One Day in May - Catherine Alliott [29]
‘’Fraid so. Like a church youth club. Cravats and blazers.’
‘Exactly.’ He narrowed his eyes at the road. ‘The problem is, most young people aren’t actually that interested in politics unless there’s a whiff of the revolutionary about it. You’re quite unusual, in that respect, Hattie.’
Me? I was startled. Oh… yes. Luckily it was dark.
But as we rattled along the M40 I wondered if this was my moment to fess up. To admit to not being that drawn to the bump and grind of the legislative process in Westminster, but more to the buzz and glamour. On the other hand, the roar of the engine was awfully loud. Quite tricky to be heard.
‘D’you mind the roof down?’ he yelled above the wind. ‘I can stop and put it up?’
‘No, no,’ I snuggled down into the coat, which smelled of him. ‘I love it.’
The weeks rolled by – months too – and Katya’s back didn’t improve. To her intense chagrin she found herself having to take more time off, and I, in turn, had to shoulder more of her workload. The pressure was on and I was literally learning on the job, but I’d studied at the feet of a master: I’d seen Katya deal with stroppy MPs or recalcitrant civil servants, who were the bane of Dominic’s life, on the one hand forever wanting lengthy meetings, which he considered a complete waste of time when so much could be achieved by email, and on the other, barring his way to the people who really mattered. My job was to ensure those he wanted to speak to could reach him, and those he didn’t couldn’t.
‘But I was told he’d be available for a meeting with the honourable member for Guildford at eleven o’clock?’
‘Ah, yes, but something came up. At the moment he’s with the party chairman discussing plans for the reshuffle.’
He wasn’t. He was in his office writing a paper on the reintroduction of competitive sport in schools, a subject much closer to his heart, but it sounded scary and shut backbenchers up. I was learning to tell white lies, to box and cox as Katya and, to a greater extent, Dominic did. I was learning politics.
And the reshuffle, coming as it did, hot on the heels of an unpopular budget, was on everyone’s mind.
‘Tony Palmer’s worried,’ Dominic confided to me in the Ebury Street wine bar, which we often repaired to for a quick drink after work. ‘The PM’s rattled by all these sleaze allegations. He’s threatening a comprehensive shake-up. And if Tony’s worried, I should be too. I may lose my job as whip.’
‘Don’t be silly, of course you won’t,’ I soothed, as I did regularly these days; sometimes over supper too.
Well, it was lonely for him in that tiny flat in Westminster, and Letty wasn’t having a very straightforward pregnancy. Driving made her feel sick and she loathed the train: she hardly came up at all. They barely saw one another, a problem – amongst others – we touched on occasionally. Sometimes I cooked him supper in the flat I shared with Laura, a rather swanky Pimlico apartment courtesy of Laura’s modelling career. Dominic did a double take when he met Laura – everyone did, she was that gorgeous. Even nursing a broken heart as she was then, having just been dumped by a well-known brat-pack actor. She was bruised and tearful and didn’t want to go out, but craved company, so it suited us all. Particularly me. I was very scared of how I felt about Dominic, and knew it was important not to be alone with him. No more Ebury Street drinks, no more suppers at Roussillon, I decided. Just here, at the flat, and only if Laura was around.
More numbers were added to my safety one evening as Dominic brought along Hugh. Except it was a different Hugh from the jokey, light-hearted one I’d met in Buckinghamshire. Carla had left him and gone with Luca to live in Rome, for good.
‘She can’t bear England any more,’ he told us, white-faced, sipping a whisky. ‘Can’t bear me either, apparently.’
We embarked on a fairly drink-fuelled supper until, at ten o’clock, Dominic’s phone went and he was called in to vote. I walked him down the three flights of stairs to