The Sweetness of Liberty James

by Janey Lewis

  ‘It’s where he still goes to write music, and I do believe it could bring his music into today’s world if he is no longer surrounded by wooden standard lamps and Moroccan prayer rugs. He even has a kaftan,’ she admitted, laughing, ‘but don’t say I told you!’

  ‘We all get inspiration from different things,’ said Terence, fondly pushing his fingers through her hair. But he had allowed his wife to discuss their project with Bob, as she rarely asked for anything. Bob wondered where the hell J-T had got to, so felt little guilt in offering his work free of charge.

  As Liberty rested her danced-out legs by the Aga, Teal on her lap, she asked Jonathan whether Gray and Edmund had gone home.

  ‘I’m not entirely sure,’ replied Jonathan. ‘I haven’t been paying much attention.’ He smiled at Paloma, looking like a wolfhound that has just found a huge sofa right by the fire, together with a bowl of Bonios with ‘WELCOME’ written on it.

  I may just be missing Savvie, thought Liberty, who always felt deflated after a party. But it had been such fun. She really felt she had got to know lots of the local people. She had managed to steer clear of Miss Scally, and she had even chatted to Gwen and Paul, the couple who ran the existing tea shop. She had suggested to them that maybe they would like to do some travelling while they could, and enjoy their retirement rather than working all hours. Gwen agreed, saying she had always dreamed of visiting Portugal, and perhaps they could go on a painting holiday. Paul, who preferred lying on a beach pretending to sleep while ogling the topless sunbathers, said he would think about it, but money didn’t grow on trees.

  ‘You have a good pension, dear,’ sighed Gwen, whose feet, used to running around all day, were now feeling pinched in her party shoes. Liberty felt sorry for Gwen, but she needed energy and vitality, not an exhausted, frustrated housewife, as her front of house. Pleased she hadn’t hurt their feelings too much, she wished she could summon Savannah back – that would be such fun. She would work something out.

  ‘I really must go to bed,’ announced Deirdre finally. ‘Tomorrow we have to round up those bloody peacocks, God knows where they are, and I feel awful about Leah. Did you get to talk to her at all?’

  ‘No. Last I saw of her, she was arguing with her mother about some man. It’s sad, but I’m not sure it was the best time to try to unite long-lost sisters!’

  Deirdre smiled and said, ‘No, I suppose not, but I think you should try again. The poor girl seems lost, and with such a bitch of a mother and an absent father, I’m not surprised! Did you happen to notice Dr Brown talking to Sarah? I think something may start there!’

  Liberty sighed. ‘Mother, you must stop matchmaking, Sarah has enough problems, not to mention a husband.’

  ‘Yes, true, but she deserves better, and if she could work for him, it would kill two birds, so to speak. However, I have no intention of having voodoo dolls made of me, and finding boiled rabbits on the stove. I’m sure Miss Scally has put off all poor Dr Brown’s admirers since his wife died.’

  ‘You could start by addressing him by his first name,’ put in Paloma, whose eyes were glazing over with love as she yawned into her camomile tea.

  ‘I had better say goodnight,’ said Jonathan, and he rose to leave. Paloma followed him into the hall.

  ‘Lots to talk about in the morning, my darling,’ said Deirdre, raising her eyebrow as she bent to kiss Liberty on the forehead. ‘Happy new year, my wonderful girl, it’s going to be a great one. I love you.’

  35

  Liberty woke late; not surprising, but annoying for her, as the first day of January was her favourite day of the year. It was an opportunity, Liberty felt, not for resolutions, but for a clean start, especially this year. After dressing quickly, she clutched the still sleepy Teal in her arms and went downstairs, saying in the pug’s ear, ‘Your first hangover from a late night, honey, but not the last!’ She plonked the dog on the lawn, and then pushed Dijon and Custard out too. They still looked very portly after their midnight feast.

  The garden was a sight. Glasses littered about, spent firework casings stuck in the hedges – there was even somebody’s dress lying on a chair. The organisers would arrange for the marquee to be taken down later, and the caterers would collect the glasses, but she couldn’t just leave all the mess, so she wandered round, picking up plates and detritus. After a few minutes she heard a whimpering. Had one of the dogs trodden on a glass, she thought in horror. She looked about only to see J-T, exhausted, red-eyed, sitting on the frozen ground, still in his dress shirt and socks.

  ‘Don’t ask!’ he wailed.

  ‘Well, you know I’m going to, but you must be chilled to the bone! Have you been out here all night? Go and have a hot shower and get into some warm clothes. I’ll put the coffee on.’ Liberty helped him up as he was icy cold and could barely stand.

  She pushed him up the stairs, terribly worried as to why he was out there in the first place. She called the dogs in and warmed some milk, put a little brandy into a jug, then, just as she poured the coffee she heard shouting and arguing. Recognising Bob’s voice, she decided to leave them to it, but was now very concerned. It was fifteen minutes before J-T entered the kitchen, together with Deirdre, who had been woken by the ruckus. He was now fully dressed but barefooted, which startled Liberty, who had only ever seen him impeccably clad. She put coffee before him and added two spoonfuls of sugar. Deirdre added brandy and milk, before helping herself and sitting beside him, wrapping a woollen blanket over his shivering shoulders.

  ‘So tell me, what’s happened?’

  ‘It’s just awful. Too awful.’ They heard a car’s engine starting up outside. ‘That will be Bob. He’s gone,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Why and how?’ asked Deirdre, remembering J-T had used her car to fetch Bob.

  ‘He called the company driver who had been staying with his family nearby,’ J-T explained.

  Liberty sat beside him, put her hands around his, and said gently, ‘It can’t be that bad. Tell us about it. We might be able to help.’

  ‘Oh, it’s bad,’ he said. ‘I’ve messed up three lives, and have only myself to blame for it. If only there could be another tsunami!’

  ‘I don’t understand, what do you mean?’ asked Liberty, now desperately worried for her trembling friend.

  ‘You know,’ he mumbled, ‘the big story that knocks all the others off the front cover.’

  ‘It was only a party,’ said Liberty. ‘What on earth can have happened?’

  ‘I suggest you run to the shops and fetch the papers,’ said Deirdre to her daughter. She was now beginning to comprehend this could be more serious than a mere lovers’ scuffle.

  Everyone Liberty met while rushing along the street thanked her for such a good evening, but seemed to have an ironic edge to their voice. She was now seriously worried. There was the Daily Tidings, stacked up before her in the newsagent’s. Nobody ever admitted to reading it, but everyone did, as it kept the country informed about the latest footballer scandal, who had been sacked from the latest TV reality show, and vegetables that looked like Jesus or Cherie Blair.

  Liberty’s heart leapt into her mouth as she saw the front cover. Its entirety was taken up with a photograph captioned ‘How Much Energy Are You Saving Now?’. The meaning was clear. The photographer must have been right outside, for he had taken a remarkably clear picture of Deirdre’s dining room, whose windows faced the village green, despite being set well back from the road and fronted by a high hedge. There, for the entire world to see, was Grahame doing something to J-T’s crotch, although it was deliberately blurred.

  No, no, impossible! was Liberty’s initial thought. And then: I can’t buy all of them!

  Mr Podaski, the newsagent, had not attended the party as he had to be in his shop by five every morning. By now, almost wishing he had, he was watching as Liberty snatched a copy of every newspaper he stocked, and fled. He put them on Deirdre’s bill. She rushed home carrying her vast bundle, and into the kitchen, where J-T had been
telling Deirdre what had happened between sobs: about getting bladdered with Gray, finding a friend and confidant, but taking it too far and falling into his arms (and obviously other parts, too). He looked up as Liberty came in; a brief flicker of hope washed over his face as he prayed that what he and Gray had feared when they were blinded by the photographer’s flash had not been reality. But once he glanced at the front page of the Daily Tidings he despaired; there was no denying the magnitude of the coverage.

  The first five pages covered the ‘story’ angle. A journalist who had in fact been hired by a society magazine for the evening had written the story and been only too happy to sell it to the rag, gaining himself a reputation of sorts.

  ‘Are we all fed up with toffee-nosed Members of Parliament telling us to live more moral lives and save the world? Let me show you how clean, green, Grahame de Weatherby spends his free time.’

  The article continued: ‘Super eco-champ Grahame de Weatherby, whose lineage dates back to the Norman Conquest, has been campaigning for all of us to put up with wind farms and incinerators in our villages and towns. Maybe this is how the other half keeps warm in winter.

  ‘His sordid secret is now out. His boyfriend, interior designer Julian Tracey Jackson–’

  ‘Tracey!’ Liberty exclaimed.

  ‘Not the point, darling, do read on,’ said Deirdre.

  ‘No, don’t,’ sobbed J-T. ‘How did they find out who I am?’

  He turned on his phone to try and call Bob. He didn’t want him to read the article before he had talked to him. They had already had a fight when J-T told him he had done something awful. Bob understood ‘awful’ to mean ‘unfaithful’, which to him meant ‘unforgiveable’. So he stormed out of the house, little realising how public the situation was.

  J-T’s phone rang. He said ‘no comment’ to a reporter before listening to his messages. Most were from his personal assistant, Catherine, who tearfully reported that she had been fooled by someone who called pretending to be a client desperately trying to find where he was, as their sofa had collapsed. She was not the brightest girl and, keen to earn brownie points by working on 1st January, she had thought this must be her first interior design disaster and had given away too much information about his friends and family so the client could find him.

  ‘That means press on the doorstep,’ said Deirdre grimly. ‘I’ll close the curtains at the front. I should have done that last night.’

  The women’s thoughts turned to Grahame.

  ‘Do you think he’s told Jonathan?’ said Deirdre. ‘Oh, the poor, poor boy.’

  Just then Paloma wandered in, eyes sleepy but full of love and happiness, mouthing, ‘What a perfect day.’ Then she took in the papers strewn over the kitchen table, and the horror-stricken faces, unusual lack of food on the table and said calmly, ‘Right, I’ll do breakfast, you call Jonathan.’

  Paloma and Liberty clucked round J-T, telling him he would get through this. Bob would realise he had made a rash decision. They put eggs before him, and J-T actually smiled at this and said, ‘You don’t cheer up a gay man by forcing calories on him.’ But he took a mouthful of poached egg on toast to be polite.

  Deirdre came off the phone and relayed to the others that Jonathan and his sons had been up all night. ‘The papers and their journalists are homing in on Gray, no pun intended, as he is the bigger story – sorry J-T, but he is an MP – and they have been arriving in their droves and are camped out up there. Gray has told Edmund and his Pa all they need to know. I’m not sure whether anything would shock Jonathan at the moment, but he sounded horrified the press had caught hold of the story.’

  Paloma was pacing. ‘Should I go to see him?’ she asked Deirdre.

  ‘With all the press outside, I don’t think Jonathan would appreciate visitors now. You can always call him and talk, but right now he needs to concentrate on his son.’

  Paloma was desperate to comfort her new love, but understood, and felt for the sobbing young man sitting before her.

  ‘Gray hadn’t told his family he was gay – he hadn’t told anyone,’ sobbed J-T. ‘And here is me, showing the world! Oh God, what am I going to do? I can’t live without Bob, and he has taken Feran and Bulli.’

  Thank goodness, was Deirdre’s first thought. She hated the yapping duo.

  ‘Talking of which, you two don’t seem surprised,’ said Paloma, pouring coffee and looking from Liberty to Deirdre.

  ‘I have known for years,’ said Liberty. ‘Since I was a child, really, but I didn’t realise you knew, Mother.’

  ‘I didn’t. I just guessed, I suppose. I was always surprised Jonathan didn’t suspect, but I think he always hoped to have more grandchildren so maybe he blanked it out.’

  Liberty didn’t allow her mind to wander towards Edmund. He had filled her dreams all too vividly last night.

  ‘Anyway,’ continued Deirdre briskly, ‘I don’t think it prudent to go over to see them, or for J-T to go anywhere near the house. The press will be all over us, and hopefully there will be a bigger story for them to cover tomorrow.’

  Sadly for J-T and Grahame, the following week was a quiet one for news desks, so the photographers and journalists hovered around the village for several days, trying to get a new angle. Most people were loyal to their beloved MP; however, an unnamed source gave a full account of the party with her own additions – it was accepted that Miss Scally was the source – that homosexuality was encouraged at The Nuttery and why did Alain leave Deirdre, after all? This gave Alain the opportunity he had been looking for to phone Deirdre and roar with laughter down the phone that he hoped next time he visited she would be reclining in bed with some ‘buxom, rosy-cheeked villager’. Deirdre told him to stop being so frivolous when ‘all around is falling apart’. But she felt comforted that he had called.

  Four days after the news broke, Liberty announced she was going to move into Duck End, if only to get out of her mother’s house and take the press and J-T away from her. Paloma phoned Jonathan to tell him she had to return to France to await the arrival of her grandchild, but she hoped he would visit her soon. Jonathan said he understood, but he was devastated. He had at last found feelings he thought he had buried with his wife, only to be dragged away by his family. Was this a message from Helena? He loved his son, but his timing concerning coming out could have been better. As she thought about J-T’s statement that the scandalous story had ruined three lives, Deirdre reflected that there were several more relationships hovering in the balance.

  Liberty had wanted J-T to stay a while once she moved, but he said, sensibly, that he had to return to London to try and sort things out with Bob. They may have drifted apart over the past few months, and he had in a moment of drunken insanity given way to his feelings of neglect, but he knew they had something worth fighting for.

  Opposition members of Parliament were trying to use the story to discredit Grahame, but his constituents were being surprisingly loyal for such a conservative area, despite many of them having old-fashioned prejudices. They had seen for themselves what a good person and MP he was. He had stood up for their country rights many times, and they had to admit that green energy was the way forward. He had obtained many grants and other monies to rent land for turbines, so now the majority of them had stopped worrying about how their countryside would look and started realising anything that paid for itself had to be good. It saved them money, after all.

  Grahame, however, was devastated. One moment of weakness after too much alcohol had brought his lifetime’s terror upon him. He had always felt the knowledge of having a homosexual son would be devastating to his father. Jonathan hadn’t even blanched when Gray sat him and Edmund down and told them the situation that fateful night after the party, but he knew his Pa was hurt, mostly in memory of his mother, Helena, who would have loved a home full of grandchildren.

  Edmund only said, ‘Mama would have been proud of you, so don’t worry, we’ll get through it.’ But Gray would like to have heard this from his
Pa, too.

  Savannah had phoned when she heard the news on the BBC World Service.

  ‘Are you OK, darling?’ she asked. But she went on to say that Khalid had been mortified the children had been staying with a gay man, so Gray knew Savannah was even more depressed than before, although she didn’t say so.

  He had always wanted to make the world a better, happier place, and now he was bringing his family’s world down around their ears. He recognised that he had to stand down and disappear from public life, grateful though he was for his constituents’ support. When at last he returned home he found a brick had been thrown through a downstairs window with ‘HORE’ and ‘POUF’ written on a piece of paper wrapped round it. The typo gave him the chance to smile, but he thought to himself nothing changes, as he cleared up the glass.

  A knock at the door. He steeled himself to open it. A gaggle of press photographers stood outside. ‘What next, Gray?’ they asked in unison.

  Gray thought for a moment, before giving the dreaded speech he had rehearsed in his head a thousand times in the last few days. ‘I have already written to those who need to know, and with great sadness tendered my resignation. There will be a by-election, of course. I thank all those who have supported and stood by me through these difficult days.’

  As the photographers clicked away and the journos asked questions, he felt sick to his stomach. He found he couldn’t stand there any longer before breaking down. ‘That is all I have to say,’ was all he could muster before he shut the door on the cruel world, sat down at his computer and quickly wrote emails to those people he professed already to have informed. Once sent, he put his head in his hands and cried his heart out, feeling more alone than ever. What a bloody waste, was all he could think, and what for? A moment of bliss. At this, he allowed himself a smile. J-T had been gentle, reassuring and kindness personified; he hated to think what was becoming of the one man who had understood, ever.