Polls Apart

by Clare Stephen-Johnston

  “I do understand, but I need time to think it over. I will call you this afternoon, either way.”

  Libby thanked Franchesca before ending the call. This would go one of two ways, she thought. Either Franchesca would accept that Libby had good reason to ask her and, hopefully, agree to help, or she would put the phone down, call some other mothers at the school and, between them, turn her into a complete social pariah. Libby was just beginning to realise that, in politics, the stakes were always high.

  From the moment Anna stepped out of the car, she realised the Soho café had been a very poor choice of venue for meeting Don Monteith. Although her driver had managed to shake off two photographers on the way over, reinforcements surrounded her as soon as her feet hit the pavement. Where they had come from, she didn’t know, but already Anna had a creeping suspicion that Don might have tipped them off in an effort to promote himself and his new film. She walked briskly inside the café and found him already waiting at a corner table. He waved breezily and Anna, not wishing to cause a scene, decided not to mention the photographers and instead behave as though nothing was wrong.

  “How are you my darling?” he said, kissing her on both cheeks before flagging down a passing waiter to take her coat. “Sit down, please,” he gestured towards the seat across from him.

  “Thanks,” she placed her handbag at her feet and loosened her silk neck-scarf before turning her attention back to the director. “So, Don, I must congratulate you. I see you’re number one at the box office this week. You must be thrilled.”

  “Yeah, it’s going really well, thanks. We open in the US next week so that’s gonna be a big one. We’ve got premieres in New York and LA.”

  “You’re a busy man then,” Anna smiled. “I’m very fortunate to steal some of your time.”

  “Well,” he nodded, “this is a rare day off for me so I thought I’d make the most of it by meeting a very beautiful actress for brunch.”

  Anna felt herself wince at Don’s crude attempt at charm, and instead of responding to him she browsed the breakfast menu until she’d made her choice. When the waiter came to take their order, Anna asked for eggs benedict while Don just ordered another coffee.

  “Are you not having anything to eat?” Anna asked.

  “No, I’m not a big eater in the mornings.”

  “You should have said,” Anna replied, confused at his suggestion of brunch when he wasn’t going to eat anything himself.

  “Well, coffee seems so meagre compared to brunch, doesn’t it,” he smiled. “Anyway, you need to relax and eat properly when you’re not on the road, cos there was nothing worth eating on that battle bus.”

  “That’s true,” Anna laughed. “Sadly, it’s like a second home right now as well.”

  “But just you wait until you land the big prize,” Don winked. “You’ll never have to face a soggy ploughman’s sandwich again.”

  “Even if we do make it, we’ll still have to get out on that road in another few years’ time. There’s no escaping that battle bus.”

  “You’ll be too busy with your film career by then, Anna.” Don winked again, causing Anna to wonder if it had become something of an involuntary movement around women.

  She smiled, a little embarrassed. “We’ll see. Right now I feel very committed to supporting Richard and getting involved more in social campaigning.”

  “Very good for you. Now…” he announced dramatically. “I wanna talk to you about a little project I’ve got coming up on the horizon. Stay right there and I’ll be back in a minute.” Don suddenly rose to his feet and headed off to the toilets. Fortunately for Anna, her eggs and coffee arrived just at that point so she was saved from having to sit alone with only a glass of water to occupy her time. Watching Don swagger off in the direction of the men’s toilets, she couldn’t help but think how agitated he had seemed recently compared to the day they had first met on the bus. Today his eyes darted around the room as he spoke, his smile a little forced. Perhaps he’d been celebrating his latest film’s success a little too hard? Whatever the reason, she had begun to feel tired at the thought of trying to sustain a long conversation with Don so she texted John and asked him to park nearby so she could keep their meeting brief. She could tell Don there’d been a change of campaigning schedule and she now had to meet Richard a little earlier.

  She heard Don’s footsteps behind her again and looked up to see him passing her chair. He turned his head to smile at her and she noticed a cluster of white powder tucked under his right nostril. Anna immediately knew what it was – in her early twenties she’d dated a guy who told her he was an investment broker but who actually turned out to be dealing cocaine. And although he had been a good deal more discreet than Don, Anna had on more than one occasion spotted that same white powder up his nose. It turned her stomach to think she was spending time alone with a man who publicly professed to care about society and the welfare of others, but who was quite happy to perpetuate the misery of thousands of innocent people caught in the middle of drug wars. Not to mention the fact that if it got out she’d been spending time with a cocaine user it could derail the campaign all over again. She looked at him in his designer T-shirt and jacket, the smell of his expensive aftershave invading her breakfast, and she saw in an instant what this man really was – a shallow, insecure product of an even shallower and more insecure industry. It was an industry in which she’d been fretting in recent years whether she was thin or young enough to continue, wondering whether she’d require cosmetic surgery to keep winning even semi-decent roles. And sitting across from Don Monteith in the restaurant that day, she made a decision that it was an industry she no longer wanted anything to do with. She had been handed an opportunity to do some good in the world, and she was going to make the most of it.

  Don was smiling across at her as he chattered on about the “amazing” project he had in mind for her.

  “It’s a sort of British Sex in the City meets Beaches,” he continued in a loud, over-animated voice. “Your character would be very similar to Samantha, but you would encounter real struggles that allow the audience to totally relate.”

  Anna reached for her wallet and placed a twenty-pound note on the table.

  “What you doing?” Don asked, perplexed.

  “I’m leaving,” Anna replied, smiling.

  “Why?”

  “Because meeting you today, Don, has made me realise everything that’s wrong with this business. You said we were alike. You were right. You are like the self-indulgent, mixed-up person I was. But that’s not who I want to be now.”

  Don was staring at her as if she had just lost her mind – unable to even comprehend how she could insult someone of his stature and turn down the chance of starring in one of his films. Taking advantage of his stunned silence, Anna stood up to leave.

  “Good luck with the project,” she smiled.

  With that she turned her back on Don Monteith, and all those like him.

  Richard and Henry were so transfixed by the lunchtime news that they didn’t even hear Anna coming in the office door. It was only when she perched herself on the table behind them that Richard turned and smiled to acknowledge her presence.

  She could just make out the strap line running across the bottom of the screen. “captured missionaries released – pm to make statement”.

  Anna instantly knew the story they were referring to was that of the two British missionaries who had been taken hostage in Manila three years ago. Their families had been calling on Kelvin Davis ever since they were taken to help secure their release by putting pressure on the Filipino government to intervene. Kelvin had seemed reluctant to get involved until the last few weeks when, as the third anniversary of their capture approached and the media coverage around it increased, he had clearly spotted the opportunity to win points with the voting public. Unsurprisingly, he was about to milk every possible popularity-boosting second out of the situation. The picture cut away from the studio and brought the TV audienc
e live to the Downing Street press conference where Kelvin was just approaching the podium wearing a bright pink tie and a look that, to Anna, seemed infuriatingly smug.

  As he stood to address the assembled press, pictures of the two missionaries appeared on a plasma screen behind him, just to ensure there could be no doubt in any viewer’s mind as to Kelvin’s involvement in this diplomatic triumph.

  “Debbie Cartwright and Lorraine McGann were, one hour ago, released from the hell that has been their lives for the last three years.” Kelvin pursed his lip at the end of the sentence as if stifling a personal pain before continuing. “For their families, who never stopped fighting, the nightmare is finally over. This Government has been working tirelessly with the Filipino authorities to secure their release and, in the last few days, I personally spoke with the Filipino president regarding this matter…”

  “Give us a break,” Henry shouted at the screen, shaking his head in frustration.

  “… I am overjoyed,” continued Kelvin, “that our efforts have now paid off and that these two missionaries are returning home to the love of their friends and families. I have spoken with them both by telephone within the last twenty minutes and they are very tired, but very happy.”

  Richard grabbed for the remote and cut Kelvin off in his prime.

  “I can’t watch any more,” he said, folding his arms across his chest in a gesture Anna saw as half-protective, half-defeatist.

  “Look, he may win a couple of points from this, but any bounce won’t last more than a couple of days,” Henry declared convincingly.

  “The guy is a complete charlatan,” Richard vented. “And he keeps getting away with it.” Anna watched the vein on her husband’s forehead start to pulsate as he raged against his political adversary. “I mean, who’s he trying to bloody well kid when he says his government have been working on this tirelessly. He barely knew these women’s names until a couple of days ago when it was patently obvious they were about to be released. And there’s AllNews 24 blindly attributing their freedom to Kelvin Davis. It’s sickening.”

  “Let it go, Richard,” Anna said, putting a firm hand on his back. “Henry’s right. This can only buy him a few decent headlines for a couple of days max. Then it’s back to where he belongs.”

  “Sometimes, I just don’t understand why we’re even having to fight this election. Isn’t it obvious to anyone with half a brain that Davis has sold this country out. Why are we even having to debate it, for God’s sake? It’s just so fucking tiring.” Richard shook his head.

  Anna could see the dark circles setting more deeply under his eyes as he sat himself down on the desk edge and swept his hand over his forehead. She wanted to reach out and hold him, but it wouldn’t have been appropriate with Henry in the room. Instead, she moved to sit beside him, in the most basic display of solidarity.

  “Just a couple more weeks, Richard,” she said quietly. “Then this will all be over and Kelvin will just be another name on the speakers’ circuit.”

  Anna could hear her mobile ringing in her bag. She wondered whether it would seem selfish to pick up now, but Richard hated to hear phones ringing out so she answered to find it was Libby.

  “Hi Libs,” she said in muted tone. “How’s it going?”

  “Rather well, actually,” Libby replied smugly. “I’ve been doing a little muck-raking on Kelvin Davis and I seem to have unearthed a rather large skeleton.”

  Anna listened in total silence as her sister filled her in on Franchesca’s rather fruitless dalliance with Davis before proudly announcing that she had convinced the woman to talk to the press about the shabby way in which she had been treated by the Prime Minister.

  Richard and Henry could only look on in bemusement as Anna took the call. But before she could even tell them what had happened, they were smiling too. The sheer unadulterated pleasure on Anna’s face told them Christmas had come early.

  She ended the call before turning to look at them. “Seems like Kelvin’s bounce will be shorter-lived than he thinks…”

  The four large glasses of sauvignon blanc Marie had just finished drinking in the pub had left her feeling almost numb as she drifted down Oxford Street towards Marble Arch tube. It was only ten when she had decided to tell her friends she was calling it a night. They had tried their best to get her to stay, but she had nothing more to give. She felt drunk and tired and empty. The black cloud that liked to hang over her sometimes was back with a vengeance – and rather than just staying for a few hours, it had been hanging around for over a week now blocking any light she had left in her life.

  It was a lovely, mild London evening; the kind that would usually have given Marie a little spring in her step as she walked, but instead her feet hit the pavement heavily, drumming their own solemn beat with each step. She studied the faces of the homeless people who filled the shop doorways along the street. Some appeared suitably haunted, but others seemed merrily resigned to their feral existence; at least one even displaying some signs of contentment, propped up under his blankets, reading a book. Could it be, Marie wondered, that some of these wretched souls were actually happier than she was?

  Her career was going from strength to strength, and her recent run of front-page scoops had made her the talk of Hackland, but she was significantly less happy than she had been six months ago as a general news reporter on a daily paper. She had enjoyed her busy days out covering press conferences, talking to people who were part of major events. She may have been deluding herself, but Marie really believed then that she was actually making a difference in the world: fuelling democracy and throwing light on issues that needed to be exposed. Her parents had been proud. And so had she.

  The Sunday Echo was one of the world’s biggest selling papers so when Damian had actually headhunted her to offer her a job, it had been too tempting an offer to turn down. He’d added ten thousand to her former salary too. He’d promised her she could steer clear of kiss-and-tells and focus more on political and social issues. What the job had now turned into though, was more like political mud-slinging. Worst of all, she was slinging the mud at the party she wanted to win the election, whilst giving Kelvin Davis – a man she despised – a leg up.

  And Marie sensed there were more claims and counter-claims to come from the Alliance Party and the SDP in what was turning out to be one of the dirtiest campaigns ever. Meanwhile, she had, somewhat unwittingly, found herself as the main catalyst in the whole sorry affair.

  Her humble and dignified parents had preferred to say as little as possible about her recent run of headline-grabbing articles, her father simply commenting: “Well, you always said you wanted to see your stories on the front pages.” That had only depressed Marie even further as she remembered how she would sit with him until late in the evenings, even on school nights, discussing weighty issues like Northern Ireland, the Middle East and social inequality. He’d always laughed when she got fired up and would tell her it was only a matter of time before she could put the world to rights in print.

  She guessed that kiss-and-tells on politicians wasn’t quite what he’d had in mind.

  But there was no getting out of it. She was weighed down by an enormous mortgage and she needed the money. Her dance with the Devil would have to continue for now. Endless days of shovelling shit stretched out ahead. And to top it all off, she would turn thirty next week, still single. Still desperately lonely and still feeling like a worthless piece of nothing.

  Marie tutted aloud at the sheer self-indulgence of her thoughts. She should pick herself up and get on with it, just as her father had every morning that he’d walked into the pen-pushing job he’d hated so much.

  She saw the lights of the Underground station on the other side of the road and stepped off the pavement to cross. She heard the blare of the bus’s horn first before turning in time to see the look of shock and anger across the driver’s face. She leapt back, falling and hitting the pavement edge with a thud. The base of her back ached where she’d
taken the impact. She rolled on her side to catch her breath and eased herself backwards so her legs were no longer on the road.

  “You okay, love?” a friendly passer-by asked with a booze-induced slur. “You nearly got yourself killed there.”

  “I’m fine,” Marie replied, hastily standing up to avoid a further scene.

  The pain in her back twisted with every step, forcing her to slowly hobble towards the station. What was I thinking stepping out like that? she asked herself. I could have died. And then that nasty, unrelenting voice in her head came back at her. And what a loss to the world that would have been, it sneered.

  15

  Davis Is Sexist, Claims Downing Street Lover

  Monday, 27th April, 2009, UK Newswire – Prime Minister Kelvin Davis was today fighting claims of sexism after a former lover accused him of humiliating her in front of male aides and making disparaging remarks about a female Alliance MP.

  Davis, who separated from his wife Trish five years ago, admitted to seeing forty-three-year-old single mother, Franchesca Carruthers, “several times” at his Downing Street flat. But he vehemently denied calling her a “typical bloody woman” or MP Lizzie Ancroft “a prime example of why women should not be allowed in politics”.

  Carruthers told the News on Sunday newspaper that she first met Davis at a charity function where he had invited her to share dinner with him at Number 10. But she claimed that on the third occasion she visited him Davis had humiliated her in front of staff.

  She said: “It was obvious that Kelvin regularly had women to stay at Downing Street and that he had no interest in female company other than for his own gratification. Once he got what he wanted I was dispatched pretty quickly with him instructing me in front of a male aide to “pop off home now”.

  Carruthers also told the newspaper that Davis made no secret of his dislike of fellow Alliance MP Lizzie Ancroft.