One Day in May - Catherine Alliott [17]
Hal pushed his lank and frankly greasy hair out of his eyes. Adjusting his spectacles he said hestitantly, ‘I could always ask my brother, if you like? If you just want to tread water and get some work experience, you could maybe get a job with him for a bit.’
‘Where does he work?’ I’d asked, thinking it was a pity Sam McKinnon hadn’t come in. He often had a coffee here after his History lecture. Before rugby training. Sometimes in his kit. I craned my neck round.
‘The House of Commons.’
‘The House of Commons?’ My head snapped back: my neck came out of my shoulders like a tortoise.
‘Yes, he’s an MP. Well, a Government whip, actually.’
‘A whip.’ My, that sounded exciting. A leather-clad lothario wielding a hunting crop and bearing, oddly, a startling resemblance to Sam McKinnon sprang to mind.
‘And what does he do?’
‘Oh, bustle around making people vote, I think. Lobbies for support. He’s sort of a party organizer.’
Like a party planner. Which had at one stage been an idea, but I’d dismissed it as too frivolous. Counting volau-vents and folding napkins into swans and so forth. But a political party planner… I rehearsed it in my head. I’m a political party planner.
‘Which side is he on?’
‘I told you. The Government.’
‘Oh. Right…’ My knowledge of politics was negligible in those days, but I was pretty sure that was the more, you know, right-wing lot. Stricter. Too many immigrants, too many hand-outs, too much welfare state, that kind of thing. Bit mean, but probably quite right.
I shifted uncomfortably. Well, I wasn’t really fussy. Better-looking, I’d hazard. Nice spotty ties, good suits, braces. I wasn’t sure what Dad would think of it, though. We’d been brought up on the smell of an oily rag, mostly in chattering North London – more Neasden than Hampstead – and my father was a bit of an armchair socialist. (For years I’d thought this meant sitting in an armchair being sociable, passing the peanuts.) He’d been a big Michael Foot man and was on walking-stick-raising terms with him on the Heath, and although when Neil Kinnock took the helm he’d lost heart and voted Monster Raving Loony in protest, I wasn’t convinced he’d approve of me Crossing The Floor, as it were. Even Mum, in her youth, had apparently done some prison visiting – the mind boggled, jangling down to the cells in her Mikimoto pearls and her Chanel chains – and despite having morphed into a flog-em-hard-hang-em-high Tory who only bought her sausages at Fortnum’s, she still had a photo of herself at a rally in Trafalgar Square holding a placard, admittedly without a hair out of place, which Laura and I had gaped at. I had an idea Toryism was something you were eventually allowed to slide into, at least in my family. I wasn’t sure one should succumb so quickly: it was a bit like drinking Horlicks in your teens.
But it was only a stepping stone to other things, I reasoned. Research, maybe. Research. That sounded serious. I could tell Kirsten that. And what a chance! Seat of government. Corridors of power. I saw myself running down them in a very tight pencil skirt and heels, arms full of documents, behind a very good-looking important man: ‘Tristan – Tristan, your speech!’
‘Would you ask him?’ I said eagerly, eyes probably shining into Hal’s, which wasn’t kind.
‘Of course. Or you can ask him yourself. He’s coming up in a few weeks for the graduation.’
And indeed he did. And I’d been expecting a corrugated quiff of Brylcreemed hair, a ruddy face, a bluff manner, wall-to-wall pinstripes, but someone tall and golden had appeared, with a fabulous smile and wise, amused eyes that crinkled at the corners; he also had a very muddy Spaniel, and a shabby Barbour and boots, which he apologized for when he came to our flat to change.
‘We’ve been stalking in Fife,’ he explained, slapping his little brother on the back and beaming at Kirsten and me, dressed as we were in our smartest, darkest Oxfam or Topshop graduation clothes.