Sheer Abandon (13 page)

Chapter 7

         Just as (or so some say) the real action in the House of Commons is not found in the debating chamber but in the committee rooms, corridors, and tearooms, the real business at the party political conferences is conducted not in the conference hall and on the platform but in the bars or at the myriad fringe meetings that take place all day. Rather thinly disguised as discussion groups, sponsored by high-profile but not disinterested associations, the movers and shakers of the parties and those keen to lobby them move from hotel to hotel, hall to hall, from breakfast time until quite late at night, airing and sharing their views with both the press and any interested members of the constituency parties.

There is also a lot of sex; the adrenaline-charged atmosphere, the power and intrigue on display, and the heady freedom from day-to-day restraints is, as Nick Marshall once wrote, more powerful than an ocean full of oysters. Many a worthy afternoon speech is missed for a little apolitical activity in a hotel room. Indeed, it is said that if you can remember too much about any party conference, you have missed the best of it.

That autumn at the Tory Party conference in Blackpool, a very large and glitzy fringe meeting had been held. On the penultimate evening, funded by Gideon Keeble, the billionaire retailer, it had addressed the question of the nanny state and its sinister and growing power over the family. Speakers had included the charismatic and much televised Lord Collins, professor in child psychiatry at Cambridge; TV agony aunt Victoria Raynsford; and Janet Frean, who, as well as being a prominent Tory MP, had the relevant distinction of having five children. Chad Lawrence had also attended and spoken passionately at the debate that followed. The meeting had been packed with the party faithful and it had scooped up most of the next day’s best headlines.

“And people have been congratulating Janet ever since,” Nick had said to Jocasta over breakfast. “It would appear she has Keeble onside. Very influential man, is our Gideon. Influential and rich. Exactly what’s needed for the new party.”

“It’s going to happen, is it?”

“Think so. It’s all looking very exciting.”

Jocasta, who was nursing an appalling hangover, found it hard to care.

Nick grinned at her. “You do look—tired. I’ve got to go. What are you going to do?”

“I’m going back to bed.” She kissed Nick goodbye rather feebly and sat sipping coffee and flicking through the pile of newspapers he had left behind. She felt terribly sick; maybe she should get back upstairs.

As she got into the lift, a girl stepped out; she was wearing an almost nonexistent dress, some very smudged makeup, and her conference pass round her neck. She had obviously had a very good night.

Jocasta found Nick at lunchtime at a café near the press office; it had been, he said, a morning of dazzling dullness. “You should have stayed with me,” she said, picking at a rather tired sandwich.

“If only I could have done. I must say, my mind strayed towards you repeatedly while they all wittered on. I’ve just got to file one last piece and I’ll come and find you when I’m done.”

“What? Nick, I’ve been waiting for you all day!”

“Look, sweetie, I told you not to stay today. I told you it would be boring. You enjoyed the party last night. Until you flaked out on the floor, that is.”

“I did not flake out on the floor! I tripped on my new heels. Can’t I come to the press room with you?”

“You can, but you won’t find anyone to talk to. Everyone’s either doing their wrap-up jobs, or watching the final session and singing ‘Land of Hope and Glory.’”

Jocasta shuddered. “I’ll come.”

She followed him into the press room, with its rows of desks equipped not only with computers and phones but with TV screens giving constant access to what was going on in the conference hall. She fetched a carton of coffee. God, it was disgusting; it tasted as if they had used the same grains over and over again since Sunday. Nick was already gazing intently at the screen, absolutely lost to her. Jocasta sighed. He was treating her like the little woman, told not to bother her pretty head with difficult stuff like politics, when by his own admission she’d given him at least two ideas for pieces this week. She decided to go for a walk.

She wandered round the near-desolate area leading into the main conference hall. God, she felt terrible; the
Sketch
had given a party the night before and she’d got incredibly drunk and ended up dancing simultaneously with a reporter from the
Sun
, a cameraman from Channel 4, and someone from the
Today
programme. She’d hoped Nick might see her and be jealous, but every time she looked for him he was huddled with a lot of dreary-looking men—well, they looked dreary from where she was. When she’d finally fallen—or rather tripped—one of them had come over with Nick to help her up and sit her down at the table. He had been, she seemed to remember, quite tasty, in a middle-aged sort of way; he asked her if she was all right and then smiled at her and moved away to another group. God, how embarrassing. She really must stop drinking so much. She—

“Feeling better today?”

The voice—and the smile—swam rather hazily into her consciousness. It was Chad Lawrence. Who’d made a rather good speech, she thought.

“Yes. Yes, thank you. I’m fine,” she said briskly.

“Good. That was a nasty purler you took. I was afraid you might be a bit bruised this morning.”

She looked at him helplessly. “Was it you who—who helped me up?”

“No, that was Gideon Keeble.”

“What, as in Gideon Keeble, the Billionaire Retailing Tycoon?”

“Absolutely.”

“Oh dear.”

“You thanked him very charmingly. And kissed him tenderly as well.”

“God!” This was getting worse. “It was just—just my heels, they were so high.”

“Of course. Very pretty though. The shoes, I mean. Did you enjoy the party? Otherwise, I mean?”

“Yes, I did. Did you?”

“Yes, I suppose so. Been to a few too many this week. I’ll be glad to get home.”

“Me too. Not my favourite place in the world, this. Although…” Her voice trailed off.

Across the lobby was the horribly familiar figure of Gideon Keeble followed by a hotel lackey pushing a luggage trolley: at least four suitcases, a Gladstone bag, a flight bag, and a suit carrier, all (apart from the Gladstone which was old and leathery) predictably Louis Vuitton. How absurd! Did anyone need that much luggage for four days?

She was about to make a run for it, to say she had to go to the loo, when Chad hailed him.

“Gideon, hello! You off? I was hoping I’d catch you. You’ll remember our young friend of last night. She was just telling me how enormously grateful she was for your help on the dance floor when her heel broke.”

Jocasta looked distractedly up at Gideon Keeble. How could she possibly not have recognised him? God, she must have been drunk. He was very tall, about six foot five, and powerfully built, without being in the least fat. He was tanned and looked as if he spent a lot of time outdoors, and he had an energy that was almost infectious; he wasn’t exactly good-looking, but he had large and brilliant blue eyes, and his dark curly hair was exactly the length Jocasta liked, a little longer than was fashionable, and just flecked with grey.

“Yes. Yes, I was,” she said helplessly, “very grateful. Thank you.”

“It was entirely my pleasure.” He had an accent tinged with Irish and he smiled at her, a brilliant, warm smile. “Is the shoe too sick to be cured?”

“No, I don’t think so. I hope not.”

“Where on earth are you going with all that luggage, Gideon, you old poser?” asked Chad.

“To the States for a week or two. There’s a tempting little morsel over there I’ve got my eye on. I’ll call you when I get back.”

“Fine. Look forward to it. Bye.”

“Goodbye. And goodbye to you, Jocasta. May I say I enjoy your articles very much.”

“You’ve read them?”

“Of course. I regard it as my business to read everything I can. I especially enjoyed your piece last week about that girl in the Bournemouth hotel. The one who said the only people who’d ever properly thanked her for what she’d done for them, in five years of conferences, had been Maggie and the Prescotts. That sounds a bit like a TV programme, doesn’t it? Maggie and the Prescotts—someone should commission it. No, it was excellent. Your piece, I mean.”

“Thank you,” she said, smiling. She got a warmth and excitement that was almost sexual when people admired her work. “From you that’s really praise.”

“Deserved. You’re a clever girl,” he added. “And what a lucky man Nicholas is. I was telling him only last night, he should make an honest woman of you.”

The dark blue eyes sparkled at her. He was flirting with her. How morale boosting was that? And he really was
very
attractive.

“I wish,” she said, laughing. But her heart squeezed suddenly. She wondered what Nick might have said. Whether she could possibly ask…No, she couldn’t. Anyway, she could guess. “I think he prefers me dishonest,” she said, trying to sound amused.

“Then he’s a fool. Girls like you don’t come along too often. With both brains and beauty. I can see my driver looking extremely constipated over there. I’d better go. Farewell to you both.”

“He’s very nice,” said Jocasta, looking after him. She felt slightly weak-kneed.

“Oh, don’t be deceived,” said Chad Lawrence. “That charm is hugely dangerous. And his temper is legendary. Now, let me buy you a coffee or a drink.”

Jocasta was miserable and irritable when they finally got to London: Nick had spent the entire journey in a huddle with a couple of other
Sketch
writers, getting steadily drunk. She had thought she would be able to sleep her hangover off, but she couldn’t; just sat there through the endless uncomfortable journey, with her eyes closed.

“Well,” Nick said as they got off the train, “it seems they’ve made their minds up. Full steam ahead.”

“Ahead where?” she said confusedly.

“The new party. They’ve got some funding now—Keeble has pledged a million or two, and Jackie Bragg’s coming up with an obscene amount. You met her once, didn’t you?”

“Oh yes,” she said. “Very clever girl, Jackie.”

Jackie Bragg had just floated her hugely successful brainchild on the stock exchange. Hair’s to You sent a fleet of highly trained hair stylists to visit offices at any point during the day to blow-dry the tresses of female (and male) executives too busy to leave their desks. Five years ago she had been a brand manager in a small manufacturing company, with a boss who had complained that she never had time to go to the hairdresser; she was now well up the
Sunday Times
Rich List with a second project (the same but different, she was often quoted as saying) planned.

“Indeed. And both are good commercial names—essential when they go on the charm offensive. The new party, that is.”

“I would have thought they’d have a name by now,” said Jocasta.

“Well, they haven’t. Can’t hack that. If
you
can, they’ll probably reward you with a damehood when they come to power. Oh, and did I tell you? Chris is persuaded it’s a good idea. Chad’s invited him up for a shooting weekend—you know how he loves all that country gentleman stuff even while he says they should all be strung up—and of course he and Keeble are old muckers. And—”

“Nick, this is all very fascinating, but I’m terribly tired. I think I’ll just go straight home to Clapham,” she said, expecting him to argue, or at least to say he would come with her; but he gave her a swift kiss on her cheek and said, “OK, sweetie, you do look done for. Call me tomorrow.”

Jocasta stared at him. “Nick! I can’t believe you just said that.”

“Said what?”

“What you just did.”

He looked at her. “Sorry, you’ve lost me. I thought you said you wanted to go back to Clapham.”

“I did. I thought you might want to come with me. Oh, it doesn’t matter.” She felt like crying; crying or hitting him.

“Jocasta—”

“Nick, I trekked all the way up to Blackpool to be with you.”

“That’s not true,” he said easily. “You had to cover the party.”