VII. Serena #5
‘Martin?’
She looks up, follows the length of Ben’s arm and sees Martin Gilmour on a table close to the front of the stage. He is raising a glass in her direction. She raises hers in return.
‘I didn’t know you’d invited him.’
‘You were right to ask him to the funeral. Clever of you. It was time to kiss and make up.’
‘I’m sure Martin loved the kissing part.’
Ben laughs and squeezes her shoulder.
‘So what did you want to talk—’
‘Hold that thought,’ Ben says. She looks at his face. He seems wired, his eyes bloodshot.
‘Are you alright?’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ he says, brushing aside her concerns. ‘They’re calling me up to do my thing. Just – trust me, OK?’
‘Trust you with what?’
Before he can answer, Ben is whisked away by a pretty girl in a silver jumpsuit who walks Ben to the stage as the lights dim to a soft pinkish white.
Sentimental music plays and a large screen beams out pictures of smiling soldiers playing wheelchair basketball and then the girl in the silver jumpsuit is saying, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage, the Energy Secretary and our long-time supporter, Ben Fitzmaurice.’
Ben is greeted by rousing applause as he bounds up the stairs.
He once told her you should always rush onto a stage in order to look youthful and dynamic.
Next to her, Richard is feverishly clapping his hands, a placid grin on his face.
He looks drugged, she thinks, as if he doesn’t know what’s going on around him.
‘Thank you, thank you.’
Ben’s voice comes booming through the speakers. Behind the Perspex lectern, he gestures to the crowd to simmer down. He is handsome up there in his black tie. The bright lighting has given angles to his face and lustre to his hair. He has always belonged in the centre of other people’s attention.
‘It’s a pleasure to be here with you all, in this stunning location, supporting an organisation that many of you will know is extremely close to my heart. How apt that we should find ourselves in a room filled with such beauty – these historic, ancient statues, many of which have limbs missing …’
Oh God, thinks Serena, he’s not going to draw the parallel, surely he isn’t …
‘And these representations of mythical heroism make me think of our own modern-day heroes. The men and women we have gathered here to celebrate who, in courageous service to our country, faced down danger and returned home with life-changing injuries. And yet, like these statues, they have forged their strength because of what they’ve been through, not in spite of.
What an honour it is tonight to be in their presence. ’
Another smattering of applause. Next to her, Richard Take starts coughing. She glares at him, then passes him one of the glass bottles of water from the centre of the table.
‘And because I want to keep the focus of tonight on our incredible servicemen and women, I’d like to take a moment here to address the rumours that have been swirling around today …’
What rumours? Serena thinks. For a moment she wonders if he’s been caught shagging an intern.
But surely he wouldn’t talk about that here?
She swivels in her chair, frantically trying to find an answer in the crowd but all she can see are laughing faces and hefty pink flower arrangements – too big, really, for the centrepiece – and all the while Ben is talking about ‘not believing everything you read in the papers’ and then – out of the murk of people, she alights on Jarvis.
He is smiling as he watches Ben on stage, reclining in his seat with one arm looped nonchalantly over the back, his jacket flapping open to reveal a burgundy cummerbund straining to contain his belly.
Burgundy, she thinks, how tacky. And then: he knows.
Whatever it is Ben is about to say, Jarvis knows and she doesn’t.
She feels foolish. It was always going to be the two of them, standing shoulder to shoulder, swapping jobs, money, anecdotes and now even her.
‘So let me put a stop to the speculation right here, right now,’ Ben is saying.
‘This morning, I had a constructive talk with my friend and colleague, our Prime Minister, Edward Buller. He confided to me his decision to step down as the leader of our great Conservative Party and asked if I would consider standing. It’s my great pleasure to announce that I am, indeed, standing for election to leadership of a party it is my privilege to serve. ’
Cheers from the audience. A single wolf whistle. More clapping.
‘And I’m delighted to say that I can already count on the support of a man who has worked alongside me in many capacities over the years.
He knows the grit it takes to keep going, deeply understands the needs of the electorate and, I’m proud to say, he also holds his hands up when he gets it wrong, and comes back even stronger – a unique skill among the political classes, I’m sure you’ll agree. ’
Polite, knowing laughter.
‘He’s here tonight. Please, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the stage my first backer, and, I hope, part of the dream ticket to ensure our country gets the leadership it deserves – Richard Take.’
Richard Take is standing now, buttoning his jacket over his ludicrous turtleneck, smiling and nodding and nodding and smiling and even waving to unidentified members of the audience as though walking through his own ticker-tape parade.
He strides onto the stage and shakes Ben’s hand.
Ben – in a move that will be much remarked upon in the next day’s newspapers as ushering in a new era of male emotional acuity in politics – brings Richard in for a prolonged bear hug, slapping him chummily on the back.
All around Serena, people take out their phones to film videos and upload Instagram Stories and tweets to show that they, too, were there when this thing – this potentially momentous or perhaps not at all important but either way still a thing – happened.
In the ensuing babble of congratulation, Serena is unmoored.
Standing for leadership? And with Richard Take, of all people!
The unanswered texts finally make sense, but still – he could surely have found an opportunity to let her know?
They’ve spoken about Ben’s desire for leadership a lot over the years and she has always been supportive of his ambition.
But the fact that he didn’t make it an absolute priority to inform her told her that she wasn’t important enough to factor into his decisions, either because he knew she’d go along with it or because it wouldn’t matter if she didn’t.
The worst of it is, he’s right. She doesn’t want to divorce him.
Ben gives her a comfortable life and social standing and she loves her children.
Dragging it all through the courts would be protracted and embarrassing, with no guarantee that she’d get a financial settlement equal to what she deserved.
Divorce was for oligarchs and soap stars, not for her.
So she makes a choice. Serena smoothes down her dress and begins to clap like the rest of them, a breezily proud smile on her face.
It’s only when she looks to her side that she notices one person refusing to join in with the applause.
Martin Gilmour has remained seated. Interesting, she thinks.
Perhaps he hasn’t been as forgiving of past indiscretions as Ben would like to believe.
She scans the crowd before letting her eyes rest on the plinth, half in shadow now, where Judith holds the knife aloft, the moment of final reckoning caught in stone.
The twisted head of Holofernes looks blindly out into the darkness, strands of his hair casting shadows over the tiled floor.