A Parliamentary Affair (51 page)

As she told herself defensively afterwards, she was only hoping for evidence of good in Mr Peter. A nice photo of him cuddling his mother, perhaps, or walking a sweetheart bashfully in the park: that would have convinced her that though foolish and inconsiderate and a bit strange he was not a bad boy.

Peter was not hugging his mum. The pictures were dark and seemed to be of some sort of party, with people prancing around clutching wineglasses. Some of them looked drunk. All were got up in silly costumes, outlandish and bizarre. She screwed up her eyes, turning the first picture this way and that. That was certainly Mr Peter, rouged and sequinned, wearing some kind of short white toga pinned at the shoulders, a broad gold belt pulling in his waist like a girl’s. Peter’s partner was tall, grey-haired and tubby, ludicrously attired in Egyptian-style dress, silver pleated and off one shoulder with a long skirt out of which sandalled feet poked with red-varnished toenails. A silver and turquoise headdress, slightly askew, obscured the face. A pendulous breast was exposed, its nipple painted red. The breast was hairy, shaggy and grey. The tall man had one arm around Peter, who in turn seemed to have his hand touching his companion’s genitals.

Mrs Perkins swallowed. The next photo showed the two in an embrace, faces in profile to the camera, lips together, pouting and wet. She shuddered, but could not stop now. A third had Peter roguishly lifting his little skirt while the friend pretended to cover his eyes with a fat white hand. The boy’s long sleek legs were almost womanly. That would explain all those hairs in the sink. The man’s headdress was slipping, tufts of grey hair peeping out.

Maggie Perkins was a Londoner, resident all her life in one of the world’s most sophisticated cities. She had no strong feelings about homosexuals, if that was their preference, as long as they didn’t do it in the street. That word ‘gay’ always seemed a bit silly to her as it didn’t appear to make them very happy; still, we were all as God made us. There were lots so inclined, on telly and in the theatre. Look at Larry Grayson, and wonderful Frankie Howerd, and that lovely Colin from
EastEnders
: you couldn’t think ill of them. Ballet was full of them, poofters all. Rock Hudson, they said. Artists too, like that chap who painted those swimming pool pictures her daughter liked so much – David Hockney, that was it – he was one. Even Julian Clary: at least he made her laugh. Pushed, she might have admitted that her brother was probably like that. But being queer was one thing; flaunting it and making fools of people was quite another. These photos were different. This was nasty stuff,
crude and tasteless, like the pictures in the
Sunday Sport
which Mr Perkins sometimes bought and hid with an apologetic shrug from her disapproving gaze.

It was impossible to come this far and not complete the journey of unpleasant discovery. Heavily she rose, taking the photographs closer to the window. Outside it was still drizzling. The next photo was clearer because the figures were closer to the lens. The big man, Peter’s companion, was not looking at the camera, but perhaps he had heard its whirr for there was a startled, almost frightened look on his face. The strange headdress was completely askew. The shape of that head was familiar. The nose, that chin-line. She squinted at the eyes under their make-up.

Then Maggie Perkins’s mouth dropped open in horror.

There was no need to warn her employer. He already knew. The tubby man in the photograph was Sir Nigel himself.

‘I’ll have those, if you don’t mind.’

The voice was cool and light but full of menace. Peter always walked quietly, which unnerved her, but he was so close she could feel his breath on her arm. She jumped in terror and the dreadful photos, relieved of her restricting grasp, tumbled in a mocking cascade on to the carpet at her feet. Mumbling apologies she went down on hands and knees to collect them up but Peter nimbly was there first. He stood before her, calm and sinister, and held out his hand.

‘And the rest of them, please.’

Alien: that’s what he was; evil and cruel and alien. Maggie Perkins reflected quickly what to do. Her family came from old British stock. Her dad had been killed at Dunkirk, an old uncle at Gallipoli. Courage had never been lacking. She folded stout arms across her ample bosom, took a deep breath, squared her shoulders and looked her enemy straight in the eye.

‘Whatever you are doing, Mr Peter, it’s not right and it’s got to stop, do you hear? Sir Nigel is a good man, one of the best. You’ve got some sort of hold on him, haven’t you?’

Peter leered at her. The new moustache drew attention to his soft girlish mouth and pink lips. ‘None of your business, dear Mrs Perkins. You’re just the cleaner.’

That did it. Mrs Perkins’s eyes blazed. Her voice turned hard, almost hissing, as she spat out the words with all the contempt she could muster.

‘You’re dirt, you are. I know what you’re up to. Leave him alone, do you hear? You’ve overstayed your welcome in this house. You had better leave, and quick. Out! I mean it – out!’

Peter glanced through the photographs, his nonchalance scary. ‘Oh, yeah? And are you going to make me? What are you going to do, call the police?’

From the back of Mrs Perkins’s mind came the phrases and tone used by her brother when talking about trade-union business. She gave not an inch.

‘I come from a large cockney family, Mr Peter. If that is your name. We don’t like your sort. And if you were to be found a few days on in the gutter not far from here, beaten daft, well now: that’d be none of my business either, as you put it. Do I make myself clear? Somebody will pay for this, you mark my words.’

With considerable dignity and a pounding heart Mrs Perkins gathered up her dusters and polishes and swept towards the door, banging it behind her. Her heavy steps clumped steadily up the stairs and away.

Peter held his breath till she was gone and whistled softly through his teeth. He placed the photographs carefully back into their packet and reached in the wardrobe for a leather jacket.

‘Right, Mrs P: somebody will pay. But not me, at all. Your posh friend, perhaps. Or someone interested in him. We shall see.’

In a dusty upstairs room at Milton Conservative Club the Finance and General Purposes Committee of Milton and Hambridge Conservative Association had just been informed that their much-admired
Member of Parliament would not be standing again. Since no one present could remember last time this had happened, over thirty years earlier, none had the faintest idea how to react. It seemed wisest to keep one’s eyes firmly glued to the floor examining old cigarette burns and wait for someone else to speak.

It fell to Mr Bulstrode as chairman to break the solemn silence. He was a retired bank manager, yet inside his discreet breast lurked a radical heart. Once, long ago, he had dreamed of standing for Parliament, but it was an impossibility for a lowly bank clerk, and now he was too old. The advent of a new Member might make life jolly interesting. Time to wake the area up.

Next to him the vice-chairman pushed rimless spectacles up his long nose. Mr Standish was senior partner in the small town’s main solicitors and knew everybody’s secrets. He had been on the committee nearly twenty years. The prospect of a selection committee excited him enormously. The choice must fall on a lawyer, of course. Making laws was much too important to be left to anybody else.

The chairman of the ladies’ branches, Mrs Farebrother, sat up straight. She would miss Nigel; he was a good sort, genuine and kind. Once the wife of a rural dean and now his widow, Mrs Farebrother claimed aristocratic connections. A secret admirer of the Duchess of Devonshire, she adopted the same style of high-collared blouses fastened with a pretty pearl pin. How terrific, choosing a new MP. Mrs Farebrother’s nimble mind ticked off the necessary qualifications. Willing to live in the area, as Sir Nigel had long done. Not too Thatcherite either; many of the voters here were elderly and not well off. Somebody rather special, even unusual, not the typical smooth lawyer up from London offering to do the locals a favour.

Mrs Farebrother glanced down to the end of the table where the Young Conservative chairman was whispering to the agent. Not paying attention again, young Fred. The association was lucky to have YCs, considering how many young people went away to college and came back with awful leftish ideas. From the wall opposite a large framed print of Churchill, cigar in mouth, was reassuring. He once said that if you were not a socialist at twenty you had no heart; if still a socialist at thirty, you had no head. Quite.

Fred Laidlaw was certainly no socialist; and he was ambitious. He wondered if he might try for the seat himself.

He turned to Mary Morgan, the agent. ‘They want somebody to wake them all up here, Mary, don’t you think?’

A terrified look came into her small watery eyes. She had never managed to qualify as a proper agent, which was useful in its way, for it meant the association did not have to pay her the going rate. Warm-hearted and unheeded, committed and agonising, Mary wished Sir Nigel could stay for ever.

Mr Bulstrode turned to her impatiently. ‘Now then, Mary, we are all upset at Sir Nigel’s announcement. Been ’ere a long time and we’re all very grateful.’

Mrs Farebrother cleared her throat meaningfully. The chairman realised that this moment needed more than a quick vote of thanks suitable for an after-dinner speaker at Rotary. He straightened his shoulders and turned to Nigel, who sat forlornly at his side.

‘You’ve served us very well, Sir Nigel. We don’t all ’ave your eloquence to say what’s what, but you will be an ’ard act to follow, mark my words. The passing of an age.’

All present nodded vigorously. Nigel felt a lump form in his own throat. Bulstrode was gaining confidence.

‘Now, Sir Nigel, you’ve indicated we’re to keep quiet for the moment, which we will all respect. The next election is a good way off, but we ’ad better be ready. Do we ’ave your agreement to proceed with choosing your replacement?’ Nigel had not thought seriously of this next step, in which
he would be little involved. He nodded his assent sadly. The world would continue here after his demise. The committee were right to say: the king is dead; long live the king.

He faced lonely decisions of his own. If he continued living in the area it could make things awkward for his successor. How fortunate that other pleasurable matters filled his mind. He wondered a mite mischievously how these good people might take to his turning up at a future function with Peter in attendance.

The chairman smiled benignly at the committee. ‘And now I think we cannot simply allow this historic moment to pass, ladies and gentlemen. I suggest we all assemble in the bar downstairs in the club, and the drinks are on me. Remember, not a word to anyone.’

For some weeks Peter avoided Mrs Perkins’s hostile stare by keeping out of the way when she was due. Eventually he tired of lurking in the park opposite and waiting till her plump figure could be seen clumping off down the front steps. He had overstayed his welcome; he’d never spent so long in one place before. The only question was where to go.

Back to his sister’s cramped house in Stoke Newington, perhaps. She was her mother’s daughter all right, with her witty ways and erratic affections. An endless stream of disorderly children and stepchildren regarded him as an interloper and made life unbearable by stealing his clothes. And it was a nuisance having to contribute to the housekeeping: everywhere else he might stay, the cash flow was in the opposite direction.

Or there was the smart London flat of the new man, who seemed more discreet than Nigel Boswood. A fresh relationship was stimulating and this man had sophisticated tastes. That was hardly surprising since he also had a wife in the country. She did not come to London much if ever, being engrossed in her garden, her small children and the local Mothers’ Union.

There was always Amsterdam. He had not neglected his contacts and had used Nigel’s phone to keep in touch.

Hermann had not been well: but since Peter shrank from sickrooms he decided to wait until his old flame was fully recovered before his next visit.

On the way home at last in the comfortable leather seat of the ministerial Jaguar, Nigel felt jaded. He would go in late the following day. There was too much legislation, too much urge to reform, merely because they had the power to do so. Perhaps ministerial work, however trivial or unnecessary, expanded to fill the time available: Parkinson’s law, true as ever. Nor had the parliamentary timetable eased. Recently the hours had been as ghastly as any under Mrs Thatcher, who once said that home was a place to go to when there was nothing better to do.

The Jaguar slid to a halt in front of the house in Ebury Street. The upper floors were in darkness. Tonight there was only one red box to attend to; an enquiring shake revealed it to be lighter than usual. Nigel stood briefly on the pavement looking down past the railings. From the basement flat came the sound of a radio, and a bedside light gleamed behind drawn curtains. He realised that he had not seen Peter for several days. A good reason, therefore, to put the box on one side for an hour or two and be soothed from his weariness by Peter’s skilful hands.

For a moment Nigel paused in the hallway and recalled the image of Peter on the staircase the first night he had come here, with the light shining from behind making his naked body glow like a young god’s. The memory caught his throat. It felt so right, as his parliamentary life approached its natural end, to be close to youth and love. Retirement with Peter would be a time of fulfilment and great happiness, before he got too old.

There and then, standing in the still darkened hall, Nigel made a momentous decision. He would tell people: he would come out. Not just yet. After leaving Parliament probably. It would need discussion with Peter himself first, of course. They would have to talk through the implications with great care and not do anything in a hurry. He would change his will, leave Peter this house perhaps, so he should not lose his home when eventually he, Nigel, died first, as was likely. The boy might demur, not wanting him hurt; yet Peter might be better equipped than Nigel to cope with the announcement, coming from a generation with more casual attitudes to sexual diversity. Peter would know what to do and say; he would rely on him.