by Ben Elton
Peter’s mind pounded with a single thought: End this now. Get out of it now.
But how? This was not a girl who was minded to let go. She would do anything to stay in his life. She would maintain a direct and intimate connection with him for better or for worse. Because she loved him and Peter knew that love is very dangerous.
Peter looked into her desperate, tear-stained face and knew that her agony was all his fault. If only he could let her down gently. If only he could explain to her that he had loved her, yes, a mad, wrong-headed love but love nonetheless. His passion had been real and from the heart and he did not want to fight her, he did not want to hurt her. If only he could take her aside and beg her to disengage slowly and as friends, agree to part as people who had shared something beautiful but impossible. Something impossibly beautiful.
If only he could say, ‘I loved you, Samantha, and I will never forget that love, but from now on it can be no more than a treasured memory.’
But he couldn’t say that and the reason was that he knew that he must disengage utterly and immediately. Now.
With a woman of Samantha’s passion he knew that any half measures would be no disengagement at all. He had decided that the only path he could possibly navigate through the horrors that lay ahead was denial. Complete and absolute denial.
Peter had decided some time before to pretend to himself and to everyone else that the affair had never happened, and although he had intended to discuss the plan with Angela, Samantha had now pre-empted the situation and he knew that he must begin immediately. Quite apart from anything else, Peter knew that such were the workings of modern journalism that one day Samantha might come to him wired for sound. He had therefore resolved from the moment he had walked out of the lift and seen her standing there to claim in every word and every circumstance that Samantha’s talk of an affair was complete fantasy.
‘Samantha, I deny absolutely that we have had any relationship beyond that which is appropriate between an MP and his parliamentary assistant. Regretfully, in the light of your fantastical and paranoid accusations, I must terminate your employment forthwith. If you wish to communicate with me further, please do so via my lawyer. Goodnight.’
‘^
She looked like she had been shot.
Peter allowed one small digression from his firm resolve. ‘I’m sorry. So very sorry,’ he whispered. Then he turned on his heel and walked away.
Although he was upset for Samantha, he was a practical man and his mind was working furiously. Had he left anything incriminating behind him, in her flat, perhaps? On her clothes? Like with President Clinton, was there some splash of semen somewhere that would come back to haunt him? He was sure that he had not. If she had anything of his in her possession she could easily have taken it from the office in order to use against him. They had only ever once been in the company of others, that time on her birthday. He would deny that it had happened, claim a conspiracy against him. DNA? How many times had his paranoid mind asked himself if she might have taken a swab after making love with him, if she might be in a position to triumphantly produce his semen in a court of law? But that was impossible. Even if she had done something so extraordinary as that he was not obliged to co-operate with such a strategy. He was a Minister of the Crown, he could not be forced to hand out semen willynilly. There was, after all, no paternity case involved.
Peter felt that he could tough it out. He knew that he could tough it out and he also knew that this was the only strategy.
As he turned the corridor and headed towards the bedroom door that Angela Paget had left slightly ajar, he heard Samantha begin to sob.
He awoke to a gentle whisper in his ear. ‘Tommy…Tommy.’
Soft mouth, sweet breath, subtle but distinctly feminine choice of scent. He remembered now. He was in bed with an angel. He could feel the lively, perky nipples he had earlier guzzled with such affection brush against his shoulder as she leant across him, her lower lip murmuring delicately against his earlobe as she breathed her message of sensual, erotic love.
‘I want more. I want you to take me again, Tommy. I want you inside me now.’
That small soft hand upon him once again. Impossible to deny. He could feel himself involuntarily springing to life. He would not need to be asked twice. He turned in the bed to face her, feeling for her mouth in the darkness with his lips. Her head was high on the pillow, which she had propped up against the bedstead, the sheet at her waist. Perhaps she intended to climb on top this time. Now her breasts were against his chest as she embraced him and worked her mouth upon his, sucking his tongue against her back teeth.
Then there was a flash of light. Tommy knew what it was, of course. He had spent the last four years constantly in their glow. But he could not believe it. He simply could not believe it.
A second later another flash illuminated the room and the truth was undeniable. He had turned towards it, as she had done, instinctively drawn towards the light. And in that moment of brightness, the little tripod beyond the foot of the bed with the tiny digital camera atop it was clear as day.
Then darkness again, rendered thicker and blacker by the disappearing flash, its imprint still throbbing on his retinas. Tommy scarcely knew where he was. Gemma was less confused. He felt her leave the bed, heard her walk around it. Then she was at the door. She opened it. In the light from the hotel corridor he saw her standing naked with another woman. Gemma handed the camera and tripod to the other woman, then she crossed the room to where her handbag still lay on the floor next to the chair on which she had sat and before which Tommy had knelt. She gathered up the bag and returned to the door. There she produced a small minidisc recording device and handed that also to the woman who was waiting. Then, as the other woman departed along the corridor, Gemma began quickly to gather up her clothes.
‘Sorry, Tommy,’ she said. ‘But you’ve been done over.’
Tommy could only stare.
‘If it’s any comfort I think you’re a lovely bloke. Completely fucked-up, of course, but lovely. Terrific sex as well, well not terrific exactly, but you can’t help thinking, ‘Wow, this is Tommy Hanson,’ which is exciting in itself, I don’t mind admitting.’
He still couldn’t believe it. It had to be a wind-up. ‘But…your brother.’
‘Ah yes. Never fails, not my brother, of course, just someone who needs the money. He really is a student, by the way, so you’ve helped him out there.’
She was buttoning up the blouse now, not bothering with her tights, which she simply stuffed into her bag. ‘Well, as I say, Tommy, I’m sorry. Don’t think I feel good about this sort of thing because I don’t, although I’m pretty proud of how well it’s come off. My editor wanted to send a Pamela Anderson lookalike, but I swore blind I knew what you’d like. Bit of reality, bit of the real thing, I thought, that’s what he needs. Bit of feminine gentility. And it worked.’
Tommy roared. That is the only way to describe it. He roared.
‘YOU FUCKING SCUMMY FUCKED-UP TOERAG BITCH!’
His hurt, his shame and his fury were so complete that he was almost incapable of speech. The expletives simply poured forth. Then he hurled the telephone at Gemma, but because it was wired to the wall it only got to the end of the bed before being pulled up short.
‘Bye bye, Tommy.’ Gemma closed the door behind her. The room was dark once more. The woman who had briefly played the part of Gemma was gone.
Gemma’s was not the only exclusive being planned in Birmingham that night. As she scuttled out of the hotel to join her colleague in the waiting car, the chill of the night raising goose bumps on her bare legs, she passed another colleague walking in. Paula had been returning to her own, less expensive hotel when she got the call from Samantha Spencer. She had not expected it so soon, nor that Samantha would want to meet her immediately, that night.
‘I’ve been having an affair with him for nearly four months.’ These were the first words that Samantha spoke as Paula approached her in.the long-since-closed cof
fee shop of the hotel. No greeting, no formalities. It was as if the girl was fearful that if she didn’t confess immediately her firm resolve would disappear. Sensing this possibility, Paula also dispensed with formalities. Reaching into her handbag and clicking on her tape recorder, she almost pushed Samantha into a chair. ‘Did he ever promise to leave his wife?’
‘He never promised but he said that sex with her had been boring for years. He said that I blew his mind.’
‘Did you spend whole nights together or just grab moments?’
‘Sometimes whole nights, at my flat. MPs have lots of excuses to be away from home.’
‘How often would you do it in a night?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Samantha, when we go public with this we’re going to get questioned on detail. Was he insatiable?’
‘Well, yes, at first. Sometimes we’d do it for hours.’
‘Would you say five times?’
‘Well…perhaps, I don’t know.’
Paula was almost bursting with the thrill of it. ‘His wife doesn’t satisfy him but my bonking Minister thrills me five times a night.’ Minister of Drugs? Minister of…?
‘Did you ever do it on the carpet?’
‘Lots of times.’
Yes! Result…Minister of RUGS…‘He begged me to satiate him on the SHAG pile.’ Paula could not believe her luck.
‘What colour is your carpet? Not leopardskin or anything, by any chance?’
Samantha’s eyes were far away. She was almost smiling, although she was clearly also on the verge of breaking down. ‘Well, one night I remember, one very special night, the carpet was pretty much any colour we wanted it to be…That was the ecstasy, I expect.’
Paula froze. Had she heard right? Was this a wind-up? It had to be. It simply could not be true. ‘What did you say, Samantha?’
‘I was just thinking about the night I introduced Peter to ecstasy. We took it with Viagra and made love for three hours.’
Paula was a tough and experienced journalist but she was now in uncharted emotional territory. Nothing, literally nothing this exciting or important had ever happened to her.
‘Would you be prepared to swear to this, Samantha?’
‘Yes, I would. He says he’s never taken drugs except for a few joints when he was a student, but he’s done more than that with me.’
‘Beyond your word, do you have any proof?’
‘No, I don’t think so…Oh yes, yes, there was one night, just once, my birthday, we had friends round…We all took cocaine. Peter loved it, but he wouldn’t make love to me afterwards. He insisted on rehearsing his speeches at me while I lay there in my best lingerie.’
This was of course in itself a fabulous story, enough to ridicule and demean any man, but Paula knew that this story went much further. It went to the heart of the government and the nation.
‘Do you think your friends would be prepared to corroborate your story that Peter Paget took cocaine?’
‘When they know how he’s abused my love. Yes. Of course.’
‘Mr Hanson. The police have been called.’
‘Good, fookin’ call ‘em.’
Thus far the hotel security guard had refrained from using his pass key to enter Tommy’s room, but when he heard the next crash he finally did so.
The television set had flown out of the window in classic rock star style.
‘Don’t worry, man, it didn’t work anyway.’ This being because Tommy had smashed its screen with the kettle. In fact this had caused the initial crash, which had awoken the people sleeping in the nearby rooms. After this first effort at destruction those slumbering further afield had been sequentially disturbed as Tommy’s fury grew ever wilder. Whatever there was to destroy,
Tommy destroyed. The mirrors in the bathroom, both basins and the toilet bowl, this with the help of a Corby trouser press, with which Tommy also destroyed both glass coffee tables and the other toilet in the lobby of the suite. Tommy smashed vases against wardrobes and standard lamps against walls. The stereo and video system went through another window.
All this fury had taken place in a matter of only a few minutes, and when the Security Chief entered Tommy’s suite it was only a quarter of an hour since Gemma’s departure.
‘Mr Hanson, will I have to have you physically restrained?’
Took off.’ Tommy pulled on his boots, jeans and a T-shirt and, grabbing his big coat and beanie hat, he walked past the hotel staff and out into the corridor. ‘Send the fookin’ bill to my fookin’ people. I’m goin’ for a drink.’
With that he put on his shades, even though it was the middle of the night, and headed for the lift. The Security team decided to let him go. The incident would certainly be a matter for the police, but it was no part of their brief to start fighting with guests who had taken leave of their senses. Their job was to restore order so as to disturb as few of the other guests as possible. In this case, clearly the best way to achieve this was by allowing Tommy to leave the hotel.
FALLOWFIELD COMMUNITY CENTRE, MANCHESTER
How angry was I? Never in my life have I felt so completely shite. To be tricked like that, abused. I mean honestly, absolutely devastated. That’s the only word for it: totally devastated. I were feelin’ more sorry for meself than I had ever done an’, believe me, I’ve ‘ad me mawkish moments. I’d trusted that bird, see? Honest, when we was at it, an’ it were great, I actually thought I were in love wi’ ‘er…Stupid, eh? I’d only known her five minutes…I think it were the sweet little pink cardigan, and the blushes and those cute knees and the disabled brother an’ all…No, it were what she said. I listened to her and I trusted her. Fook me. ‘Ad I been kippered or what? I felt sick with it, I really did, physically sick. Hadn’t I told herIcan’t fookin’ trust anyone, and hadn’t she fookin’ proved it? I was screaming and shouting at the night. Honest, when I got out o’ that hotel I nearly puked I felt so rotten wi’ it. So I got in the car park an’ had three lines ‘o speed, which made everything worse, and then took a cab up town.
‘So I’m wandering round with my beanie hat pulled down low and my big coat on and I’m still feeling so angry with the world and meself that I just had to do something. It was like I could only feel better if I made matters worse. I wanted to show that I could have more contempt for meself even than that spy woman had had. Like I could only get my pride back if I could kick meself harder than she had. I don’t know, I felt so demeaned that I didn’t want even to respect meself.
‘Well, I were wanderin’ round the streets, shoutin’ an’ ragin’, an’ I sees this sort of hippy cafe place, you know, all fookin’ brown rice an’ all you can eat for fifty pee, an’ at the back there’s a sign sayin’ tattoo parlour. Well, obviously the whole place was clearly a front for the purposes of dealin’ drugs an’ I was quite happy to ‘ave some o’ that, but besides that, I were that filled wi’ self-loathin’ I think to myself, ‘Right, I’ll get a fookin’ tattoo.’
‘Not a word of a lie. That was me new plan, I was so angry with meself for being tricked an’ for givin’ my trust away that I decided to have ‘Twat’ written on me ‘ead. Funny what years of drugs do to you, eh?’
LATE-NIGHT TATTOO AND PIERCING PARLOUR, BIRMINGHAM
‘Twat’?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You want me to shave your head and tattoo ‘Twat’ on it?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Don’t you think that’ll make you look a bit of a twat?’
That’s the idea. I’m filled wi’ fookin’ self-loathing, me.’
‘Full of beer and shit drugs by the look of you. It’ll look completely crap.’
‘Have you any idea who I am?’
‘Yeah, you’re the twat who wants ‘Twat’ written on his head. I don’t do disfigurement. Fuck off, Tommy.’
‘Here, it says ‘Tattooist’ in your window, not fookin’ art critic.’
‘Look, mate, honest, forget it. You’ll hate yourself for the rest of your life.’
>
‘Exactly!’
‘Why make it worse?’
‘Because I don’t fookin’ care, me. Besides, my hair will grow back over it. I ‘ent that stupid.’
‘What if you go bald in later life?’
‘I hope I die before I go bald.’
‘It don’t work like that. You go bald, live another forty years, then die.’
Til have a weave.’
‘Look, mate. Forget it. I run a respectable business here — well, apart from a bit of drug-dealing, obviously — and I am not writing ‘Twat’ on anybody’s head. First of all, I’m not that cruel, and second, you’d probably try and sue me in the morning because you’re obviously out of your head. Then I’d have to find the barman that sold you the booze and the dealer that dealt your drugs and sue them for giving you the wherewithal to get in the state you were when you got to me, and then the barman would have to sue Scottish and Northern Breweries and the dealer would have to sue the peasantry of Afghanistan or some hippy chemist in Wales, and it’s Sunday tomorrow and quite frankly I can’t handle the aggravation.’
‘Look, I’m not going to sue you. I want to make a statement.
I’ve been demeaned and cheated and abused and I need to purge myself through self-abuse.’
‘Stick a Stanley knife in your arm.’
‘Too painful. I ain’t into pain.’
‘All right. How about I write ‘Exploited’?’
Tommy thought for a moment. That’s brilliant, that. Like when Prince had ‘Slave’ tattooed on his face.’
That wasn’t a tattoo. That was just felt-tip pen. It washed off.’
‘Well, anyway…How about ‘Emotional commodity’?’
Too many letters. They’ll be too small. Come to think of it, ‘Exploited’ is too long as well. How about ‘Had’, ‘cos later on if you were feeling a bit better about yourself you could change it to ‘Bad’ or, at a pinch, ‘Lad’.’
‘Nab,’
‘Well, if you liked Prince’s ‘Slave’, how about ‘Victim’? That’d be perfect, that, it’d go from the back of one ear to the back of the other, wrapped round your rear cranium. I could do it in German Gothic if you like.’
