Part One Hundred
The Autumn sun shone brightly through her window but thunderclouds were clearly heading in her direction personally from the approaching footsteps up the staircase that was clearly Neil Houghton. It helped for him to jump through the hoop of the receptionist and coming upstairs to her office where she was on her home ground. Her inner sanctum made her feel more secure.
George had to leave as unfinished business her thoughts on how the Karen who walked out of the door was definitely not at home with herself and not the woman whom she thought she was. She had work to do on the case against area management. Neil landing on her doorstep was a tiresome intrusion. Something at the back of her mind told her that sooner or later, she would have to face him again.
There was a polite knock on the door and Neil sheepishly let himself in. George immediately waved him to the visitor's chair. Neil stood uneasily in mid tread, intending to move closer to her but, as a goodmorning kiss was clearly not on the cards, ended up visibly not being sure where to put himself.
"We had to talk," Neil blurted out, as if he had been rehearsing this line which, whatever the context, he would have come out with.
"That's what you said last time, Neil," George said in low but firm tones. At the back of her mind, Neil served a useful function for the first time since she had known him in being a convenient object of displaced feelings of discomfort after Karen had talked of psychiatric examinations.
"I did?" Neil's puzzled voice betrayed that his memory had malfunctioned.
"Don't you remember the day when John pinned you up against the wall? He looked so strong and masterful." Her voice drawled with exquisite sarcasm. "Anyway," George added nonchalantly. "Your way of talking is with your fists."
Neil coughed nervously with embarrassment, strange for the man who according to himself, 'never got rattled.'
"That was an unfortunate mistake, George. I am not in the habit of behaving that way."
"Oh, indeed," George scoffed. "I ought to check that one with your previous women before I believe you." In her best theatrical tradition, she did not miss the use of the word, 'that' to distance himself from his excuses rather than 'this' and be drawn in to starting to forgiving him. But trust a politician to behave that way. She should know as she'd lived with one.
"You've changed," Neil said simply, one of the rare occasions that he came out with the first thing that came in to his mind. "Is it an illusion or are you slimmer than when I saw you last?"
"Yes, well, it's all a matter of self control and discipline, Neil," George ungraciously and suspiciously replied. "It's the nearest you've come to a compliment. It must mean you want something."
"It's just that I haven't seen you for a long time," Neil's smooth tones rolled out like honey. "Absence makes the heart grow fonder, you know. I've missed you, George."
"More like you are missing the weekly screw, Neil. I've moved on from you."
"I suppose that all this means is that you've hooked up with the Deed. I could tell that a mile away," Neil said sniffily.
George laughed in her brittle fashion at the absurdity of the thought of Neil having deep psychological insight into her feelings.
"Wouldn't you like to know?" George teased, knowing full well that Neil was guessing. "Anyway," she added with aplomb, "It's no business of yours who I sleep with any more than mine of some unfortunate woman who is dazzled by your status and position."
"George, listen to me," Neil urged. "I'm not very good at expressing my feelings and I know that there might have been misunderstandings in the past but really we ought to talk them through……….."
Neil was talking in the typical way a politician talks. Where a normal human being would use simple and concise words to come to the point, his innate fear of simple formulations made his mouth work almost without intervention from his brain, collecting worn out phrases as a council workman will rake in dead leaves strewn about in the park. After all, parliamentary debate in the House of Commons involved the same ability to waffle on for hours.
George's eyes were glazing over after the first few minutes and, in a moment of pure tedium, she watched the second hand of the wall clock immediately behind Neil as it silently clicked its way geometrically from the starting position of 12 to complete the lap and do it again and again.
In the meantime, Neil sneaked a sidelong glance at George's computer screen.
"Sexual Offences Act 2003:
Rape
A person (A) commits an offence if-
he intentionally penetrates the vagina, anus or mouth of another person (B) with his penis,
B does not consent to the penetration, and
A does not reasonably believe that B consents."
"……What's that you're doing, George?" Neil suddenly broke in. "Not your usual kind of work. Are you doing work for the other side?"
Her mind went temporarily blank and then an improbable vision of Neil as a glamorous, blue suited James Bond character, complete with smoking gun and herself as an even more improbably named Pussy Galore. She shook her head in wonder.
"But working for the Russians is perfectly respectable these days. Look at President Putin, for example."
For once, Neil thought that this was one of George's sarcastic barbs but had got it wrong.
"I mean, it all looks very suspicious. Charging huge fees in company law is more your style."
"If you must know, Neil, though God knows why I am telling you, I'm preparing a case against the Prison Service area management for negligence in the way that it has consistently failed to take action against that loathsome reptile Mr James Fenner in his systematic sexual abuse, both against the women in his care and also other prison officers. Of course, it may hit the tabloid press 'Fennergate- another Blow for Blair's hopes.' Is that clear enough for you?"
Neil shook his head in puzzlement, having for so long taken for granted George's place in the scheme of things and having taken on board, hints in his direction that members of the Cabinet ought to set a traditional family type of image, especially from the example set to them all.
"You used to be relied upon to bat for the right team," Neil spoke in tones of chilly reproof. "The Attorney General always spoke highly of your skill in extricating the British government from a difficult situation."
"You mean that I was Mrs. Fixit whenever, morally speaking, you and your cronies were caught with your trousers down," George cut in derisively. "And in full view of the paparazzi. Sorry, Neil, but, as I've said before, I've moved on."
"So what sort of political mischief are you cooking up, George?"
"You heard what I said. I'm taking what work I choose that comes my way rather than letting you push the sort of squalid enterprises on me that you have in the past. I've had a run of judgements going against me and why? Because the cases were flawed from beginning to end. I would sooner take my chances with cases I actually believe in for a change. If I can use my skills to enable a woman who was seriously wronged by that ghastly Fenner character, then I'm doing something useful in my life."
"You're sounding more and more like Deed every day," Neil scoffed.
"Do you know what it's like to be raped?" George's tone switched suddenly from languid disdain to steely contempt.
"No of course not, but neither do you."
"No, but I do know what it's like for someone to use his strength against me."
"By the way, George, How does Deed know about that picture that hung in our bedroom? And just how much were you responsible for him coming to retrieve your door key from me?"
George smiled that evil, hugely self satisfied triumphant smile of hers.
"That's what you really came to see me about, none of this 'we'll kiss and make up, darling' routine. That's not your style, either. There's always some ulterior motive in anything you do. That's your trouble. While John, charging over to see you to get my front door key from you at the House of Commons, how romantic."
"Then there's nothing more to be said." Neil's suppressed anger boiled over. George took a step back automatically, suddenly aware that thanks to her secretary being ill, she was on her own.
Fortunately, Neil turned on his heel and went to storm out of the door. Just before the door shut, George spoke in a theatrical aside.
"I'm so exhausted these days."
George made her way back to her computer. This one case was starting to accumulate a vast amount of material and she was starting to create sub folders to hold all the associated material. Fortunately, she held all the information she wanted to know which stretched over time and the complex relationships at Larkhall. She shivered inside when some of the memories of her day at Larkhall started to come back to her. She had felt very uncomfortable at the way it diminished her power over her environment. She had always taken that for granted as something that she enjoyed as of right from her position in society and her own force of personality.
This wasn't some impartial company deal, she reflected. It only took the statement from Shell Dockley for the case to be started and her secretary, when she had condescended to get back to work from her sickbed, to start typing out the summonses which needed to be served. It was curious that she was having some sort of renaissance in her approach to legal work which, for the first time, involved real people with whom, in her detached way, she could not help identifying with to a certain extent. She cursed the way, though, that her secretary who knew her way through the complexities of her cases and records, left her to sort her way through what seemed like the reams of random post which had landed on the front doormat. Perhaps, she ought to make a good resolution to be nicer to her and then maybe she wouldn't have been left in the lurch today.
On a whim to ease her feelings of frustration and anger against inanimate paperwork, she phoned the one person for a casual chat which, in reality, was the person she felt safest with, John.
"Deed," he said automatically.
"John, darling," the very familiar aristocratic drawl answered him. "I have just had that pathetic drip, Neil Houghton at my office. He was complaining about the way you took the key to my house away from him. You must have seriously offended him."
John laughed heartily down the phone. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask George how she could have put up with him all this time but he refrained from the comment that would make George feel defensive. He well knew that a defensive George would suddenly bite back.
"I'm glad that I had that effect on him. I am sure that you sent him on his way."
George laughed that slightly flirtatious laugh of hers. It was like the old days when he would phone up from some town where he was sent as defence barrister on one of his crusades while she was in the City of London, starting to make her reputation. Things were simpler in those days before in later years, she found out that the circuit was a very convenient mechanism to enable his philandering and he would make up by being extra nice to her on the phone, the morning after. While John was only aware of her lively flow of conversation and apparent good spirits, deep down, her own spirits had plunged abruptly into that feeling of desolation which she covered so well with that perfect mask of hers. Jo was in the relationship, the woman she had once labelled Miss Oxfam. George's newfound feeling of not wanting to see her hurt confused her even though what she was doing would be instrumental in this if it ever came out. This was definitely not the good old days, even though she was tempted just for those few minutes to pretend a little. It made life easier to bear.
The Autumn sun shone brightly through her window but thunderclouds were clearly heading in her direction personally from the approaching footsteps up the staircase that was clearly Neil Houghton. It helped for him to jump through the hoop of the receptionist and coming upstairs to her office where she was on her home ground. Her inner sanctum made her feel more secure.
George had to leave as unfinished business her thoughts on how the Karen who walked out of the door was definitely not at home with herself and not the woman whom she thought she was. She had work to do on the case against area management. Neil landing on her doorstep was a tiresome intrusion. Something at the back of her mind told her that sooner or later, she would have to face him again.
There was a polite knock on the door and Neil sheepishly let himself in. George immediately waved him to the visitor's chair. Neil stood uneasily in mid tread, intending to move closer to her but, as a goodmorning kiss was clearly not on the cards, ended up visibly not being sure where to put himself.
"We had to talk," Neil blurted out, as if he had been rehearsing this line which, whatever the context, he would have come out with.
"That's what you said last time, Neil," George said in low but firm tones. At the back of her mind, Neil served a useful function for the first time since she had known him in being a convenient object of displaced feelings of discomfort after Karen had talked of psychiatric examinations.
"I did?" Neil's puzzled voice betrayed that his memory had malfunctioned.
"Don't you remember the day when John pinned you up against the wall? He looked so strong and masterful." Her voice drawled with exquisite sarcasm. "Anyway," George added nonchalantly. "Your way of talking is with your fists."
Neil coughed nervously with embarrassment, strange for the man who according to himself, 'never got rattled.'
"That was an unfortunate mistake, George. I am not in the habit of behaving that way."
"Oh, indeed," George scoffed. "I ought to check that one with your previous women before I believe you." In her best theatrical tradition, she did not miss the use of the word, 'that' to distance himself from his excuses rather than 'this' and be drawn in to starting to forgiving him. But trust a politician to behave that way. She should know as she'd lived with one.
"You've changed," Neil said simply, one of the rare occasions that he came out with the first thing that came in to his mind. "Is it an illusion or are you slimmer than when I saw you last?"
"Yes, well, it's all a matter of self control and discipline, Neil," George ungraciously and suspiciously replied. "It's the nearest you've come to a compliment. It must mean you want something."
"It's just that I haven't seen you for a long time," Neil's smooth tones rolled out like honey. "Absence makes the heart grow fonder, you know. I've missed you, George."
"More like you are missing the weekly screw, Neil. I've moved on from you."
"I suppose that all this means is that you've hooked up with the Deed. I could tell that a mile away," Neil said sniffily.
George laughed in her brittle fashion at the absurdity of the thought of Neil having deep psychological insight into her feelings.
"Wouldn't you like to know?" George teased, knowing full well that Neil was guessing. "Anyway," she added with aplomb, "It's no business of yours who I sleep with any more than mine of some unfortunate woman who is dazzled by your status and position."
"George, listen to me," Neil urged. "I'm not very good at expressing my feelings and I know that there might have been misunderstandings in the past but really we ought to talk them through……….."
Neil was talking in the typical way a politician talks. Where a normal human being would use simple and concise words to come to the point, his innate fear of simple formulations made his mouth work almost without intervention from his brain, collecting worn out phrases as a council workman will rake in dead leaves strewn about in the park. After all, parliamentary debate in the House of Commons involved the same ability to waffle on for hours.
George's eyes were glazing over after the first few minutes and, in a moment of pure tedium, she watched the second hand of the wall clock immediately behind Neil as it silently clicked its way geometrically from the starting position of 12 to complete the lap and do it again and again.
In the meantime, Neil sneaked a sidelong glance at George's computer screen.
"Sexual Offences Act 2003:
Rape
A person (A) commits an offence if-
he intentionally penetrates the vagina, anus or mouth of another person (B) with his penis,
B does not consent to the penetration, and
A does not reasonably believe that B consents."
"……What's that you're doing, George?" Neil suddenly broke in. "Not your usual kind of work. Are you doing work for the other side?"
Her mind went temporarily blank and then an improbable vision of Neil as a glamorous, blue suited James Bond character, complete with smoking gun and herself as an even more improbably named Pussy Galore. She shook her head in wonder.
"But working for the Russians is perfectly respectable these days. Look at President Putin, for example."
For once, Neil thought that this was one of George's sarcastic barbs but had got it wrong.
"I mean, it all looks very suspicious. Charging huge fees in company law is more your style."
"If you must know, Neil, though God knows why I am telling you, I'm preparing a case against the Prison Service area management for negligence in the way that it has consistently failed to take action against that loathsome reptile Mr James Fenner in his systematic sexual abuse, both against the women in his care and also other prison officers. Of course, it may hit the tabloid press 'Fennergate- another Blow for Blair's hopes.' Is that clear enough for you?"
Neil shook his head in puzzlement, having for so long taken for granted George's place in the scheme of things and having taken on board, hints in his direction that members of the Cabinet ought to set a traditional family type of image, especially from the example set to them all.
"You used to be relied upon to bat for the right team," Neil spoke in tones of chilly reproof. "The Attorney General always spoke highly of your skill in extricating the British government from a difficult situation."
"You mean that I was Mrs. Fixit whenever, morally speaking, you and your cronies were caught with your trousers down," George cut in derisively. "And in full view of the paparazzi. Sorry, Neil, but, as I've said before, I've moved on."
"So what sort of political mischief are you cooking up, George?"
"You heard what I said. I'm taking what work I choose that comes my way rather than letting you push the sort of squalid enterprises on me that you have in the past. I've had a run of judgements going against me and why? Because the cases were flawed from beginning to end. I would sooner take my chances with cases I actually believe in for a change. If I can use my skills to enable a woman who was seriously wronged by that ghastly Fenner character, then I'm doing something useful in my life."
"You're sounding more and more like Deed every day," Neil scoffed.
"Do you know what it's like to be raped?" George's tone switched suddenly from languid disdain to steely contempt.
"No of course not, but neither do you."
"No, but I do know what it's like for someone to use his strength against me."
"By the way, George, How does Deed know about that picture that hung in our bedroom? And just how much were you responsible for him coming to retrieve your door key from me?"
George smiled that evil, hugely self satisfied triumphant smile of hers.
"That's what you really came to see me about, none of this 'we'll kiss and make up, darling' routine. That's not your style, either. There's always some ulterior motive in anything you do. That's your trouble. While John, charging over to see you to get my front door key from you at the House of Commons, how romantic."
"Then there's nothing more to be said." Neil's suppressed anger boiled over. George took a step back automatically, suddenly aware that thanks to her secretary being ill, she was on her own.
Fortunately, Neil turned on his heel and went to storm out of the door. Just before the door shut, George spoke in a theatrical aside.
"I'm so exhausted these days."
George made her way back to her computer. This one case was starting to accumulate a vast amount of material and she was starting to create sub folders to hold all the associated material. Fortunately, she held all the information she wanted to know which stretched over time and the complex relationships at Larkhall. She shivered inside when some of the memories of her day at Larkhall started to come back to her. She had felt very uncomfortable at the way it diminished her power over her environment. She had always taken that for granted as something that she enjoyed as of right from her position in society and her own force of personality.
This wasn't some impartial company deal, she reflected. It only took the statement from Shell Dockley for the case to be started and her secretary, when she had condescended to get back to work from her sickbed, to start typing out the summonses which needed to be served. It was curious that she was having some sort of renaissance in her approach to legal work which, for the first time, involved real people with whom, in her detached way, she could not help identifying with to a certain extent. She cursed the way, though, that her secretary who knew her way through the complexities of her cases and records, left her to sort her way through what seemed like the reams of random post which had landed on the front doormat. Perhaps, she ought to make a good resolution to be nicer to her and then maybe she wouldn't have been left in the lurch today.
On a whim to ease her feelings of frustration and anger against inanimate paperwork, she phoned the one person for a casual chat which, in reality, was the person she felt safest with, John.
"Deed," he said automatically.
"John, darling," the very familiar aristocratic drawl answered him. "I have just had that pathetic drip, Neil Houghton at my office. He was complaining about the way you took the key to my house away from him. You must have seriously offended him."
John laughed heartily down the phone. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask George how she could have put up with him all this time but he refrained from the comment that would make George feel defensive. He well knew that a defensive George would suddenly bite back.
"I'm glad that I had that effect on him. I am sure that you sent him on his way."
George laughed that slightly flirtatious laugh of hers. It was like the old days when he would phone up from some town where he was sent as defence barrister on one of his crusades while she was in the City of London, starting to make her reputation. Things were simpler in those days before in later years, she found out that the circuit was a very convenient mechanism to enable his philandering and he would make up by being extra nice to her on the phone, the morning after. While John was only aware of her lively flow of conversation and apparent good spirits, deep down, her own spirits had plunged abruptly into that feeling of desolation which she covered so well with that perfect mask of hers. Jo was in the relationship, the woman she had once labelled Miss Oxfam. George's newfound feeling of not wanting to see her hurt confused her even though what she was doing would be instrumental in this if it ever came out. This was definitely not the good old days, even though she was tempted just for those few minutes to pretend a little. It made life easier to bear.