Chapter 9
You should have looked after her better.
Erica's funeral hurtles up faster than Nicola has anticipated, and arrives before Malcolm thinks she's ready to deal with it. Although, this is in part because she hasn't discussed it with him. Malcolm is more concerned by the lack of communication as he is by any other aspect of her response to the incident in Russia.
The boundaries of their relationship were, understandably difficult to navigate in the beginning, and Nicola kept Malcolm entirely at arms' length from her work. He would be secreted somewhere she couldn't see if she was making a speech, arguing that he put her off.
"It's like fucking, Nam flashbacks, Malcolm. All I can think of if I see you in the crowd is 'Jesus, what's Tucker going to bollock me about after this one?" In those days, he put her off as badly as he did when he strolled into her Richard Bacon interview and even the sight of him derailed her. Now, Nicola is largely desensitised to it, and usually when she has an important speech to give, she tries to run it past Malcolm. He has learnt, after many very vicious shouting matches, to give her advice that is ninety percent spousal and ten percent communications expert, rather than the other way around. However, as late in the game as the night before the funeral, Nicola has not so much as mentioned the eulogy to Malcolm since the night in the kitchen. Malcolm wants her to talk to him about it, but he's endeavoured throughout this whole process to let his wife have whatever space she needs. He has never known her to be a woman who avoids talking about her feelings.
When, at ten forty in the evening she is still bent over the mound of documents that came out of her iconic red despatch boxes, with no apparent end in sight, Malcolm props in the doorway of her office - her home office, a ridiculous distinction when two of her offices are both in Number 10. His arms are crossed over his chest and his mouth is tight.
"Are yeh plannin' to emerge tonight, darlin'?" Nicola glances up at the sound of his voice, distracted. Work is all that she has given herself to in the last week. He feels like he has barely seen her, even though they have shared dinner on as regular a basis as they ever do, the children have been in and out - on paper things are relatively normal, but in practice they feel very wrong.
"Hmm?" She is frowning, and he knows she's not heard a word he's said. Her eyes sweep down his body, landing on his socked feet. He looks irritated. He looks like he is trying not to look irritated. She is too distracted to respond how she normally would to his irritation – which is with her own.
Malcolm walks into the office, shutting the door behind himself.
"Yeh've barely spoken to me. I can't keep fucking guessing what's in yer head." His tone is level, open. He sits in the chair opposite the desk, and wonders why there is one in this office. It's not as if she has meetings in here.
"We've spoken." She counters.
"Listen to you, believing yer own bullshit."
"I don't know what you're talking about." She's defensive again, and Malcolm has never been so clear on how much she's distanced herself from him in the past few days.
"You fucking do." He says, grey blue eyes fixed on her, holding her in place, drilling into her.
Nicola turns her face towards her desk, resting her forehead on the heel of her hand and threading her fingers through the front of her hair. He sees her shoulders rise with an unsteady intake of breath and god, he fucking despises himself for making her cry, but he also knows it's better they have this out before Erica's funeral.
"I don't want to talk about it, Malcolm." She seems to be steadying herself. "That's why I haven't been talking about it."
"Well I think yeh need to."
"I don't think that's your fucking call!" She barks, sitting up and pushing away from the desk. This is not the way Malcolm wanted the conversation to go.
She props against the window sill, her knuckles turning white as she grips it.
"I don't want to fight with you right now, Malcolm. I just - I can't."
"I'm not spoilin' for a fight here, Nic'la. I just want t'know what yer thinking. Christ, yeh haven't even spoken t'me about what yer going to say tomorrow."
"I've been speaking to Gilly." She says evenly. Malcolm, on one hand, is relieved that she's been speaking to someone, and acknowledges that of all the people he'd pick for her to be confiding in, it would be Gilly, Chief of Staff Extraordinaire, the only person that stands between Nicola and national chaos seventy percent of the time. The issue, for Malcolm, is why she might not be speaking to him about it as well.
They sit in silence for a moment. Perhaps a full minute. "Good. That's good." He acknowledges, eyes still trying to burn their way into Nicola's skull to get the answers he so selfishly wants from her. She is studiously avoiding his eyes, staring off into the middle distance with no apparent intention of coming back to him.
"I thought you'd think it was shit." She says, the words tumbling out of her mouth, falling on top of one another in a tangle of phonemes.
Malcolm uses every ounce of his self control to hold his tongue, to limit himself to asking "Think what was shit?"
Nicola's head pivots back to him and finds a bemused frown on his face - a face that was almost perpetually frowning when she first met him. "My speech. The - the thing I wrote for Erica's..." Her eyes well ever so slightly, and Malcolm wonders how this woman, this mad, mildly incompetent woman, who happens to be the Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, can be standing here worried about whether he thinks her eulogy is up to scratch.
"Jesus, Nic'la, you must know by now that if yeh'd said, 'Malcolm, dalrin', I really really really need yeh to be nice abou' this' I would have? Shit, I'm not about t' fucking eviscerate you over a eulogy." Nicola winces at the word, subtly but not subtly enough for Malcolm to miss it. Her lack of response is, frankly, a little damning.
"I'm sorry if I've made yeh feel that way." He says, and for the first time since he entered the room, he drops his gaze away from her.
"I know." She says, folding her arms over her chest and crossing her ankles. It's such a typical Nicola posture that he could almost smile, were she not so obviously hurt by him right now. The Scot pushes out of his chair slowly, giving her enough time to move if she wants, to let him know she doesn't want him, and crosses the room to her. Malcolm wraps his lean arms around her and cradles her against his chest, her head tucked under his chin. He breathes deeply, and the expansion of his chest tightens his embrace. Her cast is digging into his chest, an uncomfortably obvious reminder of how close he came to losing her a mere handful of days ago.
Nicola allows herself to acknowledge for the first time in a week that she is utterly, thoroughly, exhausted. They stand like this for a few minutes, Malcolm apologising to her with arms and warmth, and Nicola letting herself defrost, letting the protective shell she's spent so much energy over the last week cultivating fall away.
Malcolm wants to tell her that he needs her to pull him up when he's making her feel like this, but he can't quite find the words without being directive, without potentially making the situation worse. When they first took up together, first began to tell people about their fledgling relationship, there was an initial ripple of confusion amongst their respective inner sanctums. It had taken everyone a while to work out that while professionally they had been volatile substances that needed to be kept apart, personally, with Malcolm out of politics, Nicola was somewhat a moderating influence on the ever-swearing Scot.
Nicola and Malcolm had spent a tipsy evening on the couch analysing this, trying to find a way to describe it.
"It's like I'm your earth!" Nicola had said, as if struck by a bolt of lightning.
Malcolm's accent had been thicker with fatigue and alcohol. "Yeh're no' mah fucking Earth, Nic'la. Fer fuck's sake, it's been two months. Shit, I get that you think yeh're the centre of the fucking universe but there's actually - " Malcolm had stopped talking only because Nicola and started giggling drunkenly and pressed her fingers over his mouth. Malcolm had wanted to be annoyed. Malcolm's eyes had lit with affection despite his best efforts.
"Nonono - Christ you're an arsehole. And the Earth isn't the centre of the universe. No no. No. Not that kind of Earth. The kind in power chords. And - electrical things. You know, because I stop people getting electrocuted by you." Giggles had continued to bubble from her lips, her hand had stayed clamped over his mouth, and somehow she had ended up half sitting in his lap, grinning, and Malcolm had peeled her fingers from his face and smirked lopsidedly back at her in spite of himself.
Nicola had begun to chew on the tip of her free thumb, and Malcolm had thought if he needed an earth he probably could do worse. He probably could do better, too, if he really tried, but he could definitely do worse. "Hello earth." Malcolm still remembers the particular way her lips had turned up, before he had brought his hand to the back of her neck and pulled her in until their lips collided.
"I still need yeh t'be the earth, pet." Malcolm says quietly, kissing her head and smoothing her hair with his hand. He lets go of her, his hands taking her in before he begins to cross the room and give her some space.
"Malcolm." She says when he's half a room away from her. He hesitates, turning his head to her. "It's on the desk. If you could - I'd like you to... Read it."
"Okay." She is acutely aware of how deliberately gentle he is being when she is craving normality.
"I just," she wavers. "I just can't be here when you do. I might... I'll grab some things and meet you in bed."
"Okay." He waits for her to gather what she needs from the desk before sliding on his glasses and settling behind her desk. He finds her in bed reading a battered copy of a Jane Austen novel rather than any of the Cabinet submissions she took with her. Malcolm thinks she could probably recite half of Austen's works from memory by now, but the book is a safety blanket and sure-fire form of comfort. Malcolm slides onto the bed behind her, still clothed, and winds his arm around her, bringing his chest flush against her back. He kisses her shoulder, her earlobe. "It's really lovely, Nic'la."
She says nothing, but knots their fingers together with damaging force.
He holds her until she falls asleep, which only takes around fifteen minutes, before he pulls away from her, massages his possibly broken hand, and undresses before getting back into bed, fully expecting that tomorrow will be an awful day.