A Woman's Place (9 page)

Joel Default broke open another pack of Gauloises and contemplated his next fishing trip. This time he and three cronies would take a boat out into the winter rigours of the North Sea and try for marlin and sea bass which, were he successful, would find themselves soon after on the menu at Le Beaujolais in a classic sauce with wine, cream, tarragon and a hint of lime. Keep it simple, especially if the fish itself was a little unusual. Too many restaurants composed the most fantastic rubbish, were fashionable for ten minutes (about long enough to be visited by Michael Winner) and then vanished. Thirty years in catering had confirmed Joel's natural prejudice for the cuisine of his youth. Survival in the competitive culinary world of London had taught him nothing was better than regular customers.

He patted a taut midriff. The French knew that it was not obligatory to eat a lot in order to eat well. His two establishments were comfortably situated in the heart of theatreland off Charing Cross Road. He was proud that taxi-drivers were not familiar with the name and would argue with customers that they wanted the better-known watering-hole next door. At street level the public facade was a wine-bar. But for those in the know – introduced by someone of whom Joel already approved – the real business was downstairs in the club, where he presided like a medieval monk in his cellar, with laconic Gabi the waiter as his perennial sidekick.

Elaine dipped her head and stepped gingerly down the stairs. The place was tiny – a single basement room with space for half a dozen tables. Its walls were covered in posters from France, ancient photographs of viticulture, framed cartoons and elaborately illuminated certificates from more wine syndicates than she could count.

‘Ah,
chère madame
!' Joel was on his best behaviour. He kissed her hand, then deftly took her and George's coats. Elaine was immediately aware that sharp eyes summed her up, sweeping up and down quickly and lightly but without giving offence. Within a moment the two were seated. Elaine stared round in astonishment.

‘It's exactly like a small family restaurant in rural France,' she whispered.

George glanced up from the menu. ‘That's the idea. I hoped you'd like it. He's a character but the food is wonderful, and not expensive either.'

‘Why is it a club?'

‘So Joel can decide who comes, and when he wants to throw them out. If he likes you he'll sit down with a cognac and keep you talking half the night. His command of English is erratic but
colourful, though he probably won't swear much while you're here.'

Elaine giggled and concentrated on the menu.
Magret de canard
seemed a safe bet, preceded by a thick fish soup. When it came to the wine George held a long discussion with the waiter and then chose, as he was expected to, the wine of the week, a light 1992 Saumur-Champigny.

She watched him quietly. He was conservatively dressed in a dark blue suit, blue-striped shirt and plain tie, but the effect was masculine and attractive. He must be some years older than herself but he moved easily, his body lithe and fit. Karen's remark returned and with it her pique at the assumption that older people are less interested in sex. Each generation assumes that the one before no longer indulges and that the one after does but shouldn't. To Elaine the thought of her eighteen-
year-old
daughter engaging in sexual activity filled her with anxiety. Like most parents she had no idea of her offspring's sexual history and probably would never know.

George raised his head and saw that he was the subject of careful scrutiny, not entirely covert, from his guest. Elaine coloured and pointedly contemplated the bright ruby of the wine. The closeness of this trim, spare man was oddly unsettling. She decided to take the initiative.

‘Have you always been in business, George?'

‘No, not at all. I was a career soldier with the Blues and Royals – a guardsman. I took my retirement only five years ago.'

That gave her a subject for conversation. ‘I can just imagine you in a bearskin, chain stretched tightly across your chin, rigidly at attention down the Mall as the Queen went past.'

‘It's a mounted regiment, Elaine.' There was a twinkle in his eye. The mistake was all too common. ‘Thigh boots and cuirasses, a helmet with silk tassels. “Well mannered, well turned out in all circumstances, calm and collected – what one would expect of a Household Cavalryman”, as my squadron was once described. Oh, yes, and “very pleased with ourselves”. An accurate description, don't you think?' He postured a little to amuse his guest.

‘I should think that applies to most MPs too, but with less reason. Sorry I got it wrong, but I know nothing about it.'

‘There's a parliamentary connection: the Blues were raised in 1650 by a Colonel Crook, would you believe, as part of the first standing army in England. We were the original Ironsides in our dark blue coats. The colour was convenient when Lord Oxford took us over under the King, whom we've served faithfully ever since.'

‘You say “we” as if you were there. Do you really feel the sense of history like that?'

‘Certainly. Don't you look up at the stones of Westminster and feel a sense of communion, of continued, shared duty passing down through the centuries, with the MPs who've gone before? Of course you do. It's the same for us.' George was warming to his theme. ‘But there's far more to it than ceremonial. Modern cavalry uses tanks and armoured personnel carriers. We've done our tour of duty in trouble spots – the Berlin Wall, Belfast, the Falklands, Cyprus. My first outing was in Malaya following the insurgency. Nee Soon Barracks in Singapore was not the most comfortable place to learn soldiering, I can tell you.'

He began to talk easily about places he had seen and men he had served alongside. Names famous in other contexts emerged – the young Earl Spencer, Diana's father, then Viscount Althorp, his face and once gangly figure so very like hers; and the extraordinary photo which had appeared in the
Sun
of the newly married Princess of Wales chatting happily and innocently from her carriage with her Travelling Escort commander, none other than the Lieutenant-Colonel Parker-Bowles, whose wife was the Prince's mistress.

Gradually Elaine glimpsed the enjoyment a man of action might gain from a military career. The duck arrived, juicy in its purple-berried sauce. The first bottle of wine was nearly empty. He was good company, and a bit of a surprise.

‘What did you think of Northern Ireland?' she asked.

His face clouded. ‘Bloody IRA. I did five tours in all and never relaxed once, not for a moment. It's partly the tension – in one four-month period we searched over thirty-three thousand vehicles at checkpoints and you just never know which one's going to blow up in your face. It's partly that you're stuck in barracks with the families far away; fraternising is dangerous, a quick way to get murdered. But mostly it was sheer frustration – knowing that in the end the only solution lies with the politicians. No soldier likes that.'

‘Politicians don't like it either,' Elaine remarked drily. ‘It's much easier when you win a war for us and settle the issue, as you did in the Falklands.'

George swirled the wine around in his glass. The bombast disappeared from his voice. ‘The worst, you know, wasn't over there. It was the day in July '82 when we'd just come back from the South Atlantic, covered in glory, and were on parade in Hyde Park. A car bomb packed with high explosive and nails – well, you know about it. The strange thing was that I was used to seeing dead men. But it was the horses that got to me: on the ground with bellies ripped open, their guts in a puddled mess all over the road, screaming in terror. One was standing stock-still with its front leg blown off, a shred of bone hanging. And there was a corporal with his arm buried up to the elbow in a horse's neck, covered in blood, trying to stop the flow. That was Sefton – his picture was in the papers. Do you know, his trooper had a nail right through his hand and was swaying, half conscious, but wouldn't let go of the reins. Christ.'

The evening had taken on a sombre tone. It was a relief to both when the cheeses appeared, with unknown names and sharp, over-the-edge tastes, and a second bottle.

‘Sorry.' George had not expected to be contrite, but Elaine was looking troubled. She explained how close she herself had come to being an IRA victim, when Karen had accepted an apparently innocent gift from an IRA sleeper on the House of Commons staff. Presumably both could still be targets.

She continued, ‘There are risks associated with our lives too. We know about them and we learn to live with it. For us there are additional problems, not so predictable, like the nutter who takes it into his head to have a go. The worry is that somewhere somebody may have decided that he wants to get me. People like that are attracted to Ministers especially, and to anyone well known.'

‘So why do it? You could earn a good living at plenty of other things.'

She allowed an archness into her voice. ‘For exactly the same reasons that you were a soldier. Because it's a job that must be done, fearlessly and honestly, one hopes; and while you're doing it it's utterly absorbing.'

He nodded. Joel brought coffee but left them tactfully alone. The evening was drawing to its natural close.

‘That was a splendid meal, George. Would you be kind enough to see me home?'

Joel Default, marginally less steady than at the start of the evening, lit another cigarette and watched his old friend and customer Lieutenant-Colonel Horrocks climb the stairs behind his pretty lady guest. She had good legs and a shapely rump. It was a long time since
le patron
had seen this customer dine alone with a woman; mostly the colonel brought male business colleagues, whose company did not produce quite the same lively spring in his step. It was clear that the evening was not over yet.

Jim Betts sat in the litter-strewn pigsty which passed for his flat and chewed his moustache. On the bed lay the first editions, spread out, their inky pages making the grey sheets even grubbier. He should long ago have moved to a more salubrious location – as deputy editor of the nation's foremost tabloid, he could well afford it – but the effort of sorting the accumulated debris of years put him off. Inertia would ensure that he remained here for the rest of his days.

Dickson's face was everywhere. The changes he had wrought in the Cabinet were masterly.
Naturally he had rewarded key supporters in his campaign for the leadership. Betts was not surprised to find Bampton elevated to the Cabinet, though probably he would have preferred less of a nannying job than the new ‘Department of Health, Welfare and the Family': right mouthful that was. His sidekick and PPS, Derek Harrison, was tipped for a junior job the following day despite the gossip surrounding his private life. Betts chortled: the press would have a field day with Harrison's girlfriends. One of them would sing eventually. They always did.

He returned to the front page. It was not the small fry he was after when it came to illicit liaisons, though there was no doubt the more ministers were exposed the merrier. With a wince of pain he recalled how near he had once come to confronting the new Prime Minister with evidence of his long-term affair with one of his own backbench MPs, the trim and delicious Mrs Elaine Stalker. Betts had been so close. It grieved him still that he had failed.

Yet it had to be possible to bring even a Prime Minister to heel; he was only a man, whose past inability to keep his trousers up would lead, some day, to his being found with them around his ankles. Whether the Stalker affair was still on or not, he would be revealed, sooner or later, as no better than any of the rest. But for the present Betts could not see how to do it.

The nation's interest in the peccadilloes of its politicians had not waned. You might think, Betts mused, that after a dozen revelations of mistresses and illegitimate children, resignation after resignation, the public would get bored and the incumbents learn to behave. Not a bit of it. At any rate it made for an entertaining life.

With an impatient gesture he swept the newspapers on to the floor, lay back fully clothed, and within minutes was sound asleep.

‘Will you come in for coffee – or a Scotch, perhaps?'

It did not matter what she offered. If he was going to follow her further, up the stairs to the third-floor flat within division bell distance of Westminster, he would accept, and if necessary leave the coffee in its cup, untouched. Should this man be intrigued by her in any way, he would come, if only to satisfy his natural curiosity about her. And, perhaps, to signal his interest for future reference.

But a gentleman would demur. He would shake hands in the considerate way a gentleman would reserve for a lady, and he would smile wistfully, with a hint of self-denial. Then it would be appropriate for her to stand on tiptoe to cover the eight inches difference between them and kiss him lightly on the cheek. And that, regrettably, would be that.

She waited, hardly daring to breathe.

‘Thank you, I'd love to.'

Suddenly she felt anxious. Her hand pushed back the thick blonde hair and she bit her lip. Members of Parliament had to be so careful. But her fears on this score, as she unlocked the street door and stepped aside to let George enter, could not be real. This man, surely, would be the soul of discretion.

So what could be the source of her troubled feeling, as they climbed the stairs, chattering animatedly but softly so as not to disturb the neighbours? In the street outside a police siren wailed and faded, the ever-present warning of danger in the capital city. By the time she reached the flat, the smile on her face was forced and unhappy.

He began to move around the main room as she had anticipated he might, examining the bound copies of Hansard, the biographies of Macmillan and Thatcher and John Major, the
well-thumbed
diaries of Alan Clark, the unread Lawson. He picked up and glanced through several volumes as she pointed to the drinks cupboard and then busied herself in the kitchen with ground coffee and filters. When she returned he had poured two small malt whiskies exactly the way she liked them.