’ve screwed over your colleague, everything, and I’m going to push for Sharkey to run. Whether Rivers decides to ‘coup-and-tell’ on you will be up to him, but I’ll stick to my word. Now that sounds like a bloody good deal to me and one you should take up, if you’ve got any sense.”
Colin fell silent, processing Dickenson’s offer, and threat, in his mind. The editor lit another cigarette and offered him one, which he took without thanks, his nerves shot to bits. He would need to pay Kathryn an unscheduled visit.
“And if I don’t?” He asked coolly.
“If you don’t, then that’s it. The end of the line. I’ll run it in two day’s time after the great piece I’ve got for tomorrow.” Dickenson declared. He wrapped his coat around himself, his great frame shivering on the bench. “Couldn’t we have done this in the pub again? I fucking hate pigeons. And tourists.”
“If I’m going to trust you, then it needs to be mutual.” Colin said. A seagull landed next to him squawking and he shooed it away. “What else is coming out tomorrow, about Richmond?”
A shroud of suspicion fell across the editor’s creviced face as he tugged his gloves over frozen fingers. He smiled slyly. “Alright, but it goes no further, or it’s all off. Your whiter-than-white leader has a bit of a past and if I were Jenny I’d be bloody annoyed too. You and Rodney have terrible taste in women. Her daughter I can understand him going for, but her mother? She must’ve been a bit of a looker back in the days when you and she were together. How long has it been now?”
Colin shook his head, ignoring the question. “Sorry? I don’t understand.”
Dickenson rolled his eyes, now bloodshot from the grit in the breeze. “Richmond -he’s only been bonking Rosie Lambert!”
*****
“So you had an affair with Rosie Lambert?”
“It wasn’t an affair, more of a...”
“Spare me the sordid details, Rodney.” Anthea waved away his confession dismissively. “I really don’t care for them.”
Rodney couldn’t hide his confusion. “I thought you might....have an opinion. Advice, even, about what I should do.”
“It’s your love life, up to you who you sleep around with.” Anthea said tersely. “You’ve shagged one bitch, why not two?”
“Anthea, what the hell?” Rodney’s hands flew up in shock as Anthea’s steely gaze cutting through him.
“Well, it’s true!” She snatched up Cornish Weekly. “You’ve made your bed and all that! It you wish to go from mother to daughter then that’s your look-out.”
“Is that your comment for the media, then? Going to put it in a bloody press release? Thanks for your support!” Rodney found himself frustrated with Anthea’s anger but stopped short of a formal reprimand as she continued to shout.
“Support goes both ways!” She waved the magazine and headed for the door.
“So that’s it, then? You’re just going to walk out?”
“Give me a reason not to, Rodney!” Her voice cracked, the magazine scrunched in her fist. He stepped close to her, looking her in the eye, fixing his gaze so she couldn’t look away without it seeming a snub. Her green eyes held such a depth of beauty it simply took his breath away. The natural thing for him to do might have been to show a physical sign of affection - a simple caress of her cheek, perhaps - but then their relationship often felt to him far from natural. It was built on a strange chem
istry whereby she kept him guessing, while encouraging him with no more than innocent flirting. It was this coquettishness, often in public, which was the trigger for so much of the gossip. Perhaps he was too easily receptive to it, and behind closed doors Rodney’s heart and soul were tortured by her.
“I’m sorry.” Rodney said in a small voice. He could smell her light perfume, see the softness of her skin under her delicately made-up face. “I’ve said sorry so many times today, to Steven, to Barty...but my apology to you is from the bottom of my heart.”
“As I’ve said, Rosie’s none of my business.” Anthea replied unconvincingly.
Rodney couldn’t help a small smile. “I didn’t actually mean Rosie, I meant Cornish devolution.”
Anthea suddenly looked sheepish. “I can’t do this right now, I can’t. And neither can you. Deborah’s about to burst a blood vessel and no doubt half your office have their ears pressed up against the door as we speak. And as for you and me, I think I can contain my curiosity until tomorrow, but if Jenny’s been pedalling the usual lies I’m sure the papers will be predictable; how I’ll be comforting you for the second time over Jenny, how you’ll expect me to pick up the pieces even though we’ve – shock, horror – never actually slept together.”
“I don’t know the full extent yet, but whatever it is, please don’t listen.” Rodney pleaded. He knew she would pour over every word.
Anthea hurriedly changed the subject. “I think Colin is a more pressing matter. You need to fight fire with fire. Perhaps you should sack him now, before he’s ready. He’s still gathering numbers and it would be a blow to him if you were to force him to challenge you before he was ready.”
Rodney took a step back, the tender moment gone. He shrugged, glancing over at the speech which still needed attention. Deborah would want him.
“There’s not enough ‘evidence’, as it were. The thing with Colin is that he doesn’t leave much of a paper trail, and I won’t let him overshadow the vote next week, it’d be walking into his trap. But we need to be ready. Robert’s going to do an unofficial straw poll of colleagues, get some feedback.”