Goodfellowe realized he had committed a mortal offence by offering him money. ‘You must understand,’ he stammered, ‘a politician can get into great trouble for accepting gifts. People have such suspicious minds. Dammit, they’ll even do away with Christmas next.’ He looked wistfully at the machine. It would be – would have been – the perfect answer, yet it seemed he must lose the wheels just as he had caused Uncle Zhu to lose face.
Suddenly Jya-Yu brightened. ‘Better way,’ she exclaimed. ‘You not take the bike, Minister Goodfellowe. You borrow it instead. Long term. And if Uncle Zhu ever need it, he take it back.’ Her face lit in mischief. ‘But you understand, his legs very short. I don’t think he can reach pedals. So you take care of it until Uncle Zhu’s legs grow.’
They both laughed, while the Chinaman stood immobile and uncomprehending. Goodfellowe, his objections overwhelmed by her advice and perhaps just a hint of avarice, gave what he hoped was a dignified bow and accepted the bicycle and the plate. Zhu smiled in relief and immediately turned away, Jya-Yu scurrying after him.
‘Just as long as it didn’t fall off the back of a lorry,’ Goodfellowe admonished as they retreated.
‘Oh, no, Minister Goodfellowe. It not even touch the ground. Look, no dents.’
And they were gone, leaving Goodfellowe clutching six sticky buns and a collapsible bike.
‘You look like a train-spotter.’ Mickey Ross, Goodfellowe’s secretary at the House of Commons, was nothing if not direct. She was also mid-twenties, vivacious, Jewish, formidably competent and possessor of a biting wit delivered with a lingering trace of Estuary English which marked her out as being not quite like the rest.
On this occasion no one could argue that she was being less than objective. She had walked in to find Goodfellowe standing in his parliamentary office, his trousers still confined within bicycle clips, his shoes hurled to the far side of the room and a raw toe poking through a new hole in his sock.
‘New shoes. A waste of money,’ he muttered.
‘The old ones were practically walking on their own,’ she scolded.
‘Anyway,’ he riposted, ‘aren’t you wearing the same clothes as yesterday? Didn’t you get home last night?’
‘I got waylaid,’ she mumbled, losing herself within the pile of morning post she was carrying.
‘With Justin?’
‘No. Not with Justin,’ she replied, sounding as if her fiancé’s name had suddenly become a complicated foreign language.
‘Mickey,’ he lectured, ‘I thought you said you have principles.’
It was a mistake, he should have known better. She only knew one means of defence, which was onslaught.
‘I do have my principles and I had my principles last night, too. It’s just that I lost them.’
‘Where?’
She pouted. ‘In the hotel lift on the way up to his room. I left them in a bag. A very small bag. Don’t worry. I found them again this morning on the way down.’ And with that she dumped the mountain of morning mail on his desk. It overflowed like an exploding volcano onto the floor, and he bent down to retrieve it with a groan. ‘And Beryl has just called,’ she added, with bite. ‘The reception on Friday week starts at seven prompt and I’m to remind you once more that it’s one of the biggest fund-raising bashes of the year.’
His groans grew more passionate. Beryl Hailstone was the chairmonster of his local party in Marsh wood. A woman of similar age to Goodfellowe, she had once made a pass at him, had been rejected in instinctive and unthinking horror, and had never forgiven.
It seemed unlikely that this was to be Goodfellowe’s day, for on top of the pile of correspondence he had retrieved from the floor was a letter from his bank manager. The letters from his bank were getting shorter and more peremptory in the months since the old manager had been forced to make way for a new, younger model. The personal touch and understanding had gone, and in its place Goodfellowe had found only codes of financial conduct set by computer and implemented by automatons who sounded on the telephone as though they should be selling fruit from a barrow in Brewer Street.
‘Sorry,’ Mickey offered, her concern genuine. She was always the first to know. She was the one who sorted out the rental for the fax machine and computer, booked his train tickets, picked up his dry cleaning, took care of so many corners of his private life and knew often before he did when the autumn of his accounting had turned to harshest winter. Like now.
He shivered. ‘Do you find you can never sleep?’
‘Sadly not. Men simply don’t have the stamina.’ She paused, noticing the shadows of exhaustion beneath his eyes. ‘But something’s troubling you, Tom.’
‘I had another set-to with Sammy.’ His tone was quiet, stripped of all pretension.
‘What was it this time?’
‘The usual. She wanted money for some charitable fashion show she’s putting on at school. I said something … well, she caught me at the wrong moment, I suppose. So she stormed off without any money, I was left without any invitation and I don’t even know when I’m going to see her again. My own daughter. Added to that I got a bollocking last night from the Chief Whip for missing several votes. He was particularly foul. I think I’ve decided I hate the entire bloody world. Or is it simply that they hate me?’
With a sense of bitter purpose he drew back his desk drawer. Reaching within, his fingers closed around a feather-flighted dart. He measured the weight in his hand, smoothing its feathers, stroking it as though like a weapon of mercy it might relieve him of all his cares. Then he hurled it in the direction of a notice board on the opposite wall on which was hung a collage of images already peppered with holes. A photograph of Beryl Hailstone. And one of the Chief Whip. The letter of introduction from his new bank manager. His Liberal opponent’s manifesto from the last election. A photocopy of an uncomplimentary piece by a Guardian sketchwriter. And other pieces. The bill for his final car service just before he sold it. A final demand. The label from a bad bottle of Australian Shiraz which had promised undertones of blackcurrant but instead had suggested beetles. Items from his life brought together by only one strand of logic, the fact that he loathed them.
The dart missed completely and stuck fast in the panelling above. He’d failed again.
‘Bugger it. I can’t even be miserable any more.’
Mickey began to laugh, playing with his self-pity, challenging him to turn his frustration on her, to find an outlet and let it pass. Clouds of anger flooded across his eyes, warning of the approaching storm.
‘You’re a witch.’
‘You’re right. And I shall probably burn. But in the meantime,’ she said, sitting primly on the chair in front of his desk and taking out her notepad, ‘let’s see if we can’t cast a spell on a few others. Like the bank manager,’ she announced, ticking him off a list. ‘He’s young, bound to be pathetically impressionable. Invite him to lunch on the Terrace. For the price of a plate of subsidized sausage and a half-decent bottle of wine you’ll be able to tie up your overdraft for months. You can invite me too. I’ll be sweet to him, and you know I’m irresistible.’
‘You are incorrigible.’ He meant it as an ill-tempered accusation. ‘How do you have the nerve to slink out of hotels looking guilty?’
‘I don’t. What’s the point in slinking out looking guilty when you can stride out and let everyone know you’ve had a good time?’ Ignoring his scowl, she returned to her list. ‘Darling Beryl will be quite content if you’re on time and wearing trousers and are nice to the right guests. I’ll type you out a list.’
‘If God is merciful I shall die first.’
‘So long as you’re wearing trousers, that’s fine.’ She put the notepad aside. ‘Then there’s Sam.’
He