The fields were bristling with stubble as our heavily laden car nosed between them, and the leaves on the beeches swayed in the breeze. From the back of the car where I sat with Chloe, I looked out on the fields. Like them or not, they were going to be companion presences.
Mannochie was waiting at the front door. The professional smile deepened into the genuine article as he helped me out of the car. ‘Welcome to you all,’ he said, in a quaintly formal way. On cue, Chloe woke up and began to cry. ‘May I?’ asked Mannochie, and picked her up. Would you know? Chloe stopped crying.
‘I didn’t know you were good with babies, Mannochie.’
‘She’s lovely.’ Mannochie was rocking Chloe in a way she liked.
Will peered over his shoulder. ‘She is, isn’t she?’
I left them to it and stepped over the threshold. The men had been hard at work on the house for the last few weeks, and it had been decorated, with cheap job lots from a DIY store, and carpets had been laid.
The freshly varnished banisters felt a little sticky under my hand as I went upstairs and the virgin carpet was slippery underfoot. The first thing I did in our bedroom was tug open the window and allow the fresh air to dilute the fug of fresh paint.
My body ached and my mind was as dull and spongy as batter that had been allowed to stand overlong. Except when I looked at Chloe, I felt cold and distanced, without life and energy.
Somewhere, far away, a baby was crying. Resentment flickered: I had lost what I now saw as the privilege of being alone.
Mannochie padded upstairs. ‘Chloe’s crying.’
I did not move. ‘I know’
He tried again. ‘She seems hungry.’
I knew I should close the window and go downstairs. But I wanted to remain at my vantage-point, observe the rooks wheeling above their eyries and the gun-metal sky.
Mannochie touched my arm. A non-threatening, polite gesture. ‘Fanny, have you seen the doctor lately?’
Tears ran down beside my mouth. I had lost something. My tree-house and the freedom I had known up in the branches were in another country, far, far away. Without a doubt, I would grow older – and old – and never again go there.
My tears were also fearful: I was frightened I would be unable to perform in my roles, that I could not
I put out my tongue and tasted salt. ‘Why would I need a doctor?’
‘
Reluctantly, I turned. ‘Give her to me.’
He thrust her into my arms and peered at me. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Fine,’ I said.
The men returned downstairs, and while they brought in the luggage I sat down with Chloe and fed her. Enchanted, enraptured and angry, I watched the busy little button mouth, the little veins in the almost transparent eyelids. ‘You’re a greedy minx,’ I informed her.
Chloe took no notice. After she had finished, her head fell back and she slept. Gradually, the jangle of feelings inside me subsided.
Will came up with a cup of tea and watched us fondly. His presence was calming and, suddenly, I felt almost peaceful and happy.
‘Here,’ he said, and settled me against his shoulder, and took Chloe on to his lap. ‘Just sit for a while. There’s no hurry.
‘I love you both very much,’ he added.
‘OK, ready,’ called the photographer from the
I tried to hide my still bulky stomach behind Will.
‘Smile and look to the left.’
The experience was not as bad as I had feared. It fact it was fun to be the focus of attention and, at any other time, I might have taken to it.
‘Could we have the baby now, please?’
The one thing that Will and I agreed on absolutely was to stick to the principle of keeping Chloe out of photographs and publicity. Yet, here we were, with Chloe only a month old, in the town hall at a press conference. It was, we agreed, a minor emergency.
A more senior MP had been taken ill, and Will had been press-ganged into a TV discussion panel on transport. In the heat of the moment, he fumbled over a phrase, which made it sound as if he was taking the opposite view to party policy, which was a big, black mark against him.
After the programme, he had driven home to Stanwinton and, during the night, had been very sick. I held his head and mopped up and made him tea.
He drank it gratefully and muttered, ‘I do this sometimes when things go wrong. Silly, isn’t it?’
His confession touched me deeply and I sat up with him into the small hours while we tried to work out the best damage limitation plan.
The morning papers reported on the programme and picked out Will for special mention. ‘Fluency with integrity,’ wrote one (upmarket) critic. ‘A Prince Charming delivers,’ wrote another (downmarket). Mannochie got on the phone and they agreed some well-focused local publicity would go a long way to propping up his image in the constituency.
One of the reporters asked, ‘How do you feel about being the most glamorous couple in Parliament?’
A girl in leather trousers stuck up a finger. ‘Are you feeding the baby yourself, Mrs Savage?’
Mannochie intervened. ‘If you wish to question Will on policy, now is the moment.’
The girl made a face.
Relaxed and smiling, Will allowed the photographers to take as many shots as they wished and answered all their questions. Then I spotted the expression in his eyes that was neither patient nor obedient. It was a private expression that only I could interpret – a signpost to the secret, erotic territory that we shared – and it made my senses quiver.
Mannochie had arranged that I would give one interview and I retreated with Chloe, who was behaving beautifully, into a smaller room with the girl in leather trousers whose name was Lucy.
She set down a tape-recorder between us. ‘How do you see the role of today’s political wife?’
‘It’s developing…’ I replied. In the sudden quiet, my exhilaration vanished, my bones almost burned with fatigue, and the weight of my broken nights hung like oil paintings under my eyes.
‘So, not the traditional helpmeet, then?’
‘Wives are different from the way they used to be.’
‘Would you vote differently from your husband?’
‘If I felt it was right.’
She looked extra sympathetic. ‘Given that political marriages are, for obvious reasons, at risk, do you think you can hack it with motherhood and a career?’
I resented the implication that Will and I were doomed. ‘I am not prepared to answer that question,’ I said. ‘As you will have noticed, my baby is still very young.’
From that moment, the interview limped.
Two days later, the article was published. The headline read: ‘Sceptical and Independent, the Modern MP’s Wife Votes against Her Husband’. The text read: ‘Fanny Savage is one of a new breed: a modern woman with a career and a mind of her own. If she felt it was right, she would vote for the opposition.’
Pearl Veriker rang while I was still in bed feeding Chloe, and read the article out over the phone. ‘That was so unwise, Fanny. A betrayal, even.’
With a sick feeling, I realized that Pearl’s rulebook was more complicated than I had thought. ‘Pearl, I am entitled to my own views, and this is hardly treason.’
But, as with the wearing of tights, it seemed that there was no room for negotiation. In the end, I handed the phone over to Will and listened to him finessing Pearl back into calm.
This particular mess
