Polls Apart

by Clare Stephen-Johnston

  “You talk about Anna like she’s someone I barely know, Henry. She does actually happen to be my wife so I’d thank you to have a bit of bloody respect if it’s not too much to ask,” Richard eyeballed each of his colleagues in turn. “What Anna suffered in her childhood is unimaginable to the rest of us and I never, ever want to hear another bad word said against her. Right now I have to live with what has happened and I need support from both of you.”

  “Can I suggest that we see what the next couple of days brings,” Ray volunteered. “Things may well have calmed down by then. This could just be a little bounce for the Alliance Party in the immediate wake of the furore so let’s not be hasty. Are we agreed?”

  “It’s certainly the most sensible statement to come out of your mouth in recent memory so, on that basis alone, I’ll agree,” said Sandra before breaking into her half-smile, half-grimace that had become the stuff of political legend.

  “All right,” Richard agreed. “Let’s sit tight for another couple of days and try and get on with business. Maybe if people see us keeping a level head then they’ll be able to get past the headlines.”

  “And maybe they won’t,” said Bob, folding his arms to signal his dismay.

  Sitting alone in her hotel room, Anna was reminded of her early days when she was just breaking into the more successful phase of her acting career. Her first major TV role saw her take the part of a young lawyer in a sitcom called Eagles, filmed in Manchester. She was on set five days a week, meaning she spent an equal number of nights staying in the nearby Sheraton. When she first landed the part, Anna thought the hotel stay was one of the perks of the job. She could order from room service, never had to cook a meal and didn’t have to wash her sheets. Within about three weeks, however, the shine began to fade and she longed to be back in her Clapham flat where she could make her own cups of coffee with real milk, spread out on a comfortable sofa in front of the television and be surrounded by her own familiar belongings which gave her the closest thing to security she’d ever had. She quickly began to associate her hotel room with the loneliness she had been trying to escape since childhood. Now here she was again, left alone to feel the despair of the fourteen-year-old girl whose mother didn’t love her enough to stop Graham, her pathetic excuse for a stepfather, from mercilessly abusing her. A fourteen-year-old who came to believe that in some way she must have done something to deserve the pain and humiliation inflicted on her so regularly. But one thing Graham hadn’t reckoned on was Libby’s inbuilt sense of justice. It was the uppermost trait that Anna had come to admire in human beings – and thus her enduring attraction to Richard.

  She had told him about her troubled past just six months into their relationship. They had taken their first weekend break together to a hotel in Cornwall and, after a long and intimate dinner, they had ordered a nightcap to be sent to their room. Once settled into the sofa, clutching their cognacs, Anna had known the moment was right to bare her soul. He had listened silently, holding her hand as she poured out the full story. From her mother, Linda’s, depression and decline into alcoholism after their father left when Anna was just eight, to her unforgivable betrayal when she turned a blind eye on the abuse faced by her daughters by the second husband she married two years later. Sadly, for Anna, she was Graham’s “favourite”. In a hushed voice, sometimes crying, sometimes numb, she told Richard how her stepfather would wait until he thought everyone was asleep before sneaking into her and Libby’s bedroom to abuse her. He had told the sisters he would kill them if they made any sound or dared tell anyone. But they knew it would be futile telling their mother anyway – because on one of his late-night visits Libby had seen her pass their bedroom door, obviously wondering where Graham had got to. She stopped just a few feet outside, turned on her heels when she realised where he was and walked quickly back to her bedroom. Her mother, Anna had explained to Richard, couldn’t bear to be alone.

  “Couldn’t bear to be alone, but sentenced her innocent daughters to the loneliest ordeal of all,” he had replied.

  “That was my mother,” she mumbled.

  “What happened to her?” Richard had asked, sweeping her hair back from her tear-streaked face.

  “She drank herself to death when I was fourteen. Libby found her, face up, covered in vomit. She’d choked on it.”

  “Anna,” he’d said. Shaking his head in disbelief. “Then you were left with him.”

  “Not for long,” Anna had continued matter-of-factly as she worked through the story she had been desperate to tell for years. “Two days after my mother’s funeral, he visited our bedroom, but Libby and I were waiting for him. We had planned it on the day our mother died. Before he had even reached my bed Libby stabbed him in the back. He swung round and lunged for her but I hit him over the head with the bottle of vodka we had found by our mother’s body. Then we ran. Our plan wasn’t really to kill him. Just to escape. But he died, and we were found two days later. We’d had nowhere to go and hadn’t even left Bristol, so the police picked us up by the bus station where we’d been begging for money to get away. The most amazing thing was how kind these officers were to us. When we were sentenced to the young offenders unit, one of them said he felt so bad about it he had thought about leaving the police. He couldn’t get over the injustice of our being punished after everything we’d gone through. But Libby and I didn’t care where we were sent. We were finally free. Nowhere could ever have been as bad as the place we had called home. Wellinghurst was like Fantasy Island compared to where we’d come from. Cooked meals, clean clothes – and no need to sleep with your eyes open.”

  “Anna,” Richard whispered, folding her into his arms. “I’m so, so sorry. I can’t believe what you’ve been through.” He held her so tightly it almost hurt. “I don’t want you to ever feel frightened again.”

  She had felt so safe in that moment. So accepted. But sitting in her hotel room, now with only herself for company, she had been transported right back to those dark days. Betrayed by her husband now as well as her mother. She was frightened and she was alone. The ocean of life had spat her onto the rocks where she would have to wait and hope for rescue.

  The phone rang in Kelvin’s office just as he was helping himself to another cherry which he gobbled quickly up, spitting the stone into the bin before picking up the receiver.

  “Yup,” Kelvin said, still processing the remnants of the fruit skin.

  “Reggie Winecroft for you, sir,” said the operator.

  “Go ahead.” Kelvin reached for another cherry as he waited the few seconds it took to connect Reggie. “I thought you were supposed to be at a family wedding?” Kelvin asked teasingly. “Don’t tell me you’ve run off with the groom.”

  “Very funny, Kelvin. I just thought you’d like to know that the murderess’s husband is getting a further kicking in the polls following this weekend’s revelations.”

  “Fantastic. We in front yet?”

  “Not quite, but the Daily Echo are running a poll tomorrow which gives only a five-point lead to the Democrats. That’s back from ten points two weeks ago.”

  “Well, that’s moving in the right direction,” said Kelvin. “How do we get on top now, Reg?”

  “We’ve got to keep homing in on Williams’ heartlessness. That’s got to be the focus of the interview tomorrow on Today with Lizzy and Paul. You need to appear genuinely shocked and upset by his behaviour. I’ll have a full briefing with you before nine a.m.”

  “What time’s the interview?”

  “You’re on at quarter-past eleven and we’ll be at the studios for ten forty-five, so plenty of time to go through it in the morning.”

  “And how do I play it with Anna? I mean, do I want to be seen to be sympathising with a murderess?”

  “She was sexually abused, Kelvin,” Reggie said dramatically as if announcing it for the first time. “The media have been pretty united in their support for her. In fact, most are painting her as a heroine of our time. One editorial I read this m
orning compared her to Evita. So, I think you need to be sympathising with her big time.”

  “Fine. Now get back to your wedding – and make sure you let them know that it’s been bloody inconvenient letting you off on a Monday. Hope they appreciate the sacrifice,” Kelvin smiled at his own joke.

  “See you in the morning then, if I don’t speak to you before.” Reggie hung up and Kelvin got back to his cherries.

  Richard slumped down onto the sofa and took a large gulp of wine. It had been a long day and he knew he should try and get to bed before midnight but he was savouring a few moments of normality in his own home. He turned to look at Anna’s empty armchair and felt the now familiar lurch of his stomach whenever he thought about her. He had been an absolute fool to announce a separation so quickly, that much he knew. It had been the act of a desperate and confused man who had his eyes so firmly fixed on the finish line he hadn’t noticed the large foot sticking out from the sidelines waiting to trip him up. Right until the moment he had made the announcement outside of the college, he had trusted Henry implicitly. Now, he couldn’t help but hold him more than partially responsible for all that had gone wrong. Shouldn’t Henry have known to try and ride out the first few days to see how things were panning out before making the rash decision of cutting Anna off? With his supposed wealth of PR and press experience, did he not realise such a move would play badly with the voting public?

  Worst of all though, Richard realised Henry had treated both he and Anna as little more than political commodities. He hadn’t stopped to think for even a moment about the carnage it would cause in their personal lives. Henry was only interested in coming up with fast solutions and soundbites.

  As he had stood before the press and Bristol students that day, Richard had known almost as soon as the words left his mouth, that he was doing the wrong thing. And when, on the journey home, Henry had revealed he hadn’t even had time to warn Anna about the announcement, Richard had felt sick to his stomach. But there was no going back. In politics, only the weak and vulnerable are forced to make U-turns – or obvious ones anyway. He knew he would be eaten alive if he tried to go back to Anna now.

  Richard took another long slug from his glass, this time to finish it. His head was swimming with politics, pain and confusion. He missed Anna more than he could have ever imagined. He realised now that she was part of his internal fibre. He had only loved her more for her past, and how she had survived it, and yet it was now the very thing that separated them. He had a duty to his country to win this election and rid them of the hapless Alliance Party. But he knew too that he had a duty to his wife to make amends for his wrongdoing and try to win her back. He didn’t know which way to turn.

  As he rose from the sofa to switch off the lamp and head upstairs to bed, Richard decided the best he could do was keep going. If he tried to choose which way to turn now, he knew he would only end up more lost.

  7

  I Share Anna’s Pain, PM Tells Chat-Show Hosts

  Tuesday 7th April, 2009, UK Newswire – Prime Minister Kelvin Davis today opened his heart on national television to reveal he too had been forced into marital separation, like the actress Anna Lloyd.

  In an interview on the Today with Lizzy and Paul programme, Davis said he “knew the pain of an enforced marriage split”, adding that he felt “devastated” for Lloyd, who recently separated from SDP leader Richard Williams.

  The PM also went on to launch a scathing attack on Williams saying he was “deeply shocked” over his decision to leave his wife following revelations of her past as an escort girl and conviction for the manslaughter of her stepfather who had abused her during her early teens.

  He said: “What Anna suffered is unimaginable. And I’m just so dismayed that, at a time when she needed Richard most, he walked away from her. I know the pain of an enforced marriage split. I know the devastation it causes the one left behind.”

  The TV interview was the first time Davis has opened up about his divorce five years ago from his then wife, Trish. The split came three years into his first term as PM and there were rumours at the time that his wife had felt pushed out because of her frumpy image.

  But Davis told presenters Lizzy Pelling and Paul Stoddart that it had been his wife’s decision to leave because she “no longer wanted to live life in the public eye”. When questioned by Pelling on his motivation for publicly supporting Lloyd, Davis replied: “This isn’t about politics. This is about human decency – something which I believe Richard Williams lacks.”

  A spokesperson for the Opposition leader said Davis was “blatantly capitalising on a private matter” between Williams and his wife.

  Anna pushed back the covers of the hotel bed and reached for her mobile. It had beeped three times in the last hour, but only the third time managed to rouse her curiosity enough to make her actually sit up. It was ten twenty a.m., much later than Anna usually rose, but then she didn’t exactly have much on at the moment. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw one of the texts was from Libby. She quickly opened it. “I’m still too angry to speak to you but need to know where you are and that you’re ok. L”

  Anna tapped out a quick reply: “Staying at The Metropole. Am fine. So sorry I’ve made things difficult for you. Couldn’t live a lie any longer. Press would find out soon enough anyway now they’re digging. Have things been awful? Love you. xxx”

  Anna opened the remaining two texts from Joy. The first received at 8am: “We need to talk. J.” Then the second at 9.15: “Can you at least confirm you’re still alive?!”

  She thought about how things had been left with Joy and wondered where it had all gone wrong. They used to be so close but that had changed over the last few weeks. Anna wondered if Libby had been right all along when she said Henry had only recommended that Joy work for her so she could act as his spy – and secret messenger. They had got along so well to begin with, and enjoyed mocking the sanctimonious self-importance their husbands often displayed. But once the political stakes got higher, the ground had shifted between them and the seed of doubt within Anna had grown and grown.

  She stared at the message on her mobile and was just about to reply to Joy when another text came in from Libby. “House still surrounded by photographers now taking pics of kids. Not been out since you left. So yes, awful.”

  Anna put her head in her hands. The last thing she had ever wanted was to hurt Libby and her family. She hadn’t intended to tell the reporter the full story, but the truth took her over and came flooding out. It had been hanging over her for twenty years and there had been nowhere left to hide. She hated that Libby was so angry, but once the press had twigged that she had dark secrets in her past, it was only a matter of time before they uncovered the manslaughter conviction. They had changed their surnames to Lloyd when they left the detention centre, but Anna had always thought it miraculous that none of their old school friends had ever gone to the press. Her looks had changed radically since childhood when she had been slightly chubby with mousy brown, greasy hair, in stark contrast to her now trim figure and glossy blonde tresses. Her accent was much crisper than before, something she had learnt at drama school, and she realised they must simply never have recognised her. After all, who could have imagined that the wretched little abused creature who skulked around the school corridors could have re-emerged as a successful actress and politician’s wife. Sometimes, that was even too much for Anna to believe.

  Having successfully managed to balance two tubs of pad thai noodles on her left arm, Joy freed up the right to rummage in her bag for the house keys. For the neighbours overlooking the home she shared with Henry in Battersea, this must have been a familiar sight as, in the four years they’d lived there, she’d not once remembered to take her keys out of her bag before she lifted the cartons from the take-away every Tuesday night.

  One of the tubs would usually sit out on the kitchen surface waiting for Henry to return later in the evening, while Joy would make light work of the second one. Rarel
y stopping to tip it out onto a plate – and usually eating it whilst standing.

  Food – and her desire to eat lots of it – had become a significant issue in Joy’s life. As Henry became more and more busy, and they saw each other less and less, eating had filled the growing void in her life. But as she made her way through to the kitchen and slapped the cartons down onto the surface, she decided tonight would be different. Tonight she would eat slowly off a plate, sitting down. Tonight she needed to think.

  Her phone hadn’t stopped ringing since the story about Anna first broke – mainly calls from reporters looking for interviews or information, yet she had barely spoken to her client herself. Things had changed between them in the last few weeks. There used to be a lot of trust, but the people around them had cut into that. Now, Joy suspected it would be difficult for them to carry on working together. She could tell almost instantly that Anna’s hawk-eyed sister was a force to be reckoned with and wouldn’t make life easy for her. Joy was used to dealing with intimidating people with big personalities, but it was the way Libby hung back and simply stared that had unnerved her so much. She didn’t have to say anything – the way she had looked at her said it all. Her eyes screamed: “I don’t trust you.” And Joy had known that she would soon lose her most high-profile client, because Anna would always follow her sister’s advice.

  “You’ve got ten seconds to get yourselves down here or there’s no TV tonight,” Libby hollered up the stairs to the three kids. She had been dreading this morning since teatime yesterday when Dan had announced that he had a breakfast meeting and she’d need to take the children to school. Libby hadn’t left the house since Anna had revealed they’d killed their stepfather, her fear of the looks she’d be met with at the school gate had rendered her too terrified to go out. She had imagined the mothers hustling their children away from her before urging them into their classrooms so they could escape the violent beast in their midst. Dan, who would remain unfazed if a tornado was headed straight for him, had obviously failed to hear the whispering that must have been going on behind his back for the last few days that he’d been taking the children in. Ollie had never even mentioned the newspaper story since Libby had been forced to sit them down the previous Sunday to explain what had happened. She hadn’t told them she’d been sexually abused, just that her stepfather had been an extremely violent man who would have really hurt her and Anna had they not fought back. When she asked the children what the kids at school were saying, Ollie had simply replied: “They’re cool.”