No, she said
I don’t think that’s necessarily
true. It wasn’t for me.
They were drinking wine in the lounge
of the Pimlico flat, waiting for
8pm and The Nantwich Hour; a
television slot hosted by the presenter who had shared her bed on two
occasions in Dorlich.
They had been grisly events and she
usually switched channels to avoid his clipped moustache and hairline
that was rapidly receding (despite an Elton John weave) but tonight
there was no respite.
The subject of the interview was to be
Sandra Milford Cornish; their old university friend whose actions
over the last 24 hours were threatening to bring down the Government.
She replied to Lynne, who was insisting
that a woman was only truly fulfilled when she had given birth.
Lynne’s view was understandable. Greg
had caught mumps in late adolescence and was unable to father
children.
He was also unwilling to taint the
Salt bloodline by allowing Lynne to have children by donor IVF
and so reluctantly, but then stoically and with relish, she had
settled upon dogs, and compensated by deploying the Salt money as
midwife to a stellar career.
They were sitting in the tasteful
lounge of Lynne’s London flat; two women in their late fifties who
had known each other, statistically, for nearly forty years – but
who had never really understood each other at all.
Dorlich had been the stage for a double
act and they had played it to perfection; revelling in their
reputations for outlandish and daring eccentricity, but safe in the
knowledge that beneath the Afghan coats, bare feet, silks and satins,
were two extremely conventional, hard-working young women who seemed
to unite the best blessings of existence and had lived nearly 21
years in the world with very little to distress and vex them.
If the first 21 years had been plain
sailing; the subsequent 36 were best described as a bumpy ride.
There had been success – of a
sort.
Lynne had made a marriage paved with
gold.
Greg’s money had given her
intellectual ability; academic flair and natural vivacity a launchpad
that would bear comparison with Cape Kennedy. She was an
internationally acclaimed environmental consultant and author, with
one best-seller to her name - and no doubt more to come.
But the husband who had made all
this possible was in reality,an insufferable bore with whom she had
little in common apart from property and pets.
The arrogant nincompoop for whose
sake she had remained childless had run off with a clerical assistant
from the Lyndhurst Chambers – and they had even appropriated the
dogs.
As for herself; the triumphs of prising
Paul away from the embraces of Nicola and the clutches of Frances
Hunt had been hollow indeed.
After the briefest of lulls, Paul had
recommenced his sexual foraging with renewed vigour; generally adding
a further notch to his bedpost whenever she fell out of line by
scoring a political success – or even by making new friends.
Yes, she had been an MP – for what it
was worth. (Eight years of underachievement; constantly soured by
‘family problems’ triggered by her failed marriage).
Yes – unlike Lynne, she was the
mother of two children.
But she could not think of the
guarded faces of Richard and especially Vanessa without guilt for
the years when her children were unwilling adjutants in a parental
war still being waged from beyond the grave, as the reading of Paul’s
will would no doubt prove.
Like flies to wanton boys are we to
the gods. They kill us for their sport.
The gods had enjoyed a high old time
with herself and Lynne
She thought of Paul; dark and handsome
as he had been when they first met at Bunters; recalled how he had
compared her to Tessy dearest, and knew that whatever it was
that had dogged her footsteps, for as many years as she could
remember, was not played out yet.
The president of the Immortals had
not ended his sport with Tess...
What the fuck is she going to say?
Lynne’s voice came from the end
corner of the Conran Habitat divan that she had bought for the
flat in pre-Greg days.
After a 20-year break, the events of
the past week had propelled her to the cigarette packet and there was
a flicker of the 20-year-old classicist surveying movers and shakers
at a Wellington Parade party.
Of course, Robbie Nantwich and Sandra
Milford would also have been present at the ghostly party – and the
fact that the pair would soon be duelling before the nation on
prime-time television was utterly surreal.
She quelled a sudden impulse to ask
Lynne for a cigarette, and switched on the set.
After weeks of humiliation that had
seen her replaced in her husband’s affections by a male lover;
castigated by commentators and her own children for displaying
Stone-Age homophobia; and to add insult to injury – witnessing
said beastly husband rise to a career high as Secretary of State
for Children, Families and Communities, Sandra had cracked.
And being Sandra, she had cracked
spectacularly.
The rejected girl who had pursued
Leslie Potts through the highways and byways of Dorlich,erupting
banshee-style at Belinda Briscoe’s party, had become the woman who
had bared her soul to Ponia Tindall and Jessica Trotter from The
Crier on the front page and then pages 4-8 inclusive.
Tindall and Trotter, who must
have linked up with Sandra after her hysterical display in The
Fifth Column.
They had observed the shameful
proceedings from ringside window seats and when she and Lynne had
abandoned Sandra to her fate; alone at a table, cradling an empty
wine bottle and crying piteously, they had moved in for the kill.
The article was shocking; covering
topics and making allegations that might be commonplace on the
internet (on the Vlad site for example) but would never appear
in print, because no editor could get away with non-attributable
material of that nature.
Even the time-worn device of a close
friend or senior colleague could not be used to report
that Cornish and Morledge had engaged in homosexual congress in
the kitchen at No 10 in the time gap between jellies and ice cream
and presents from Santa at a children’s Christmas party hosted by
Wendy.
Or that Home SecretaryDerek Kingsmill
was reliant upon respected geneticist Sir Leslie Potts for a supply
of pliant rent boys hailing from Malawi and Somalia, who would do
anything for Indefinite Leave to Remain, thus corrupting the
entire asylum system.
And that Terrence Gale and Wendy
herself had turned a blind eye to the gay film club which met
in Committee Room 16 whenever there was a screening of an
international football match featuring the England team.
A giant St George flag draped over the
locked door knob, sufficed as a Do Not Disturb notice and the
squeals and yelps from therein , echoing the length and breadth
of the corridor, were natural eruptions of joy whenever the team
scored a goal...
There was much more in the same vein,
and of course it had been printed, because Sandra had put her
name to it.
Though even with a name, I’m
amazed that it wasn’t legalled, she commented as the familiar
introductory jingle heralded the start of the Nantwich Hour.
The programme was live from the studio,
and Robbie Nantwich, as was his wont, prowled across the stage and
took his seat in one of the two Mastermind-style black leather
armchairs.
His well modulated measured delivery
had a new tone of repressed excitement as he prepared viewers for:
The interview of the century and the
woman whose revelations in today’s Crier have brought Wendy
Runcible’s Government to its knees and turned the Profumo Affair
into a children’s nursery rhyme.
Welcome to the Nantwich Hour and the
woman of the hour – Sandra Milford Cornish!
Sandra walked on from stage left,
settling herself into the chair and crossing her legs.
Her first thought was that Sandra was
looking remarkably well; better in fact than she had looked in years.
Gone was the gaunt turkey neck and
sense of desperation. Sandra had put on weight; her hair was swept
into an updo reminiscent of her party style at Dorlich, and her lilac
dress suit was pure Bruce Oldfield, setting off her legs to
perfection.
Even the pop eyes; always her worst
feature seemed somehow less prominent, and anyone who had
tuned in hoping to see Sandra’s version of a stricken Diana (There
were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded) was
in for a shock.
This was Sandra’s interview:
her story, her moment.
She looked at Lynne, then back at
Sandra, as Robbie Nantwich prepared for the first question and the
truth dawned, accompanied by twinges of horror and disgust.
Sandra was enjoying this.
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