‘Yes, you’ve not long had a baby, have you? How’s he doing?’
‘Oh – fine, yes.’ (When he’s next door, she thought.)
‘Well, I think it’s very brave of you to come here today. Good luck with the vote. We’re voting for Mr Knelston; we like the way he’s been down so often, taken a real interest in the town. The other one,’ she said darkly, ‘we don’t see his face from one month to the next. Great fat toff. Not that we’d vote Tory anyway. Oh, now look, your husband’s coming over for you. Bye-bye, dear. Very nice to talk to you.’
‘Very nice to talk to you,’ said Alice. And she meant it.
They stopped at a pub for lunch, then whirled on. Alice was so exhausted she began to feel she was hallucinating.
Tom looked at her. ‘Want a break?’
‘No, of course not. Do I really have to go on drinking tea, though?’
‘Yes, I’m sorry.’
‘I never want to see a teapot again.’
The next polling station was a school; shabbily cheerful, with peeling paint and threadbare lino, but dozens of children’s paintings and poems, carefully written out, were pinned on the wall. Alice stopped to admire them. The headmaster was there: he came over to them.
‘We’re looking to you to help us if you get in,’ he said to Tom. ‘Even with enough money for a few cans of paint.’
‘We’ll certainly try,’ Tom said. ‘Increasing the education budget is right at the top of our manifesto, and that would include maintenance of the buildings themselves, obviously.’
He and the headmaster moved on; Colin grinned at Alice.
‘He’s talking through his hat,’ he said. ‘It’s the council who allot spending, what goes on what and where. Still, does no harm to make them think we can help.’
At six, they went back to HQ, and Alice phoned the hospital; her mother was still with Kit.
‘He’s absolutely fine, dear, very happy. He’s been up for most of the day, far too long I’d have said for a child who’s had major surgery less than a week ago, but I suppose they know best.’
Her tone implied that the hospital knew nothing of the sort.
‘I’ll just wait till he’s asleep and then I’ll head over to Acton. Mrs Hartley not being on the telephone is very inconvenient, I must say. She’s a curious woman. I popped in to introduce myself on the way in to town – pleasant enough, I suppose, but she has a very odd attitude to Charlie, almost as if she was his grandmother, not me. Still, it’s only for one night.’
The count was in the town hall, a huge Victorian building; they stayed at the last polling station they had visited until it closed, and then waited while the boxes were sealed and carried out to waiting cars. It was a very emotional moment. Alice looked at them, thinking, in those boxes lies my future and the future of my family. Whichever way it goes. Possibly even of my marriage.
She looked at her watch: four hours at the very least to wait. It seemed a very long time.
They didn’t win, of course. It was close, but not as close as the by-election. The nationwide swing was too big; there were no Labour gains at all and twenty-three losses. Tom looked calmly cheerful and made a short, simple speech, knowing he could never recapture the drama of the last time. He thanked all the workers, particularly Colin, ‘And of course my wife, who has supported me throughout, and enjoyed today so much she says she’s thinking of entering parliament herself.’
‘Tom,’ said Alice suddenly as they drove home through the darkness, ‘pull over, would you? I want to talk to you about something.’
‘Can’t it wait till we’re home?’ He sounded defensive.
‘No. No, it can’t.’
‘Right. Well, let me find somewhere safer than this.’
They reached a bus stop; he pulled in.
‘This sounds serious. Should I be nervous?’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘you should.’
She felt no nerves, just a cold confidence in herself which echoed in her voice.
‘Tom,’ she said, ‘have you been having an affair with Diana Southcott?’
And without hesitation, although in a less steady voice, he said, ‘Yes. I’m afraid I have. But it’s over.’
‘Oh, really. And why should I believe that? When all those evenings you told me you were at meetings and rallies and making speeches, you were in her bed?’
‘I – don’t know,’ he said. ‘I don’t know why you should believe it.’
‘Well, no. When you seem to be one of the most practised, skilful liars – probably the most – I have ever met.’
‘But it is true. You must trust me on that, at least.’
‘Trust you?’ she said, and her voice was so filled with scorn that she saw him physically wince. ‘Trust you? When you took advantage of me, when I was at my lowest ebb – pregnant, sick, exhausted, hideous—’
‘No,’ he said, ‘not hideous. I never, ever found you that.’
‘Tom, please don’t lie. It’s disgusting. Hideous – and completely unable to fight back. How could you do that, Tom, how could you? It makes a travesty of our marriage, of our family, of everything I thought we had. Tell me how it happened and I’ll feel just a little less – shocked.’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I really don’t know. I suppose because I’m a complete shit. Simple as that. It certainly had nothing to do with any – any comparison between you and her.’
‘It must have had. Unless you just needed some sex – I admit there wasn’t a lot on offer – but a prostitute could have done that for you.’
‘Alice . . .’
‘Come on, what was it? The fact that she’s so beautiful? Which she certainly is. Famous? Does it tickle your vanity in some strange way, to have got your cock into some world-famous model?’
‘Alice! I hate it when you talk like that.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry. Not as much as I hate it when you act like that. Answer me, Tom, I need to know.’
‘Well,’ he said, after a long silence, ‘and this reflects appallingly on me. It’s what she could offer, that wasn’t sex. Like a house that wasn’t overrun with toys, a conversation peppered with other things than babies, a feeling that for a few hours I was free.’
‘You are DISGUSTING.’ It was a roar of pain and rage, that of a trapped animal. ‘I hate you, I truly do hate you, loathe you for that. How could you throw that at me, the very things you had done to me?’
‘Alice, Alice, you were extremely keen to have babies, you made not the slightest effort, as far as I could see, to offer me anything more.’
‘I was TOO TIRED!’ She was shouting now, beyond outrage.
‘I know. And I’m sorry for that. But there was nothing else there for me. And, at the same time, you had the audacity to cling to this obsession about Laura. I couldn’t stand it any longer, Alice. It was as simple as that. I’m sorry.’
‘Laura!’ she said, her voice heavy with despair. ‘Yes, another rival for your affections. Or rather your love. I think, in a way, I still mind more about her. The way you keep her hidden, close to yourself, won’t share that part of your life with me. Your whole life, for as many years as we’ve been together, was about Laura.’