Anatomy of a Scandal Read online

  Sophie sits then, on the sofa opposite her husband and to the right of the director of communications. Perhaps she seems masochistic, wanting to know each detail, but ignorance isn’t an option. She needs to understand exactly what she is up against here. She tries to reread the story – taking in the ‘friend’s’ description of what Olivia endured; reading about a lift taken in the House of Commons. ‘He pressed the button between floors and the ride took some time.’ She can imagine the smirk as the reporter chose the double entendre; the sniggers, hastily suppressed, or raised eyebrows of some readers – but though the words smite her with their crudeness, the facts, in their entirety, make little sense.

  She looks up, aware that Chris is still talking.

  ‘So the line to take is: You deeply regret this brief affair and the pain you have caused to your family. Your priority now is to rebuild those relationships.’ He glances at her as he says this. ‘You’re not going to be springing any surprises on us, are you, Sophie?’

  ‘Like what?’ She is startled.

  ‘Announcing that you’re leaving. Putting your side of the story. Moonlight flits?’

  ‘Do you need to ask?’

  ‘Of course I do.’ His gaze is appraising.

  ‘No, of course not.’ She manages to keep her tone neutral: not to reveal that yes, of course she had thought of fleeing, of disappearing down a rabbit hole of lanes far away from London and her new, painful reality; or betray her anger that he has guessed at this.

  He nods, apparently satisfied, then turns to her husband.

  ‘The problem, of course, is a) that you were in a position of power; and b) this allegation that you shagged on government time. At the taxpayers’ expense.’

  ‘The party conference isn’t funded by the taxpayer.’

  ‘But your business as a minister in Her Majesty’s Government is. And the idea that you were getting down and dirty in a lift when you should have been helping to run the country looks problematic, to say the least.’

  ‘I can see that.’

  She looks at James then: a sharp glance of shock that he isn’t denying this; that he is acknowledging this description. The director of communications smiles and she wonders if he takes pleasure in belittling them like this. It is self-aggrandising: by putting them in their place, he validates himself; reiterates his importance to the prime minister, she can see that. But there seems to be more to it than this: more, even, than his journalistic revelling in a good story. For all his political dirty tricks – for he has a reputation for being ruthless, someone who will hold on to a kernel of gossip and threaten to wield it at the most effective moment, much like a government whip – he seems to be personally judgemental about this.

  ‘So, the key is to refuse to comment on details. This is tittle-tattle, the details of which you refuse to be drawn on. In your statement you will stress that in no way did this brief error of judgement affect your ministerial business. You will not be drawn into denials: they have a way of coming back to haunt you. And you will not elaborate. Stick to the line: deep regret, brief affair, priority your family. Deflect and dismiss but don’t deny. Understood?’

  ‘Of course.’ James glances at her and offers a smile, which she ignores. ‘And there’s no need to offer my resignation?’

  ‘Why would you do that? The PM will make it clear if he wants that – but he doesn’t abandon old friends, you know that, and you’re one of his closest.’ Chris points to the iPad and the Mail’s copy: ‘It says so, here.’

  ‘Yes.’ James seems to visibly straighten. Tom Southern and he go back to Eton, and Oxford, their adolescent and adult lives inextricably entwined since the age of thirteen. This is the one positive to hold on to: the prime minister, known for being almost fatally loyal, will do everything he humanly can before letting his oldest friend down. Sophie clings to this thought: Tom won’t hang James out to dry. He can’t: it’s not in his nature; and, besides, he owes him too much.

  ‘He reiterated that earlier.’ James clears his throat. ‘Conveyed his support.’

  Sophie feels her breath ease out. ‘So you’ve spoken?’

  He nods but refuses to be drawn. Theirs is an exclusive relationship. The drinking rituals, the schoolboy debagging, the shared holidays in their twenties in which they plotted Tom’s political career and one for James later, after he’d gained some experience in the real world, melding the two men together in a way that twelve years of marriage and two children apparently still haven’t done as indestructibly for her and James. And the curious thing is that Tom – whom she still can’t think of as the most powerful man in the country; whom she can still remember getting hog-whimperingly drunk at one of their late-twenties holidays in Tuscany – is the more dependent one. It is less apparent since he’s become PM but still, she knows there is an inequality there – perhaps only discernible to her. He is the one who looks to her husband for advice, yes, but also relies on him, she knows, to keep his secrets.

  ‘With the PM’s support, you should be fine.’ Chris is brisk. ‘Sex doesn’t have to kill a career these days. Not if the issue is closed down quickly. Lying does. Or rather, being caught lying.’ He gives a sniff, suddenly fastidious. ‘Also, you’re hardly some poor fool caught with your hands down your pants, filming yourself on a smartphone. There will be an element among the older, male voters who will see a quick knee-trembler with a young filly as perfectly understandable.’ He sneers. ‘No one’s business but yours as long as it’s brushed aside swiftly and doesn’t reoccur.’

  ‘What about an inquiry – into my having a relationship with a party employee?’

  Sophie’s insides clutch tight. The thought of an ongoing internal investigation, pored over by the press, who could chivvy and harry and complain about lack of accountability or a whitewash, was chilling. It could destroy his career but it would also wound them: stoking the subject when it needed to be buried deep.

  ‘Did the PM mention that?’ Chris is sharp, his ratty eyes – a pale opalescent blue – widening.

  James shakes his head.

  ‘Then there’s no need. This is a foolish affair, quickly forgotten – as long as you’ve told me everything?’

  James nods.

  ‘Well. You’re part of the inner sanctum. If this moves off the front page quickly, there’ll be no need for anything further at all.’

  She feels like laughing. James will be fine because he is the right type; he has done nothing illegal; and he has the prime minister’s patronage. She glances past him to the bookshelves on which Hilary Mantel’s pair of Cromwell novels sit: stories of an era in which a mercurial king’s favour was all. More than four centuries have passed and yet, in Tom’s party, there is still a flavour of life at court.

  She lets her eyelids lower, trying to block out thoughts of a 24–7 news agenda and of the pack mentality that takes hold when a story gains traction on social media. News, these days, spins so fast. But all will be well, Chris said, and he is a realist, a cynic even: there is no reason for him to offer false reassurance. None at all.

  She opens her eyes and finally looks at her husband.

  But his classically beautiful face, with its high cheekbones and strong jaw, and those crinkled lines at the outer edge of his eyes that tell of a love of the outdoors and a propensity to laugh, is drawn; his expression closed to her.

  He looks at the other man, and she spots something uncharacteristic: just the tiniest flicker of doubt.

  ‘I just hope you’re right.’

  JAMES

  31 October 2016

  Four

  The sun is filtering through the bedroom curtains and Sophie is still asleep when James comes back up to their bedroom. Six-thirty, Monday morning. Nine days since the story broke.

  It is the first time she has slept past five-thirty in all that time. He watches her, now, taking in her face, stripped of make-up, softened against the plump pillows. Her forehead is etched with lines and her tousled hair has a fine silver thread running from
her temple. She still looks younger than forty-two but this past week has taken its toll.

  He sheds his dressing gown and slips back into bed, not quite touching in case he wakes her. He has been up since five, poring through the newspapers that, thank God, have nothing on him – as if the press has finally accepted that the story has run its course. What was Alastair Campbell’s rule? That if a story was on the front page for eight days then the minister had to go? Or was it ten? Whatever the figure, he’d avoided both, and there was nothing in the Sundays. No sniff of anything further to come on social media, not even on Guido Fawkes, and Chris had heard nothing: all the indications were that the tabs had dug up nothing new.

  Besides, they had a real story to latch on to this weekend. There has been a foiled terror plot, yet again. Two Islamic extremists from Mile End had been planning another 7/7-style attack and had been raided once they’d received supplies. The Met were paranoid about leaking details for fear of prejudicing the trial but the papers were full of speculation as to the amount of damage the ammunition could have caused. He hadn’t needed to lean on the chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee to help flame the coverage: Malcolm Thwaites, pompous ex-Home Office minister that he was, would be working his way through his contacts, raising the risk of allowing Muslim asylum seekers to stay in this climate; pandering to the dog-whistle fears of his constituents and, beyond them, of white, insular Middle Britain. The affair of a junior minister few had heard of outside Westminster would fade into insignificance compared to the perceived risk of hordes of potential terrorists infiltrating the country.

  He yawns, letting some of the tension of the past week ease from him, and Sophie stirs. He won’t wake her. Won’t even risk slipping his arm around her waist, let alone down between her legs. She is still behaving in a way that is decidedly frosty. Perfectly civil in front of the children and Cristina but chilly – and, yes, frigid – when they are alone. It is understandable, of course, but she can’t keep it up. Sex is the energy that fuses them together. She needs it just as he does; or at least she needs the affection and the affirmation that he still wants her.

  That is what has hurt her so much about his thing with Olivia: he can see that, he isn’t stupid. He has been a shit, no question of it, and he has admitted it freely in those still, small moments in the night when she has finally let herself cry, and the rage she manages to control most of the time spills out in tight, sharp sobs. The trouble is, he wants sex more frequently than her; would have it every day if at all possible. It is a release – just like going for a run, or even having a piss. Something purely physical, an itch that needs to be scratched, a need that has to be answered. And for quite some time, since the children were tiny, she no longer seems to feel that same urgent need.

  He decides to risk it: to wrap himself along the length of his slight wife. She is still tiny: her shape even sleeker than when she was a rower in her college women’s first eight. Her bottom pert, her legs toned from her regular running: her stomach just a little slacker – silvered with fine stretch marks from bearing Emily and Finn. It isn’t that he doesn’t desire her. Of course he does. But Olivia was there – virtually offering herself up on a plate. Plus she was undeniably gorgeous. Even now that he thinks of her as a bitch – for she had sanctioned the story in the papers even if she hadn’t gone to them herself – he can acknowledge her beauty. A body untouched by motherhood: tight, high breasts and skinny legs; blonde hair that shone and smelled of citrus; and a mouth as capable of cruelty – for she is clever; that was part of the attraction – as it is of temptation.

  It was the first time he had been unfaithful. Well, the first since their marriage. Their engagement didn’t count – nor their student days. He had raced through girls at college as if he was compelled. Things had changed for a while after he’d met Sophie and she, rowing and finals had briefly combined to exhaust him; and yet, even then, he was still open to opportunities. That was what Oxford was about, wasn’t it? Exploration – intellectual, emotional, physical – of all kinds.

  He had got away with it – in the same way that, as the only son with two older, doting sisters, he had always got away with things as a boy. Soph had never guessed that there were other women. He’d picked wisely: girls in different colleges, different years, reading different subjects, making it all possible. These were one-night stands that lasted two nights at most, for it was variety that he craved: the endless, surprising difference between one pair of breasts and the next; one woman’s cry and another’s; one soft, damp cunt or crook of an elbow or curve of a neck. For a young man who had spent five years of his adolescence in an all-male boarding school, and before that boarding at a prep, his first year at Oxford – and even more that glorious, exam-free second year, before he met Sophie – had brought immense, anarchic freedom.

  On he’d romped through his mid-twenties, after they’d split up for six years, and through his late twenties: years when he’d worked as a management consultant and his City salary, and late nights working and then drinking, meant there was almost a surfeit of girls. And then, at twenty-nine he had bumped into Sophie again in a pub in Notting Hill and she was twenty-seven then, not a needy twenty: more self-assured and experienced; something of a challenge; a bit of a catch. She’d played hard to get for a while: wary, she’d said, of him behaving as recklessly as he had before; fearful that the crisis that had led him to dump her – for she had seen him at his most vulnerable and he couldn’t bear that – would come back to haunt them. But, despite her ambivalence, it was inevitable they would get back together. As he’d said in his wedding speech, trotting out a cliché he hadn’t taken the time to articulate more freshly, it felt as if he was coming home.

  And he really thought he had satisfied his itch. That desire to sniff around. During their engagement, there had been a couple of friends with benefits: an ex-girlfriend who’d tried to dissuade him from marrying Soph in the months leading up to their wedding; a colleague who had become a bit of a stalker when she failed to recognise that he really did just want sex with no strings attached. That had shaken him a little. Amelia’s clinginess; those tremulous eyes – limpid pools of tears that had filled whenever he had sprung out of bed, leaving straight after sex; that final, irate phone call – her voice rising in a hysterical crescendo of pain until he’d silenced her with the off button. That had forced him to draw a line under his behaviour. Marriage, he decided, was when his fidelity would start.

  And it had worked. For nearly twelve years, he had been completely faithful. The kids had made it easier. He had assumed he would be a traditional, semi-detached dad, rather like Charles, his own father; and yet they had changed him entirely – at least for a good, long while. He hadn’t felt it when they were babies. Had been fairly ambivalent when they had puked and gurgled and slept. But once they had begun to talk and ask questions then the all-encompassing love affair began. It had started with Emily but had become more intense with Finn: this burden of responsibility; the need to be someone his child – his son – respected. Not just an admirable but a good man.

  Sometimes he found them unnerving. Those big, questioning eyes, that extreme innocence, the total trust. In his professional life, he wasn’t always entirely frank: he could get away with answers that didn’t fit the question and yet still manage to mollify or beguile. But not with them. With them, he feared they saw right through him. For his children, he had to be better than that.

  And for a while, for quite a while, he had succeeded in being this good man. He had behaved as he knew he should do. Kept to those pledges made in that sixteenth-century church, in front of Sophie’s father, Max, who had made no pretence of keeping them, in the least. He would be a good man for her and their children and a better man than her father. And until a month before their twelfth wedding anniversary, he had managed it.

  And then, in May, he had been in the House, late at night. The new Counter-Terrorism Bill. A late sitting. He had been racing through the cloisters after a vote
towards Portcullis House, his stomach caving in with hunger, hoping to find something healthy to eat. And there she was: returning to collect a bag from his office after a night out with friends. She was tipsy: slightly, delightfully tipsy. Not something he’d seen her like before. And she had tripped on her heel as she’d passed him, and fallen against him; one hand reaching out for his forearm as her left foot had landed on the chill slate of the cloisters; a sheer stockinged foot, landing by his polished Church’s; mulberry-painted toenails just visible through the toe.

  ‘Oops – sorry, James,’ she had said, and bit her bottom lip as her laugh faded for it was all ‘Yes, Minister’ in the office, even though he knew they referred to him as James in his absence and he tried to get them to use their first names. She had kept her hand on his forearm as she steadied herself, and slipped that foot back into the shoe; and he had found himself holding the crook of her other elbow in his hand, as she righted herself again.

  ‘Are you all right? Can I get you a cab?’ He began to walk her towards the bell in New Palace Yard, concerned, solicitous: for she was a young woman who needed to get home safely, an employee slightly the worse for wear.

  She had stopped and looked up at him in the moonlight, suddenly sober and just a little knowing.

  ‘I’d far rather have another drink.’

  And so it had begun. The seeds of their affair sown that balmy, late-spring night as the sky turned navy and he had limited himself to a single beer and she a gin and tonic, out on the Terrace Bar. The Thames had slipped past and he had stared into its charcoal depths, watching the lights of St Thomas’s opposite – the hospital where his daughter was born – dapple the water. And he had known that he was letting go of his principles; that he was jeopardising everything that made him the man he was; the better man he wanted to be for his children – and he had barely cared.

  They hadn’t consummated their relationship then. Didn’t even kiss: it was all too public and he was still telling himself he was resisting the inevitable. That happened a week later: seven days of the most painful, delicious foreplay of his life. Afterwards, he had apologised for it being so rushed; for him needing to consume her – for it felt like that – so quickly and entirely. She had smiled. A lazy smile. ‘There’ll be other opportunities.’ ‘Like now?’ ‘Like now.’