by Green, Linda
‘Not you as well,’ I said.
‘As well as who?’ he asked.
‘Nothing.’ I smiled.
We left the house together for a change. Will, Charlotte and Esme all sporting ‘Vote Lollipop’ stickers. As I looked down the road into town, there were dots of purple all over the hillside and along the valley.
‘Look, Mummy,’ said Esme, ‘you’ve turned Hebden Bridge all purple.’
And I smiled. Because we had. And because no one could have predicted that happening three months ago.
The blur of purple increased the closer we got to the school gates. The school had even put purple-and-pink bunting up along the roof and railings. The Head was standing at the gates when we arrived.
‘Thank you,’ I smiled, ‘although I thought you weren’t supposed to be political.’
‘Oh, we’re not,’ she said. ‘We just thought it was a good day to have a celebration of how brilliant our parents are. And they happened to be the only colours the local shop had in.’
She had a twinkle in her eye as she said it and hummed ‘My Boy Lollipop’ as she walked away. I gazed around me: virtually every child and parent was wearing a Lollipop Party sticker. I felt humbled. Very humbled. But most of all I felt proud.
I looked out past the gates and saw Jackie and Sam walking up the road together, Alice and Zach chattering away behind them. When they got to the crossing point, Shirley the lollipop lady came over and gave Zach his special hug, as she had done every day since his return to school a week ago. Maybe one day she’d manage to do it without tears in her eyes. Zach smiled when he saw her lollipop. It had ‘school crossing patrol’ on one side, but on the other was a great big homemade Lollipop Party rosette.
‘You don’t have to come with me, really,’ said Sam, when she opened her door later that evening.
‘No, we know that,’ said Jackie, ‘but we want to. You started this whole thing, remember? It’s only fair that we see it through with you till the end.’
Sam’s count was at Huddersfield. Jackie’s and mine were both at the leisure centre in Halifax. We’d offered to stay with her for the whole night, but she’d insisted we go back for our own count which was due first. She picked up a jacket from the coat stand. Put it down and picked up another one instead.
‘Are you sure you’re up for it?’ I asked. ‘People would understand if you didn’t turn up, you know.’
‘No. I want to be there. I think it would be worse sitting at home, to be honest. Besides, I’ve got to face the world sometime. It may as well be tonight.’
I gave her a hug. Jackie kissed her cheek and then groaned and tried to wipe her lipstick mark off with a tissue.
‘Get off me,’ said Sam, ‘you great big mumsy thing, you.’ Jackie pulled a face at her.
‘Is Rob coming later?’ Jackie asked.
‘Yeah. He’s going to hang on until Zach’s fast asleep, then he’s going to leave him with Mum and come over.’
‘How’s he doing?’ I asked.
‘Oh, you know,’ said Sam. ‘One day at a time and all that. He’s been taking Zach over to the sibling group. I think it does him good to go there too.’
‘And you’re still planning to go back to work next week?’ Jackie asked.
‘Yeah. They’ve been great in offering me more time off, but I think if I leave it any longer I might never go back. I know it’ll be tough, but in a weird way I think it might help me. There’s a sense of peace there. Of calm. And a little piece of Oscar is there too.’
‘Have they done the memorial brick yet for the glass wall?’ I asked.
‘A week on Saturday,’ she said. ‘We’re going to have a little ceremony. Zach and Rob will be there. And Mum and Dad of course.’ She hesitated and looked down. ‘I’d like you guys to come too,’ she said, ‘but I’d totally understand if you can’t make it. I know the kids have got lots of stuff on at the weekend.’
‘We’ll be there,’ I said. ‘We wouldn’t miss it for the world.’
We had another group hug. I was already glad I’d opted for the waterproof mascara. Although if we continued at this rate, even that might not survive.
‘Right then,’ I said, ‘We’d better get going.’
We walked either side of her along Fountain Street and down the steps.
Jackie stopped and held out her arm. ‘Your election battle bus awaits.’
It was only then that Sam looked up and saw the purple-and-pink monstrosity which was parked on the cobbles.
‘What on earth …?’ she said, as she gazed at what had once been Jackie’s Renault Scenic but was now lost under a sea of purple-and-pink Lollipop Party stickers, posters and bunting.
Jackie opened the door. She’d even put purple covers on the seats. ‘I’m afraid Paul drew the line at a respray,’ she said. ‘Bloody spoilsport.’
Sam said nothing.
Jackie glanced across at me and grimaced before starting to speak rather rapidly. ‘I did check with Rob. He said he thought it was a good idea. That you wouldn’t think it was over-the-top or insensitive or anything. That Oscar would have loved it.’
‘Yes,’ said Sam, looking across at her and managing a small smile. ‘Yes, he would have.’
We climbed into the back seat while Jackie got herself sorted in the front. ‘I’ve left a few gaps so I can see out,’ she reassured us, before turning the radio on and setting off.
‘So, how are you doing?’ I asked Sam.
‘Middling days, bad days, well, mainly bad days actually. It’s all the things I keep finding that belonged to him. Stupid things – felt-tips and what not. And I go to put them back and then remember that he won’t actually be needing them. Not any more. There are stupid things I miss as well. Like the sound of his cough machine. It’s daft, isn’t it? How something so mundane, so unpleasant really, could become so much part of your life.’
I nodded and squeezed her hand. Unable to speak for a moment.
‘And what about you?’ asked Sam. ‘How are you doing?’
I’d told her, a couple of days after the funeral, about David leaving. She’d been cross with me for not telling her sooner. Kept asking if there was anything she could do to help – as if she didn’t have enough on her plate.
‘I’m fine,’ I said. ‘I guess it will just take a bit of getting used to – being on my own again. The kids have been brilliant, though. Will especially. It’s almost as if he sees himself as the man about the house now. He’s pretty much grown up overnight.’
‘Well, at least that’s one thing, I guess. I had no idea, you know, that things were so bad between you.’
‘I don’t think I realised quite how bad they were myself,’ I replied. ‘It’s weird, the things you find out about during an election campaign.’
We walked up the steps of Huddersfield town hall together, Jackie still talking about how many people had beeped and waved at us on the way over. I wasn’t sure whether she was genuinely that excited about it or whether she was simply talking to try to take Sam’s mind off what it was she was about to do.
Attending an election count was probably one of the last things she felt like doing right now. Attending an election count in which she was one of the candidates was probably the last thing.
‘Ready?’ I asked, as we paused at the top of the steps.
Sam nodded. ‘Ready as I’ll ever be.’
‘Hang on then,’ said Jackie, reaching into her bag for a camera. ‘I want to record this for posterity.’ She corralled a short, balding man who had the air of a council election official about him, into leaving his post at the door to take a photo of the three of us standing there, our arms around each other, dressed head to toe in purple.
‘Come on, then, my fellow musketeers,’ said Jackie, when she’d put the camera back in her bag, ‘all for one and one for all.’ And with that we linked arms and walked into the town hall, across the foyer and pushed open the double doors to the room where the count was being held.
It was
n’t like one of those surprise parties where people hide under tables and jump out cheering as soon as you enter. It was more of a ripple effect. As we walked down the side of the room, people looked up, stopped whatever they were doing and started to clap. The sound grew, gathering momentum as we made our way to the far end of the room. People of all political parties, all sorts of beliefs, religions and backgrounds, joining in the spontaneous round of applause for Sam. Applause which carried her forward without her legs really needing to move. She held on tightly to our arms, her tears splashing down onto our hands, and the sound of applause, of respect and sympathy and admiration, ringing in our ears.
It was gone eleven by the time Jackie and I got back to Halifax, having left Sam at the Huddersfield count with Rob. North Bridge leisure centre didn’t exactly look like a place to stage a political revolution. It didn’t even look like much of a place to have a game of badminton, to be honest. But if we were going to put the Lollipop Party on the political map, it was probably quite apt that we should do so at the most unlikely of venues.
The counting was well underway when we got inside and Will was running up and down the sidelines like something demented.
‘How’s it going?’ I asked, managing to keep him still for a second.
‘It looks like you’re up there with the big guys, both of you.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, really. Look at those piles of votes. And look at the faces of those miserable-looking gits from the other parties.’
Jackie and I went up for a closer look. Will was right. It did indeed appear that we were in with a fighting chance.
‘Bloody hell,’ whispered Jackie. ‘I haven’t written a speech or anything.’
‘Don’t get too carried away,’ I said. ‘It’s early days, remember. They’re not expecting to declare until four in the morning.’
‘Yeah, but still.’
I knew exactly what she meant. I could feel it too. The sense that we were on the verge of something extraordinary here. There was a shout from Will. He was pointing up at the large TV screen hanging on one wall.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘The first result’s in. We got 13 per cent of the vote in Sunderland south. And that’s a Labour stronghold. The Dimbleby guy said so. It’s happening. What they said in the exit poll is happening. You’re gonna get a massive chunk of the vote.’
I stared at Jackie. She stared at me. And we both did the really uncool thing of jumping up and down in delight.
And so it went on. Result after result with the Lollipop Party coming second or third. Our purple-clad candidates grinning from the rostrums, looking elated but slightly dazed by what they had achieved.
By the early hours of the morning, things were starting to become clearer. It looked as if there were going to be a new government, for a start. The electorate, as Jackie had so delicately put it, had given the Prime Minister a massive kick in the balls.
It wasn’t clear yet whether Labour would win enough seats to get in or whether they too would need to form some kind of coalition. But the story of the night, as David Dimbleby kept telling everyone, was the meteoric rise of a party which hadn’t even existed three months ago. Whenever they broke off to go to Emily Maitliss for a look at the big picture, her graphs and charts told the same story: the Lollipop Party were consistently polling around 15 per cent of the vote and picking up second and third places across the UK.
And still they counted in Halifax. I didn’t think that many people lived in the Calder Valley, let alone voted. The view from the deck was that Jackie appeared to be involved in a three-way fight with Labour and the Tories in Halifax, while I was in a similar situation in the Calder Valley. The Liberal Democrats had disappeared off the electoral map.
There was a whiff of expensive perfume in the air. Laura Jenkins, the Lib Dem candidate, squeezed past behind me. Her metaphorical tail between her legs. I felt my body stiffen. Will opened his mouth to say something.
‘Don’t,’ I said. ‘It’s not worth it. We’re not going to stoop to her level. We’re going to hold our heads up high and let our votes do our talking for us.’
Will sighed. ‘You’re no fun, you are,’ he said. ‘No fun at all.’
‘Well I’m hardly going to let you pick a fight with her, am I?’
‘Permission to air-punch if she loses her deposit?’
‘OK.’ I smiled. ‘Permission granted.’
Jackie’s result came first. I stood, tapping my feet on the floor as the returning officer went through all the preliminaries. I fixed her with a stare, trying to work out from her expression what the outcome was. But she simply kept smiling down at me. The sort of smile which gave nothing away at all.
The returning officer finally got to the interesting bit. ‘The number of votes cast in Halifax are as follows: Michael Blenkinsopp, Conservative Party, 9,162; Roger Carstairs, Liberal Democrat Party, 4,069; Jackie Crabtree, Lollipop Party, 12,793.’
A roar went up from our supporters gathered in the hall, led by Will, and with me as a very able first lieutenant. We hadn’t had the Labour vote yet, though.
The returning officer waited for a hush to descend on the hall again. ‘Duncan Fairweather, Labour Party, 14,658.’
I shut my eyes and groaned, but when I opened them a moment later Jackie was still smiling. A great big, ‘the girl done good’ grin across her face.
Barely fifteen minutes later I stood on the same rostrum, my face running through a variety of expressions in the hope of finding one which would fit. I’d always thought how weird it was that the candidates were told the results first and then had to pretend not to know. But now I was in that situation I was relieved that was how it worked. I needed the extra time to try to regain my composure and figure out how I felt about it all as the returning officer started to read out the results.
‘Laura Jenkins, Liberal Democrat Party, 3,577.’
I saw Will do an air-punch. She may not have lost her deposit, but it was still a pretty appalling result. I was relieved David had chosen not to come to the count tonight. It would have been difficult for all of us.
‘Anna Sugden, Lollipop Party, 14,321.
It was hard to tell who whooped louder this time, Jackie or Will. A faint smile settled on my face as the returning officer continued.
‘Jerry Broadhurst, Conservative Party, 11,890; Martin Simpson, Labour Party, 12,468. I hereby declare—’
But we never did hear what he declared. My name was lost in the huge roar that rose up from floor. And I stood there, the Lollipop Party’s first MP, still struggling to take it all in.
I stepped forward to make my speech. My legs were wobbly, my hands trembling, but my voice was firm and strong. ‘Three months ago, Sam Farnell had a dream. A dream to create a different kind of political party, one that put the most vulnerable people in our society first. One that reflected the priorities of ordinary people, that spoke for those who would not otherwise have a voice.
‘Today, across the country, millions of people have voted for that party. They have sent a message to the Westminster establishment, a message that their days are numbered. It’s time for a new kind of politics, a politics which puts children and families first. And that’s why I dedicate my victory tonight to Oscar Farnell, who lost his own brave battle for life, but who has left a lasting legacy, a promise of a better future for all our children.’
‘Jeez,’ said Will as he hugged me a few moments later. ‘My mum’s gone all Martin Luther King on me.’
‘I still can’t quite believe it,’ I said. ‘I never in a million years thought this would happen.’
‘Well, it has. You whipped their arses.’
‘And that’s the official political analysis, is it?’ I said.
‘So what happens now?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘To be honest I’m not even sure I can do it.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, I’ll either have to live in London five days a week and never see
you, or we’d all have to move down, and I’m not sure it’s fair to disrupt you all like that.’
Will stared at me and shook his head.
‘What?’ I said.
‘So our father’s walked out, I’m about to finish school and need to get away from this place and find a drama college and Charlotte’s being bullied at school and is desperate to make a fresh start somewhere new. And the rest of your family live in London. It’s a complete no-brainer.’
Put like that, I had to admit he had a point. ‘What about Esme?’
‘She won’t care where she is. You could drop her on Mars and she’d be happy, as long as she could find somewhere to do cartwheels.’
‘Do you know what?’ I said. ‘I still wouldn’t mind having you as my special adviser.’
‘Depends what you’re offering,’ smiled Will, ‘us actor types need a bit of easy money while we’re resting.’
Jackie finally managed to fight her way through the crowds of well-wishers and media. ‘Woo-hoo,’ she shouted, throwing her arms around me. ‘How’s it feel to be the Lollipop Party’s first MP?’
‘Good,’ I said. ‘Very good indeed. I’m only sorry you didn’t beat me to it.’
‘No worries,’ she said, her eyes glistening. ‘I guess it wasn’t the right time for me anyway. I don’t think the electorate would have been very impressed if I’d gone off on maternity leave in seven months’ time.’
I stared at her.
She nodded.
‘Congratulations, that’s fantastic,’ I said hugging her. ‘Have you told Sam?’
‘Not yet,’ she said. ‘I’ll do it after her count.’
When I finally made it through to the relative quiet of the ladies I switched my phone back on and checked my direct messages on Twitter. Gavin’s was top of the list.
How about we get the first studio interview with the country’s brightest new MP? Might even buy you a drink on my winnings while you’re down here!
I smiled to myself. London was going to be just fine.
31
SAM
Somewhere in the midst of it all I was aware that I had come very close. That the numbers involved had been less than one hundred. That people had patted me on the back and said better luck next time.