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By Root 1200 0

Gervase Tompkins duly elected . . . " "Paul Tompkins," said the reporter briskly, showing in his equable tone that he hadn't known Polly as the nightmare queen of the Worcester MCR, "only twenty-eight years old . . ."as Polly shook hands crushingly with the losers, and then stepped backwards, peered round with a kind of cunning confusion, using the crowd's indulgence, his first thrill of popularity, and stretched out an arm to call a woman forward from the back of the stage. She strode up to him, nudged against him, their fingers fumbled together, and then he jerked their hands upwards in the air. "A great night for Paul Tompkins's wife, too," said the commentator: "only married last month—Morgan Stevens, one of the guiding lights at Conservative Central Office—I know she's been working tirelessly behind the scenes on this campaign . . . " Polly carried on shaking their awkwardly linked fists above their heads, his lapel dragged up against his jowls, and something he couldn't disguise in his face, something deeper than scorn, the madness of self-belief. It was already time for him to make a speech, but he milked the acclaim crudely—he looked a bit of a buffoon. He stepped forward, still loosely holding Morgan's hand, and then dodged back and kissed her, not wedding-style, but as one might kiss an aunt. He had hardly started to speak when the viewers were abruptly returned to the studio.

"Is Morgan really a woman?" said Catherine.

"Very fair question," said Nick; "but I think so."

"She's got a man's name."

"Well, there was Morgan Le Fay, wasn't there, the famous witch."

"Was there?"

"Anyway, she's married to a man called Polly, so it's probably all right."

Now the results were coming in too fast to be sure of individual notice. The talk of a landslide took shape in vertiginous diagrams. "I thought it was a landslide last time," said Catherine. "We had that book about it."

"Yes, it was," said Nick.

She stared at the screen, where the famous swingometer was virtually at rest. "But nothing's changing," she said. "I mean there's two more Labour seats. That's not a landslide."

"Oh, I see," said Nick.

"I mean a landslide's a disaster, it changes everything."

"So you thought . . . " Nick thought he saw that Catherine, in her inattentive but literal way, had convinced herself it was a Labour landslide. "It's a dead metaphor, darling. It just means a crushing victory."

"Oh god," said Catherine, almost tearfully.

"I mean, the land did slide once, as we all know. And it looks very much as though it's going to stay slidden."

Barwick came up half an hour later. There was a buzz in the studio, as if they knew something was about to happen. Nick and Catherine sat forward on the sofa. "Welcome to Barwick," said the bearded young reporter: "where we're in the splendid Market Hall built by Sir Christopher Wren." ("No, you are not," said Nick.) "We're expecting the declaration in the next minute. Barwick of course held by Gerald Fedden since the last election—a minister in the Home Office—something of a maverick, but could be looking at a Cabinet post in the next government—he had a majority of over eight thousand in '83, but we're expecting to see a big increase in the Alliance vote here—Muriel Day, a very popular figure locally . . . " The camera found the two rivals, each in discussion with their people, Gerald chaffing as if nothing was going on, Muriel Day already rehearsing the smile of a good loser. The Labour man, perhaps under a delusion about the outcome, was running over a three-page speech.

Nick flopped back in the sofa with a laugh, to break the mood. Staring at the screen he felt awkwardly responsible, as if the place he'd come from, the very room that he'd measured and drawn as a schoolboy, was about to deliver its verdict on the room he was sitting in now. It was embarrassing, but there was nothing he could do. He watched the event quickly clarify, the intent activity was finished, the people redeployed themselves, officials were briefly in conference, and out of the toil of the day, metal boxes and rented