Chapter 11
All the very best of us string ourselves up for love.
Nicola and Malcolm slip out after the service - Nicola has apologised in advance to Dave and Maureen for not staying for the wake. Malcolm is relieved she's made the decision. It's a long drive back, and she looks about as brittle as he's ever seen her. He tucks her into her car and thanks all the higher powers that the press don't jump on her again. There are snappers, of course, but they're at a respectful distance this time.
"Yeh alrigh', darlin?" Malcolm asks, offering his hand across the back seat and studying her. She is nibbling at the skin on the side of her index finger with a little too much vigour.
She nods, and takes his hand, swapping to chewing the other index finger. "Yes, I'm fine."
They barely speak for the rest of the drive home, but around an hour and a half in, Nicola unbuckles her seatbelt and slides into the middle of the car. Malcolm is comforted by the weight of her body against his, but mumbles "Seatbelt" at her.
"I've survived a terrorist attack, Malcolm, do we really think I'm likely to be in a car accident within the same week?" She says, but obliges, sensing him gathering all the reasons that's one hundred percent not a fucking good excuse in his head - and knowing that he is, irritatingly, correct.
"Still not used t'yer Fit Fer The Public hair." Malcolm jokes softly, running his fingers over chocolate brown locks that have been carefully tamed by half an ocean of serum and a heavy duty straightener.
"Still not used to your Not A Complete Arsehole setting." Nicola retorts, smiling weakly against his shoulder.
When they pull up at Number 10, Malcolm makes straight for the kitchen and Nicola makes straight for the walk-in wardrobe.
When she comes back through the kitchen to find her husband, she is wearing jeans and a loose knitted mohair jumper. Malcolm wants to touch her, just to feel the softness of it under his hands, but he lets her flop into a kitchen chair instead. Her hair isn't quite long enough for the ponytail she's hurriedly tied it into. Malcolm, in ordinary circumstances, loves Nicola when she looks like this. This is the Nicola he expected to be lazing around the cottage with last week.
Nicola looks at the bowl of carefully crafted pork meatballs in front of her with little enthusiasm. They are usually her favourite comfort food. Today she can barely muster the energy to eat.
"Yeh need t'eat somethin', Nic'la." Malcolm says.
"You don't need to parent me." She retorts, managing to avoid sounding like a teenager, but only just.
He doesn't respond. Merely sits and digs into his meatballs, thinking perhaps a smidge more cinnamon might have improved them.
"Alright, fuck this." Malcolm says after they have picked idly at their food for fifteen minutes without so much as a syllable passing between them as thoughts swirl through their heads ferociously.
"Shall we file for divorce?" Nicola quips with a wry smile playing wearily around her lips.
"Look maybe after the election, but right now why don't yeh just put some shoes on, yeah? And maybe a coat."
"Where are we going?" Nicola asks, and even though she'd intended to stay in her seat, in spite of herself she rises and reaches for the coat on the kitchen coat rack.
"Just... Stop askin' questions, woman." Malcolm says, waving his hands at her.
"I don't want to go out, Malcolm. Can we just go... to bed or something?"
"Nope." He says, winding a scarf around his neck.
"Malcolm I'm exhausted."
"Yep." He nods dismissively before meeting her eyes. "Humour me."
Nicola sighs dramatically. "Can you at least tell me whether I'm allowed to wear my trainers?"
Malcolm pecks her temple. "They're by the door."
"Thank god."
Malcolm leans against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest while she ties her laces, and she thinks, grudgingly, that even in advancing years he's an attractive man.
She buries her fists into the pockets of her black trench and looks at him evenly, waiting for him to lead the way.
"If we're going on a Fanta run I will throw you in front of a fucking bus." She cautions as he ushers her out the door.
"Don't worry, darlin', I'd be sure t'take you with me." He replies with an evil glint in his eye.
Nicola walks down the street with her hands deep in her pocket. Malcolm is aware of her closed body language - normally she would take his arm while they're walking, regardless of whether or not he particularly wants her to. He nudges her gently with his shoulder while they walk, and she barely cracks a smile. He's worried, too, by the way she complains about the length of the walk - not the fact that she complains, she always does when they make this trek to their favourite, relatively unoccupied pub, just far enough to be out of the Westminster bubble.
Tonight, it's not a good natured "Why couldn't we find a fucking local that was, I don't know, local?" like he usually gets, but a grumbled "Did you really need to drag me out tonight?"
Normally Malcolm would bite at this, but tonight he is consciously non-confrontational. In fourteen minutes (three minutes longer than it normally takes them) Malcolm is steering Nicola into The Harp, his hand settled on her lower back tenderly. Nicola averts her eyes, apart from when she briefly meets the gaze of the boisterous bartender and offers him a tight smile.
"Ey, Ted." Malcolm says.
"My favourite soulless fucker. Glad you're okay, Nicola."
With her eyes still unfocussed she says "Thanks, Ted," but continues walking.
"Fanta and a pinot grigio?" Ted asks Malcolm softly.
"Two whiskeys, straight up." Malcolm says, before pointing to Nicola's back and mouthing 'double'. Ted nods and sets about pouring the drinks, while Nicola climbs up the stairs to their usual table in the corner. She settles herself in a plush leather armchair and waits for Malcolm to follow her with the drinks. Usually she would spend a few minutes leaning on the bar chatting to Ted, but tonight she hasn't got the energy. Sensing Nicola's dejection, Ted waves Malcolm upstairs, a silent agreement that he can bring them their drinks.
Ted finds them at their usual table, safely tucked into the corner in rich cognac armchairs. He deftly gives the double to Nicola, and hands the other glass to Malcolm so he can wrap his fingers around it before Nicola notices the difference in their volume. Like all good bartenders, he knows when to stop and chat and when to give them their peace.
"Bottoms up." Malcolm instructs, knowing Nicola will fight him on most things, but not on drinking related challenges. She downs the glass in one neat swig, and Malcolm's lips quirk with affection for her. Ted, insightful man that he is, has expected this course of action from the couple when they didn't order their usual. He catches Malcolm's eye and goes down to fetch another round.
"Are you trying to get me drunk, Malcolm?" Nicola asks when Ted swaps the full glasses for the empties.
"Thought it might be the quickest way t'get yeh to talk to me."
Nicola bristles almost instantly, as Malcolm had expected her to. At least if she's shouting at him she's talking to him. "Have it ever crossed your mind that I don't fucking want to talk about it, Malcolm? That maybe I just want to process this in my own way?" She studies his face, the face of the best husband she's had, the man she loves; even though he's not visibly reacted to her chastisement, she softens a little. "I don't need you trying to fix me."
"I'm not tryin' t'fix yeh, Nic'la. I like yeh even when yeh're like this. I'm just trying to help yeh. Because I love you. In case you missed that part in the story."
"I didn't. Miss it. But you pushing me isn't actually helping."
Malcolm sips contemplatively at his second whiskey. "I jus' want to know how yeh feel, pet."
At last, Nicola thinks he has requested something of her that she can give. "I feel exhausted, Malcolm. I feel exhausted and I feel confused and guilty and I feel like somehow, in the middle of all that, I'm supposed to be the Prime Minister. And I barely know how to be the fucking Prime Mime at the best of times, Malcolm, let alone when I feel like this."
Again, Malcolm is relieved to hear her say anything of consequence.
"They're making me talk to someone - did I tell you that?" She asks, the words quick and cutting. Malcolm only just manages to refrain from replying that she hasn't really told him anything in days. She pushes her hair back irritably and takes another liberal swig of her drink. "That's exactly what I need right now, to sit in some bloody psychiatrist's office and tell them how I can't cope with one of my staff dying for me, and how I didn't listen to any of my voice messages for three days and how you sounded so frightened and I did that to you. And what the fuck is this job going to do to us?" She has started to cry mid-way through her rampage, she finishes the whiskey and bangs the glass on the table. Nicola Murray, who once hated Malcolm Tucker with a passion rarely know to human kind, stands and awkwardly sinks onto his chair. She cries into the curve of his neck, the words "I'm so sorry" coming out in wet bursts. The pragmatic part of the Scot wishes she'd chosen to release her grip on her emotions in a less public place, but the pub is barely occupied, and at this point he'd rather they sort this out between themselves and end up with a picture of her crying in his lap on Twitter or the Mail than never speak again.
Malcolm strokes her hair and shushes her. "You've nothing to be sorry for, pet."
"I could have ruined your life because of a job." She says, pulling back from him to meet his gaze. He can read her distress, her guilt. He had not realised until now that part of her guilt is about him and the children, not only Erica.
Malcolm becomes flippant, because it's familiar and he thinks it might diffuse her somewhat. "Well, not mah whole life." She doesn't relax, her face doesn't alter, and he recognises the need to be serious. "Nic'la. Either of us could get hit by a bus. Look, alrigh', on one hand, yer job does make you a target, but it also means yeh get better warning and highly trained police at yer disposal." He can see her waiting to protest that getting her highly trained police killed is a significant contributor in her current state of emotional distress, but he cuts her off before she has the chance. "And yer job isn't just a job, Nic'la. You run a government. Fuck knows how, but yeh do. That's not just a job. It's worth taking risks for."
Her tears have largely subsided. Her voice is clear when she says "My risks impact on you. And the children."
Malcolm offers her a soft, wry smile. "Pet, I'd be a pretty fucking unforgivably negligent husband if I said yeh shouldn't be the Prime Minister because I'm afraid yeh'll get blown up." Malcolm takes her face in his hand, rubbing a tear trail from her cheek. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I don' want yeh t'get blown up," Nicola laughs softly, shakily. "But if yeh do, yeh might as well be the leader of a major economic power." Nicola kisses him. Even though she is still worried, is still thinking about what would have become of her husband and children had she not survived her trip to Russia, she takes some comfort in Malcolm's understanding of why she does what she does, his desire for her to continue.
Without request, Ted brings them another round, and does not comment on the Prime Minister taking up residence on her husband's lap.