Sheer Abandon

by Penny Vincenzi

  “But we can’t find anyone to do Friday,” said Mark. “Sorry, Clio.”

  “Mark, don’t say sorry. Of course I’ll do it. Don’t even think about it. Jeremy won’t mind.”

  It had shocked her how much he had minded—until she tore into him.

  The whole country was in shock. It was all anyone talked about. The pictures, the famous pictures, of the towers being hit, exploding, collapsing; the people phoning their loved ones from the towers to say goodbye, people standing for days at the site, waiting, praying for news, for the recovery of more bodies. There was terror in those first days; everyone afraid, asking where next? Flights were cancelled by the thousand; Clio was grateful that Jeremy wanted to postpone their trip, and told Mark she would do Saturday as well.

  “Jeremy’s doing some private patients on Saturday now. I might as well.”

  There were very few people in surgery, few call-outs. It was as if people didn’t like to complain about trifling illnesses when there was so much grief in the world.

  Jeremy called to say he wouldn’t be back until teatime: at midday Clio found herself with nothing to do. Nothing to do and no husband. It was a dizzy prospect; she had already shopped, cooked ahead for a lunch party on Sunday, and done the flowers; she would take some time for herself and have a look round the Guildford shops. And then she remembered Jilly Bradford’s phone call.

  Now that would be fun.

  She arrived at the shop about two; it was very quiet, like the rest of the town. Nobody was in a shopping mood; Clio felt suddenly guilty.

  Jilly smiled at her and said how delighted she was to see her. “Such a dreadful business, this. I nearly didn’t open today, and then I thought that was letting them win. The terrorists, I mean. Now, I’ve got your jackets here, and some tops I thought you might like. Shall I put you in one of the changing rooms and you can play around? And would you like a coffee?”

  “That would be lovely, yes. Thank you.”

  What a charming woman she was; no wonder the shop did so well. And such an advertisement for her own good taste, dressed today in a simple black shift, with black tights and black low-heeled pumps; and she was so slim. Clio promptly felt plump and messy.

  The jackets were both extremely nice; after a very brief struggle, she said she would take them both. “And that black top is lovely too, the plain one.”

  “Right. Well, look, I’ve got your number, and in future I’ll call you whenever I get anything in I think would be you. If that’s all right, of course.”

  “Yes, fine,” said Clio. “I usually never think about clothes until I need them.” And then glancing at herself in the mirror, back in her own things—sensible tweed skirt, striped shirt, and sleeveless puffa jacket—thought that it showed.

  “Well, that’s what we’re here for,” said Jilly, smiling at her, “to think of them for you. We are much more than just a shop, you know.”

  “Yes, I can see that. Here’s my card and—”

  The door opened and a girl burst in: a rather beautiful young girl, with a mass of wild fair hair, large dark eyes, and extraordinarily long legs in what were clearly carefully torn and faded jeans.

  “Hi, Granny. Sorry I’m early. I couldn’t stand Dad going on about terrorists any longer. He seems to think some are about to strike our street. Oh, sorry!” she said, seeing Clio standing by the till.

  “It’s all right, darling. I’m not terribly busy. Dr. Scott, this is my granddaughter, Kate Tarrant. Kate, this is Dr. Scott.”

  “Hi!” said the girl. She looked at Clio, smiled briefly, then disappeared into the back of the shop.

  “Kate comes to spend the weekend with me sometimes,” said Jilly, giving Clio her credit card back. “We get on rather well.”

  “I can see that. Does she live in Guildford?”

  “No, my daughter and her husband live in Ealing.”

  Something struck Clio as awkward, just slightly awry, about that statement; she couldn’t think what it was.

  “Well, thank you again,” she said, “and I hope I won’t see you in the surgery. If you see what I mean.”

  “Of course. I don’t think you will—I’m a tough old bird.”

  “Gran…” The girl had appeared again; she flashed another brief, brilliant smile at Clio. “I think I’ll go and get some sandwiches. I’m starving. And you haven’t got any Coke in the fridge.”

  “Sorry, darling. Yes, you go and get me some as well. Sandwiches, not Coke. Here’s some money.”

  “Thanks.” She was gone.

  “What a pretty girl,” said Clio. “She looks like you.”

  “How charming of you to say so,” said Jilly. “But as a matter of fact—”

  The door pinged: another customer. Clio smiled and picked up her bags. “I’ll leave you in peace. Thank you again.”

  Outside in the street she stood for a moment, looking up and down the street for the girl. There had been something about her. Something slightly—well, slightly familiar. She couldn’t imagine what.

  People often asked Martha if there had been one single thing that had done it, had persuaded her to change her entire life, risk everything she had worked so hard for, and yes, she would say, there had: it had been walking into the mixed-sex ward of St. Philip’s Hospital where Lina lay, dying quietly and uncomplainingly of inoperable cancer of the liver, deeply distressed because she had wet her bed (having requested a bedpan hours earlier), and slowly just fading away, against a background of what could only be described as squalor.

  Martha had done her best, of course. She had found a nurse and demanded that the bed be changed, and when the nurse had said she had no time, had walked into the small room marked SUPPLIES and found some clean sheets, helped Lina into a chair and started changing the bed herself. A nurse told her she couldn’t do that and Martha had said she was doing it, clearly nobody else was going to, and that was all there was to it. The staff nurse had then been summoned and she said what did Martha think she was doing? Martha told her and added, perfectly politely, that she would have thought they would be grateful for some help, adding (with truth) that she was prepared to clean the lavatory as well, that it was truly disgusting and must be spreading infection.

  At which point the woman had sighed and said she knew that, and that she had been trying to find the time all day to do it.

  “Surely,” Martha said, “the cleaners should be doing it, not you?”

  “Oh they’re not allowed by their union to touch soiled dressings or human waste. There are special people to do that, but they haven’t come today yet. I—” Then someone called from across the ward to say that a patient’s drip had come out, and the nurse had to leave. Martha sat stroking Lina’s hand gently and looking over it at the old man sitting on the next bed, his penis hanging out of his pyjamas, while a young couple, presumably relatives of some kind, sat in chairs on either side of his bed, eating burgers and arguing about what film they were going to see when they left. The picture had stayed with Martha; nothing could erase it.

  She was only thankful that her own mother’s surgery (a fusion in her lumbar spine) had already been accomplished privately. But that didn’t help Lina—or all the other Linas.

  That had been June; in August, Lina’s friend told her, mopping her streaming eyes, wiping them on the duster she was using on Martha’s desk, that Lina had died.

  “They said it was the cancer, Miss Hartley,” she said, “but I think it was that her heart just broke. She felt her family had been failed, and she couldn’t bear it.”

  And Martha, crying too, remembering Lina’s sweet, gentle face, her heroic struggle to care for her family, wondered if there was anything, anything at all, she could do to make things better, not for Lina, it was too late for that now, but for all the other people who were being failed by a country that seemed to have entirely lost its way.

  She was upset all day, performing badly in meetings; later that afternoon, when her friend Richard Ashcombe called her to cancel a visi
t to the cinema, even that seemed a major blow. “I’m sorry, Martha, I’d completely forgotten I’m supposed to be having supper with my cousin. I can’t let him down.”

  “Of course you can’t.” Absurdly, she could hear her own voice shaky, tearful once again at this latest blow.

  “Martha, are you all right?”

  “Yes. Yes, of course, I’m fine. Honestly. Bit of a bad day, that’s all.”

  “I’m sorry. But I really do have to go. Of course…” he said slowly and she could hear him thinking. “Of course you could come too, if you liked. We don’t have all that much in common. In fact conversation’s sometimes quite sticky. I know he’d like you and he’s a politician, so you can share all your thoughts with him.”

  “What thoughts?”

  “Oh you know, country going to the dogs, everybody being let down.”

  “Do I go on about it that much?”

  “Well, quite a lot. But he won’t have heard it, will he? And I can just get drunk and not listen. Go on, Martha, you’d be doing me a favour.”

  “We-ell.” It was an intriguing thought. “It might be fun. If you really don’t think he’d mind?”

  “Of course he wouldn’t mind. He’d love it. I’m meeting him at the House of Commons. We’re having a drink there. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  “I’d love it. Thank you, Richard. But call him first and ask him, won’t you? What’s your cousin’s name?”

  “Marcus Denning.”

  “What—the arts minister?” said Martha.

  “Shadow junior arts minister…I’ll call you when I’m leaving.”

  She was very familiar with Denning’s name; she loved opera, and was a Friend of both the Royal Opera House and the English National Opera. Denning had attended several galas in his official capacity and was famous for having a genuine desire to popularise opera. It would be interesting to meet him.

  They were late arriving at the House of Commons; the traffic was so bad they paid the taxi off and walked the last quarter mile. As they put their coats and briefcases on the security conveyor belt she spotted Denning, clearly impatient, looking at his watch. Martha stepped through the security arch and the alarm promptly went off (as always); she subjected herself to a search (as always her jewellery was to blame), and then, extremely embarrassed, reached Denning before Richard, who had been asked to unpack the entire contents of his briefcase.

  “I’m so sorry to do this to you,” she said, “first crashing your evening and then being late. Richard did warn you, didn’t he?” she added, seeing his slightly bewildered expression. “That he was going to bring me along?”

  “He didn’t, no. But what a pleasant surprise.” He held out his hand. “And you are?”

  “Martha Hartley. Richard and I work together.”

  “Ah. Another lawyer?”

  “Yes, there are a lot of us, I’m afraid.”

  “Well, I’m sure we need you.” He looked younger close up; she would have put him at only midforties, less daunting when not surrounded by the dignitaries of the Opera House, and dressed in a shabby suit rather than a dinner jacket. “Ah, Richard, good to see you. They’re not carting you off to the Tower then? No lethal weapons in your briefcase?”

  He grinned at Richard and Martha liked him.

  “Not this time. Sorry to keep you waiting.”

  “That’s perfectly all right. Shall we go through? I thought we’d go to the Pugin Room. The Strangers’ Bar is packed. Lot of excitement over the Lords Reform.”

  “I’ve never really been here before,” said Martha, “only very briefly anyway. I was rushed in and out in about five minutes.”

  “Oh really? We can do a little tour if it would amuse you.”

  “Oh, please, no,” said Richard, “not the tour. I’m starving.”

  “Well, just a mini one. You know what this is.” He waved his arm above his head. “Central Lobby. Chamber’s through there. Lovely, isn’t it, this place?”

  “It’s glorious,” said Martha, gazing up at the great domed roof, the stained-glass windows, the huge heraldic beasts carved in stone high above her head, aware of the rich, echoing quality of the sound. You could hear history in that sound, she thought.

  They set off on their tour; expecting solemnity, Martha was charmed by its acutely sociable nature.

  “Now down there,” Marcus said, steering her out of the lobby, “oh, hello, Hugh. Nice to see you.”

  “Marcus! What did you think of all that?”

  “Not a lot, if you want to know. Did you speak to Duggie afterwards?”

  “Yes. I’m off up there in a minute. You?”

  “No. Taking this charming lady to dinner and this is my cousin, who’s playing gooseberry. Come along, Martha,” he said, steering her to the right. “Now, before we leave, one of the Pugin tiles on the floor is the wrong way round, can you spot it? Evening, Henry. You off? Wise man…Just come and look at these busts, Martha, they might amuse you; see that one of Alec Douglas-Home? They say he lost the ’64 election because he wore half-moon glasses—as you see he doesn’t have them on there. Right, we’re back in the Commons here. You can tell when you’ve changed, because of the carpets: Lords red, Commons green. The Lords have a more classy sound to summon them to Divisions as well: we have a bell, and they have a tinkle. Now look, Martha, that’s the library. A lot of people have died having sex there.”

  “Really?” she said laughing.

  “So it’s said. And you’re not allowed to die anywhere here, as you probably know. They get you off the premises somehow. Now, in here, this is the Pugin Room. He’s blamed for most of the decor and all that fancy wallpaper.”

  They turned left, walked into a room that was so dazzling, she literally blinked. With its glorious view of the river, the walls and ceiling covered in gilt Pugin wallpaper, and a vast chandelier hovering over the centre, it was rather like the reception area of an exceptionally grand hotel, chairs and sofas arranged in groups, and what looked like elderly retainers carrying drinks on silver trays. Marcus steered them towards a table; someone stood up.

  “Marcus, hello. What did you think about all that?”

  “Absolute drivel. Are we really expected to appreciate it?”

  “I think we are. Can I get you a drink?”

  “No, no, we’re not staying long. I’m buying these young people dinner.” He sat down, waved across the room at someone else. “Evening! Nice to see you.”

  “This is like going for a walk in my parents’ village,” said Martha laughing.

  “This whole place is a village. Something like two thousand people work here. It has everything, a florist, post boxes, a ladies’ hairdresser. And you can get a drink here twenty-four hours a day, if you know where to look. That’s not too much like a village, I suppose. Or maybe it is. And it runs on gossip. What would you like?”

  “White wine spritzer, please.” She felt oddly at home and smiled. “I like it here. I really do!”

  They ate at Patrick’s, a below-ground restaurant just along the Embankment, actually called Pomegranates. “We all like it here,” said Marcus, as they settled at their table. “It’s fairly near the House and its other main benefit to political life is that it’s just next to Dolphin Square. An awful lot of MPs live there. Used to be that mistresses were kept there—but we all have to be squeaky clean these days. Although I read the other day that politicians come even lower in the public estimation than journalists. Now that is an indictment.”

  “But you can’t be surprised,” said Martha. “Everyone feels let down, disillusioned. It’s not just your party, of course, it’s all of them.”

  “You’re right, of course. Oh—hello, Janet. Good to see you. Can I introduce my cousin Richard Ashcombe, and his friend, Martha Hartley?”

  Martha looked up at Janet Frean and as always when confronted by an absolutely familiar face belonging to a complete stranger felt as if she must know her. It was a nice face, not beautiful by any means, but attractive, w
ith strong features; her hair, which was auburn, was carved into a bob. She was tall and very thin, with good legs and beautiful, slender hands. She smiled at Martha.

  “Martha has some very interesting views,” said Marcus. “You should hear them.”

  “I’d love to, but I can’t at the moment. I’m waiting for—ah, here he is. Evening, Nick. You know Marcus Denning, of course.”

  “Sure. Evening, Marcus.” An extremely tall, rather untidy-looking young man paused by their table, smiled vaguely at Martha and Richard, then said, “Janet, I hate to sound rude, but I’ve only got half an hour. Is Chad here?”

  “No, but he will be in five minutes. He just called me. Will you excuse us?” she said to Marcus. “And I’d love to hear your views sometime, Miss Hartley.”

  Martha smiled at her, embarrassed. “You really don’t have to be polite. I’m sure my views are absolutely bog-standard.”

  “I doubt it,” Janet Frean said, smiling at her. “You don’t look as if anything about you is bog-standard. What do you do? You’re not in this game, are you?”

  “No, she’s a lawyer,” said Marcus, “partner at Sayers Wesley. Very high-powered. Anyway, enjoy your meal.”

  “Thanks. Here’s Chad now. Nick, come on, let’s go to our table.”

  “I met him once at some event,” said Martha, staring at Chad Lawrence. “I’m sure he wouldn’t remember me, though. And who was the Nick person?”

  “Nick Marshall. Brilliant young man. Political editor of the Sketch. I don’t suppose you ever read it.”

  “Not often, no. I always read the Sun and the Mail, and that has to do for the tabloids.”

  “You should take a look at it—it’s very good. Now, are we ready to order?”

  Next morning, Martha bought the Sketch on her way to work. Marcus was right; it was extremely good. Less predictable than the Mail, more serious than the Sun, but still lively and intelligent. There was an article by Nicholas Marshall, which she read with huge interest. Headed IS THE PARTY OVER?—she liked that—it was a sober assessment of the Tories and where they were in the polls.