One Day in May

by Catherine Alliott

  ‘And what does he do?’

  ‘Oh, bustle around making people vote, I think. Lobbies for support. He’s sort of a party organizer.’

  Like a party planner. Which had at one stage been an idea, but I’d dismissed it as too frivolous. Counting volau-vents and folding napkins into swans and so forth. But a political party planner… I rehearsed it in my head. I’m a political party planner.

  ‘Which side is he on?’

  ‘I told you. The Government.’

  ‘Oh. Right…’ My knowledge of politics was negligible in those days, but I was pretty sure that was the more, you know, right-wing lot. Stricter. Too many immigrants, too many hand-outs, too much welfare state, that kind of thing. Bit mean, but probably quite right.

  I shifted uncomfortably. Well, I wasn’t really fussy. Better-looking, I’d hazard. Nice spotty ties, good suits, braces. I wasn’t sure what Dad would think of it, though. We’d been brought up on the smell of an oily rag, mostly in chattering North London – more Neasden than Hampstead – and my father was a bit of an armchair socialist. (For years I’d thought this meant sitting in an armchair being sociable, passing the peanuts.) He’d been a big Michael Foot man and was on walking-stick-raising terms with him on the Heath, and although when Neil Kinnock took the helm he’d lost heart and voted Monster Raving Loony in protest, I wasn’t convinced he’d approve of me Crossing The Floor, as it were. Even Mum, in her youth, had apparently done some prison visiting – the mind boggled, jangling down to the cells in her Mikimoto pearls and her Chanel chains – and despite having morphed into a flog-em-hard-hang-em-high Tory who only bought her sausages at Fortnum’s, she still had a photo of herself at a rally in Trafalgar Square holding a placard, admittedly without a hair out of place, which Laura and I had gaped at. I had an idea Toryism was something you were eventually allowed to slide into, at least in my family. I wasn’t sure one should succumb so quickly: it was a bit like drinking Horlicks in your teens.

  But it was only a stepping stone to other things, I reasoned. Research, maybe. Research. That sounded serious. I could tell Kirsten that. And what a chance! Seat of government. Corridors of power. I saw myself running down them in a very tight pencil skirt and heels, arms full of documents, behind a very good-looking important man: ‘Tristan – Tristan, your speech!’

  ‘Would you ask him?’ I said eagerly, eyes probably shining into Hal’s, which wasn’t kind.

  ‘Of course. Or you can ask him yourself. He’s coming up in a few weeks for the graduation.’

  And indeed he did. And I’d been expecting a corrugated quiff of Brylcreemed hair, a ruddy face, a bluff manner, wall-to-wall pinstripes, but someone tall and golden had appeared, with a fabulous smile and wise, amused eyes that crinkled at the corners; he also had a very muddy Spaniel, and a shabby Barbour and boots, which he apologized for when he came to our flat to change.

  ‘We’ve been stalking in Fife,’ he explained, slapping his little brother on the back and beaming at Kirsten and me, dressed as we were in our smartest, darkest Oxfam or Topshop graduation clothes. Our little basement kitchen had never looked so attractive as he bounded about, introducing his equally blonde wife, Letty. ‘It was bloody freezing up there! We’ve only just thawed.’

  Stalking. My first encounter with the clothes, the whiff of the great outdoors, the purple heather, the glamour, the exclusivity, the money, the danger, the guns: it all seemed to breathe at me in that dingy Edinburgh basement kitchen.

  ‘Brought you these, Hal; shot them in an idle moment. Or perhaps I should give them to the girls.’

  Two dead rabbits, eyes glassy, heads hanging, were offered from a bag, and I just managed not to scream. Kirsten did, though, and took a leap backwards too.

  ‘Skin them for you if you like?’ Dominic said in surprise, as I reached and took them from him, trying not to heave. I’d never touched a dead animal. ‘No, no, I’ll do it. How kind!’

  He smiled into my eyes, and it seemed to me we had a moment.

  ‘I’ll do them later,’ said Hal, quickly taking them from me. ‘You’d better change.’ This to his brother. ‘The ceremony starts in an hour.’

  Dominic and Letty were in loco parentis, Hal’s mother being abroad, his father dead. When they emerged from Hal’s room and then later, as we all trooped across campus with our families to McEwan Hall, I thought how glamorous they looked: Dominic in a dark grey suit, Letty in a floaty cream linen dress, beads, quirky straw hat, witty little shoes: she had an alternative bohemian style and even my mother, stunning as ever in grey shot silk and never liking to be outdone, noticed them.

  ‘Who is that very attractive man, darling? With your flatmate?’

  ‘Oh, Dominic Forbes, his brother. He’s an MP.’ I couldn’t take my eyes off him. Or keep the excitement from my voice.

  ‘Of course. Darling,’ she nudged my father. We were filing into the hall, now, finding our seats, ‘it’s Dominic Forbes.’

  My father, who’d taken an order of ceremony sheet and put his reading glasses on to survey it, raised his head to peer over them. ‘So it is,’ he said in his soft Bostonian accent. ‘The acceptable face of capitalism. Or so they tell us.’

  ‘You’ve heard of him?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Mum. ‘He’s always in the papers. He’s the youngest member of the cabinet for fifty years, and his father was Peter Forbes, the film director.’

  ‘He’s not in the cabinet yet,’ murmured Dad, resuming his perusal of the programme. ‘Still on the back benches.’ But Mum was on a roll.

  ‘Oh, yes, it’s quite a dynasty. Go back another generation and the grandfather was the great explorer, Ernest Forbes. This one, Dominic, is supposed to be equally brilliant, and is hellbent on reforming his party and making it more – what’s the word, David?’

  ‘Slimy?’

  ‘No, more modernist, that’s it. Sweep out the old Tory blue-rinse image and introduce a more caring society – I read about it in the Mail last week. And there was a whole double-page spread on Her, all about what she did with the turkey on Boxing Day.’ Mum was fairly palpitating with excitement now, and I wasn’t far behind. The more she talked the more a shimmering glow seemed to surround Mr Forbes.

  ‘Apparently he’s got his sights on being Prime Minister one day, and why not? It’s about time we had some young blood running the country.’

  Dad was clearly going to let her run with this, but not without raising his eyes to heaven.

  ‘But this article said he’d like to have a go at being Chancellor first. Sort out the economy, which badly needs doing,’ she added sagely, as if it were a teenager’s bedroom. ‘Don’t you love his pink tie?’

  Dad finally cracked. ‘Your mother’s razor-sharp political insight into the man she’s tipped to head up Her Majesty’s Government seems to be based entirely on the colour of his tie and what his wife does with leftovers. Let’s hope she’s not indicative of the nation.’

  ‘And she is the daughter of Lord Bellington, that eccentric impoverished peer who sleeps with greyhounds on his bed and whose sisters all write gardening books. They’re always in the papers too. And her mother was a model like me in the sixties.’

  Dad’s eyes had now completely rotated because we all knew Mum’s modelling career needed huge pinches of salt. She had once done some knitwear patterns – half-turn to camera, enquiring eyes, finger to chin – but it was hardly Christian Dior.

  ‘I might go and work for him,’ I said, unable to resist.

  ‘No!’ she breathed ecstatically.

  ‘Well, not sure yet,’ I said hastily, seeing her lurch forward and almost sprint across to wring his hand, check out his tie. ‘Hal’s going to try and fix it up for me.’

  ‘Hal?’

  ‘His younger brother, the one you met. We share a flat.’

  ‘Ah, yes, the peaky-looking one. I must say, seeing them together, you’d never guess they were—’

  ‘Shh.’ Dad silenced her as the organ started.

  �
�See you later,’ I whispered, as I shot away to join the rest of the robed, mortarboarded crew waiting to go up on stage to face the proud parents. I muscled through to where Hal had secured me a seat beside him.

  ‘Well?’ I breathed, as we sat down.

  ‘Well, what?’

  ‘Oh.’ My face fell. He grinned.

  ‘He said he’d be delighted to have you on unpaid work experience for a couple of weeks. Can you type?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Well then, he said you never know, after that you might get some typist going sick, and then you can fill in. And then if another goes on holiday or something one thing could lead to another. He can’t promise anything, but as in all these clubby places, it’s getting a toe in the door that counts. He can at least do that for you. Then it’s up to you.’

  ‘Oh, Hal. Thank you!’ I gazed at him, covered in delight.

  He gave an odd little smile and shrugged. ‘My pleasure.’

  I couldn’t resist looking over to where Dominic was sitting with his wife, in the audience. At that moment he looked, and I caught his eye. He smiled. Half a gallon of adrenalin shot up the back of my legs. I grinned broadly back: winked too, which, in retrospect, perhaps I shouldn’t have.

  5

  Everything about it was seductive; everything. As I stepped off the tube at Westminster and climbed the steps to emerge into hazy summer sunshine, crossed the road under the dappled shade of dusty plane trees, the Thames flashing before me, Big Ben looming, I felt excitement mounting. The air may have been full of blaring horns and toxic fumes, but as I skirted the cool oasis of green that was Parliament Square, hemmed in on all sides by Thursday morning commuter traffic, it seemed to me it was heady with possibility. A stationary white van, window open, blared out reggae music and I fancied I fell into step with London’s heartbeat as I strode past it, bass note thumping, blood pumping. Parliament, in all its ornate gothic splendour rose to greet me, windows flashing in a honey-coloured limestone façade, and even the policeman, stationed at the towering iron gates, had just the right amount of amiable old-fashioned-English-bobby about him. I flashed him one of my very best smiles and we exchanged a cheery good morning as he checked my pass: through the archway I fancied I could see right into the lobby beyond; people were already gathering, hustling, barking into mobile phones and oh… my… god… wasn’t that the journalist with the big ears? The one on News at Ten?

  ‘You’ll be wanting Portcullis House, luv.’ He handed my pass back to me.

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘Back around the corner,’ he turned, ‘and across the square. See that tower block over the road there?’ He pointed in the distance to somewhere slightly less picturesque; slightly more chrome and concrete. ‘First left through the big glazed doors and take the lift to the fourth floor.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Not quite the oak-panelled corridors of power I’d envisaged then. Nevertheless I obeyed orders and crossed back over the road, around the square, through the doors, and took the elevator. I squeaked along the linoleum passageway, floor-to-ceiling plate glass on one side, a row of closed doors that looked faintly clinical and forbidding on the other. No matter: the atmosphere may be subdued and humdrum, but at least – I turned my head wistfully before knocking at the door to which I was bidden – at least there was a view of Big Ben.

  Katya, Dominic’s private secretary, attractive in a plump, middle-aged, powdered way, was sympathetic. When she’d shown me where I’d sit, in a corner without the view, and then where the photocopier was, in another dark corner, she laughed when I casually mentioned the location.

  ‘Oh, no, only the cabinet have offices over there. In fact it’s quite nice to be at a distance; to go there and then come back. You appreciate the contrast more. It’s like anything: when you get too close, it loses its appeal.’

  ‘So you still get a buzz from it?’

  ‘Oh, yes, it would be hard not to. Having said that, it’s a job, like any other. Routine and hard work. The excitement and glamour – what there is of it – is in the chamber. I’ll take you over there later. It’s Prime Minister’s questions at twelve o’clock. Dominic asked me to get you a ticket. We’ll go and watch.’

  ‘Did he? Oh, how kind! So we’ll all go together?’

  ‘Well, Dominic obviously sits on the benches. We’ll be up in the visitors’ gallery.’

  ‘Of course.’ I sat where she’d shown me. ‘Is he… terribly busy at the moment?’

  ‘Extremely.’ She bustled across to her own desk and picked up a great pile of papers. ‘And I’m afraid you won’t see a great deal of him. He’s lobbying for support on a transport bill at the moment. We’ve got a few waverers, and there’s a rogue member in Wales who’s threatening to go Lib-Dem, probably about to lose his constituency, so he’s sticking the knife in as usual – all hell’s breaking loose. Why don’t you sit and have a look through these bills and reforms and familiarize yourself with what he does?’ She dumped them on my desk. ‘His big thing is education, he’s passionate about the primaries. Have a look at his latest proposals.’

  Whilst Katya pounded her computer in the other corner, I spent a very turgid hour flicking through a mind-numbingly dull heap of documents, trying hard not to yawn, or even pass out. In my bag was a Cosmo, which I surreptitiously smuggled onto my lap.

  After a while, I went to make myself a cup of coffee in the little kitchen. Katya was already in there, and before I went in, I heard her talking to another secretary behind the door.

  ‘And of course Dominic takes all these students, and then flaming well disappears. What am I supposed to do with her?’

  My hand came away from the handle. I stepped back. I was one of many: a student who wanted to see the chamber, the Strangers’ Gallery, have a drink on the terrace overlooking the river, be introduced to MPs. Maybe even catch a glimpse of the Prime Minister. I went back to the office.

  Moments later Katya fluttered back to her desk.

  ‘There you are, dear.’ She handed me a mug. ‘And there’s a couple of biscuits and a sugar. I’m sorry I haven’t been very communicative, but when I’ve finished these letters and made a few calls, I’ll take you across the road.’ She hastened back to her seat.

  ‘I can type,’ I said. ‘Accurately. My father taught me. He’s a journalist. I used to type up copy for him sometimes. Why don’t you make your calls and I’ll finish that pile for you?’

  She looked at me, surprised, over her glasses.

  ‘I’m fast, sixty words a minute.’

  ‘Well…’

  I saw her hesitate. ‘Where have you got to?’ I got up and crossed to her desk.

  She rose hesitantly. ‘Well, you can have a go at his correspondence, if you like. These are responses to all his constituents, but his handwriting’s appalling. I don’t know if you’ll be able—’

  ‘I will.’ I sat down eagerly. ‘My dad’s got terrible writing too. If I can decipher that I can read anything.’

  I took the pile of letters from her, flicked up the screen, and shot a piece of Portcullis-headed paper into the printer. She hovered over me uncertainly as I rattled off the first one. Dominic’s handwriting was appalling, but once I’d got my eye in I could see his As and Es were the only confusing elements and I could guess the rest. I handed Katya the letter to check.

  ‘Very good,’ she said approvingly. ‘Well, if you could bear to wade your way through that little lot I can sit at the other desk and ring the party chairman with a whole list of worries and woes. Reply to some of Dominic’s emails, too.’

  ‘Absolutely. You crack on.’

  I set off at breakneck speed, something all us Carrington children could do, almost as a party trick. Dad had taught us one summer, when there was no money for a holiday and we were kicking around the garden, bored. He’d lined up three old typewriters, which were being chucked out of the New Statesman’s offices, in the back yard – we’d hit Kilburn by then, not an address my mother favoured – and put b
oards over our hands to teach us not to look at the keys. Laura, Kit and I had races, the winner rewarded with an ice cream from the shop on the corner. I typed now as I’d typed in that Kilburn garden: competitively, lips pursed, imagining Laura rattling away beside me, whilst Katya made her calls. At ten to eleven she stopped me.

  ‘You’ve been terrific,’ she said, beaming gratefully over my shoulder. ‘Truly, truly helpful. Come on, I’ll take you across the road and we’ll see what’s cooking.’

  I could tell she was pleased and we chatted companionably on the way across. She lived with her sister in Vauxhall, she told me; had worked for Dominic for five years, and before that for his uncle, who was also a politician.

  ‘Really? I didn’t know that.’

  ‘Roger Forbes?’

  ‘Oh, yes. I’ve heard of him. Didn’t know he was his uncle.’ Black mark to Mum.

  ‘They’re a very distinguished family. Rather like the Attenboroughs, everyone is talented. But quietly, and in different ways. Charming with it.’

  ‘So you like working for him?’ We dodged a motorcyclist on our way across.

  ‘I love it. It’s my life,’ she said simply, and somehow that didn’t sound so sad. Yes, OK, she was unmarried and lived with her sister, but for eight – no, probably eleven – hours a day she was a vital cog in the ever-spinning wheel of one of the world’s most modern, constitutional governments. In this great edifice of parliamentary democracy, she was in the engine room. She wasn’t your archetypal role model, I thought as I followed her thick calves and swinging hips into Parliament, waiting as she paused to reapply her over-pink lipstick covertly in a compact before we went in, but in that moment, at that particular time, I wanted to be her. Wanted to purr ‘Dominic Forbes’s office’ down the phone to whom it may concern, but wanted, especially, for the man himself to turn as we approached in the busy lobby, thronged with people hurrying too and fro, sweep back his blond hair and come towards us eagerly.