A Parliamentary Affair (10 page)

Or was it so crazy?

A parliamentary colleague would have as much reason for keeping quiet as she would have herself. An outsider might be tempted to tell the tale for money. Outsiders would not understand, could not share the joys and misfortunes of this exotic political world. An insider like Dickson would
grasp all that in a trice, and would have as many reasons as herself for discretion. An affair with a colleague, if indeed she were planning an affair at all, might be better, safer and more exciting than an affair with almost anybody else. If she could be cool and self-controlled about it, the question demanded her consideration.

Roger’s face had appeared only fleetingly. Doubtless she had imagined it, or it had been some other man. She pulled out the plug and felt her previous certainties ebb down the plug-hole with the grey frothy water. A cool flicker of air was coming under the door, chilling her wet skin.

The trip to San Francisco was in the nature of a few pleasant days off. British Airways ran its most profitable routes to California; it was comforting in a recession, Mike Stalker noted, to be employed by a cash-rich company, and one so compulsively determined to beat all its rivals.
His wife was engrossed in the Commons and Karen was safe, if bored, at his mother’s. Thus Mike had joined Linda the stewardess and one of the stewards, Simon Williams, and jumped at the chance of a few days on the West Coast.

The city always gave him pleasure. Its sweeping blue bay with the breathtaking bridge, its sea breezes which kept the air fresh and sweet, the wooded hills and delightful jumble of old houses, all styles and colours, colonial and Spanish, the waterfront now handsomely restored after the fire, the Japanese garden and its windmill overlooking the bay, and most of all the climate: he could well understand its inhabitants believing themselves living in paradise.

Linda had taken herself off almost immediately to see cousins. Mike found himself an evening later out on the hotel terrace sipping an old-fashioned Tom Collins and chatting with Simon. ‘I can’t understand how anyone can leave this place,’ Mike mused. ‘If I were to be born again, I hope it will be here.’

‘You could always move,’ suggested Simon. ‘You would get a pilot’s job anywhere.’ He was a slim, fair-haired man, younger looking than his thirty-four years. Although Mike was only a year or two older, his appearance was much the more mature, with a touch of silver already in his brown hair.

‘No, that’s not possible. Working for BA means staying British; and Elaine’s job…’ His voice tailed off. It was the first time it had occurred to him that his choices were limited. That he might have to defer to his wife’s needs was a new and slightly uncomfortable thought.

‘How’s she getting on?’

‘Fine. Seems to love every minute. Made her maiden speech last week. I was sorry I couldn’t be there, but it came up while we were flying over the Golden Gate. Couldn’t be helped.’
It was a warm, soft evening. Birds twittered and fluttered, perching on the eaves and railing, preparing for rest. From the two men’s position looking west over the bay the sunset would be clearly visible. Mike settled down to enjoy the vista.

‘I may have to move soon,’ Simon remarked quietly.

‘Really? Why?’

‘Oh, it’s a long story.’ Moodily Simon clinked ice in his glass.

‘Well, I’m your team leader, in a manner of speaking. I’m supposed to know if any of my crew are unhappy. And if I can help I’d be glad to.’ Mike Stalker was well liked as competent and professional, though a little distant.

Simon Williams took a deep breath. ‘You know I’m gay, don’t you? Quite a lot of the stewards are, so that’s not news.’ He paused.

Mike was alarmed. ‘You haven’t –’

‘Got AIDS? No. Nothing like that. Fernando and I are very careful. Safe sex and all that. I shan’t be visiting any dives on this trip, I can tell you. Real stairway to heaven, that sort of lark.’ He shifted. ‘But the trouble is Fernando. I think you met him at the Christmas party?’

Mike Stalker squinted at the dying sun and tried to remember. With an effort he recalled a darkly good-looking young man who had hovered shyly behind Simon. He nodded.

‘We met in London, where he’s a postgraduate student at King’s. He’s a Cuban-American. His family are based in Miami. Very proud of him. We set up home together two years ago, and I think it’s for keeps. The trouble is, he can’t stay in the UK.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because he has no right of residence. The UK laws on immigration are extremely strict, and when his time is up as a student he’ll have to go home.’

‘Can’t you apply for him to stay?’

Simon’s laugh had a hollow ring. ‘Oh, we have. Now if he was a Cuban-American girl we could marry, and provided we filled in all the correct papers and were patient he would almost certainly get permission. But because he’s a bloke our relationship isn’t recognised. So he has to go back.’

Mike was astonished. ‘Surely there’s something you could do? Would you like me to have a word with Elaine about it?’

‘We’ve tried MPs,’ Simon said bitterly. ‘Our own wasn’t interested at all. Suggested we might like to find ourselves girlfriends instead. Our lawyer wrote to a couple of dozen who were supposed to be supportive of gay rights, but apart from sympathetic noises we got nowhere. You can see why – it’s not their pain. Being in a stable relationship with a gay man in Britain doesn’t count for anything at all. We could have been together ten years, twenty, living abroad perhaps, but we don’t exist in official texts as a couple. And yet I can’t leave him: he’s my life. We want to stay together. That means I must give up the land of my own birth and try to join him in the States.’

‘I am sorry,’ Mike offered sombrely. ‘I didn’t know about all this.’

Simon warmed to his theme. The light from the setting sun touched the side of his smooth face, turning it to flame. A small gold earring, which he did not wear on board, gleamed dully.

‘We couldn’t live easily in Florida near his people – not that I fancy it anyway, too humid and hot – so this area may well be a possibility. Fernando has been applying for jobs at Berkeley and we’re hopeful. Then, all quiet, I’ll apply to emigrate to the USA too. We’ve learned a lot about what to keep to ourselves. At least in San Francisco nobody thinks we’re nutters or freaks.’

‘You sure he’s the right one for you?’ Mike was hesitant. The expectations and etiquette of homosexuality were a closed book. Perhaps it was not unreasonable to talk to Simon as he would to any lovelorn member of his staff with more ordinary cravings.

‘Yeah, I’m sure. Before him I was just fooling around. He’s great to look at, as you know, and I was drawn to him at once: not quite love at first sight, but not far off. He’s clever, very deep. With him, my life has some meaning. I’m not giving him up.’

‘Would it help to tell me more?’ Mike suggested. ‘I mean, you must have some choice in the matter. I’m so pig-ignorant about all this being … ah … normal myself.’

The man opposite him suddenly lost his temper. ‘
I
am normal!’ he spat out. ‘For heaven’s sake! You’re as bad as all the rest, Mike. Look: nobody chooses to be gay any more than people choose to be straight. Don’t you think I would rather have made my parents happy, married and produced children? And Fernando the same? We have no choice. God, that is cruel.’

Mike frowned. He felt the need to fight back. ‘What do you mean, cruel?’

Simon looked around exasperated, as if for inspiration. ‘All right, I’ll tell you. You know that steward on the Lagos flight, the one you chided for having such a long face? Do you know what that guy was putting up with, while you were moaning at him? His lover had just died of AIDS. They’d been together ages – oh, about eight years. He had spent the last eighteen months nursing him, every spare moment he had got. He would have given up work but we told him not to – they needed every penny. Then, when his partner died, the family turned up and insisted on taking the body and giving it
what they called a decent Christian funeral. They wouldn’t let him come and won’t even tell him where his lover is buried – or cremated, more like. He has no rights in the matter
whatsoever
. There was even a will leaving him a little money but the family ignored it. If he wants to challenge them he has to go to court, besmirch the boy’s memory and drag his own name through the dirt. He won’t do that. And you moaned at him for looking miserable!’

Mike sighed. ‘And if his lover died of AIDS, then he must be HIV positive.’

‘For God’s sake! That’s all you lot ever think about,’ muttered Simon angrily. ‘Can’t you get it into your head that the problems facing gays are not just a question of disease? When you look at a hetero couple’ – he gestured around at the little knots of people sitting languidly on the terrace –’you don’t immediately think of gonorrhoea and syphilis, do you? You think of love, romance, and people building things together, looking for a partner for life. Why shouldn’t we be the same?’

Mike was silent. Never a particularly thoughtful or introspective man, he was unused to challenges outside flying packed jumbos to the ends of the earth. The hardest choices facing him, week after week, concerned getting his craft down safely in rush hour at Heathrow. That was enough. There was already one politician in the family who relished looking for trouble.

Simon relented. ‘I’m sorry, Mike, for yelling at you. But you asked if we have any choice and the answer is no. Most gays just know they are different. Some experts think most of it, maybe all, is innate. We don’t know how, or why, and there isn’t much work being done on it. Did you know that the identical twin of a homosexual has an odds-on chance of being gay too even if they were brought up separately? That implies there are influential genetic factors involved. The idea’s gaining ground in scientific circles that being gay is like being left-handed. Just as “normal”, as you put it, but
different
.’

He looked out over the bay. The sun had shrunk to a faint, hazy red spot on the horizon, where it shimmered like a distant drop of blood. On the terrace, lights were being switched on, attracting tiny glowing flies which moved and zizzed, unable to overcome their attraction to the artificial energy source which would eventually kill them.

‘I can’t tell you what a relief it is to find that it’s my genes and not my mother’s potty training. That’s why Fernando and I want to make a go of it, and try to make each other happy for the rest of our lives.’

He sat in silence for a moment as Mike fetched more drinks. The anger had passed, the anguish remained. Mike Stalker found himself shivering and pulled on a sweater.

‘Are you sure Elaine couldn’t help? I’ll speak to her if you want. She isn’t prejudiced. At least, I don’t think so.’ Simon shook his head. ‘No, I think we’ve tried everything. Most people would be as shocked as you at the level of institutionalised discrimination which goes on, nearly all of it pointless. I couldn’t join the air force, for example. Why not? Do they think I’m going to rape every piece of trouser that brushes past me? Bloody ridiculous.’

Simon took a great gulp of his drink, then banged his glass down on the table. It gave a protesting scream and broke, gin, ice and juice running out, dripping forlornly down the table leg. A waiter armed with a cloth came hurrying over. Simon looked up, his eyes full of despair.

The waiter twittered at them; Simon and Mike rose to go, leaving a generous tip. Mike felt distinctly embarrassed. The waiter behind them was obviously camp, handling the broken shards of glass with a woman’s delicate care. Was it also obvious to knowledgeable onlookers that Simon was gay, and would it then be assumed that he was also? He paused at the lift ‘I hope things work out for you and … er… Fernando, Simon,’ he said formally. ‘It’s just waking-up time over there so I’ll go and phone my wife. She will be interested in your story.’

Simon bit his lip. ‘If you could encourage anyone to take the matter on board in the House of Commons…’ His voice died away. He did not want to break down in front of Stalker, who seemed such an emotionless man. How could he be expected to understand? ‘…though I doubt it. Very old-fashioned place, it always seems to me – way behind the rest of us.’

‘Or perhaps unable to do much: lots of show but not much substance,’ Mike commiserated smoothly.

The lift arrived. Mike was glad more than one other guest crowded in. He held himself to one side, so as not to rub unwittingly against the bronzed half-naked bodies. At his own floor he nodded a curt farewell to his colleague, headed quickly for his room and shut the door.

‘In my humble estimation, there will be no more votes tonight.’

It was hard to tell whether Frederick Ferriman was indulging in wishful thinking or making a statement of fact. His large, florid face exuded irritability. Before him in the Members’ tea room cowered a cup of tea and a small white side plate with the distinctive Commons green border; on the plate, dripping gently, were two large bacon sandwiches on thick toasted white bread. Ferriman was a farmer whose main purpose in life, it seemed to Elaine, was endlessly to demand more subsidies to prop up the production of precisely the kind of fat animal product in which he was now indulging, and for which most people had less taste year by year.

The butter was dribbling down his chin. Elaine eyed him with amused distaste. A Member for eighteen years and generally regarded as a jolly good sort, Freddie Ferriman was available to speak at blue-rinse-and-pearls fundraising lunches in any constituency within driving distance of his own, even at relatively short notice if the local MP had better things to do. On arrival he would chat affably with the gathered ladies; after lunch, as apple-pie crumbs were brushed discreetly from Jaeger skirts, he would entertain them skilfully, talk only briefly of current politics, speak gruffly and well of the local Member and of the Prime Minister of the day to a round of enthusiastic applause, tell genuinely funny stories, flatter the lady chairman, pull raffle tickets with a flourish, urge greater efforts and leave all present feeling proud to have met him.

‘Do you know, or are you guessing?’ Elaine asked. ‘If you really think we’re finished for the night, why are you still here?’

‘Missed a three-liner last week. Got to show willing. Daren’t budge until my whip says I’m free to clear off.’

He offered her a roguish wink. Playing a naughty but contrite schoolboy rather suited Ferriman. Elaine wondered if there were any brain in there at all, or if ever he had been slim, keen and ambitious, making well-researched speeches on the defence needs of the Rhine Army and hoping for preferment.

‘Ah! Here he comes.’ Ferriman shovelled down the rest of his sandwich, wiped his mouth hurriedly and sat up straight, like a neglected dog on the approach of its master.

Roger Dickson strolled into the tea room carrying a cup of tea. ‘Delighted to see you still here, Freddie, old chap. Are you planning to speak in this debate?’

It was not a question meant to be taken seriously. A dusty annunciator screen showed that the Chamber was engrossed by the Urban Areas (Amendment) (Scotland) Bill. One of the government’s few loyal Scottish backbenchers had been on his feet killing time for forty minutes. Ferriman was not noted for speaking these days on anything except farming, the iniquities of the Common Agricultural Policy and occasionally, when neither pet topic was running, the immorality of the government’s campaign against AIDS.

‘Very funny, Roger. I am as ever here to support the government, should my efforts be required. The question is, are they, or can we go?’

Dickson chuckled and arranged his legs more comfortably under the table. Elaine observed him under her eyelashes, staying out of the exchange. Spooning sugar, he stirred his tea and took a sip, apparently ignoring Elaine but playfully watching Ferriman throughout. His victim shifted, discomforted.

‘That depends, as you well know. This is an important government bill. It will put another forty-five million pounds of taxpayers’ money into the decaying inner cities of Scotland. Its objective is to turn slums into attractive and desirable homes which will be purchased in large numbers at huge discount by the grateful inhabitants, thus breaking socialism’s hold on some fifty constituencies north
of the border. The beggars on the other side who currently represent those seats might actually vote against it. You wouldn’t want us to lose, now would you?’

All this was delivered in a deadpan voice, as if by the Chief Whip himself. The accent was faintly North London but the manner and style patrician. Not Eton or Harrow, Elaine guessed; and there was no flamboyance. Ferriman looked round miserably. They were seated in the far room, which would usually be occupied by government supporters, of whom only a scattering remained. Tables closer to the tea urns and ginger cake were traditionally the fiefdom of the Opposition. In the distance by the far wall a committee clerk, double firsthand languid with it, sat sipping Earl Grey and reading the letters page of
The Times
. The place was dead.

Ferriman grumbled: ‘There’s nobody else here but us. If there was going to be a vote in an hour’s time the place’d be packed.’

Dickson decided not to push his luck. Ferriman’s whine irritated. If he could be persuaded to clear off there might be a chance to talk to the table’s only other occupant, who was altogether more interesting. There was no point in antagonising backbenchers so early in the session. A small majority might mean genuinely leaning on this jerk, but not tonight. He gestured towards the door. Ferriman scraped back his chair and was gone.

Roger was not the only person to seize the day. Elaine quickly sought an acceptable official excuse for staying. Her whip might be persuaded to talk, show off a bit. She cast around for a subject. Compared with many new Members who had worked as parliamentary research assistants and knew their way round, she felt at a constant disadvantage. At the very least here was a splendid opportunity to learn more about the unwritten rules of her new job. But she did not conceal, at least from herself, a secondary and altogether more powerful motive. More than two weeks had passed since she and Dickson had spoken together alone. It might be possible here in solitude, for just a few moments, to recapture the intimacy of that peculiar exchange in the Embankment gardens, under the silent chaperoning of Mrs Pankhurst.

‘Is there any good reason, Roger, why we can’t agree in advance when the votes are going to be?’

Immediately he put on his senior whip’s face and looked authoritative. ‘We do, more or less. At least, the whips do. We are what is known as “the usual channels”. The whips’ offices on both sides establish how their Members want to vote, or anyway what they’re willing to go along with; when to pull out all the stops for a three-line whip – say on the Budget, of course, and the Queen’s Speech, but also on second readings of important bills, of which tonight’s is not one; or when there’s trouble.’

‘We have a majority, don’t we? Why can’t we pair more often, provided we can keep up the majority?’

She leaned forward and looked for the first time into his eyes. There was hardly anybody around, and no reason why not. People in public life frequently have to focus on other faces and often reduce the intensity by fixing their eyes at a point midway between the brows. Elaine did not take this easy way out: she looked straight into Roger Dickson’s grey eyes, with a slight smile, and let her lips pout slightly at the word ‘pair’. It worked. She sensed him jump, then bring himself back under control.

Dickson was not ready for her. His unannounced appearance in the tea room had indeed been prompted by Elaine’s presence; he too had hoped it might be arranged that, released from obligation, she would not dash off at once. But the message seemed to be passing to her too fast. He needed more time. He raised an eyebrow and decided to tease her a little.

‘Sloping off already! You’ll not learn much about this place, my dear Patience, unless you’re physically here and in the Chamber as much as possible. However much you see it on TV, it’s never the same as being here.’

He looked at her coolly. Elaine Stalker was waiting. He took a deep breath and continued as if unperturbed; two parliamentary colleagues chatting casually at a tea table littered with sticky remains and uncleared plates. But the world was spinning more slowly, and his words were coming out as if in a dream.

‘Why are we whips so mean to you all? It’s our own lot who give us headaches. There are always a number of Members over whom the whips’ office have virtually no influence; mavericks and fanatics who think they know better than ministers. Everyone outside thinks whipping is inimical to good governance but that’s wrong – there’d be chaos if we could never get a consistent series of votes through. We don’t lightly slap on a three-line whip. But when we do, dear Ms Stalker, that’s when – if you have any ambitions to go further – you turn up and vote. On a three-liner you vote or you’re dead.’

He emphasised the ‘Ms’ with a sly look. Ms: as if to say, I know you are married,
Mzzz
Stalker, you don’t need to remind me; you are not Miss, but not fat frumpish Missus either. Not, however, divorced or separated, or even a merry widow. I know a lot about you. It is my job to know, and I have made it my business to find out. I know you are clever and beautiful and provocative and brave and ambitious and a little forlorn. I know you are impatient and restless and frustrated and, yes, a bit lonely. I see you are in no hurry to leave this table. I know you are fascinating, and tender and kind and vulnerable, and that you are sorely afraid to show these qualities for fear that they would be derided. And there you’re damned right. I know, moreover, that you inspire in me an unprecedented longing to lower my barriers and talk about myself, my ideas, the troubles which pursue me too, to share my doubts and fears and to ask for comfort and encouragement, in a way impossible with my wife, who suspects that all politicians are quietly crackers. And there she’s right, but neither you nor I would ever choose to be otherwise. I know you would understand as no outsider could.

Dickson was acutely conscious that the emotions tumbling so suddenly through his brain were a million miles from the cool, cynical words flowing from his mouth. As Elaine watched him, he tried to see inside those hazel eyes. She met his scrutiny steadily: she was as strong as he. Now the question he had been trying to suppress surfaced and forced itself on to the tip of his tongue. With a massive effort he reminded himself that he was fantasising, creating from thin air his perfect woman, and that he knew this flesh-and-blood person sitting a few feet from him hardly at all. Yet there it was.

…
Most of all, I guess that as a very attractive and highly successful modern woman you may be faintly interested in a modern man, both of us with impeccable reputations and every reason to keep them that way
.

He could simply put it to her, like that, and see what happened. Should he have made a big mistake she would correct him instantly. Either she would start flirting like mad, in which case he would back off politely and make a small note, later, in the secret black book he kept on all Members allocated to him; or she would freeze and look frightened, in which case he would apologise gallantly. She could shake her head and chide him gently, and they might continue friends and there might be another opportunity. Or she might respond and push the boat out, a little further. He wondered with a vertiginous feeling in his stomach which it was to be.

Everyone else in their part of the room had taken the hint of Freddie’s rapid exit and left. The place was deserted. Elaine Stalker had certainly caught the
Mzzz
and the unspoken question it contained: what kind of woman are you? She fingered her pearl earring self-consciously. He was studying her, trying to get under her skin. Normally self-protective and cautious, even hostile to male examination, from this man she found it exhilarating. She listened as he talked, but let her mind play over the unasked questions.

What kind of woman was she? Was she the kind to challenge the rules? Certainly: that was proven by her being here. Was she the sort to take a risk? Naturally – she would find life much duller without. What kind of risk – the risk of making a fool of herself? No problem, she did that all the
time. The risk of hurting somebody else’s feelings? That too was a necessary concomitant of the job. Of being hurt? She was getting used to that. Playing for high stakes? Sure, why not? She was hardly a tea-lady in Lyons these days. Playing around with somebody else’s husband?

Elaine blinked and pulled up short. It would be better not to play this game at all; or, if she continued, not quite according to his assumptions. It was all going a great deal too fast.

Dickson was observing her with mocking appreciation, much as he had done on her first day. He was too wary and ultimately too engrossed in politics to make a practice of infidelity, but he understood President Jimmy Carter’s tortured confession of having committed adultery many times in the mind. On more than one occasion he had walked away from an open chance: some deep seriousness militated against the shaming triviality of one-night stands. If he were to take the plunge it would have to be something worthwhile, from which he could gain and to which he could give a small part of his deepest self. That meant seeking a matching need to his own. A soulmate as well as a bedmate.

He took another sip of tea, still sizing her up. His own self-control amazed him.

Elaine pushed away the debris of other people’s snacks and folded her arms on the table. She was wearing a short-sleeved jacket and had put a dab of scent inside each elbow; he would catch a faint whiff of it. The bare arms, the Chanel No. 5, all said:
I am. Notice me
. Her motives did not bear thinking about too closely.

‘I do not understand, Roger,’ she enquired as coolly as possible, ‘how anyone can stand for Parliament for our side, go through all the hassle of getting selected and then elected, and then not support the government.’

‘Now that is naive and you know it,’ Dickson chided. ‘If you want to become a media star the easy way is to oppose your own side. The press and TV will be falling over themselves to give you prime time. If truth be told there’s nothing much I could do to dissuade you. It’s the old Andy Warhol syndrome – any fool can be famous for fifteen minutes, though here it can last for years. There’s no future in it, of course, but then most people here have no future anyhow. It makes life more exciting for them, and they feel important. In reality they’re nobody.’

With a swift movement he drank the rest of his cooling tea, watching her over the rim. She seemed a little nonplussed, sombre, confused. Maybe he had gone too far, talking to her like … an adult, puncturing the euphoria and innocence which were entirely appropriate in these first few months. She would discover soon enough the bleak impotence of the back benches. With a bit of luck and good management – perhaps on his own part? – she might never discover it, and instead head straight up the ministerial ladder. The diminutive Mrs Shephard had gone from maiden to Cabinet minister in a single parliament. A good woman could certainly do it, if she were keen – possibly more quickly these days than an equally good man.