A Woman's Place (25 page)

The reception salon was full of chattering figures on their third drink. The doors were thrown open and with some relief guests began to move to the table, murmuring with appreciation at its crystal, silver and porcelain. A huge central arrangement of fresh flowers filled the room with the heady aroma of lilies.

Harrison would have preferred a night on the town. Not exactly a rave, Brussels, but one or two nightclubs had lively reputations. Didn't anyone realise what a nuisance it was to carry on working after a busy day, this time dressed like the chorus line in some off-form Folies Bergère? Mawby was all right, and his wife, reputedly French, was attractive enough. But the NATO chaps were ghastly and the steely-eyed commanding officer of the Rapid Reaction Force at Rheindalen, who happened to be in town, far worse. The locals, fat Belgian dignitaries whose titles he had not ascertained, told bad jokes in laborious English. Female numbers were a bit low and were augmented by embassy staff with neither a witty word to say nor a worthwhile bosom among them. Then there was the dismal Head of Chancery groaning on about the cost of this place. Awful. Harrison sighed at his misfortune, reached for the Muscadet, stuck an exploratory fork into the salmon mousse and recalled with relish the dimpled maid upstairs.

As he feared, Harrison was seated by the Ambassador. His discomfort was not shared by Anthony York, who was more at home with the formality. The most junior visitor present, he found himself at the far end of the table between an earnest young woman diplomat on her first posting and the wife of one of the generals. The main course turned out to be British lamb, shipped live from Derbyshire hillsides to a Belgian abattoir and cooked beautifully in the continental style, slightly bloody. As the mint sauce appeared the general's wife's face paled. She whispered to him that she was a vegetarian.

On the other side of the army wife Martin Chadwick quickly showed his skill. Anthony watched as Chadwick called over a waiter and had the lamb deftly replaced by an omelette. In a few moments the lady had been charmed back to life with graceful stories and much platonic flattery. Anthony cautiously tried a similar technique on the young woman staffer and was amused as she
began to gossip a trifle too freely about backstairs goings-on at the European Commission.

Martin, Anthony reckoned, would be about ten or twelve years older than himself. About the same height, but thinner, his body lean, dark hair immaculate, long face settling into lines on the forehead and around the eye sockets that would intensify with age. The two men's antecedents were close – public school, Oxbridge, classics and history degrees, nothing zealous like maths or science, though Anthony guessed that Martin was much the cleverer. He seemed so practised in these social graces, particularly with the women. His manner was so agreeable, so inviting of confidences, that as a towering
bombe Alaska
wobbled over their shoulders the older woman was laughing merrily.

The next logical thought in Anthony's head should have been a thorough examination of the way Chadwick handled these ladies. Instead he found his attention drawn steadily to Chadwick himself.

The cheeseboard was served, British style, after the dessert, to the bewilderment of the foreigners. Anthony helped the young woman to a sliver of Brie and applauded with Martin as she commented with asperity that the British were becoming more European by the minute without realising it: the evidence, she revealed, was that they now knew how to pronounce ‘quiche' and ‘Camembert'.

Anthony's thoughts returned to Martin. What kind of man was he away from the office? Married – that much he knew. ‘My wife' littered his conversation, together with appropriate references to children, gardens and Sittingbourne. But he was obviously not a ladies' man, not like that oaf Harrison, whose offensive descriptions of the females present would doubtless be his main topic of conversation on the return journey. Would Martin be called handsome, Anthony considered. There was no gentleness or sweetness in the man's expression, but the intelligent eyes and faintly cynical twist to the mouth moderated the inscrutability which was clearly the impression he preferred to give. Anthony wondered if Martin were conscious of the examination, and caught him glancing over the table towards himself just for an instant, then turning quickly away.

A silver fork tinkled delicately against crystal. Mawby cleared his throat and rose solemnly to his feet.

‘Minister, ladies and gentlemen: I give you – the Queen.'

Chairs were scraped back, glasses raised. ‘Her Majesty the Queen.' The generals, as serving officers, harrumphed a little and added the military salutation, ‘God bless her!'

Mawby stayed upright, lifted a condemnatory eyebrow as Harrison too quickly tried to resume his seat, and continued.

‘And, since we have present both Monsieur Fratermann from the Belgian Ministry of

Health and the Burgomaster – we are deeply honoured, gentlemen – I ask you also to drink to the health of – King Albert and Queen Paola.'

Harrison could not be bothered to get his tongue around that lot and contented himself with ‘The King and Queen!', loudly.

Sandalwood boxes of cigars and cigarettes appeared with liqueurs in tiny glasses and brandy in balloons, while a fine port in an old decanter was passed around. Anthony declined the tobacco but accepted a Courvoisier. His attention wandered as rotund persons made ponderous speeches of thanks. The perfume of the lilies seemed to intensify. He was not required to perform; that was the Minister's role. Fortunately Harrison was fine at that sort of thing and once on his feet carried it off without incident.

At ten-thirty on the dot Lady Mawby rose and apologised daintily to the senior figures on either side, who naturally were obliged to rise also. Sir Clifford sprang up; white-gloved waiters reached to move chairs. The Belgians and the generals found themselves eased away from the table and shrugged with disappointment. Coats and wraps were reclaimed. Derek Harrison made his excuses and bolted upstairs.

Anthony, Chadwick and the Ambassador drifted towards the drawing room. Another hour of comradely discourse followed until the house guests regretfully abandoned their drained glasses and bade their host goodnight.

‘Not a bad life, that,' Anthony remarked as he climbed the ornate stairs at Chadwick's side. The wine, brandy and excellent food had filled him with bonhomie. He felt more at ease than for ages. As they turned a corner and passed a small vase of lilies on a window-sill the pollen brushed off against his jacket, leaving an orange stain. Even that did not break his mood. Flicking at it ineffectually, he continued: ‘I have never envied you your job, Martin, but if I wasn't an MP then Her Britannic Majesty's overseas service might well have attracted me.'

‘Heavens, no,' the civil servant teased gently. ‘All those cocktail parties, buttering up bores? And night after night entertaining the likes of us? Surely not.'

He stood on the top stair, a hand resting on Anthony's arm, his worldly face creased into a pleasant smile. He seemed to hesitate. Then: ‘May I come in for a minute?'

Anthony was puzzled; it was late. But perhaps there was something Martin wanted to say, at the tail end of a successful day. ‘Of course.' He held open the door, and stood to one side.

Once in his own room it was natural to remove the tailcoat and brush it, then to hang it up and undo his over-tight tie. He breathed more deeply and felt a little drunk. Martin seemed in no hurry as he examined the oil painting over the fireplace and the pile of leather-bound books on a round rosewood table.

‘You have a point, though,' Martin remarked. ‘These chaps know how to live.'

Anthony reached behind the door for his towelling dressing gown. Perhaps if he laid it out rather ostentatiously on the bed Martin would get the hint and come to the point. As he turned back, however, Martin was suddenly before him, very close.

Their eyes were at the same level. Martin's were deep-set, with dark lashes, long for a man, and crinkly lines at the outer edges. Their colour in the dim light was indeterminate, but gazing into them, in a manner which he normally avoided as far too direct, Anthony felt himself being drawn in, as if to a secret, private world. It was so strange: the unwavering iris became a path down which he felt himself glide, without fear, without resistance. Then he seemed to round a comer and found himself on the edge of a deep pool which lapped lazily at his feet, as if he were a swimmer uncertain whether to plunge in but aware that something remarkable, and precious, might be hidden just below the surface.

It must be the alcohol, surely? Startled, Anthony found his gaze held and a hand once more on his shirtsleeve. Through the fabric he could feel the other man's skin, the tension of the fingers. Normally he would have let himself shrink from such an intimate contact with another human being; but not at all with Martin, a man whom he knew well, and admired, and trusted. The hand tightened and the eyes widened, as if to assure him that the water was warm and welcoming. Anthony sensed that the pool was not empty, that he would not be alone, but with amiable spirits who would soothe away every pain. The faint smell of lilies lingered in the room, the smell of death, of decay. A promise was being made, or offered. His head buzzed and he shook it slowly from side to side.

The other man's voice was soft, caressing. ‘You are a fine young man, Anthony, but you never seem happy.'

The whisper seemed to come from far away. Anthony's mouth went dry and he could feel his heart begin to pound.

‘Why aren't you happy? Are you missing something? Maybe I can help you…'

He could not breathe.
He could not drop his eyes from Martin, whose own breath, with its masculine allure of brandy and good living he could almost taste in his own mouth.

The pulses in Anthony's head gathered pace and throbbed. The hand moved up his arm, over his shoulder, the fingers played on his throat as if seeking the most sensitive place, as he stood
stock-still
,
not daring to move. Flesh to flesh, above the collar, the fingertips were light, reassuring. Martin's lips, slightly parted, seemed fuller as he smiled, and the tip of his tongue slowly laid a silver film of moisture on them. Martin wanted…

Martin – no,
he
wanted … Martin to … kiss him…

‘No!' Roughly he knocked the man away, but with the door behind him he could not budge. ‘I … what are you thinking of, for Christ's sake?'

‘I am thinking that you may need help to get to know yourself better, Anthony, and that when that happens you'll be a lot happier.' The mouth, enunciating the words so distinctly, was only a few inches away. All he had to do was –

‘No! No!'

With both hands he shoved, but the body before him was surprisingly resilient. A sneer, ironic, complicit, played over the other man's features. Chadwick was mocking him, as if he had recognised some secret emotion, some flicker of unrealised desire. The horror and ecstasy of the moment made Anthony shake violently – that anyone should have come so close, should have gained an unguarded glimpse into his soul…

Anthony raised his fist and shut his eyes. Panic and fury brought a surge of unexpected strength. He aimed somewhere in the general region of Chadwick's chin, more to create space for his own escape than with intent to cause injury. There was a crunch, an anguished cry from his own lips and a grunt from Chadwick, who fell backwards against a chair, which tumbled over in its turn. Anthony forced himself to look: the man was sprawled on the carpet, his decoration ripped from his neck, legs splayed out, all dignity vanished.

Panting hard, breath rasping in his throat, Anthony backed away. Gingerly, warily, Chadwick climbed to his feet and rubbed blood from his mouth.

Without a word he picked up his gold-filigree pendant, stumbled towards the door, checked both ways along the corridor, and slipped out.

‘And tell me, Mrs Stalker, are you interested in astrology?' The young woman paused, Biro in hand, and smiled encouragingly. To play for time Elaine took an apple from the dish on her desk and bit into it.

She could not recall when or why she had agreed an interview for ‘Your Week in the Stars', except that the piece would appear in the revamped
Radio Times
, purchased by one and a half million households. Of course politicians should communicate widely, that was essential. In her casual acceptance of the magazine's bid, one among many, she had, however, forgotten that the content of the communication mattered too. Now she was stuck.

‘I tend to think,' she said between mouthfuls of apple, ‘that astrology's a throwback to an era when people believed in the sun, moon and planets as deities which decided our fate. The moon does affect us – the tides, for example – but that's no reason to worship it. So do I think the stars have any influence on us? The honest answer is no.'

The reporter was too dim, or too unconcerned, to put the obvious query of why, in that case, Mrs Stalker had agreed to be quizzed on the subject. She ploughed on: ‘Your star sign is Libra, isn't it? Did you realise your planet is Venus? Do you think the fact that she's the goddess of love is significant?'

Elaine pulled a face. ‘Yes, I did know that. Venus always struck me as a dozy lady – a bit excessive. Not me at all.'

‘Couldn't keep her hands off the blokes, eh?'

Elaine gave her a frosty look and did not reply. The girl tried again.

‘Librans tend to be balanced – that's the symbol, of course. On the other hand, as a Libran would say' – she giggled at her own perspicacity – ‘they sometimes have trouble taking decisions. Does that apply to you?'

‘No. I tend to know what I want to do. The problem usually is how to go about it.'

The journalist persisted. ‘Really? Not the wavering or hesitant sort at all?'

What a daft question, Elaine thought to herself. Here I am, a government Minister at the age of forty, and the girl wants to know if I spend my days in a dither. She shrugged and threw the apple core in a bin. ‘I've been lucky in my life, so far. Most of what I've set out to do has been successful. A lot of other people have been involved so I can't take that much credit for my achievements.'

The girl scribbled laboriously. Her subject spoke too rapidly for her underdeveloped shorthand. She glanced down at her notes. ‘Would you say, then, that you're a bit dogmatic at times?'

Elaine smiled. ‘Well – obviously
I
wouldn't say that, but no doubt other people would. They may well be right.'

‘What would
you
say, then?'

‘Oh, that I'm perfectly reasonable, naturally. Go on.'

‘Librans tend to be tactful. Would that apply to you, Mrs Stalker?'

Oh dear, thought Elaine. How do I respond? What am I being now if not the soul of tact when I don't feel it at all? ‘I do try. I prefer to deal with people honestly wherever possible. For example, I tell my constituents they may not always like what I have to say to them – about the necessity for a new road, perhaps, or that an unattractive factory will bring much-needed jobs – but I'll always speak the truth. That way they know where I stand, and that's how I'd like to be seen.'

‘Right,' muttered her inquisitor uncertainly. Her prepared notes appeared to include a long list of enquiries on the same theme, permitting little deviation. Nor was she in the least tempted by her interviewee's attempts at more serious replies. Elaine, intrigued, concluded that while there was no evidence of malice – a pleasant change – neither was there much of intelligence either.

‘With Libra being the Balance, it's often said Librans can't make up their minds, which
makes them followers rather than leaders. Would you say that applies to you?'

Elaine was beginning to feel irritated. ‘No, I wouldn't. I'm not easily led at all. In fact, the opposite – I prefer to work out what needs doing and try to give some leadership until it's done. That's part of the job of a Minister, even an MP in his or her own patch. We don't have much power – that's a myth; but we do have influence, and can exercise that through leadership.'

She waited, wondering if the youngster would rise to the bait of a genuine discussion of power, ambition and politics, which might enliven the ten minutes remaining. The revisionist thought that a young
man
might have leapt at the chance was firmly brushed aside.

‘And, finally, I have to ask you about your speeches. Do you write them yourself?'

‘I try, but when we speak on government policy obviously we stick to the line. Then we have to use precise phrases and tone to reinforce that line, and ensure we don't make policy on the hoof. Is that what you mean?'

The girl gazed back at her. ‘Well, not exactly. My editor got me to read some of your speeches, and you never seem to quote anyone. When I did debates at school, we were told to start by looking up key words in the dictionary and quoting the definition, and then to try the dictionary of quotations. But you don't seem to do that.'

So that's a liberal education, Elaine reflected drily.

‘To tell you the truth, I hardly ever quote other people in my speeches – it's too mannered a style, and you rarely find precisely what you want. Better to spend that time figuring out how to put your point across crisply in your own words. You'll end up with other people quoting you – and they do.'

The girl wrote down Elaine's remarks, then closed her notebook with a gulp of relief. Elaine pressed the silent bell beneath her desk. The door opened and Fiona waited to show the journalist out. The next visitors, a delegation from Derbyshire sent to complain on behalf of the left-wing council, were already rising to their feet in the ante-room.

‘I suppose,' Derek Harrison joked as his eye swept down the glossy menu, ‘I ought to declare this lunch in the Register of Members' Interests.'

The Connaught Hotel waiter hovered respectfully, hands clasped over his order book. Jayanti looked alarmed. ‘Surely not. This is a trivial amount. Aren't you permitted to have lunch with a friend?'

Harrison reached for the champagne. The Dom Pérignon 1990 may be, as he recalled Oz Clarke writing, the ‘fiendishly expensive number in the funny bottle not worth the fat wad of folding ones the makers demand', but it was wonderful stuff in the middle of a busy day; and the price was none of his business.

‘You have to understand, my dear Jay,' he continued easily, ‘that since the Nolan Committee reported we're supposed to record every scrap of friendship and favour we receive. Absolute rot, of course. Angela Rumbold once made the point by declaring each diary and calendar which came her way at Christmas. Then there was the lady Member who declared a gift of black stockings and was never allowed to forget it. Personally, I think Enoch Powell was correct back in the seventies when he denounced the whole idea of the Register as a mistake.'

It did not occur to him that an Asian might not treat the opinions of Mr Powell with the same respect. Bhadeshia glanced around unhappily. His manner became more confidential and he drew his chair in closer to the table, despite the fact that in the lofty room, with its deep carpets and muted chandeliers, nearly twenty feet separated them from other diners.

‘It's very difficult for you,' Jayanti sympathised. ‘I have a lot of money but no influence. You, on the other hand…' He spread his hands expressively and allowed the inference to float unspoken in the air, that for Derek it might be vice versa. ‘Ministers in this country are so badly paid.
It is a disgrace. Why, the salary that Gladstone drew a hundred years ago, in modern money, would be worth around half a million pounds a year. Yet our Prime Minister – the top man – earns less than many people he has appointed to the highest ranks in public service.'

‘We're all in favour of more money.' Harrison grinned. ‘But even if you paid us a king's ransom there'd still be a few – not me, naturally – who'd be keen to make a bit on the side. Margaret Thatcher was firmly of the opinion that we ought to be involved in outside activities – that it was good for us – so only part-time remuneration for a part-time job was justified. Anyway, how on earth would we convince the public to double or treble our salaries in the present climate? My constituents don't reckon I'm worth the pittance I do get, and given the endless sleaze in the press I don't blame them.'

He called over the waiter. ‘I'll have a steak tartare. How about you, Jay?'

Bhadeshia had long abandoned his adherence to vegetarianism, which had never been strong. The thought of raw meat was another matter. Yet he was here to make a good impression. He hesitated, then concurred. Derek smiled. His choice had been deliberate.

As they broke bread rolls and began their gravadlax starters, Derek sat back. ‘Nice piece about your house in the paper. Do you a lot of good, that will. Everybody likes to be associated with success.'

Bhadeshia perked up. ‘You think so?'

‘Sure. And your wife has a smashing figure – lovely legs.'

Jayanti bent his head silently over his plate.

Derek leaned across the table. ‘You're a good chap. You'd like to get on in the party, wouldn't you?'

Bhadeshia's eyes rounded. He paused, a morsel on his fork.

‘You have some advice for me?'

‘Well – only a minor matter. It's your name. Bit tricky for us to get our tongues round. Say it for me.'

‘Jayanti Bhadeshia.'

‘Yes – see what I mean? You should shorten it. Jay's better. And how about Bhadesh? Jay Bhadesh is easier for us. Like Niij Deva the MP: his full name has lots of syllables.'

I will not be offended, Jayanti told himself as he struggled to find a reply. But I wonder how he'd feel if I suggested he call himself Dirk Hass, to make it simpler for me?

‘Thank you, I will think about it.'

A gleaming trolley was rolled to his side and the white-jacketed waiter, brow furrowed in concentration, began to mix the steak. It was a pleasure, he told them, to serve the Minister and his distinguished guest. For a while the corruption scandals of the nineties had emptied the dining room as public faces deserted it for more private addresses. Fortunately the fuss had died down, though not before a total of fourteen Ministers and hangers-on had been obliged to retire. Not that in the end, the waiter murmured, these minor spats did the finer venues any long-term harm; for within months of resignation most of the chaps had found alternative, more lucrative employment and were back, complete with expense accounts and new clients.

Derek still had a bee in his bonnet. ‘That just shows you,' he said. ‘The problem with the Register is that nobody will tell the truth. If, for the sake of argument, I were to take a significant bribe of some kind, I wouldn't announce it, would I? So whatever it says in the big green book is almost certainly irrelevant to its purpose. Instead people use it to boast – about the range of overseas visits they've made, or how many directorships, as evidence of their worth. It's a bit of a game – that's how any MP with sense treats it.'

Jayanti peered gingerly into the pile of seasoned raw steak and wondered if it would be against etiquette to pick out the onion pieces and eat them alone. He must abandon that inbred instinct of politeness which obliged him to choose the same dish as his companions. The potatoes were
delicious but were now soaking up blood and turning purple. He suppressed a shudder.

Derek leaned forward and prodded Jayanti's meal approvingly with his knife. ‘Go on, old man. It's very good – the dish of kings, you know.'

He fixed Jayanti with a broad smile. Enough of pussyfooting around. ‘So what can I do for you today, my dear fellow?'

It was a simple matter to do a quick detour. Easy enough, as he exited from King's Cross station, to turn his back on the taxi rank, head eastwards past the scruffy Thameslink entrance a few hundred yards down Pentonville Road and keep going. At night the area was busy with prostitutes and kerb crawlers, but in the gloomy light of day its desolation was compounded by drifting litter and graffiti half obliterated by tom posters for failed pop singles and marches for political causes long since abandoned.

Outside the newsagent's window he hesitated. Nothing on display suited his purpose, but that was hardly a surprise. He had no idea what to ask for: the names of the magazines he needed were a mystery, though he'd know them at once when he saw them.

What would the shopkeeper think? The name over the door, J. P. Bhadeshia, licensed to sell tobacco, was not English. Suppose it were a small dark Indian lady – her big eyes reproachful, sitting in an old sari behind the till – who would handle the material with studious disdain? In that case, he couldn't do it; couldn't give that sort of stuff to a woman, and a respectable one at that.

He peered inside, conscious that he must look odd, a tall man in an expensive overcoat carrying a black leather briefcase marked ‘EIIR'. The only figure he could see behind the counter was a scruffy young white man with a pony-tail. That was more like it. Anthony took a deep breath and pushed open the door.

If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done
quickly
. He hesitated for a moment to get his bearings, then walked rapidly into the depths of the shop.

The manager was engrossed in a much-thumbed catalogue and nodded only cursorily at Anthony. The fourth that day, guilt writ large on their flushed faces. All heading for the porn shelves, way up high at the back, as if hidden; but the well-heeled bloke who was stretching up and flicking through what he'd found there might as well have shouted his intentions from the rooftops.