A Woman's Place (31 page)

‘But what will you say? Will you insist…?'

As he spoke Sir John's clerk entered, tall, thin and lugubrious. The eminent lawyer rose but remained behind his desk. ‘Watkins will take you to a more comfortable room and fetch you coffee. If you could wait, my lord, I will get on with it.'

Dumbly Bhadeshia allowed himself to be removed. He glanced back to see Sir John uncap his pen and gaze mournfully at the open file. With Watkins's practised hand resting on his shoulder, Jayanti felt no more an honoured and welcome client but like a convict leaving the dock for the cells.

The microwave pinged.

It was grand, being able to cook your own food; to choose a coloured packet in the supermarket, chilli con came or shepherd's pie or fisherman's pie, put a fork in the Cellophane to make holes for the steam, remembering to remove any metal foil covers. Then on to a pretty dish, pop it in, and in five minutes there it was, hot and steamy, ready to be eaten.

It made a change from the hospital. Thick white Pyrex plates, never clean. Plastic glasses for water which tasted tainted. Somebody forever screeching in the background. The food was dished up for you, slops and mashed potato whatever the menu claimed, with gravy so stiff you could stand a spoon up in it, and everything too salty.

The prison had been worse. All stodge. No fruit, ever. He'd got fat: the inevitable outcome was a paunch, which slowed him down, and brain cells deadened with ECT and excess carbohydrate. Horrible dirty place, a permanent smell of disinfectant. Open buckets in the cell. If you said a wrong word you were liable to find the bucket tipped over you by morning.

It was so nice to have your own television set. To watch it alone, with no catcalling from other, stupid men. Choose what you liked. Serious stuff, the news, documentaries. Find out what was going on in the world. He could vote now: his name was on the electoral register for the first time in years. A citizen again.

Panorama
about MPs and lords. Maybe see her. Elaine. Beautiful: a lovely woman, exactly as a woman should be, not a screaming harridan, but pure and perfect, always immaculately dressed and poised and confident.

Graham Dunn's train of thought made him smile contentedly. He carried his tray over to the low table and settled down on the sofa. He forked food into his mouth, slowly, eyes fixed owl-like on the screen. Beside him an old
Radio Times
lay open at the horoscope page. He picked up the remote control and pushed buttons until he found what he wanted.

The programme was confusing at times but he had no trouble following its main theme of corruption involving business and politicians. To his relief it was clear that Elaine took no part in it: of course not, she would not soil herself like that.

At last came the moment he had been waiting for.

The screen showed the glare of arc lights outside a handsome white mansion somewhere in London as Elaine emerged from a ministerial car. She was wearing a black coat with a raised collar and a colourful silk scarf at the neck. She paused and smiled at the camera with a quick wave of the hand, then walked briskly across the threshold into a brightly lit hallway. The picture changed to somebody else.

He laughed out loud. He was now certain. She had turned, and smiled and waved. Everybody else would assume she had made the little gesture in the usual course of her duties. But Graham Dunn knew better.

She had done it, with that special secret smile, just for him.

‘And do you wish to be armigerous?'

Jayanti wilted. ‘I beg your pardon, sir. What?'

The heavy jowls of Sir Greville Fitzroy wobbled as he enjoyed his little joke. It always worked.

What a lovely job this was. At the age of seventy, after sterling service in the Coldstream Guards and a tedious stretch as a tax barrister, how wonderful to wear the resplendent uniform as Garter Principal King-of-Arms, not to speak of Heraldic Adviser to the Monumental Brass Society and Knight Principal of the Imperial Society of Knights Bachelor: in other words, to be in charge of the nation's heraldry.

‘Will you wish to apply for letters patent and a grant of arms?'

Jayanti answered a mite too eagerly. ‘Yes, yes. At least, if I am permitted.'

Garter pretended to frown. ‘You don't have to, you know. In fact most life peers don't. And there's no need to hurry, either. Lord Denning took thirty years to get round to his.'

He spread his manicured hands on the table. ‘For some peers, the cost is a factor. You do realise that the whole hog – arms, crest and supporters – will set you back two thousand eight hundred pounds? No VAT, fortunately. Women don't have crests, so we charge them only fourteen hundred and ninety. We do a special offer of arms and crest alone for two thousand two hundred. It's up to you.'

Jayanti was startled at the tone of the discussion, as if he were seated in a Turkish bazaar instead of an office in the House of Lords. He responded cautiously.

‘Perhaps you'd better tell me what's involved.'

Sir Greville sat back. ‘You apply formally to the Duke of Norfolk as Earl Marshal. He sends a warrant to me, instructing me to proceed. We discuss what you want. Then I issue you with your patent which you can frame and hang on your wall: that's in vellum with the entire heraldic achievement, arms, coronet, helm, crest, mantling, supporters, motto, orders and decorations in full colour and gold with my signature and official seal. Quite a sight, I can tell you.'

‘Golly,' Jayanti muttered.

‘The only bit you can borrow from somebody else is the motto – there's no monopoly on that. If you want “Who dares, wins”, that's fine by me. The rest has to be original.'

His hearer perked up. ‘Lady Thatcher had Sir Isaac Newton on hers,' he offered hopefully.

Sir Greville grimaced. The ribaldry caused by the baroness's taste was a painful memory. ‘And a Falklands War admiral. We got that completely wrong: he looked like Captain Birdseye and could only have acquired his four rows of decorations by serving in the First
and
Second World Wars, Korea, Northern Ireland and Bosnia as well as the South Atlantic. Everyone said she should've had a handbag: we'd have been happy with that.'

‘But surely,' Jayanti protested, ‘the coat of arms should be a serious matter?'

Sir Greville shrugged. ‘Not necessarily. Geoffrey Howe has a wolf in sheep's clothing; Lord Zuckerman preferred a great ape, while Lord Ackner, who was a lawyer, has two spouting whales swimming hard in opposite directions – barristers in court, I suppose. Grey Gowrie's has black sheep. You have what you want.'

‘Perhaps I should ask you for … guidance?' The voice was faint. Jayanti was finding the whole business quite t overwhelming.

‘Well … since you're in business, bezants – those are gold Byzantine coins – would be appropriate. And you do import-export, don't you, so how about a ship? Then think about where you come from, and where you live now. Lady Gardner was Australian so she had a kangaroo. Lord Grade combined music with his Russian origins and had a balalaika – a brilliant choice, in my view. Your
supporters – the characters on each side – can be anything you want nearly, not only lions and unicorns. Lord Nelson had a sailor, rather as you'd expect. One chap has a Rolls-Royce foreman, while Lord Schon put factory chimneys, a plant chemist and a process worker in his. Your former Party Treasurer, Lord McAlpine, has his gardener with a parrot on his wrist. Only he and I know exactly what that means: all part of the fun.'

He rumbled with genteel amusement, then rose to his feet. Jayanti jumped up. ‘After lunch we must rehearse your investiture. Got your wits about you? Good. You'll need 'em.'

The house was a large semi in a noisy road in Hounslow. It was, of course, ideal for the airport; and, Elaine reflected, the rumble of planes overhead, day and night, could not be cause for complaint in a household which depended on air travel for its livelihood.

Nor could Mike afford anything much better. The settlement of their divorce had obliged him to continue paying his share of the mortgage on the property in South Warmingshire which had been the marital home. He made regular if modest contributions to Karen's upkeep and would do so until she finished college. Substantial though his salary as a senior British Airways pilot might be, it did not easily run to the support of two establishments and two more children, especially after Linda stopped work to care for them. The odds were that money was a little tight.

Elaine drove into the driveway and parked. The silver BMW of previous times had given way to a three-year-old Ford Granada. The dent in its wing looked old and the radio aerial had snapped off halfway. In the back, two child-seats took up the space; toys and rugs littered the interior.

As she picked up the gift in its silver wrapping paper and the flowery card she felt nervous. She was too smartly dressed. Her make-up was too elaborate. Quickly she unfastened the big pearl earrings and slipped them into a pocket, then purposefully she walked up to the front door and rang the bell.

‘Hang on, I'm coming,' called a woman's voice from inside. It sounded harassed but not hostile. It was several minutes before the door was opened, just as Elaine was wondering whether to ring again.

‘Oh, it's you. Come on in.'

Elaine had never met Linda, who had been a member of Mike's cabin crew on long-haul flights. The new wife was younger than herself by about ten years but did not look it. She must have made a most attractive stewardess but her hair was limp and she had some way to go to regain her figure after the latest birth. Elaine caught in herself a tinge of smugness at the favourable comparisons that could be made. Her confidence began to return.

The two women walked through the hall into the living room. A television was playing loudly. Mike was slumped in a chair watching the football. Elaine smiled in wry recognition; that was how she remembered him on countless weekend afternoons when she had been out door-knocking in the rain or battling against the odds to retain her seat and keep her job. How angry his laziness had made her. It was evident that in his new life he was no more energetic than in his old one. She saw him with brutal clarity now that she had no reason to miss him, nor to feel any pang. What he had been for her in their youth, the handsome charmer who had captivated her at university, had completely vanished. The middle-aged man who rose sheepishly to greet her had long since vacated his place in her heart.

Should she kiss him? She took the initiative and did, once, quite affectionately on the cheek.

‘Mike – how nice to see you. Thank you for letting me come. You look … well.'

They were as awkward as she. There was no angst between the three of them, for no battles remained to be fought; but Mike and Linda's ignorance of the right etiquette in the presence of not only the wronged first wife but a famous person, a Minister of Her Majesty's Government, made them tongue-tied and uncomfortable. Elaine would have to give a lead. She gestured at a chair. ‘May I sit
down?'

In a few moments tea appeared in mugs with a plate of shop-bought cake. A glimpse through the connecting door showed an untidy kitchen, the remains of lunch plates still in the sink. No dishwasher, of course. No cleaning lady: these would be luxuries beyond their pocket. It struck Elaine forcibly how much her and Mike's lives had diverged since the split. She had had much the better time of it, at least financially; plus an element of control over her life, which the couple before her seemed to have mislaid, if ever they had had it.

There was a flicker of tension in the room. Perhaps all was not well. Had Linda discovered how set in his ways Mike could be? Did Mike get irritated at what was obviously not a well-run household? Whatever the case, it was none of her business, other than to ensure that she did not introduce any further source of conflict. Her voice, hitherto bright and brittle, became gentle.

‘I'd love to see Jonathan,' she remarked. ‘Is he asleep? And what about your other son? He must be about three now.'

‘He's at friends',' Linda replied shortly. She brushed a lock of hair from her face and
half-heartedly
began to pick up toys, only to put them down in equally haphazard heaps elsewhere in the room. ‘Baby's in his cot. C'mon up.'

As she climbed the stairs Elaine began to feel sorry for the younger woman, and sad. For someone who had travelled the world in a glamorous occupation a semi in West London must be a disappointment. The place was hardly vibrant with love and fulfilment. Mike did not seem to be making any more effort in this marriage than in his previous one.

In the smallest bedroom a child was peacefully asleep, curled up on a cot, bedclothes tousled, finger in his mouth. The curtains were drawn but Linda pulled them back so that Elaine could see.

At the light the little boy opened his eyes, focused on the visitor and gurgled. His hand, still sticky and pink from his mouth, reached up to her and she grasped it. A terrible lump came into her throat. The baby closely resembled Jake, the boy that she and Mike had once had, the child who had died.

‘Anything the matter?' Linda was a kind-hearted girl. She had been willing to accede to Karen's odd notion of inviting her mother to the christening, though with a marginal private protest that Elaine would seize all the attention. When the tactful refusal had arrived and with it a request to view the new arrival none the less, it had seemed a harmless enough idea. Yet here was the first Mrs Stalker, who still used her husband's name, bent in tears over the cot.

‘No – I was only thinking what a lovely baby he is.'

‘Karen says he's a bit like she was, according to the photos.' Linda was sympathetic. It must be a hard life, always in the public eye, always on the go. It wouldn't suit her, though she felt nostalgic occasionally for the good times in San Francisco and Buenos Aires, where Mike had seemed such fun. Still, she had angled hard for a respectable husband and her own home and had won both. She had made her bed and would lie on it.

Elaine turned away and blew her nose. She did not feel able to reply or elaborate further.

‘Thanks. And thank you for the tea, and the fruit cake. I enjoyed that. And now I must go.'

‘Oh! Mike was wondering if you'd like to stay for supper.'

That sounded like the worst possible suggestion. Suddenly it was imperative for Elaine to remove herself as rapidly as possible. She shook her head with a half-smile and headed downstairs. Mike was once again engrossed in the sport on television. He twisted around as she entered, but did not rise as she kissed him once more on the cheek, and gave Linda a hug.

On the doorstep Elaine hesitated. ‘I'm glad I came,' she said simply. ‘I'm sure you look after him and the children far better than I ever did, Linda. He seems content.'

‘Him? He's happy enough.' Linda jerked her head back at the lounge. ‘Was he like this with you? Forever stuck in front of the box, I mean?'

Elaine laughed ruefully. ‘He was, actually.'

The two women's eyes met. Briefly they understood each other's lives.

As she headed back down the motorway towards London, Elaine found herself weeping softly. For Mike, who had once had such drive and had lost it. For Linda, who must have dreamed of better, and the hints of weakness in the second marriage. For herself, whose failure as a wife this household represented and underlined. For Karen, whose desire to see her parents reconciled and perhaps even become close friends would be denied. And for the dead child, Karen's brother, who had been the source of such love and pain, when she, Elaine, had been a new, hopeful wife and mother with no inkling of a career, before politics and the public persona had claimed her, so long ago.

While the owner of Bhadeshia's Emporium moved eagerly to practise a stately minuet in the Chamber of the House of Lords his supporters on the Equator faced instead a dance of death, whose outcome would be fateful not only to its immediate participants but to Bhadeshia himself, to his hopes and dreams. Like the eviction of squatters from his African property which had so besmirched his reputation, it was a matter over which he had no control. But neither did his key protector, the President, against whom the action was directed.

Police Constable Joshua Mereginga knew it would be a bad day. Angry dreams had invaded his sleep and he had awoken weeping, to find his youngest child standing over him in puzzled silence. The milk for breakfast had curdled the moment it touched his lips and the old fowl intended for the weekend's main meal had been found dead and stiff under its perch. Someone had knocked his clean uniform off the high shelf on to the dirt floor and messed the blue shirt. That meant he would have to keep the jacket on no matter how hot the day. And it would be searing – as dawn crept inside the hut, the heat and humidity were already enough to send fear into the bones.

The capital had been seething for weeks. Lack of rain meant a poor harvest and exorbitant food prices. Importers and strangers were blamed both for the bad luck and for profiting from it. The President's economic nostrums about free trade meant nothing to hungry people. Nor to Joshua, though he had admired the man when first he was elected. Democracy, they called it, and said it was a good thing; but it did not feed the children.