The Good Wife aka The Good Wife Strikes Back

I sat down to enthusiastic applause.

‘Very graceful,’ said Mannochie. ‘Thank you.’

I was sitting in front of the mirror rubbing cream into my face and getting ready for bed when Will placed a hand on my shoulder.

‘Fanny, I must ask you. I have to ask you. When Raoul came and saw you in Italy. Was that… was it?’

I knew exactly what Will was asking, and I knew he must have thought it over very carefully before he broached the subject. If it had not been for Meg, I am sure he would have tackled me earlier, and the long interval between my telling him that Raoul came to visit and this moment must have given him pain, for which I was sorry.

I continued to smooth the cream into my cheeks and neck and I watched my reflection performing this little everyday routine.

I had it in my power to square an old circle, to redress a balance. I could choose to tell Will the truth. I could say that Raoul offered me sweet and civilized delights, a moment of pleasure and sun, where I was not a wife, but myself… and I could add that I wanted very much to accept.

Or I could tell Will that I had taken Raoul as a lover, but he was not to worry. It was a terrible mistake and certainly was not going to affect our marriage. He would know what I was talking about.

Or I could say that I had thanked Raoul, and replied that I would bear his offer in mind for the future. Keep it stored in the attic, so to speak, and drag it out every so often to dust it off.

I encountered Will’s wary expression in the mirror and put down the tube of cream. It struck me that the politics of a successful marriage involved never asking too straight a question, and in never answering it fully, always leaving that tiny margin of unknowing. It was enough to know that each loved the other, and the rest had to be done with smoke and mirrors and more than a little trust.

I stroked in the final dab of cream. The mirror bore the double burden of me looking at it and being looked into at the same time. My skin gleamed with its expensive lustre and my hair was satisfyingly smart and chic. A girl had grown into a woman who, among other things was a wife and mother. Making sense of what you turned out to be was as much to do with that faith and determination of the will. And, above all, I had my inner room into which I could retreat and draw breath.

I got up and turned round to face Will. ‘It was business.’ I kissed his nose and drew a heart on his chest with my fingertip. ‘Only business.’

‘I’ve had an idea,’ Will said, as he threw back the covers and got into bed. ‘If there’s any money left over from your father’s estate, I think you should make inquiries about buying Casa Rosa. We could do it up. I’ll help you. I like DIY.’

I slid in beside him, and plumped up my pillow. ‘There won’t be enough.’

He smiled conspiratorially. ‘Did I tell you Meg has left me a small amount? You can have it. You must have it.’ He reached out and snapped off the light. ‘That should do.’

23

I had been on the stump for four hours. My feet hurt, and my wretched rosette kept falling off. Our last but one stop was a block of flats down by the river where the concrete walkways were streaked with damp and corridors were littered with… best not to inquire. I knocked on a door that had once been bright blue.

A woman in a plastic apron stuck her head through the window. ‘What do you want?’

I launched into the spiel and she frowned. ‘You lot never talked to us.’

‘But I’m talking to you now.’

‘That’s what you call it.’

Behind me, the junior party apparatchik trailing in my wake sniggered and I gave up. ‘Fine,’ I said, and tried to stuff a leaflet through the letterbox, where it stuck.

I stifled a yawn, as well I might: I had been woken at five thirty a.m. by Mr Tucker, who had demanded to know if my spirit was in good working order.

Good question.

Next up was Mrs Scott, my special assignment, who, I knew, would have spent most of the afternoon preparing tea for my visit.

The apparatchik and I squeezed into her sitting room, where a tray with legs had been laid with a lace napkin and a jug with a beaded cover. In the corner, a television with the sound turned down winked and blinked. ‘I hope you use yours.’ She whipped the cover off the jug.

‘I do, Mrs Scott. I’m very fond of it.’

‘Mrs Savage and I are friends,’ Mrs Scott addressed the apparatchik, ‘she sits in for the minister.’

I glanced around the room. After much tussling, the council had replaced the glass in the front door after the violent neighbours had bashed it in. There was a patch of new plaster, too, where the window had cracked and the damp had got into it. ‘I am glad Will was able to organize to get the repairs. It’s been rather uncomfortable for you, I’m afraid.’

Mrs Scott did not see it this way. ‘If those buggers hadn’t bashed down my door, I would never have got to meet the minister.’

Polling day dawned stormy. I climbed out of our warm bed and pulled back the curtains, The rain rattled across the field, and welled into puddles on the road.

‘Sod it,’ said Will from the bed. ‘No one will go out to vote.’ He picked up the phone and rang Mannochie. While I dressed, a conversation ensued in which my name cropped up. I knew what it meant.

‘Mannochie’s ordered transport for the elderly,’ Will lay back on the pillows, already looking exhausted, ‘but we could use the second car and a driver.’

I picked up my election skirt, not a garment of great beauty but it made me look reliable and approachable, and put it on. ‘I know my duty.’

The polling station was the primary school, where, as the roof leaked, voters dodged around buckets – which, it occurred to me, was not a good advert for Will.

He and I voted, and I set myself to pilot the aged, infirm, and those with small children to and from the polling stations. Every so often I checked in at one of the twenty committee rooms scattered over the constituency for an update.

The day vanished and, after a snatched supper of a banana and yoghurt, the order came: the MP’s wife’s call to arms.

I went home and changed into a dark grey trouser suit, a silk camisole and a pair of pink, soft leather flat shoes. I was, of course, wearing tights. I looked in the mirror and checked my eyelashes. A girl… no, a woman had to consider her strategies. If it was victory, I was primed. If it was defeat, I needed to be at my feminine best. I wanted to go to the death scented, lipsticked, hair in place.

I hid the shadows beneath my eyes with foundation, outlined my mouth in lipstick, blotted it and reapplied a second coat, then brushed my hair until it fell obediently on to my shoulders.

Mannochie caught up with me as I threaded my way through the army of helpers at the party association headquarters. He looked grim, and his hair was lank and unbrushed. ‘Exit polls don’t look so good.’

‘For the party, or for Will?’

‘Hard to say,’ he said, ‘but it’s possible that Will is going to cop it.’

‘Grief, Mannochie.’ I froze on the spot. ‘I thought it might be better on the day.’

‘Politics isn’t a science, but hunches are pretty good too.’

Defeat would come hard to Mannochie as well as to Will. They were linked together like a horse and carriage.

‘We’ve been through it before,’ I said to Mannochie. ‘We’ll survive.’

‘It’s not as though there’s a real reason,’ he said miserably. ‘The economy’s OK. Inflation’s under control. Public services are ticking over.’

I am told that sea-changes in the earth’s composition take place underground in secret. We don’t know about