Mind Games and Ministers

by Chris Longden

  “Oh, please. Don’t make me out to be some kind of damsel in distress, Kate! I spend most of my waking hours telling women that they don’t have to be passive victims, so I don’t need my best friend telling me that I’m powerless to make choices …”

  She tutted, as my phone began to beep.

  “Look Kate, I’ve got to go. Got a call. Speak soon, OK?”

  It was Michael.

  “Just dashing from a vote and over to Bob Porteus’s place,” he announced. “You know – the Health Secretary – for a spot of supper. But I thought I’d give you a quick call. How’s your day been?”

  “Interesting. But not as fascinating as yours, I bet. How did things go with the PM?”

  “Oh fine, fine,” he answered casually. “Nothing to worry about there. Looks like Ben Hardy will have to resign during the next few days. Shame, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles. And the PM is still quite tickled with my press conference. He seems to think that I’m a genius at evasion and distraction. That I deliberately hammed up the ‘boob joke’ and managed to pull off what could have been quite a risky tactic.”

  “I kind of thought that, too. So, did you?”

  “No comment. You’ve both got very suspicious minds …”

  “But Michael,” I began to ask, as I slapped the eighth pair of Matthew-trousers down onto the board, “don’t you have to be a bit careful about pissing off someone like Simone Shaw and her crowd? Surely you’d rather stay on the good side of her and her cronies?”

  “Oh, God, no. She’s one malicious bitch, I’ll give her that. So if she’s got a bit of egg on her face – or her tits – then it’s good all round, I say. They’re pond life, her sort. Utter pond life.”

  “You sound like you detest the gutter press more than the opposition!”

  “Well, they’re a bunch of scumbags and losers, of course. That goes without saying. But generally speaking, us politicians do abide by a certain set of rules. We have our conventions. Shaw and people of her ilk don’t. The whole ‘Michael Chiswick is Gay’ rumour, which has been running for several years now, was actually created by her and her lot at the News Of The Nation .”

  “Right. Well, don’t turn it into a vendetta.”

  “Rachael, you worry too much. We’ve got people like Alex … the Twat on side. And I’ve got my own guy, Marvin, who helps with the spin.”

  “Well ... I think that you’re too blasé about things. Don’t forget that I’m not entirely green when it comes to how your political spin and spats can end up. But, anyway, just so long as those gay rumours about you aren’t true …”

  “Ha. Surely you realised that for yourself after Saturday night … Still, that kind of rumour never bothered me too much. It’s nasty, character assassination, of course. But on the other hand it’s a nice cover-up for all sorts of other kinds of heterosexual misadventures …”

  “Oh, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know about your sordid sexual past.”

  “Well, actually. It’s been very boring,” he sniffed. “My sex life. Until recently, of course … Anyway – what’s that funny sound?”

  “I’m doing the ironing. I’ve got you on speakerphone. See? There you are, off for supper with your Cabinet colleague. And here’s me ironing Dennis the Menace T-shirts. Height of glamour, eh?”

  “Oh. I thought you were either having an angina attack or you were breathing heavily. Shame. I thought you might be getting all hot and bothered while speaking to me ...”

  “I am getting all hot and bothered, but it’s because of the ironing.”

  “But seriously, Rachael. I’m desperate to see you again. Craven with lust. Don’t you fancy a bit of smut? Go on. Talk smutty to me…”

  “How about … sod off you mucky bugger?”

  Footsteps on the stairs behind me.

  “I have to go, Michael. Small person has left its bed …”

  “OK. Tomorrow, then. Night.”

  Lydia appeared at the living-room door, looking forlorn. She wandered over to me for a cuddle and showed me several holes in her rainbow-coloured stuffed cat (“Matthew tried to crucify him on his Bob the Builder workstation. And I just found him now … all up there on his own and bleeding to death.”) I consoled the cat with lots of kisses, pausing to remove fluff from my tongue as Lydia piped up.

  “Is that friend of yours and Daddy’s – that Shaun – going to give you a nice new job so that you’re happy all the time?” she asked.

  Lydia had developed a new habit of lying at the top of the stairs at bedtime listening in to my conversations. I wondered just how much she had heard. I did my best to sidestep the question.

  “No. Auntie Kate and I were just talking about different jobs we could do. That’s all.” I touched the tip of her nose. “And the last thing you should be thinking about, poppet, is jobs. You know what? I love my job. It does make me happy. But what makes me most happy in the world is you and your smelly little brother.”

  “He is smelly, isn’t he?”

  “Pongy.”

  She grinned and snuggled into me, trying to buy more time before the inevitable shooing back to bed. But then she asked me, “Mummeh? No one is going to wee all over you, are they? That would be really nasty of them.”

  “No. Don’t be silly.”

  “And Mum? Why were you talking about Sooty and Sweep to that man? On the phone.”

  “I don’t know what you mean, Liddy.”

  “Sooty I mean. He said he wanted you to talk about Sooty to him.”

  Like I said. Small kid, big ears.

  After Lydia was safely tucked up in her bed again, I went back downstairs to set out the kitchen for the routine of a Tuesday morning. PE bags, lunchboxes, notes to teachers all ready to go. On my way to put the milk bottles outside the front door I noticed that some ad-hoc artwork had been doodled onto the infamous fridge photo. Lydia’s earlier reference to ‘princesses and pirates’ when she mentioned the news clipping now made sense. Only Liddy had decided that I would be the pirate with the eye patch and black hat. Michael had been awarded the tiara, the jewels and the Cupid’s bow lips.

  Good job that Simone Shaw or anyone else at News Of The Nation couldn’t see it. They would have whipped a Michael Chiswick gender-bending story out of it before you could have said ‘mammary glands’.

  Chapter 15

  THE CAP OF INVISIBILITY

  The next day was officially the last day of summer. Bands of muggy clouds with an accompanying nip in the air heralded autumn’s arrival. Unusually for us, the Russell alarm clock (goes by the name of Matthew) had malfunctioned that morning. Normally it woke us at 6 a.m. on the dot, but for some reason hyper-tot was opting for a lie-in. I managed to get both children toileted, dressed, bagged up and out of the house on time. The only mishap we encountered between bed and bon voyage was Matthew falling head first into the recycling bucket outside the front door. Not hurting himself, but acquiring a rather interesting scent of pickled onions and red wine. I hoped that the nursery wouldn’t notice. He was usually a bit of a whiffy child, anyway.

  In the car I missed the news headlines. Matthew had been holding us hostage to his musical preferences for several weeks now, so we were forced to listen to what even Lydia was now calling ‘The Sodding Wheels on the Bus CD’ (my fault, that.) However, after kiddie drop-off I caught the tail end of a news report.

  “And another allegation of misbehaviour of government ministers. Directed again at the Department for Communities – but this time involving the senior Cabinet minister himself, Michael Chiswick …”

  In shock, I shot through a red light. Luckily there were no cars turning into my lane. My breath had frozen. Suspended in my lungs. I tried to turn the radio up, but with my addled brain I ended up switching it off by mistake. Shit. But never mind that stuff, I told myself. Concentrate on getting to work without going all dizzy blonde and orphaning the kids completely.

  Ten minutes later, while in a standstill at the Woodley traffic lights, I managed to g
et the radio back on. But Radio 4’s ‘Today’ programme was now wittering on about some kind of crisis in the North Sea due to cod depletion. Sod and bollocks. I realised that I hadn’t had time to switch on my mobile phone that morning. I reached over, pressed the button and it buzzed over a dozen times. Lots of missed calls from various unknown numbers, as well as a voicemail. As soon as I could, I pulled over to check it. It was from Michael.

  “Have to be quick, Rachael – but have you seen the headlines? If not, get a copy of News Of The Nation asap. You’ll see what we’re up against. I’ve got to go straight into a meeting with the PR bods. Do some damage limitation. Don’t panic. And don’t talk to anyone. At all. I’ll call you as soon as I’m out. Hope you’re OK.”

  A slippery sense of dread descended into the car. A mackerel sky hung over Medlock. I parked my car at Sisters’ Space and then ran over to Singh’s newsagent.

  And there it was.

  Slap bang next to the scratch cards and Maltesers. News Of The Nation . With a glorious, technicolor front page that read ‘On Yer Bike, Mike!’ accompanied by an enormous photograph of Michael riding Vinnie’s motorbike through Brindleford.

  I tried to swallow, but my throat had turned into sandpaper. I picked up a copy of the newspaper and opened it, nearly dropping the damned thing in horror. There, on page two, was another huge photograph. But this time of me. Well, me from the back. And of Michael. The headline next to it shrieked ‘Michael’s Biker Chick?’ and below it, the blurb read ‘After his cheeky ride around the streets of a Manchester estate, Michael Chiswick returned home with his mystery blonde, where they were seen smearing sun-tan lotion on each other. Do you know who Michael’s girl is? If so – call us now!’

  I closed the newspaper and clutched it to my chest. Unable to move. Staring at the rack of gaudy celeb and lifestyle magazines in front of me. The shellshock must have been obvious, as Mrs Singh, the shop owner (and a lady more used to seeing me purchasing vast quantities of midget gems in her establishment) felt the need to ask, “You OK, lovey? You looking a bit funny. Need some sweeties?”

  I shook my head dumbly, paid for the newspaper and headed for work. I swiped myself into the building and gave only a cursory “Morning” to our receptionist. I hid myself in my office, closing the door firmly and only then did I open the newspaper out onto my desk, spilling out the twisted words and dreaded photographs before me.

  My spirits lifted slightly. The photograph didn’t show my face at all. Just the back of my head and the tops of my shoulders. On Saturday, during the flood saga, I had tied my long hair into a ponytail and wound it into a messy bun at the top of my head. Not the way I normally wore it. I had to admit that the halter-neck had been a good choice; my back looked quite toned and tanned for once. In fact, I thought to myself, I could pass for a woman slightly younger than my thirty-nine years. Perhaps I should always insist on being photographed from behind.

  Despite the profound shock and the squirming snakes in my stomach, I allowed myself to smile warily. The newspaper’s ramblings made it clear that nobody knew my identity. And the photograph was helpfully mysterious. But then, in the next instant, my hopes thundered back down to earth. No. This would not be the best thing in the world for Michael’s reputation; for his career. Bollocks again. The likelihood of anything continuing between us was now minus five and counting.

  And then a wave of self-righteousness washed over me (admittedly, this was more about trying to stave off the certainty of romantic disappointment). Last night I’d actually warned Michael not to be too casual, too complacent about Simone Shaw and her shitty excuse for a newspaper! But oh, no: Michael had said that he knew what he was doing. Didn’t need the advice of a know-it-all broad from up north. He had Alex the Twat on his side.

  What a sodding pig’s ear this was turning out to be.

  My phone started buzzing. I was going to ignore it, but saw that the number was Kate’s.

  “So much for secrecy!” she shrieked.

  “Kate. Shush!”

  “You rotten trollop! Telling me not to say anything to anyone. ‘Not even Bob’, you said. And bugger me – if you aren’t star of the country’s leading arse-wipe rag the very next day! We’ve got it here. In the staff room. And I’ve been looking at the coverage on my phone too. You’re all over the Net, mate!”

  I couldn’t tell whether she was genuinely annoyed with me or whether she was simply finding the whole thing bloody hilarious.

  “Look, I haven’t a clue how …”

  High-pitched little voices were chattering away in the background.

  “Well, we’re about to start morning assembly. But I told the Head I’ve got a bit of a family crisis going on and I needed to make a quick phone call. Hey! Hang on a minute, chicken ...” She broke off and nearly deafened me with a bellow of: “Joshua Myers, how dare you do that to the Prayer Tree! I can see exactly what you’re doing with everyone’s prayers and I’ll be with you in sixty seconds. Just stand there and don’t move!”

  I waited.

  “Sorry about that, petal. Little shit. It’s always the ones with the well-off parents, isn’t it? Anyway. Yes. You. How on earth did that happen? And what were you doing in that photo? Were you sniffing the back of his neck?”

  “Oh, Kate.” I exhaled wearily. I was now sitting down at my desk and trying to clean crud from in between my keyboard’s keys. A sign of deep stress. “I know that this sounds ridiculous, but I was actually looking at a flea bite. On his back.”

  A guttural snigger.

  “Oh, yes. From your good samaritan bit with the old lady. Fantastic! Truth is always stranger than fiction! Anyway. What about the photo on the front cover? The golden boy of politics and motorbike thing?”

  “Hardly a boy. But yes. He’s into his bikes. And he ended up talking to this nutter who shouldn’t have been riding a bike because he was off his head on smack. So Michael drove it back home for him. That’s all.”

  “That’s all. Bit funny. I mean … it seems like every bloke you’ve ever been involved with is into his bikes. And …”

  “Yeah. It is. It was. A bit strange … obviously.”

  A small pocket of silence for a minute. Then Kate’s clipped, but gentle tones.

  “Sorry, chicken. Bikes. I don’t mean to make light of it.”

  I puffed out the air that I had been storing in my lungs.

  “Kate. You’re the last person who needs to fret about talking about stuff like that with me. But, yeah, you’re right. Why is it always bikes with me?”

  She chortled. “Perhaps you look like the town bike?”

  “Sorry, Kate. I’m having a sense of humour bypass today. But anyway, none of this adds up for me. Who could have taken the photos? Of Michael on the bike? And then of us in the garden later on?”

  “Photographers trailing you without you realising?”

  A sudden roar from her: “Joshua Myers, will you please stop wiping your bogies on Megan’s hair? That is perhaps the most disgusting behaviour that I have ever seen! And don’t give me that look! I saw exactly what you did and I can tell you that you’re going to be in Time Out before we even get to morning break!”

  She came back to the phone.

  “Look – I have to go. Spoiled little gits to discipline. Look, try not to stress too much. I only recognised you because I know the whole story. Obviously, I’ll be keeping my mouth shut. I shan’t be selling my soul to the evil media empires. Even if News Of The Nation wanted to pay me ten thousand for it. Yes, pal, I love you that much! And I hope that your Michael friend is chilled about it too. Because, quite frankly, Rachael, if he isn’t, you’re best off without him.”

  She blew me several kisses down the phone and then went off to secretly cuff Joshua Myers about the head while Ofsted and social services weren’t looking.

  I managed to pass the next few hours sitting in on caseworker meetings with some of the women, catching up on paperwork and popping in to the cafe to see how the online orders were prog
ressing. It was beginning to bother me, though, that after the initial voicemail left by Michael, the only contact my mobile phone had logged was from missed numbers that I didn’t recognise. Either those bloody annoying sales calls that I’m always getting, or the escalating hassle from the bank. And I didn’t want to speak to either of them. For very different reasons.

  And I wasn’t going to call Michael. Because he had said that he would call me.

  I’m old-fashioned like that.

  I couldn’t concentrate on the online sales system, so I asked Bev to make me a very strong coffee using our new-but-second-hand barista equipment. She could tell that I wasn’t in a great mood, so she left me alone and didn’t even ask about the contents of my lunchbox or allude to egg mayonnaise and its similarities to vaginal discharge. I pretended to rifle through paperwork as I sat at our empty coffee bar and nursed my cup of caffeine overkill, wishing I had some whisky to add to it. I became extremely morose.

  I started thinking about karma and my behaviour on Saturday night. Far too reckless for a widow in purdah. So serves me bloody well right. Mentally, I began to rehearse the coming phone conversation with Michael. The one where he would tell me in a gentle but firm way that getting involved with someone like me was proving to be a little bit too dodgy. Because, after all, I was a female with neither breeding nor connections. Living a life far too close to those of beaten-up women, drug users and demented old ladies. And, no doubt, my connections with Al Qaeda and Idi Amin would go against me, too.

  So au revoir, Mad Mancunian Totty.

  At noon, with only the sales calls and scary bank account overdraft people to show for missed calls, I went outside for a bit of fresh air. I wandered the few hundred yards to the park and into the Secret Glade. I found a bench and closed my eyes, feeling ridiculously sorry for myself and descending into full-scale victim mentality. Not something I liked to do on a regular basis, but then it wasn’t every day that I received the honour of Mystery Bimbo in the national press.