‘She’s hot like the rest of us.’ Frances laid the stack of Saturday papers she’d been leafing through onto the table. ‘How was Cabinet?’
‘Bloody.’ He sat down heavily in one of the wrought-iron chairs, nodding his thanks as Frances poured him a tumbler of iced tea. ‘Coventry wouldn’t be nearly far enough for them; they’d have sent me to Timbuktu if they could.’ He drank the tea in one and stretched out his glass for a refill. ‘The full Cabinet and not a single person as much as glanced my way. And when it was over, they evaporated faster than the clouds.’
‘I wouldn’t worry.’ Frances dropped ice from an ice bucket into his glass: ‘They’re only trying to figure out when to jump.’
‘Perhaps that’s it.’ He put his glass back on the table, and in doing so displaced one of the newspapers. ‘Oh. There’s my mobile. I wondered where it had got to.’ Despite the cooling effect of Frances’s iced tea, he was still desperately hot. He undid his laces and removed his shoes, checking that Patsy was out of biting distance before peeling off his socks. Such a relief. He stretched out his legs, feeling the dry grass prickle the soles of his feet. ‘The PM was off to the summit as soon as it was over. He made a point of saying that. Three times in fact. I guess he thinks that the sight of him grinning in a sea of world leaders will give him a boost.’
‘Too late for that. He’s already haemorrhaged too much support.’
‘I expect you’re right. I couldn’t help feeling sorry for him, though. At one point when he passed a note to the Foreign Secretary, his hands were visibly trembling.’
When Frances did not reply, he looked across at her. Her gaze, he saw, was focused on his feet, or more accurately on his white socks, yellowed by perspiration, that he had taken off. Although her face was partly shaded by the oak, he wondered whether that was distaste in her expression. But, no, he must have been mistaken. When she raised her head, her blue eyes were clear and calm, and she was smiling as she said, ‘The PM’s lost it.’
‘So it seems.’ Politics was such a cruel game. ‘And so quickly. I can’t help wondering why.’
‘Who knows. Maybe it’s his bitch of a wife’ – the two women never had much liked each other – ‘or his errant son. But it doesn’t matter why. The truth is that he is simply not up to the job. His spell in Number 10 has finished him.’
As it could finish me, he thought, and not for the first time.
‘Without someone new at the helm,’ Frances said, ‘the election is as good as lost.’
Right again. The PM knew it, the pollsters knew it, and the Party knew it. Most important of all, the hacks had started to say it out loud.
But it was one thing to accept that change was due and another to be the one to wield the knife. The PM, as ineffective as he was, was also liked by the Party; the person who deposed him could end up bearing the brunt of any backlash.
All very well for Frances to urge him on: she didn’t have to put up with the side glances when they thought you weren’t looking and, worse, vicious stage whispers they meant you to overhear. And what made her so sure he was going to win?
They’d been married so long she read his thoughts. ‘You won’t fail,’ she said. ‘They won’t let you. They can’t. You’re the only viable candidate.’
‘But people hate disloyalty. Now I’ve fired the starting gun, I could be trampled in the stampede.’
‘What people really hate, Peter, and here I am talking about MPs, is losing their seats.’ Her raised voice woke the dog, who looked up, accusingly, at Peter. ‘But this isn’t just about our MPs. It’s about the whole Party. It’s about the whole Country.’
The way she capitalised the Country – and made it sound right – made him think, as he often did, that she should have been the politician. She would have made a good enforcer: a fabulous whip.
‘If the opposition win the election,’ she was saying, ‘they’ll wreck everything you and the Party, and yes, let’s give him credit where it’s due, the PM, have worked so hard to achieve. Someone has to stop the rot. We can.’
He noted her use of the collective noun – another of her habits that could annoy. Yes, he’d be the first to admit that they were a team, and a good one. But he was Home Secretary and potential new Leader of her precious Country, and she was just his wife.
He was overcome, suddenly, by the most terrible fatigue.
It’s the humidity, he thought, which had climbed even higher since the episode of the phantom clouds. The air was now so thick he was almost tempted to try to grab hold of it and squeeze it out. Water, that’s what he craved. Not to drink but to immerse himself in. If only there had been a nearby stretch of water into which he could throw himself and for one glorious moment expunge the memory of the PM’s trembling hands and the prospect of the fight to come. He let the imaginary water wash over him, and soon it was almost as if he really was floating down a river in a different country where life moves at a slower pace, with the sound of the cicadas’ rubbing feet creating a reassuring background thrum . . .
‘Third time this morning; you’d better answer it.’
He snapped his eyes open. The sound he had taken for cicadas was his phone vibrating on the metal table. When he reached for it, he registered the caller’s name. ‘Yes?’
A reply so indistinct he had to strain to hear it.
‘This is a terrible line.’
Another soft sentence.
‘I still can’t hear you.’
Some more words, just as soft but also blurred, as if her mouth was latched on to her phone. He gave her a moment, straining to make sense of what she was saying, before cutting her short: ‘You’re still inaudible. Later.’ He hung up and tossed the phone onto the table. ‘Silly girl.’
‘What did she want?’
‘She’s looking into Yares’s connection to the PM. There’s something between the two, I am convinced of it. Patricia seems to think she’s found that something, but I could make neither head nor tail of what she was saying. Turns out she was in a pub surrounded by police officers. Doesn’t she know how leaky they are?’
‘She’s young.’ Frances’s tone was even and even disinterested. Must have got over her uncharacteristic fit of jealousy. ‘But at least she’s keen.’
‘Keen, yes. A little too much so at times.’ He yawned, stretched up his arms and yawned again. ‘The Cabinet took it out of me. And if you don’t mind, darling, I’ve still got some catching up to do before I can take a well-earned snooze.’ He got to his feet. He really was exhausted.
Such an effort even to make it to the house in this heat.
He was halfway there when she called him. ‘You forgot this.’
She was holding up his mobile.
He shook his head. ‘Don’t need it,’ and turned away. But almost immediately he turned back again. ‘Oh,’ a long sigh, ‘I guess I had better take it. There’s a meeting I have to go to later this afternoon; they said they’ll text me when they’ve fixed the venue.’
3 p.m.
A handful of Lovelace residents had gathered outside Ruben’s parents’ flat. Not enough people so far for the many posters Lyndall and her troupe had made. Cathy was holding a clump by their sticks, so as not to damage the photos of Ruben mounted on their tops, and hoping the demonstration wouldn’t stay this small.
Lyndall was a few feet away with more posters. Jayden was by her side. The two were chattering madly as they had been since early morning.
The last few days seemed to have brought them closer, Cathy thought, seeing how carefree Jayden, who usually wore a worried frown, looked. He had been dealt such a difficult hand yet show him the smallest kindness and he changed. The kind shopkeeper who kept him in work always said so, and there was more proof in the way that in Lyndall’s company he seemed to act like a normal kid. A pity that their friendship was unlikely to outlast the closing of the Lovelace. Not because they didn’t like each other – which they clearly did – but because their different financial circumstances meant the
y would end up living miles apart.
‘Here they are.’
Reverend Pius led the way out of the flat, closely followed by Ruben’s parents. As the two walked hand in hand, heads held high, nodding in acknowledgement of each member of the waiting group, Cathy was once more struck by their grace, especially when, coming abreast of Lyndall and Jayden, they stopped. No words were spoken, but Ruben’s mother reached out to touch each of the youngsters gently on the forehead: an acknowledgement and a blessing for the river of light they had created.
‘Shall we?’ Pius led the way down the gangway.
They followed, mostly in single file, tracing the route of the previous night’s candle path. Doors kept opening as they progressed down the different levels, more residents coming out to join them, so that by the time they reached ground level a handful had turned into a respectable bunch, with all the posters now held aloft, and when they came abreast of the community centre, they numbered, by Cathy’s reckoning, about sixty. And this was only the beginning. She needn’t have worried: more would join them once they were outside the police station.
The community centre was closed, as it had been since Ruben’s death. Police tape barred an entrance that was now banked by flowers. There were no police guarding the flowers, which, given the ill feeling towards the force, was probably wise. And there would have been no need: the flowers were untouched.
The crowd stood silent as Ruben’s parents stooped down to read the cards that people had left. They walked slowly along the line, picking up each in turn, giving them equal attention. That done, Ruben’s mother laid her own tribute – a single poppy – on top.
She stayed like that for a moment, her head bent, her hand resting on the poppy. ‘He loves red poppies,’ she said to the air.
‘Come.’ Pius helped her up and then, linking his arm to hers and to her husband’s, led the way out of the Lovelace and into a market that was already packing up. As the now sizeable crowd walked between the stalls, traders stood by: an honour guard paying tribute to a man who had once been their familiar.
4 p.m.
Peter came to with a start.
The room was dark, curtains drawn, and it took him a moment to work out where he was. Hearing movement in the bathroom, he realised that he must have dozed off. He felt the air wonderfully cool. How long had he been asleep?
‘How long have I been sleeping?’ he called.
The bathroom door opened, light framing the glorious vision of Patricia, whose skin, still wet from her shower, glistened a golden brown in the light. ‘Not long.’ She stretched up her arms and yawned.
She was so lovely. Desire rose up in him. Again. He patted the bed. ‘Come here.’
‘I’m wet.’
‘For me, I hope.’ Another pat. ‘Come on. Come here.’
She took her time, walking slowly towards the bed, smiling as he followed her every step. He was practically drooling when she slid in beside him.
If only, he thought. He laid a hand on her stomach and with the other pulled the sheet over her. ‘Come closer.’ He felt the brush of her breasts against his chest. He wanted her. So much. If only he could stop the clock and stay, here, in this room.
But . . . he lifted himself up, reaching for his watch.
‘Oh no you don’t.’ She wrenched the watch out of his grasp and threw it across the room.
He winced as it hit the wall. ‘Do you mind? That’s a Hublot.’
‘Should be strong enough to survive, then, shouldn’t it?’
He made to go and fetch it back, but before he could she straddled him, pinning him down by his hands, kneeling on all fours and grinning.
She’s so pretty, he thought, and so damn irreverent. At least in bed.
She lowered her head close enough for him to feel her hair brush against his neck. She whispered one word, ‘Stay,’ in his ear.
How he would have liked to stay. But one couldn’t run away from time, especially when it was blinking in neon green from the bedside table. ‘I can’t.’
When he thought he felt her stiffen, he prayed that she wasn’t going to make a fuss. But being with Frances, the mistress of the sudden freeze, had made him oversensitive. Instead of sinking into the sullen silence that was Frances’s intimate, Patricia laughed out loud. ‘Big talker.’ She kissed him, passionately, on the lips. ‘Until the next time.’ She shifted off him so he could get out of bed.
A shower to get rid, not of her but of the smell of her (so light and flowery, he thought, which he loved).
When he was with her and naked, his only thoughts were of her. Now, as the water flowed, what dominated was the memory of the lie he’d told his wife. Not something he was proud of. But her question had come so out of the blue he’d panicked, and once his denial had been released, it created its own momentum. To undo it now would be tricky.
Because her father had betrayed her mother in such an appallingly public manner, Frances was particularly touchy. She’d never understand that what he had with Patricia in no way affected his feelings for her. She was his wife, his counsel and the mother of his child: he wasn’t going to leave her. So why would he cause her pain for something that fulfilled a need but which was otherwise unimportant?
What was it that had even made her ask, he wondered. Had someone talked? It couldn’t be. If she had been sure of her facts, she would have pressed him harder.
‘Why are you taking so long?’
Patricia. He must go to her. He rubbed himself briskly with a towel. Despite his exertions, his sleep and a fairly hot shower, he was still feeling cool. A place that got the temperature right was a rarity; pity the need to protect himself from prying eyes meant that the next time they’d have to use a different hotel.
He came out of the bathroom to find her still in bed. She was lying on her back, sheet discarded, arms behind her head, stark naked and looking straight at him.
‘What a wanton child you are.’
‘Child?’ She wrinkled her nose.
‘Temptress, then.’ She was that as well, and irresistible. He went over to the bed and kissed her. ‘I wish I could stay.’
‘I know.’ The arms that had gone round his neck gave a quick squeeze before letting go.
He collected his clothes from the various points on the carpet where he had shed them. ‘If you don’t mind, I’ll go first.’
She nodded.
Strange the transition between the intimacy of bed and the clothes that called up the outside world. Her eyes stayed fixed on him as he dressed. It made him feel a little awkward, so he averted his gaze until he had finished and was putting on his tie.
He looked around him. Something missing.
‘Your watch.’
He fetched it from the place where it had fallen onto the thick pile carpet. He held it to his ear. Foolish. It was a Hublot. He wasn’t ever going to hear it ticking. He strapped it on.
She was still watching him and it was still unnerving. Something he had done? ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘What for?’ Her tone was light.
‘The way I spoke to you when you called.’
She shrugged.
‘I was with my wife.’
He caught an involuntary narrowing of her hazel eyes. Understandable. If he put himself in her shoes, he could see it was difficult for her as well.
I’ll make it up to her, he thought. Buy her something. Fully dressed now, and conscious that his driver would be waiting in the lobby, he went over to the bed.
She smiled up at him.
Let the driver wait. He leant over to kiss her. Showing her, without words, how much he thought of her. He felt her melting in his arms.
How he wanted to stay.
‘They’ll be waiting for you downstairs,’ she said. ‘You’d better go.’
Such a sweet girl. And so considerate. He sighed and straightened up. ‘By the way,’ he said. ‘Did you really uncover something between the PM and Commissioner Yares or was that just your excuse for ringing?�
�
‘Both,’ she said. ‘Did you know that Yares is Teddy’s godfather?’
He nodded. ‘He has some long-standing connection to the PM’s wife – I think their parents may have known each other – which he declared in his application in tedious detail. The man’s such a stickler, he’s a bore.’ He pulled the knot of his tie tight. ‘Peculiar decision to choose a godfather who’s a Jew, but I suppose there’s less of the God about most of us these days, and that includes the PM. The public doesn’t seem to care. Anything else?’
‘I’m working on it.’ She had on her serious assistant’s expression. ‘I’ve got some leads. That’s what I was doing in that pub.’
‘You’re a marvel. Do your best, will you?’
‘Yes, Peter.’ She so rarely used his Christian name. ‘I’ll do my best.’
4.40 p.m.
The demonstrators had set up camp on the pavement opposite the police station and a few hundred yards down from it. The police had closed Rockham train station and the road leading to it, and diverted southward-bound traffic through a one-way system and away from the police station, which was therefore isolated and easier to guard with a small number of officers. Normally they would have set up this diversion at the large junction at Rockhill Park, but this time, for some reason that no one could understand, they let traffic pass the park, only afterwards diverting it via the smaller Blackrod Road. As a result, the High Street to the north of the police station was soon crammed with cars trying to U-turn their way back to the diversion. To deal with the logjam, a patrol car parked nearby to disgorge two uniformed officers who proceeded to direct the traffic back.
For their part, the demonstrators did as they always did: they spilt out into the road to stop traffic from the south passing by. The police’s answer to this – again as per usual – was to create a makeshift roadblock in the south so that the demonstrators now had full possession of the area a few hundred yards from the police station in what was a kind of informal, if unpoliced, kettle.
So far so routine. An hour and a half after they had first arrived, everything was still calm. The day continued ferociously hot. A whipround raised money for a stack of collective water, which they stored in a couple of polystyrene boxes packed with ice. An enterprising ice-cream seller parked near the southernmost perimeter of the demonstration, from which position he did a roaring trade. Ice creams passed amongst the crowd, some of it gifted good-naturedly to the officers who were working valiantly in that heat to turn away traffic from the northern boundary of the enclosure. With the sun beating down, it felt more like a summer party than a protest, especially when someone used a beach umbrella to create a shaded sanctuary for babies and those who could least tolerate the heat.
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