A Woman's Place (10 page)

She forced herself to relax and sipped the drink. This man was now her guest.

‘If you'd like to borrow any, feel free.'

He had seated himself on the sofa with a copy of the Longford biography of the Duke of Wellington, left over from her university days, in his hand. ‘Thanks – I'd like to. The duke commanded us at Waterloo and said he'd never seen a finer regiment. The Royals captured the eagle of Napoleon's crack regiment; it's been our cap badge ever since.'

He caught her amused look. ‘Sorry. I am, like all ex-servicemen, a bore on the subject. It's your turn to tell me more about yourself.'

She pondered. ‘Have you ever sat in the gallery for Prime Minister's Questions? If not, you must come. I'll try and pick a day when there's a lively debate afterwards, but it's really pot luck. But didn't you tell me that you were interested in a political career yourself…?'

It was too late in the evening. George pulled a face. ‘Another day, maybe,' he said. ‘It's time to thank you for a delightful evening, Elaine, ask if we may do it again, and leave you. I expect you have a busy day tomorrow.'

Now she knew why she had hesitated as they entered the flat. After the years of easy intimacy with Roger, to start again with somebody else was daunting, even if her love for Dickson had entirely vanished – which it hadn't. A terrible ache rose in her for the man she had loved so dearly, who had so often come to this flat and made love to her in the bedroom behind, and who was not this man. It was a loss so complete that the void could not easily be filled, and certainly not by a stranger.

They rose formally but her voice was shaky.

‘Sorry, George. I'm not very good at this. I'm not exactly a gay divorcee, I'm afraid – I don't make a habit of going around with lots of men.'

God, he was tall. Close to, she was conscious of his brown eyes, not the same as Roger's, the face longer and lined, with more prominent cheekbones. And he wore aftershave, musky but not unpleasant. She could never begin to imagine that this was her ex-lover, and the reminder was exquisitely painful.

‘It might help you to be aware, Elaine, that my sister-in-law Betty, who cares very much about you, has told me about much of what has happened to you. So I do understand. I am not pushing for anything you don't want to give, believe me.'

The gentleness unnerved her, as if he were talking to a young subaltern away from home for the first time. Her eyes misted with tears as she stumbled slightly, not meaning to lean against him. With a firm movement he took her into his arms, her head on his shoulder, and soothed her, talking quietly to her, his hand smoothing her hair in a gesture of infinite tenderness.

After a moment she pulled away.

‘Sorry – oh, heavens, we seem to have spent the whole evening apologising to each other. And that's not how it's been, has it? But I think you'd better go, really. Borrow the book, do, please. I'll be in touch about PM Questions. I'm fine, honestly – a bit too much wine, perhaps.'

‘Or maybe you're not used to enjoying yourself?' Persistence was obviously his trademark but the judgement was shrewd. ‘If I were to ask you out again, Elaine, please would you come – to the theatre, or an exhibition, or whatever you would enjoy?'

She considered, then nodded, head still down, but was not surprised when he did not kiss her. At the top of the stairs she watched as he started to descend, book in hand, then realised with a rush of shame how poor her manners had been. She leaned over the banister.

‘George!'

He turned, his face inscrutable. ‘Yes?'

‘Thank you. And yes, please, I'd love to see you again.'

Elaine closed the door and slowly put herself to bed. Her sleep was uneasy, punctuated by dreams. At three she awoke with a headache and lay for a long while, tossing. Eventually she fell into a heavy doze, and thus slept through the alarm.

The phone was ringing. It must have been ringing for ages. Cursing, she sat up in bed and picked up the receiver.

‘Mrs Stalker? Ah, at last. Ten Downing Street here…'

‘Who's pinched all the Frosties?'

Fred, still in the ample Marks and Spencer pyjamas his doting mother had given him as a going-away present, his hair tousled and chin unshaven, peered inside the, empty packet and shook it, as if hunger alone would generate a further supply.

‘Nobody pinched 'em, Fred. You're the only one who eats those. But nobody told me, either, when I went to Salisbury's yesterday, that we were out.'

Lachlan's American drawl softened his remonstration. He was casually dressed in dark trousers, white shirt and tweed jacket, ready for a day with patients. He pushed his grapefruit husk away and turned to a bowl of All Bran and skimmed milk.

‘I can't eat that tasteless muck.' Fred slouched to the breadbin. ‘Oh, good, you remembered to buy some fresh bread. Can we have white next time, though? I'll make do with toast. Anybody else want some?'

‘Thank you, yes.'

At Karen's voice Fred whirled round, consternation on his face. He clutched at his sagging pyjama bottoms as Lachlan chuckled. The tall girl, wearing a long red sweater and black leggings, walked into the kitchen and stopped uncertainly.

Lachlan looked at him critically. ‘If you don't want a female to see you in a state of undress, why don't you get up a few minutes earlier and come down to breakfast like an MP instead of an overgrown schoolboy?' The American was only a year or so older than Fred, but he had already assumed a fatherly air.

Karen deftly removed the toast from the toaster and spread it with butter and Bovril. Fred, chastened, slid on to a chair and hunched gloomily over the table.

‘What we need is some order,' the girl suggested. ‘I'll put a list on the kitchen wall, and whenever anything's nearly gone write it down. Whoever goes next to the supermarket should take it with him. Or her.'

The house in Battersea had established itself at once as a haven of equality, though making it function smoothly as a going concern was proving more difficult. A rota had quickly been set up for household chores and had as quickly failed, so Anthony had wisely decided to avoid disputes by obtaining the services of a cleaning lady. Mrs Perkins had arrived with recommendations (including one from Lord Boswood) as thorough, competent, honest and discreet. Twice a week she would come and cluck her way through the mess like a mother hen. The occupants learned to keep out of her way, for she had a sharp tongue and, with the exception of Anthony, whom she treated with due deference, would not spare her remarks. Fred's bedroom had been a particular target.

‘I'd go a little further than that.' Lachlan saw his opportunity. ‘We should be respectful of the fact that this is a mixed household. Everyone should get dressed before appearing in public. Standards matter – we're not slobs. Are we, Fred?'

‘The best way,' Karen interjected gravely, ‘might be to think of your constituents, Fred. How would they react if they saw you now? Would they admire you – come to you for advice? Or would they' – she considered the blue and maroon stripes, as Fred began to colour – ‘well, would they laugh? I mean, those are
curious
pyjamas…'

That did it. With a strangled cry, and followed by the hoots of his fellow tenants, Fred dropped his toast and fled.

Martin Chadwick, forty-four years old, slim and soberly attired, glanced around the conference room of the new Department of Health, Welfare and the Family to which he had recently been appointed. Delicately he adjusted notepads and Biros at the top table and checked the water carafes. The press
conference was scheduled for ten, with a photocall outside the building, despite the chilly autumn weather, at half past. Thirty minutes would be quite enough – too much, in Chadwick's opinion.

He fingered the flowered tie which was his hallmark and sole permitted eccentricity. All over Whitehall senior civil servants were adjusting to their new masters and urging them on a largely indifferent press. It was not like a change of government, he reflected – not that he had ever experienced such an event as a senior official; the recent election had prolonged an extraordinarily extended period of one-party administration, such that, like many of his contemporaries, he had only briefly served under any other.

Press conferences were really the responsibility of Daniel Wilson, the department's press officer, a former journalist, hard-bitten and (it was reputed) hard-drinking, who bustled in leading the hacks. Cameras and lights had been installed earlier; their bored operators untangled cables and checked monitors, relieved that something was happening at last.

It was increasingly obvious that the event would start late. Chadwick wrinkled his nose in distaste. The faint whiff of alcohol which had accompanied the press officer was not in his imagination. There was little he could do except disapprove, for Wilson and his cronies in other departments were not answerable to the Head of the Civil Service but to the chief press officer – another ex-journalist – who served the Prime Minister himself.

As the room filled, Chadwick slid out and picked up a nearby phone. In a moment three figures clutching red folders were at his side, one short, portly and shining with pride, the second lanky, arrogant and drumming his fingers, the third, a blonde woman in a pink two-piece which would photograph well, though she was pale and nervous.

Chadwick had never wanted to be a politician, preferring both the anonymity of the Civil Service and its continuity. No fickle electors would decide his fate. Over twenty years' public service had reinforced his prejudice. The rewards included far better pay than any Cabinet Minister's; his salary scale's
minimum
started several thousand pounds above Bampton's and was more than twice as much as that of ordinary Members of Parliament, with the possibility of yet higher scales to come. Next year he'd make more than the Prime Minister, like all his senior civil and military colleagues. His retirement date would be largely his own choice, certainly before his sixtieth birthday, with a suitable honour and a quietly lucrative career in the City to follow. Not many MPs could expect such a smooth upward progression. Few would ever wield half as much power. And the deal included no public scrutiny whatsoever, and thus no pain.

Even his private life was effortlessly sweet. His wife, a classicist like himself whom he had met at Oxford, was settled in the country where she ran the local WI and Meals on Wheels and chaired the parish council. Her only occasional moan concerned the proposed bypass which would come within half a mile of their home. She seldom came to London unless for the opera, which left her husband in his Westminster
pied-à-terre
free to indulge whenever time permitted. Not that his pursuit of suitable young men had been entirely without danger. Chadwick swallowed as he remembered his relief that the HIV test had come through negative. It had not been necessary to enlighten his wife. He had been scrupulously careful since.

‘Morning, gentlemen,' Bampton started. The woman journalist sitting a few feet away waited for the greeting to be extended, then frowned. ‘Welcome to our new department. Sorry about its
over-long
title, but the Prime Minister, when he appointed me, said he wanted to emphasise the role of the family as the cornerstone of a strong society. I share his view on that.'

For form's sake Bampton delivered the few sentences which appeared on the press release. Questions began. Most concerned changes in emphasis or direction with the new team in place and were dealt with easily, mainly by Bampton. Then a hand went up.

‘Secretary of State, is it true that you disagreed with the Prime Minister about this job? Didn't you tell him you'd rather be in an industrial department?'

Chadwick cursed the Prime Minister's press officer for a rascal and a fool. That information would have been slipped out over a few drinks in the Red Lion opposite Downing Street.

‘Load of rubbish, that.' Bampton batted away the challenge comfortably. ‘We've a big job on here – second largest budget in government after Social Security. Bigger than Education, bigger than Defence. And much bigger than Trade and Industry, especially after all those cuts. With which I totally agree, of course,' he added hastily. ‘Next question?'

Jim Betts put up his hand. ‘I've one for Mrs Stalker.'

The room shifted; attention turned to Elaine, who had so far been attentive but silent. The hazel eyes were luminous; her hair shone in the television lights. The slight tremble of her hand was barely noticeable. A whirr indicated that cameras were rolling once more.

‘How does it feel being the only new woman appointed by the Prime Minister in the reshuffle?'

The ministerial folder in front of her was filled with skimpily grasped bull points on policy, yet Bampton had fielded all the relevant queries. The reference to Roger made her tense. Two spots of red appeared on her cheeks. She glanced sidelong at the Secretary of State, but his attention had promptly wandered; he was doodling on the pad. She was on her own.

‘It is a great honour to have been appointed. There are several women in the Cabinet, of course. I am sure the PM has more in mind for future appointments: we have plenty of capable candidates, women
and
men, on the back benches.'

A lame response. She should have produced a quip, something witty and sparkling. As he had asked her to serve, Roger had declared that he wanted a bit of colour in his administration. The Private Secretary seated quietly on the other side of the white drawing room at No. 10 had smiled encouragingly. It had hurt that there had been no opportunity for a private word, none at all.

Betts hadn't finished. ‘And I'd also like to know, Mrs Stalker, how you feel about being a “Minister for the Family” when you're divorced? I mean, won't that make it difficult to pronounce to the nation about the virtues of marriage and family life if you haven't got one or had it and, you know, lost it?'

The hack's face was contorted in an unpleasant sneer. Elaine froze. Next to her came a suppressed snigger. The woman writer was looking furious. The issue could have as readily and with more point been put to Derek Harrison, who had never married. She started to reply, only to find Bampton cutting in brusquely.

‘I'm sure Mrs Stalker, like all the Ministers in my department, will be promoting the ideal of stable family life, whatever her personal experiences. Now, gentlemen, shall we go outside and you can get your pictures?'

He had only been trying to help, Elaine told herself as they arranged themselves so that the new brass nameplate was visible. A cold wind blew round her ankles and wet leaves scurried in and out of shot. Bampton was not known for his tact, but at least he might have allowed her the chance to respond herself.

Elaine was not the only person put out. To Chadwick's fury the photo-session outside deteriorated rapidly as chilled photographers demanded changes in the line-up. Only when the most junior Minister had been persuaded to stand in the middle and was flanked by her colleagues – as if both men were merely adjuncts and she the centrepiece – were they content.

Such a reordering of the hierarchy would not do, Chadwick murmured to himself. Neither man would accept it; Mrs Stalker should have had both more sense and more modesty. He began to revise his expectations of a quiet year.

Lachlan pushed back the pile of files thoughtfully and checked his notes. As an American he always felt he was given certain privileges; the chance to go through patient records before ward rounds was one example. In fact he was simply more assiduous than his fellows. The English male students would be shambolic that morning after the Rugby Club dinner. No wonder doctors had a far higher rate of cirrhosis of the liver than the population at large, if that was how they carried on at medical school. The two women students were impatient to move on to study post-puerperal psychosis, while the Asian boys' interest was perfunctory, for there was no money in psychiatry, at least not in Europe. Lachlan chided himself: racial prejudice had no place in his character. But even the most able of the Asians, Amit Bhadeshia, was so darned lazy. Spoiled daft by doting parents, probably.

The session to come intrigued him. Several patients were up for review under the Mental Health Act. Born into a nation where mentally ill criminals regularly faced the electric chair or a lethal injection after years on death row, Lachlan was impressed by the compassionate efforts of Europeans to distinguish the potentially treatable from the sane but culpable. Yet it was a risky matter.

And it implied effective care for the mentally disordered. More, it involved a blurring of the division between people who had committed a crime and were, in the quaint phrase, ‘detained at Her Majesty's pleasure', and those who had not, even though their diagnosis might be much the same. For Lachlan the question was not what a patient had done, however violent: the issue was what the poor bastard might do in future, and at what point he could be judged no longer a hazard to the public or, in the case of depressives, to himself. Only then could an individual be released, at best to a competent psychiatric nurse in the community, and to the shrugs and ignorance of society.

Lachlan started: a quiet stooped figure had entered the study room and was gazing down at him. He jumped up, upsetting the folder in his lap. Papers scattered as he cursed. The new arrival, the senior professor in psychiatry, bent down to help.

‘Sorry I startled you, Lachlan. I must get out of this habit of prowling around like one of our more psychotic clients.'

The young doctor grinned up sheepishly at his tutor. ‘Well, Mr Dunn's file is now in a mess – I'll sort it out. He's up for release soon, isn't he?'

The professor grimaced. ‘He was acquitted of that wounding in Leicester, but I can't say I'm entirely convinced. That man is altogether too plausible for my taste. Yet the law says we've no right to keep him unless he's sectioned – since the acquittal he's a free man. If he wants to leave, we can't stop him.'