4.
"A leader must have the courage to act against an expert's advice."
Tonight exists before the long intervening period in which Malcolm Tucker and Nicola Murray kiss each other in secret, but after the prevailing episode in which they have no contact at all. Somewhere between these two points, the two of them develop the kind of companionable acquaintance they were always dimly aware they could have but were both too busy trying to avoid their own destruction and perhaps affect the other's to achieve.
It's easy. Easier than it should have been. Easier than either is comfortable with it being. They do simple things together now that he's out of gaol. They share meals and have very serious and competitive Scrabble and chess wars. Every now and then Malcolm comes to the football with her because she can't come at the thought of going alone with the boys but also refuses to let James be the only one who has any fun with them. This is one of the few things they have done in public; generally they tend towards simplicity, privacy. They attempt to build their relationship as it could have been from the start: one based on a similar sense of humour and an ability to push each other's buttons; for the most part it goes quite smoothly. They learn not to leap to verbal warfare at the first sign of tension, and once they've negotiated this boundary everything becomes slightly less shouty and combative. Things are, of course, still relatively shouty and combative, they are still Nicola and Malcolm after all, but things take on a more even keel, and this makes civilian friendship somewhat easier.
Tonight they have convened their meeting at Nicola's house, and even though she had been intending to cook, Malcolm had quickly shooed her out of the kitchen when she'd almost mistaken cinnamon sugar for ground cardamom. While Malcolm once acknowledged that she has some instinct for complementary flavours, all cooking abilities evade her when she has spent the week locked in a manifesto review committee and is almost dead with boredom. Normally Nicola would have hovered while he cooked, freshening drinks and doing odd jobs like selecting spices. Tonight Malcolm has banished her from her own kitchen on firm instructions that she needs to put on some clothes that aren't so tight she can't breathe. After a grumbled rebuttal that she absolutely could breathe in her neat charcoal dress she had obeyed him, silently padding off to her bedroom to change.
Tonight is entirely different to the first time she cooked him dinner, just after the fallout from the Goolding Inquiry. Now there is a casual ease between them in which Nicola takes a substantial amount of comfort.
When she returns to the kitchen she slides onto the counter and takes up the glass of wine she abandoned earlier. Instead of donning pyjama bottoms as he'd expected, she's pulled on a soft skirt and a flowy aubergine cardigan, which she tucks around herself absently. Her legs are sheathed in tights, and the dark black fabric is a stark contrast against her cream marble bench. Malcolm is in one of his amusingly snuggly fleeces and a pair of trousers, and Nicola can't help wondering whether he's hot, standing over the stove. One day when she settles on a bench beside him while he cooks he will reach over and touch her knee affectionately; today he simply sweeps his eyes over her stocking clad legs and notes the way she leans her head back against the cupboard, lets her mouth hang slightly agape and looks as if she may well fall asleep right there on the bench.
"So, tell me about your Party Approved Wankfest." Malcolm instructs her.
"Hmm? Oh it was..." she searches for a word. "Fucking exhausting, actually. I'm genuinely concerned that the new team might be suffering from some kind of mental infirmity. And Ollie sat there sulking, watching Henry do all these 'how to better communicate' exercises that I swear must have somehow come from Stewart Pearson. No one else at this level is quite so touchy-feely without being a total sociopath like Flemming." Malcolm snorts a laugh, glancing between her and the meal he's preparing.
"How's Miller copin'?"
"Now that Chris is leader? Oh god, terribly. I mean, I have four children who, let's face it, weren't fantastically well behaved in their formative years - "
"Or so you've been told." Malcolm snipes quietly, earning a gentle kick from the brunette on the bench.
"And I've never seen such a sustained passive aggressive tantrum in my life."
"Oh, Danny Boy..." The Scot sighs. He's never liked Dan Miller as far as he could throw him, even if he's always recognised that the unctuous little shit is exactly what a Communications Director could want in a Leader. Someone with no background but for politics, no past, no awkward nights in strip clubs. Dan is and always has been totally Teflon coated; while Malcolm recognises this about him, he has never been able to find any personal regard for the brown nosing little arse-clown.
"How do you find him?"
"Chris? Um, good actually." Nicola combs her hair with her fingers while she says it and frowns thoughtfully. She sips at her vintage red wine before elaborating. "I mean, look. He's not as strong on policy as Tom, but I think he's less isolating in terms of personality than Dan, so you've sort of got the best of both worlds in some ways. And I mean he's not... rubbish at policy. People like him. When we've been at events he gets approached with this kind of genuine enthusiasm, like people want to know him as a person rather than get a photo with some prick who might run the country eventually."
Malcolm nods, familiar with such sentiments from the public. His issue with Nicola was always that the public were happy to get to know her as a person, but terrified of the idea of her running the country. He casts a glance up to Nicola's face and catches a glimmer of something that would have concerned him in their professional relationship, but as a friend only mildly amuses him.
Digging a bony elbow into her knee Malcolm mumbles "Out with it, Nic'la."
"What?" At once she is all wide-eyed innocence, and Malcolm quite likes her like this: easy and casual and just a little combative. He likes having her in reach as well, even though he would never articulate this, and would only in very specific circumstances actually reach for her.
"You've got that 'gunning fer Deputy' glimmer in your eye."
Nicola folds one arm over her chest and raises her wine glass to her lips with the other. "Would that be so bad? I mean, before you start, I've learnt a lot since... everything."
Malcolm nods. He doesn't want to get into this with her now. He wants to gossip about the failures of his former co-workers and toast her current successes, even if they are largely because the Secretary of State for Justice is as useful as woollen underwear on John Barrowman. He does not want to war-game her career as if he is still one of her advisers, and in truth, this is the last thing Nicola wants to spend tonight discussing. Suddenly the air between them becomes charged and Nicola changes tack. "Not until after the election and well into the next term, anyway. Long term goal." She thinks about touching his leg with her foot gently, something to alleviate the unwelcome modicum of awkwardness that's come between them. She refrains, thinking it too intimate for people in their situation, people with their history.
Feeling released from that particular thread of conversation Malcolm asks "Are yeh still eyein' off the Foreign Office?"
Nicola shifts her gaze and focuses on a point on the wall opposite her. "Actually, Justice has made me realise that... I mean, Foreign Secretary is one of the glamorous jobs, isn't it? You get to get all over the world - "
"Not great for My Little Claustrophobe over here."
Were Nicola less familiar with Malcolm's propensity to nickname her after popular culture, particularly children's programmes, she would have taken his statement to indicate a kind of intimate possession. Nicola will not voice it at any point, but she would not actually object to this.
"And obviously the idea of jetting around and having bilateral meetings with world leaders is appealing, but... You're going to laugh when I say this, but I actually miss - "
"For the love of fuck, don't say DoSAC."
"Well, not actually DoSAC, but, yknow. Being able to do things that had some kind of practical outcome for the average person. I mean no one gives a shit if we have a good relationship with Frank-Walter Steinmeier, do they, really? Not until something goes wrong, anyway."
The glance Malcolm shoots at her is contemplative; he is still a little surprised when she says anything insightful about politics or her perceptions of her place in it. He is still surprised at how much she wants to make a difference.
"So what, then?" He asks, turning off the various appliances he's used to finish the meal. Nicola is sitting on his right hand side blocking a power point, and while he reaches past her for it he tips his right hand so it is parallel to her body, his thumb towards the bench, and caresses her hip on his way past. Nicola takes this as the sign to dismount the bench it is, but remains put, trying not to focus on the fact that she likes when he touches her; part of her always has. Once his hand is back on a pair of tongs she slides off the bench and begins gathering plates and cutlery. Malcolm takes a moment to study the curves of her arse as she bends to retrieve wanky cream Ecology linen textured plates which he can't stand. There's nothing actually wrong with them, he'd just felt like picking a fight with her when he first saw them and can't go back on his disdain now. Her arse, on the other hand, is something he's consistently approved of for the duration of their acquaintance, even when he has utterly despised everything else about her.
"I'm not sure. Chris has left things reasonably open to me, if we win." She says, picking up a conversation he'd almost totally forgotten while pondering the brunette's anatomy.
"You can't go back to DoSAC. You know that, righ'?"
"Of course I fucking know that, Malcolm. I'm not a brain damaged parakeet." Malcolm's quirked eyebrow is a clear articulation that he thinks she may well be, and she seriously considers hitting him for his insinuation. "But you know, in hindsight I do miss it there a bit. I mean, it'll always be my first Department, won't it? I feel like I'm going to end up popping in for visits when I'm old and decrepit."
"Well phone ahead, darlin', because I don't think the Tories'll like yeh just bargin' in next week."
"I was thinking Health actually." She replies. The fact that she has learnt to simply ignore his barbs tells him a great deal about the state of their friendship, and it scares him. She should not be this comfortable with him. He should not want her to be.
"Health Secretary?" He repeats, studying her face carefully. Malcolm actually finds, when he scrolls through the many reasons this shouldn't work that, actually, it does. She can exercise her inclinations for social justice in a portfolio that has a real budget dedicated to it, that is well staffed with a wide range of experts to consult. This isn't something she'd be totally on her own in doing. She might even have a chance of being good. He doesn't remember reading an interview with her where she didn't profess her passionate love for the NHS, nor can he recall a caucus or later Cabinet meeting where she did not vociferously oppose any spending cuts on health, or changes she felt would be detrimental. No, this is a very different proposition indeed to tossing her into a Department that no one even really understands. This is something that perhaps even Nicola Murray can manage to not fuck up. Or possibly fuck up so badly that there would be a new pandemic as a result of her stewardship, but for no good reason Malcolm is willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.
He speaks with that soft and genuine tone which is so rare but so pleasant when it pops its head up. "I think that's a really nice fit, actually." Malcolm replies, and some part of Nicola feels better for his support. Not in a Maybe-The-Communications-Director-Won't-Kill-Me-Now sense, but in a Nicola-Murray-Is-Glad-Of-Malcolm-Tucker's-Support sense. This is possibly even more worrisome.
They settle into their meals and fall into an easy conversation, and no one observing the scene would believe that for a time, each managed to affect the other's downfall.
When the pair is sitting and chatting idly in Nicola's lounge room post-meal, Malcolm's phone begins buzzing insistently. Their eyes travel to the little device and Malcolm waves his hand dismissively; this miniscule gesture says everything that can be said about the shift in Malcolm's priorities, his attitude. His eyes don't even drop from her when it begins buzzing a second time, and again, Nicola is glad to see his ability to separate from work. The third call tells Malcolm something is genuinely wrong. "Fellate the fucking pharaoh, can no one manage their own shittin' problems? Sorry."
"No, it's fine. Take it. Fix whatever fiasco there is at the firm." Nicola says, shaking out her hair and standing. She feels slightly less close to death after eating, and because of this decides to do the dishes while she has the energy.
"It's a fuckin' Friday night, William. Someone had better be haemorrhaging on live television." A light smile touches Nicola's lips. A complaint about working on a Friday night from a man who basically hadn't had a day off for a decade until he was fired. Wonders will clearly never cease.
Nicola finds there is something oddly soothing about the occasional Scottish accented expletive floating into the kitchen while she does the dishes, and instantly wishes this thought had never occurred to her. His swearing subsides before she finishes the washing up, and she wonders if he is typing something on his BlackBerry or if he is planning to join her at some point, hover around and niggle at her as she does the dishes. He does not join her at any point, though, and Nicola refuses to acknowledge that she would rather like him to. When she pads back into the lounge room she finds the Scot asleep on her couch, his hand clutching his BlackBerry to his chest. A fond smile touches the corner of Nicola's lips and she prizes the device from his fingers as gently as she can. She flicks its vibrate setting off so it doesn't disturb him overnight, and retrieves a throw rug to tuck around him. She gets half way through covering him when the pull of his fleece becomes irresistible. It is exactly as soft and snuggly as it has always looked, and Nicola, after a week trapped in a godforsaken retreat with her Parliamentary colleagues, is unable to resist the simple notion of sleeping against another living being. Reaching over to flick off the standing lamp Nicola slides beneath the throw rug and curls her body against Malcolm's, smiling to herself at the familiar smell of him. In a moment marked by the kind of privacy one assumes one has when the other party is deeply asleep, Nicola presses a gentle kiss to his cheek; she does so in such a way that her mouth covers half of his. When her tongue flicks over her lips as she settles her head back on his shoulder she finds beneath the hints of dinner and reasonably nice merlot, there is something uniquely Malcolm Tucker on her lips. She has not tasted it since he shoved her against his joinery and she proceeded to bolt from his house.
The first time Nicola kisses Malcolm while she is sober she realises that, not only has she missed the taste of Malcolm Tucker on her lips, but, actually, she would quite like to kiss him on a regular basis.