Goodfellowe began to protest – he’d stated no more than a point of fact – but Breedon was having none of it. ‘Making disruptive comments from the back row may have been excusable in the Honourable Gentleman’s classroom but no one is going to get away with it in mine.’
Goodfellowe began to rise to his feet. ‘Further to the Honourable Lady’s Point of Order …’
‘No, sir!’ Breedon’s hand slapped down on his table, sending his steel grey forelock and various items of paper fluttering. ‘I have made my ruling. The amendment is unacceptable. The Honourable Gentleman’s intervention is unacceptable. That is the end of the matter.’
Goodfellowe was left astonished by the outburst. What on earth had he done to merit such treatment? His intervention was admittedly ill-considered, unorthodox perhaps, but scarcely objectionable. The passions being roused by this Bill seemed to require more explanation than that provided simply by the Chairman’s post-prandial discomforts. He looked to Lillicrap seated at the end of the front row, beseeching him for support. Lillicrap shrugged his shoulders and turned away.
They were seated at the best table in The Kremlin, next to the Tsar’s piano, which still bore the scars of its liberation from the Winter Palace in the form of angry bullet holes. Goodfellowe’s mood was similarly apocalyptic. What had been intended as an occasion to mark Mickey’s twenty-fifth birthday – ‘Take me out to dinner, somewhere very public. I’ll wear a disgraceful dress. The men will all drool and the women will be wondering what it is you’ve got. That way we’ll both enjoy it.’ – had instead turned into something of a post-mortem on the afternoon’s proceedings in Standing Committee. Goodfellowe seemed to have a mind for little else in spite of Mickey’s very evident attractions.
‘He just went for me. Out of the blue. Bizarre. Does he dislike me so much?’
‘It was probably nothing personal, Tom, you simply happened to be handy, a convenient target. Breedon is a parliamentary eunuch, one of those Members who never had the chance to make it big. He’s resented never being a Minister and probably thinks you’re an ungrateful bloody fool for having given it all up. Now he’s become chairman of some committee and he wants to show he’s the biggest swinger in town. He’s going through one of those phases.’
‘What do you mean “one of those phases"?’
‘You know, those phases you men go through. Always having to prove their masculinity. Doing push-ups and going to the gym so you’re fit enough to chase bimboes. As if the bimboes you lot chase are ever likely to run away.’
‘I do not chase bimboes,’ he corrected her, a trifle stiffly.
‘Why not, Tom?’
‘What?’
‘Why not?’ The question was in earnest. ‘You can’t cut yourself off from half of humanity simply because you’ve had some terrible luck.’
Anyone else he might have told to mind their own bloody business, but not Mickey. ‘It’s not a thing I care to think much about,’ he responded defensively.
‘Look, I’m the agony aunt, remember? And of course you think about it. That’s why you take so much interest in my sex life, because it helps compensate for your own. It’s also why you’ve been staring into your custard all evening, rather than at me. It’s not that you don’t like this rather fetching little dress which just about manages to cling to me, it’s that you like it all too much. Every other man in the restaurant is staring at me, but you won’t allow yourself to.’
‘Mickey,’ he protested. ‘You’re my secretary. And, if it comes to that, my friend.’
‘I know, Tom. But in truth I’m not talking about me. I’m talking about someone else, another friend, a partner. You deserve it. And I think you need it.’
‘Not possible.’ He shook his head, then shook it again more slowly. ‘There’s a part of me I have to lock away.’
‘You lock it away and all it does is kick at the door trying to get out. It does you no good, Tom. You’ve taken enough kicks as it is.’
‘I am married, Mickey. That means a great deal to me.’
‘Good for you, Tom. I mean that. I know the sacrifices you make for your wife. I get the bills, remember? But you sacrifice too much of yourself, and one day you’ll find there’s nothing left to give. And don’t forget I’ve been brought up by a Jewish mother. I’ve got an hereditary doctorate in guilt.’
She was pushing it, really pushing it and maybe too far. But someone had to, for his own good, and who else was there? He was studying his plate with the fiercest intensity. Slowly his head rose, his eyes filled with anguish, and more than a little fear.
‘This is a hell of a long way from Frank Bloody Breedon.’
‘Oh, he’s no problem,’ she responded gaily, aware that a change of mood was called for. ‘He hates you all on a Tuesday and Thursday afternoon because the Standing Committee forces him to rush his lunch.’
‘Acid indigestion.’
‘Good grief, no. Her name’s Victoria.’
‘You mean …?’
‘That’s right. He’s going through “one of those phases". Taken to the gym and everything. Sends his secretary out for little presents – toiletries, scarves, jewellery. Nothing too expensive. And not the sort of thing you do for the wife.’
‘But how do you know?’
‘Because you men are bone idle when it comes to lechery and lust. Victoria is a researcher, one of the American students we get over here for a year’s work experience. So on Tuesday Brother Breedon gives his secretary twenty quid and sends her out for “some little token” as he describes it, a birthday present for a niece. He seems to have acquired a lot of nieces recently. Anyway, she comes back with a set of earrings which by Wednesday afternoon are dangling from Victoria’s little lobes. Even you should be able to figure that one out.’
Goodfellowe leaned back in his chair as though trying to distance himself from something deeply unpalatable. He looked at Mickey in astonishment, as if seeing something for the first time. Then, his expression still incredulous, he started to shake with laughter. It struck him with such force that he had to stifle it behind a starched napkin. ‘You are good for the soul, you know that?’ he gasped, wiping bleary eyes.
‘I reach the parts other bimboes cannot reach, you mean.’
‘I suppose so.’ His face shone with gratitude. ‘So, Breedon thinks – and I quote you accurately, I hope, Miss Ross – that I’m an ungrateful bloody fool. He’ll be a complete misanthrope after every lunch. And this is the man I’ve got to spend every Tuesday and Thursday with for the next three months. Great. You’ve cheered me up no end.’
‘What are birthday parties for?’
Suddenly someone else had appeared at their side. It was Elizabeth. ‘I want you to know that when Mickey booked the table for you, Tom, she also asked for an enormous cake out of which would leap a scantily clad super-jock, but I told her The Kremlin wasn’t that sort of place. Although maybe it should be.’ A hand fell gently on Goodfellowe’s shoulder as she inspected the table to ensure that all was as she had prescribed. ‘Perhaps your Mr Breedon would eat here even more frequently if it were.’
‘Save me, I’m not going to keep bumping into him here as well, am I?’ Goodfellowe muttered.
‘He keeps some very interesting company at lunch, does Mr Breedon.’
‘So I’ve been hearing.’
‘Don’t have such a closed mind, Tom. Why, only last week he was deep in discussion at this very table with one of the big Moggies.’
‘Moggies?’
‘Media Owners’ Group. The fat cats of the media world.’
‘Fascinating. What were they discussing?’
‘My dear Tom, this place is like a confessional. Couldn’t repeat what I heard. It would be breaking all sorts of professional confidences.’ She was sounding deliberately coquettish. She bent low, whispering. ‘Although it’s astonishing what you do hear. You’d be surprised how many ungrateful bloody fools treat you like the wallpaper, never notice you’re there.’
 
; Mickey giggled. Goodfellowe flushed, but was not to be distracted from his purpose.
‘I’ve always wondered if this place might be a front for the KGB. Would it be a gross violation of professional ethics to know which of the Old Toms was taking my beloved Chairman out to lunch?’
Elizabeth puckered. When teasing men, which she did often, she had a habit of pursing her lips as if directing a kiss, then twisting her lips to one side as though to deprive them of their expected pleasure. She was teasing now, but Goodfellowe was too in earnest to notice.
‘Do you think the KGB might be interested in coming in as a partner? I’ve got a set of their handcuffs somewhere.’
‘Elizabeth!’
‘You win. It was Freddy Corsa.’
‘Damn.’ Goodfellowe uttered the word softly, as though he were slowly deflating, leaving him with insufficient breath for more forceful expression.
‘Of course!’ Mickey exclaimed. ‘Just before Christmas. In Las Vegas. Breedon was the Herald’s celebrity correspondent at the heavyweight fight. You know, eight hundred words and all expenses paid? Justin stayed up all night to watch it, said it was a real dog, that I give him a better fight than he saw then. Three rounds of patacake with more clinching than you’d get in the showers at Wormwood Scrubs. Anyway, he mentioned Breedon’s article, said he was surprised he was a fight fan.’ A smile of unadulterated mischief spread across her face. ‘Come to think of it, that was the week Victoria wasn’t around either. Said she was going back home.’
‘I wonder what a first-class week for two in Las Vegas costs,’ Goodfellowe mused. ‘With or without the fight tickets.’
‘You think the Herald paid for Victoria too?’
He recalled his own conversation with Corsa. ‘I have a sneaking suspicion they might.’
‘That’s not against the rules, is it?’ Elizabeth asked.
‘Probably not. But maybe it should be.’
Elizabeth adopted a conspiratorial tone. ‘And I wouldn’t suppose for a moment that your Mr Breedon was having lunch in order to plan any further arduous travels he might undertake on behalf of the Herald. Do you? At least, not unless you’re an awful old cynic, Tom Goodfellowe.’ And with another pucker Elizabeth left to tend to her other guests.
‘You know she fancies you,’ Mickey stated, sounding almost bored.
‘Stop going on about that,’ he snapped.
‘Wasn’t aware I’d mentioned it before.’
But Goodfellowe was elsewhere. At lunch with Breedon and Corsa. At Hamley’s. In Las Vegas. And in Committee Room 10. He was suddenly aware that all was not as it once had seemed.
‘You certainly know how to show a girl a good time for her birthday treat,’ Mickey remarked, running a hand through her tousled hair.
He chose not to hear. They had returned from The Kremlin to the House of Commons, she with her skirts swirling and he with a look of great intent, switching on lights and raising the eyebrows of the duty policemen as they went. Now she was seated at her computer while he raced a finger through the bound edition of the Register of Members’ Interests, an annual publication designed, in the inevitably somewhat pompous wording of the reporting committee, ‘to provide information of any pecuniary interest or other material benefit which a Member receives which might reasonably be thought by others to influence his or her actions, speeches or vote in Parliament, or actions taken in his or her capacity as a Member of Parliament’. The Register was supposed to show who was doing what with whom in the belief that, so long as it was done in public, it must be decent. But, in many Members’ minds, it also had to be relevant.
‘It’s not bloody here.’
‘What ain’t?’ When she was tired, the gloss occasionally fell from Mickey’s accent, and it was past eleven.
‘Look. Here’s Breedon’s entry. No mention of journalism or writing. Sweet nothing about Las Vegas.’
‘Maybe he forgot. Maybe it was a one-off. Maybe he doesn’t regard his interest in boxing as having anything to do with his being a politician.’
‘What? You think he was sent all the way to Las Vegas because of his sex appeal and intimate relationship with the Marquess of Queensberry?’
‘He presumably thinks so.’
‘And what of Pennymore?’ Goodfellowe had turned at random to another page of the Register which featured a high-profile colleague. ‘He’s writing all the time, even scribbles the occasional theatre and film review, yet the only reference here is to “occasional journalism". And he reckons he earns less than ten thousand a year from all that?’
‘We can soon see.’
‘How?’
‘Would you accept that no self-respecting Member of the House is likely to sell his soul for less than a pound a word?’
He remembered that Corsa was offering more. ‘A reasonable working assumption.’
‘Then if we find the words, we’ve found your answer.’ Immediately she began tapping away at her keyboard. ‘We can log onto the newspaper libraries and see what they have on the esteemed Member. Let’s try the Telegraph first, shall we?’ And in a little while she had on her screen three articles that the prolific Pennymore had penned over the last year. ‘That’s three thousand, now let’s have a look at the Herald. Then the Mail.’ And so they had begun a search through Fleet Street’s finest, identifying articles, calculating both wordage and poundage and coming to a figure considerably in excess of ten thousand.
‘Is he on the fiddle?’ Mickey enquired.
Goodfellowe shook his head. ‘Perhaps not. He appears to be a bit of a tart, puts himself about, doesn’t seem to have a regular contract with anyone. So “occasional journalism” is probably technically correct. Maybe he doesn’t earn more than ten thousand from any single source. And I suspect he would argue that his television and theatre reviews have bugger all to do with politics so don’t need recording in the Register.’
‘So he’s another one with so much sex appeal he feels he has a public duty to share it.’
‘But his Register entry is so hugely misleading. And he’s on the Press Bill Standing Committee. But then, so am I. And Freddy Corsa has asked me to write for him, too.’
‘Bit of a coincidence.’
‘Strange world. If we were taking as much money from any other industry there would be cries of corruption and outrage. Led by the newspapers, of course. But so long as we keep scribbling articles they seem to have an excuse for shovelling as much money at us as they like.’
‘Dirty bath water.’
They were silent for a while, contemplating the road they had suddenly started to venture down.
‘Maybe we should pull the plug on it,’ Goodfellowe muttered. ‘Is all this press money meant to cover our votes as well as our articles? I want to find out.’ Goodfellowe continued to stare at the screen intently. Suddenly he became aware that he was leaning very closely over Mickey’s shoulder, his hot breath falling over smooth bare skin and his eyes, when lowered, being afforded a view that was beyond despair, like fruit in the Garden of Eden. Temptation tore at his roots. They were alone on their own island, cut off from the rest of the world, in a place where rules could be and often were remade. Every instinct in his body seemed to have come alive and they were all primordial, growing stronger with each passing beat of her chest. He felt he might do something stupid, something that he would bitterly regret. He could not move back, would not move on, his resolution in turmoil. At that moment, and much to his relief, she yawned.
‘But is there any fun in finding out what everyone is up to?’ she asked wearily. ‘I know it only upsets Justin.’
He drew back, the spell broken. ‘It’s too late now, but there’s work for you in the morning. I want you to go through every member of the Committee, examine their entry in the Register, then play around with your computer thingy and see what you can find.’
‘Sounds fun.’ She yawned again.
‘It may surprise you, Miss Ross, but even Members of Parliament have been known to succumb to
temptation.’
‘I do hope so,’ she smiled, brightening, and switching off the screen.
It was gone midnight as the duty policemen saluted the Member and his young lady companion with tousled hair and careful mascara and a figure which, even with her coat on, demanded their attention. The girl swung her hips as she passed.
Neither man took his eyes off her retreating form. One moistened his lips. ‘You know, Baz, think I’ll get myself elected.’
‘What, all that unpaid overtime?’
‘Yeah, you’re right. Could wear you out, all those late nights. Could be a real killer,’ he smiled wistfully.
The sun had yet to disperse the late spring mist that was clinging to Whitehall like fog on an undeveloped film. It was not yet eleven, an uncommon time for guests to be found in The Kremlin. Yet when Elizabeth walked in bearing the spoils of her trip to the Tachbrook Street market Goodfellowe had already been waiting for some time.
‘I invited myself. Sorry,’ he offered, and nothing more.
She looked searchingly at him – the sapless cheeks, the rim of sleeplessness around the eyes, the hurriedly knotted tie. Elizabeth said nothing, disappearing into the kitchen with her carrier bags of meat and herbs and reappearing moments later bearing two huge glasses – bowls, almost – of oranged-renched champagne. ‘You obviously need it. I’ve a feeling I may be in need of it, too. Nazdarovie.’
They raised the glasses and continued to sit silently for a while. He’d rehearsed his thoughts in fine detail throughout the night, yet the lack of sleep had caused their rhythm to disappear and with it his resolution. He needed the drink.
‘Is that piano for real?’ he asked, searching for somewhere, anywhere, to start.
‘What are you, from Trading Standards? You want to know whether my piano is a genuine Tsar Nicholas with authentic Bolshevik bullet holes? The twenty pounds I paid for it in a Ukrainian street market says it is, and I consider it entirely possible that the date of 1932 on the maker’s stamp inside is a wicked forgery. But you know me, I’m just a gullible wee girl.’