‘I’m just saying,’ she reasoned, after they had eaten supper together, ‘from what I remember of my conversation with Gerald the other day, reminding key members of the media about the split in the party over the leadership is a very long way from being part of the current strategy.’
‘He didn’t need reminding,’ Ralph replied. ‘It was a legitimate question, and the issue of the leadership contest is a matter of public record. As a journalist he’s bound to ask.’
‘You know perfectly well what I mean,’ she continued. ‘The whole pact thing – the pay-off for standing down. You’re talking about being leader of the party again, even though,’ she reminded him, ‘we agreed after the last time, you wouldn’t pursue the top job without us all deciding together. As a family.’
Ralph tried his charming smile. ‘Come on darling …’ he wheedled.
‘No,’ she snapped. ‘I don’t agree. We haven’t decided.’
‘Yeah well,’ he said, deciding there was no benefit to him in pursuing the conversation, ‘pacts and promises notwithstanding, the fact is Alan’s only fifty-eight, so the bugger’s going nowhere. And anyway, there’s the small matter of the election too. We haven’t won it yet.’
Within a few days, election fever had replaced normal life to such an extent it had become normal life. Matt had gone back to London, where he was busy with other commissions, although he had promised to spend a few more days on the campaign trail and in central office before he wrote his piece. Emily felt both relieved and, strangely, flat that he had no plans to join them again in the constituency. Instead, all that was left from his visit was disturbing dreams at night and resurrection of bittersweet memories that overlaid all her daytime thoughts.
TJ had been right about Ralph being spirited away from home even more than before, with plans afoot for him to join the election bus for the vast majority of time in weeks to come, ensuring that the party presented a good selection of the key figures when campaigning in the marginal constituencies.
Emily slumped at the scrubbed pine kitchen table, cradling a cup of coffee. It was mid-morning and getting Alfie and Tash off to school had been wearing. Both of them were staying up late most evenings to try and catch a few words on the phone with their father. The previous night he was due home and Emily had made herself hugely unpopular by insisting that they went to bed without seeing him after they had stayed up to nearly nine o’clock. In the end Ralph had arrived after midnight, going straight to bed and disappearing the next morning before the rest of the family got up.
Not only were the late nights taking their toll, Emily was struggling to be sole parent. She would have valued Ralph coming back to lay down the law every once in a while, to say nothing of, only very occasionally, taking the children off her hands for an hour to give her a break. Not that he had ever done that very much.
She looked around her kitchen. Just spending time in it made her happy. Ralph had allowed her a loose rein and a generous budget when they bought the house in the constituency. She had obediently made the sitting and dining rooms rather grand to impress those people that MPs need to impress but Emily found them soulless spaces that had no role to play in family life. The children were not even allowed in unless supervised. By contrast, she had refused a posh handmade fitted kitchen, furnishing the large, high-ceilinged room with freestanding furniture she had picked up from the local auction room instead. Once she had painted it and rubbed it back artfully to make the most of its age and character, she thought everything looked pretty good.
Just when Ralph started to suggest she was going too far with the cheap options – being always mindful of the need to impress – she spent a horrifying amount on a brand new bright red enamelled stove that sat comfortably inside the huge hearth and kept the whole room cosy and warm. The scrubbed pine refectory table was her other favourite thing, surrounded by a selection of odd chairs, also repainted. The table top was positively enhanced – in Emily’s view – by the embellishments of crayon, felt-tip and paint provided by the children over the years.
Brushing away tears that rose, unbidden and unexplained, to her eyes for the umpteenth time, she sighed, braced herself and grabbed the car keys from the dresser. Doing so, she noticed Ralph’s mobile next to them. He would be furious to have left it behind. Then it occurred to her he might have thought he had lost it and be panicking about the security breach. After all, he had everyone including the future Prime Minister on autodial.
She picked it up and selected ‘office’ from the ‘last number called’ list.
‘Darling,’ came a husky female voice.
‘Er … hello?’ said Emily, thinking she must have pressed the wrong button.
‘Mrs P!’ came a panicky squeak. ‘I thought you were someone else.’
‘Oh, hi Susie,’ she said, recognising the voice. ‘Likewise,’ she added. ‘I thought I had a wrong number. I just wanted you to tell Ralph I’ve got his phone. He left it behind this morning.’
‘Oh sure. He hasn’t mentioned it.’ Was there even a note of criticism in Susie’s voice? Then again, Emily found her husband’s PA permanently mildly spiky. She ran Ralph’s office with terrifying efficiency and a degree of imperiousness that he seemed blind to. On the contrary, Emily frequently had to tolerate Ralph’s ‘perfect Susie’ eulogies.
‘Yes, well, he probably hasn’t realised yet,’ reasoned Emily, slightly sharply.
‘I’ll send a car, we can’t let it fall into the wrong hands.’
Emily swallowed her irritation that Susie clearly didn’t think she was responsible enough to resist the temptation to – what? – stick it on Ebay? Sell it to the highest bidding tabloid newspaper …?
‘It’s just a damned phone,’ she snapped. ‘He can have it back tonight.’
‘He won’t be home tonight. He needs to be here late for a vote, I expect he’ll stay in the flat.’
‘Right, okay, well, whatever you think best,’ answered Emily, hanging up before she lost the battle with her temper and was unforgivably rude. Really, that woman needed taking down a peg or two. She seemed to think she was the woman in Ralph’s life …
And then Matt’s words echoed in her ear. She, Emily, was only part of Team Pemilly until Ralph decided otherwise and who really knew what he was thinking or saying to the people around him?
Feeling nervous and undermined, she grabbed the offending phone and decided to drop it off at the constituency office to be collected from there. She was blowed if she was going to sit in the house all morning waiting for a car to turn up. She could have a coffee and a bitch with TJ in return for some constituency work. Gratifyingly, he was no fan of Susie’s and could always be relied upon to take Emily’s side.
Chapter Five
Pressing ‘send’ to file the copy of his latest article, Matt rubbed his eyes wearily, closed his laptop and then stretched, leaning back in his chair and staring at the magnolia ceiling of his study. Like the rest of his docklands flat, the room was furnished with a view to function rather than form. There was a desk with a reading lamp and floor to ceiling shelves along two of the four walls. The shelves were crammed vertically, horizontally and diagonally with books – mostly on the subjects of travel, politics and anthropology. Piles of those either acquired or used most recently had taken up residence on the floor. Among the books on a low shelf there was a decent but unobtrusive music system, the source of the Bach cello studies trickling into the room and drowning out the hum of traffic from the street below.
Matt had rented the flat several years before, basing his decision on nothing more emotional than its proximity to his newspaper offices and to City airport. The latter was a convenient portal in his frequent trips to the European parliament where he never failed to unearth a story of political corruption, greed, vanity or all of the above to serve up to his readers. His boss didn’t require him to be in the office much. It was enough that he filed his copy, and that it was sharp, accurate and on time which it invariably was. Matt had little
in his life outside of work to distract him.
This was not to say he lived like a monk. Plenty of women had seen his bedroom, which contained even fewer hints as to his personality than his study. He chose his partners carefully, mind you. It would be too easy to exploit all the breathless, eager young women whose heads were turned by his looks and his untouchable demeanour. These he kindly but firmly detached, flattering them so warmly they hardly knew they had been rejected. His choice, when his craving for companionship was too much to resist any longer, was the hard-headed and the hard-hearted women who knew what they wanted and were as happy as Matt was to move on the following day. Since Emily there had been a few of those. None of them reminded him of her though. That was the way he liked it.
His draft of the Ralph Pemilly article had been completed several days ago but it still nagged at his thoughts. He had come up with a perfectly workmanlike piece, exploring Ralph’s meteoric rise through the party ranks and commenting on whether the country would be best served by such career politicians or whether the voters were looking for ministers who had more experience in the real world. It was a rather obvious and uninspired angle, but it would do. For now. There was still a while to go until he had to file it. He would wait. Sometimes a new angle would come to light and the work would be all the better for it.
An incoming text message pinged into his thoughts. Glancing over at his phone, he was surprised to see it was from Susie. As a professional courtesy he had given her his card when they met at supper not imagining she would use it.
She wanted to meet him, the text said. In private.
‘How interesting,’ he murmured, tapping his phone thoughtfully on the desk.
‘How very, very interesting.’
After the ‘village of the damned’ debacle, TJ was scared of giving Emily any remotely challenging constituency work to do. She absolutely hated standing on doorsteps asking how people were going to vote and so mainly she was stuck in the office, folding leaflets and making endless cups of tea for the volunteers who bustled in and out being terribly self-important, the general election being quite the most exciting thing that had happened to them for years.
The one enormous upside was that Emily was seeing more of Nessa than ever. She was a frequent visitor to the office, wafting in glamorously in a swirl of floaty scarves and exotic perfume. Despite being at least sixty-five, as far as Emily could make out – she would never ask – Nessa made Emily feel dowdy in her smart but anonymous black trousers, worn with a selection of boring tops. She was reminded acutely and painfully of her early career, when she wore mainly vintage frocks, artfully altered if necessary, with an eccentric line in tights and a pair of trademark over the knee boots. And then the politician’s wife’s need for propriety had asserted itself. Abandoning her instinctive style had left her floundering without a look altogether. Somewhere along the line with pregnancy, babies and fatigue, Emily had given up taking an interest in her appearance.
‘Nessa?’ she asked one morning, as they stood over a chuntering photocopier together.
‘Yes, my love?’
‘You know when,’ Emily paused. ‘You know when Arthur first got his seat?’
‘Yeees,’ she replied, patiently.
‘Actually, not then,’ continued Emily. ‘I mean yes then, but also when Arthur was first made a minister?’
‘After the election, like Ralph will be?’
‘If we win, yes. Were you – I don’t know, it probably sounds really silly – but were you scared?’
‘Mmm, I wondered when you were going to have an attack of the collywobbles,’ said Nessa, putting a comforting arm around Emily’s shoulders.
Tears sprang to her eyes again, and she brushed them away crossly. ‘I just don’t know what’s the matter with me,’ she wailed. ‘It’s what Ralph has always wanted, and now it finally looks like it’s going to happen, I just – I just don’t want anything to change.’
Nessa nodded and waited.
‘I think,’ she continued, slowly, staring unseeing at the wall, ‘I think I’m scared because I thought I had made all the right decisions, and that I was happy with where we were going – together – me and Ralph.’ She looked imploringly at Nessa, willing her to understand something she barely understood herself.
‘And now?’
‘Now …? Now I don’t know. Maybe,’ she said, pushing her hands into her hair against her scalp and pulling it hard, ‘maybe the truth is I made a really, really big mistake years ago and everything else that has happened since has been the wrong thing? Do you understand?’
Nessa smiled wryly. ‘And “how”, darling. And “how”. But you don’t mean the children of course. You don’t regret them?’
‘Heavens, no! I absolutely love and adore my babies with every fibre of my being,’ she gabbled. ‘How can I even say I have regrets about anything that might cause them not to exist? I’m a horrible person,’ she concluded, slumping.
‘Some people say I’m a wise old bird,’ replied Nessa slowly. ‘I’m not sure about the wisdom but I’m certainly an old bird, and in my considerable experience there is always the road you take and the road you could have taken … It seems to me if it’s not the children that you regret, it’s something to do with Ralph and all that being married to him entails?’
Emily nodded reluctantly. ‘That’s a bit blunt, but, yes, I suppose you know better than anyone, you take on a lot with the whole politician thing … it’s not the person, Ralph’s lovely …’
‘But it’s a tough brief being a politician’s wife.’
Emily nodded.
‘And … you’re wishing you married someone else?’
‘No!’ squeaked Emily, ‘Absolutely not!’
‘Mm. I thought as much. Who was he?’
Emily shot Nessa a look. ‘Well, it’s all a bit academic obviously.’
‘Obviously.’
‘No, I mean “academic” because he didn’t want me.’
‘How can that be?’
‘I know – bizarre,’ she said, wryly. ‘At least I didn’t think he did. It was all a bit of a mess. A confusing time,’ and heart-breaking too, she thought but didn’t say.
‘Look darling,’ said Nessa decisively, ‘we all play the “what if” game every once in a while, but, listen, you’ve got a pretty good life, two gorgeous children and a man with an amazing future ahead of him. Don’t throw it all away on some adolescent “maybe”. I know it sounds harsh, but you’ve made your bed.’ She raised her eyebrows, and Emily nodded meekly.
‘I’m fine,’ she said, patting her friend’s arm. ‘Ignore my silly spells.’
‘Talk to me about the wibbles and wobbles,’ said Nessa, making Emily look her direct in the eye. ‘I’m a safe sounding board. Not everyone is.’
Emily wouldn’t have minded getting a bit of moral support from TJ too but, when they were both mind-numbingly stuffing envelopes later that day, she found him unusually morose.
‘Wassup?’ she asked.
‘Ooh, nothing, really …’ he replied listlessly.
‘TJ?’
‘No, it’s just…’ he sighed, deeply. ‘Well, it’s all this,’ he said waving a limp hand at all the envelopes.
‘I know, it’s really boring,’ agreed Emily.
‘Boring? No, it’s not really,’ disagreed TJ, surprisingly. ‘I quite like all this sort of thing. The election, the new opportunities, all that promise and possibility …’ he tailed off, sadly.
‘Ah,’ deduced Emily. ‘New opportunities. Come on, give.’
‘Ralph said he’d put me forward to be on the candidates’ list for a safe seat,’ TJ blurted at last.
‘He did,’ remembered Emily. ‘Still nothing?’
TJ shook his head.
‘Well! Why on earth not?’
‘Oh, well, you know …’
‘No.’ said Emily, ‘I don’t know.’
‘He’s pretty busy …’
‘That’s just so typical …’ she fumed,
the bit firmly between her teeth. ‘Not that we want to lose you of course, but – for goodness sake – this is your career.’ She knew that TJ had long wanted to stand as parliamentary candidate. He was incredibly able and had been a vital part of the Ralph Pemilly team machinery for several years, honing his skills and experience. He was going to be a superb MP. All he needed was for Ralph to help him take the next step, which he was well able to do. But he hadn’t bothered and Emily was furious. Usually she struggled to stay cross for long but this time it was different. Her anger boiled up every time she thought of poor TJ and, by the end of the day, she had decided – for once – to take Ralph to task.
She heard the front door slam.
‘Hi darling,’ said Ralph blithely as he closed the front door and came into the kitchen, where she was chopping carrots for supper.
‘Don’t you “hi darling” me,’ she hissed.
‘Okay,’ said Ralph, looking guarded. ‘How about “hi sweetie”?’
‘No.’
‘”Hi gorgeous”?’
‘No! Shut up.’
‘Right-o.’
There was a brief silence while Emily fumed.
‘Well? Are you going to keep your promise to TJ or not?’ she blurted, waving the carrot knife threateningly under Ralph’s nose.
‘Er, yes I am,’ he hazarded, nervously. ‘Absolutely.’
‘I should damned well think so too!’ she said, the wind rather taken out of her sails by his immediate capitulation. ‘That’s all right then,’ she added, lowering the knife self-consciously. She wasn’t altogether sure she hadn’t just stamped her foot. Hopefully not.
‘Excellent. Good,’ said Ralph, confident he was on firmer ground. ‘Erm, what promise was that exactly?’
‘Well that’s just typical!’ she shouted. ‘You don’t even know! You just carry blithely on, expecting us all to … to … do everything you say … and we do it don’t we?’ she squeaked, nodding frantically for emphasis. ‘And you just think that all you have to do is … is … keep telling us all what we want to hear, don’t you? Don’t you?’ she demanded, waving the knife again.
Never Marry a Politician Page 5