Prime Deception (6 page)

‘I’ll be fine, I’m sure. Perhaps I’ll try those sleeping pills again,’ Charles said as he rose from the table.

‘Whatever is troubling you, I’m sure that we will get to the bottom of it,’ Elaine smiled reassuringly.

‘Indeed, dear.’ Charles took his plate and the remains of his egg into the kitchen and Elaine sat contemplating her husband’s odd behaviour, as she had taken to doing most mornings. Whatever the matter was with him, she vowed to discover the cause of his distress and solve the problem. She mentally ran through a list of people she knew who might help, from sleep therapists to tarot card readers. Elaine couldn’t stand seeing her husband so miserable. If sleep was what he needed, that it was her job to ensure that he slept. She would do anything she could to help him.

It was a myth that time healed all wounds. Half a dozen months had passed since Lorna’s suicide and Charles’ pain had only intensified. Everywhere he went he was reminded of her, bar his home, which was off limits because he was struggling to face Elaine, sure that she could see through his work façade and knew deep down of his deceit towards her.

But his work offered some solace. He threw himself in to his role as Deputy Prime Minister with more gusto than ever. He accepted every invitation, attended every meeting. His face had never been more seen by the people of Britain. Little did they know that behind the beaming smile lay a cracked and broken heart.

As he undertook his sacred morning ritual, Charles would pause and regard himself in the mirror and pull his face into the Cheshire cat grin he wore for the media. Whilst his smile appeared warm and friendly, his eyes belied his inner turmoil. They sat lifeless in his head, without their former sparkle. A few of the tabloid papers had commented, attributing his saddened eyes to his inability to cope with current political issues such as the potential collapse of the National Health Service. But Charles was dealing with those issues easily – they were nothing compared to the battle he faced each and every day when he had to sit in his office, alone, his palms on his desk, unable to think of nothing but Lorna’s naked body writhing upon it.

‘Remember you have that press conference at ten,’ Elaine poked her head around the bathroom door, ever the eager assistant. She perused his appearance with interest before entering the room and realigning the blue tie he had just been securing into place. Charles stood, lifeless and submissive, and let his wife alter his collar and tie.

‘There – much better,’ Elaine declared triumphantly, patting down the collar with her freshly painted nails.

‘Come on now, dear, try and look less tired. What did the doctor say?’

‘More tablets,’ Charles said absently. He had tried every medicine known to mankind in his attempt to sleep through the night but Lorna’s ghost was persistent, being able to penetrate through the thickest drug-induced fog to find him and torment him; forever placing her last kiss upon his cheek before collapsing to her untimely death.

‘What are your plans for today?’ Charles asked, wanting to divert the conversation away from his ongoing fatigue, wary that his wife might continue to pry. He would have enough awkward questions to answer at the press conference; he did not wish to answer them in his own home.

‘Today,’ Elaine said with a hint of grandeur, clearly excited by her impending plans, ‘today I shall be choosing colours for the dining room as we are redecorating it, remember?’

‘Didn’t we decorate the dining room last summer?’

‘And then I’ve been asked to chair a book club somewhere over in Mayfair, which is exciting,’ Elaine continued, ignoring Charles’ question.

‘You do love your books.’

‘Oh yes, today we are discussing
Wuthering Heights
. Ah, I used to love that book as a girl. It’s all so turbulent and dark. I hate how Heathcliff ends up being haunted by Catherine’s ghost. I remember reading that bit as a young girl and being terrified!’

‘I can imagine.’

‘Well, writers love to dramatise things, don’t they. Love, in most cases, is simple. Look at us. It’s when you don’t go for your own kind, which is what happened in the book, that you end up in trouble.’

Charles frowned at the implications of his wife’s comment, but she had left the room, calling to him as she left about various shades of beige. He pondered on what she had said. Was he possibly now being punishedfor loving someone he shouldn’t have? Did all those who commit adultery suffer similarly?

‘Good morning, sir,’ Faye handed Charles his messages as he strode past her, heading for his office.

‘Good morning,’ he managed to smile at his assistant before thankfully entering the solitude of his office. For a brief moment, he would enjoy the quiet, but then the memories of Lorna would begin to surface and he would long to be released from what had started to feel more like a prison than a retreat.

Charles tried to occupy his mind with the papers left on his desk but everything in them felt superfluous to him. He tried to engage himself in the news stories but it was hopeless. His mind was already sinking into the pit of despair it did every morning. Clearly, the papers were not a strong enough distraction, so he turned his attention to his handful of messages.

There was nothing of note; a few calls he had to return, nothing more. As he was about to return to the papers he noticed the final note Faye had wrote down for him in her tidy, cursive hand and his heart sunk. In his eagerness to be more proactive at work in an attempt to place a plaster over the wound Lorna’s death had left upon him, he had agreed to a meet and greet session with the latest intake of interns.

The Prime Minister was always far too busy for such meetings and so in his role as Deputy he had the responsibility of being the face of the ruling political party, to be available for hospital openings, charity balls and any other relevant events.

As he sat behind the desk, which had once nearly been burnt to the ground by the fires of his own passion, he knew that he could not do it. Not enough time had elapsed. He was not strong enough to face a room full of interns, because any of them could be Lorna, young and eager to make their mark upon the world, and he did not want any further reminders of the one woman he had loved and lost.

He considered cancelling the meeting, but Charles knew that Faye would be aware of his reasoning which made him feel ashamed. The meeting was not until three that afternoon; hopefully something would come up before then relieving him of his requirement to attend. Until then, he needed to focus on his press conference, which meant, more than anything, perfecting his smile. He didn’t want the people to look at him and his tired, sad eyes and believe that it was because their country was beyond hope. In reality, everything was fine, more than fine. He had some very clever men in his Cabinet that had reduced benefits to the unemployed to the bare minimum, which meant that there would be additional funding for the health service, leaving the country in an even greater position than it had been for many years. But Charles knew that he needed to represent these positive changes in himself. People would not believe his good words if he delivered them from a haggard face.

‘Heavy is the head which wears the crown,’ his mother had said to him warningly when he had told her of his decision to accept the position of Deputy Prime Minister. It was a rare moment when she had spoken her mind to him. Usually, she kept herself in the background when it came to these sorts of decisions, leaving the men to plan out the future of the family.

‘I’m not trying to be king, mother,’ Charles had joked.

‘You know what I mean,’ she had said stubbornly, her always quiet voice still barely above a whisper. ‘I just don’t want you to end up unhappy.’

‘What, like you?’ Charles’ comment was cruel and it was the adolescent who still dwelled in him who did not prevent it being vocalised. His mother physically shuddered from the infliction of his words and she wrapped her arms protectively around her tiny, frail frame.

‘Yes, like me,’ she said bitterly, pools of tears forming in her grey eyes. ‘Your father is not always right. If you continue to let him make all your choices, you will never be happy.’

‘Then why do you let him dictate to you the way he does?’

‘The same reason you do, Charles. Because for some sadistic reason we want nothing more than to please him, and in doing so, sacrifice so much of ourselves.’

‘But I want to be Deputy Prime Minister, I want to make a change in this country,’ Charles said, still filled with the optimistic hope which only the young possess.

‘Okay, my son. I have no doubt that you will be a wonderful Deputy Prime Minister. But just be careful, as it can be lonely at the top.’ The ice between them had thawed. She had embraced Charles and he remembered thinking how she felt like a skeleton in his arms. The cancer had taken her before he had been appointed, so she never lived to see him become the Deputy Prime Minister and it bothered Charles to know that deep down she disapproved of his decision, because it was born of his father’s agenda.

Charles practiced his smile once more, his facial muscles already aching. He was lonely at the top, but with Lorna in his life, he had not been. Like the literary character Heathcliff, he was tormented by the loss of the woman he loved and trapped in an empty marriage. Sighing, Charles read through his speech for the press conference, determined to instil hope in the people of Britain even though all hope within him had died with Lorna.

The morning sped by in a blur of questions faster than Charles would have liked. It was soon afternoon and his meet and greet with the interns was creeping ever closer. All Charles wanted to do was hide in his office. He could not bear to face his past mistakes; not yet, not like this with Lorna gone.

Alone in his office, Charles contemplated plausible excuses he could use; he could feign illness or pretend there was a sudden crisis at home. Yet his own reluctance to attend made him feel wracked with guilt. He did not like to let people down, even those who were strangers to him. It was this sense of commitment which made him so capable within his role of Deputy Prime Minister. His innate need to please others, no doubt born out of his childhood struggle to seek his father’s approval, meant that he worked every hour that he could to do the best job possible. His efforts, though in vain, instilled in him an incessant need for praise. He didn’t like to think of the interns being disappointed when he failed to materialize at the meeting, but then, he did not want to present a fractured image of himself. He wanted them to see the warm and smiling Charles Lloyd which they knew from the television, not the broken man he was behind closed doors.

‘Sir?’ Faye knocked lightly and entered the office, having sensed her employer’s apprehension about the impending meeting.

‘Yes, Faye?’ Charles asked, pleased for her presence as it offered a distraction from his ever-darkening thoughts.

‘I thought perhaps you might want to run through the agenda for the meet and greet?’

‘No, it’s alright,’ Charles said, aware that he visibly tensed at the mention of the interns.

‘I think it would be a good idea …’

‘I’m fine, thank you.’ It was unlike Charles to interrupt her but his anxiety was making him tense and impatient.

Faye turned to leave and hesitated. She had silently judged him throughout the affair, assuming he was another middle-aged man preying on a younger, weaker woman. She had found herself in a similar situation whilst a student at university with one of her professors, and it had ended badly for her. She had fallen in lov – he had chosen his wife. It was the age-old tale of silly young girl being used by older, bored man. But then Faye knew Charles, or at least she thought she did, and he wasn’t that malicious or calculating. And then he had been so crushed by the news of Lorna’s death. It had been months and yet still he appeared to mourn her. Faye did not believe that he deserved to suffer like this.

‘It’s not your fault,’ she said quietly. Charles looked at her in surprise, confused as to what she might be referring to.

‘Lorna,’ Faye explained softly, referring to the giant elephant which had taken up permanent residence in the office. ‘Her dying was not your fault.’

Taken aback, Charles could not find any words to form a response. The pain he carried from Lorna’s death was a burden he hauled alone. He had never talked to anyone about her passing, or about how it made him feel, and it felt surreal to have someone else refer to her. In his mind he had an entire world which had existed with Lorna which felt cut off from anything else, but hearing Faye speak of her reminded him that his reality and Lorna had once been interlinked.

‘I’m not comfortable …’ Charles did not want to talk about Lorna. Thinking about her was hard enough, talking would just be too much. He couldn’t finish his sentence; his throat was beginning to choke up as he struggled to discreetly suppress a sob.

‘I think that it will do you good to go and address the interns,’ Faye said sternly, feeling equally uncomfortable to see her boss crumble before her like a house made from paper.

‘How?’ Charles demanded.

‘Because she is dead and you are not. The dead die whilst we must go on living. You are not to blame. She killed herself. You cannot punish others, who are so eager to meet you, for your mistakes. You are better than that.’ Faye’s tone softened with fondness at the end. ‘I am sorry to speak out of turn like this, but for months I have watched you mope around and you are clearly beating yourself up about it all when you shouldn’t be.’

Again, Charles was lost for words, surprised to have been given a dressing down by his own assistant. It was unnerving just how similar Elaine and Faye’s behaviour towards him was; loving yet berating at the same time, a complete juxtaposition of emotions.

‘Faye, you are quite right, thank you. I shall prepare myself for the meeting,’ Charles suddenly came to his senses. Here, in his office, he was the Deputy Prime Minister. At home he could once more become Charles Lloyd and dwell on the loss of Lorna, but whilst at work he had to maintain the image he had worked so hard to build. ‘I appreciate the offer of some … perspective,’ Charles said a little uneasily.