Diary of an Unsmug Married (47 page)

‘What about Russian friends?’ continues Greg. ‘
Close
friends? Take your time before you answer.’

‘I don’t need to. I don’t
know
any Russians, apart from Igor.’ Vicky rolls her eyes. ‘Now do you mind letting me get on with what I’m doing –
finally
? I’ve got to finish this, then go and see a constituent, on Andy’s behalf, so I’m in too much of a hurry to waste time answering any more of your stupid questions.’

Greg makes a great show of writing
that
down in his notebook, but Vicky doesn’t seem to notice, as she’s busy concentrating on trying to mend another of her horrible nails. When she decides that the task is beyond her, she phones for an ‘emergency appointment’ at the nail bar and buggers off.

I breathe a sigh of relief, but then Greg sits down opposite my desk, and starts staring at me. ‘Of course, we already know we have
someone
with Russian connections in this office, don’t we, Molly?’ he says. ‘And I don’t just mean Igor, even though he does think the sun shines out of your arse.’

Greg follows this statement with one of those meaningful looks he usually reserves for when The Boss makes one of his wilder claims to the media. It’s easy to see why being jailers went to people’s heads in that 1970s prison experiment.
^fn2

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Greg,’ I say, leaving him at my desk and heading for the relative safety of the kitchen. ‘I hardly think one disastrous date with a UK citizen who just
happens
to work in Russia counts as exposing myself to bribery and corruption. And, anyway, Johnny takes absolutely no interest in my job whatsoever. He’s as unimpressed with it as I am. More, probably.’

‘Ah, yes – but you
have
always wondered what a man as rich and successful as he is could possibly see in you, haven’t you?’ says Greg. Somewhat insensitively, if you ask me.

‘Thanks,’ I say, though not in the same tone of voice as Vicky used earlier.

‘Just some food for thought,’ Greg says. ‘And that Fabergé thing could easily be construed as a bribe.’

I add salt to his coffee, which I then spill on his trousers when I pass it to him. He accuses me of doing it accidentally on purpose, but it does shut him up for the rest of the afternoon, until it gets dark.

Vicky’s only just come back, so God knows how long fixing her nail has taken. Now she’s moaning about how she’s going to cope if any more of them break over the next few days.

‘My nail technician has decided to take a few days’ holiday, with no notice at all!’ she says to Greg, who’s pretending to take an interest in order to save my job. ‘She’s going away until the end of next week, so I don’t know what she thinks I’m going to do while she’s gone. I can’t walk around with my nails in a state like Molly’s.’

Greg says, ‘Oh, my God – no, you can’t. That would be terrible.
Insupportable
.’

When Vicky does a double-take to check if he’s being serious, he panics and suggests she go home early, as she’s ‘had such a busy day’. She seems impervious to
that
particular piece of sarcasm.

When she’s gone, Greg comes back into my office and walks to the window. He peers out for a while, then dives to the floor. ‘Get down!’ he says, in a very loud whisper. ‘They’re out there, Mol – waiting for you.’

‘Who?’ I say. He could mean any one of a horde of demented constituents as far as I’m concerned.

Fear
is
contagious, though – and Greg’s is palpable – so I slide under my desk, knocking the printer onto my head in the process. I stay on the floor for a few minutes, saying, ‘Ouch’ and looking for blood, until I realise that Greg has stood up, and is looking through the window again.

‘MI5,’ he says. ‘Look – dark car, and a man in a dark suit, speaking into his sleeve.’

When I’ve managed to disentangle myself from the printer lead that caused all the trouble, I stand up and approach the window myself. Very carefully, in case I’m seen.

‘For Christ’s sake, Greg,’ I say, after a cursory glance outside. ‘That’s Phil Ashbury, the guy from Joan’s union. He had a meeting with her at 5:00pm, probably to discuss the way The Boss keeps treating her. And he’s putting his
gloves
on, not speaking into his sleeve.’

‘So he’d like you to
think
,’ says Greg. ‘But some of us are not so easily fooled.’

He’d be a lot more convincing if he wasn’t also laughing, but I’m a bit unnerved, anyway. What if MI5
are
suspicious of anyone with a connection to an MP, and to a Russian? And what if they’re reading my emails, and followed me and Johnny to our hotel? They’re bound to have nominated us for one of those Bad Sex Awards
if they did.

They might even suspect that my necklace was Johnny’s way of softening me up. If it was, it’s already worked a treat. I told him
all
about Andrew’s views on LibDem sex scandals earlier today.

FRIDAY, 22 OCTOBER

‘You might have to help me with a CV,’ says Max, over breakfast. ‘As well as Josh. There are rumours there’s going to be a big announcement at work on Monday, and I doubt the news is going to be good.’

‘Okay,’ I say, ‘though you’ll need to get home a bit earlier in the evenings than you have been doing, if you want to get it done before next weekend. I can’t understand how this Mrs Bloom can need so many late calls, all of a sudden.’

I still haven’t seen any evidence of Mrs Bloom’s
existence
, and nor have I seen Ellen much this week. Or not when Max is ‘working late’, anyway.

He gives me one of those ‘don’t start’ looks, just as I realise that the top of the Tiffany box is protruding from my handbag and make a lunge for it.

God, that was close. My blood pressure won’t take much more of this, so I shall post the necklace back to Johnny at lunchtime today – before it gives me a heart attack.

‘I’ll need to write a CV for myself, as well as for you,’ I say, ‘if Vicky carries on the way she’s going. Even though I’m really trying to be nice.’

‘Try harder, then,’ says Josh, who’s sounding more and more like the parent in this relationship of late.

When I arrive at the office I do intend to follow his advice, but then Vicky joins Andrew in the Oprah room, and Greg and I don’t see either of them for the next couple of hours. They must be whispering, as we can’t hear them either when we wander casually past the door for no reason every few minutes or so.

When they finally come out, The Boss announces that Vicky’s going to accompany him into surgery today.

‘Why?’ says Greg, before I can ask the same question myself.

‘It’ll be useful experience for her,’ says Andrew, though he doesn’t say for what.

Greg doesn’t make any further comment, but scribbles something on a piece of paper, which he shoves into my hand as I pass his desk on my way to the kitchen. I need another, stronger, cup of coffee.

‘Here’s that number you wanted, Mol,’ he says, pulling his meaningful face. ‘Put it somewhere safe, so you don’t risk losing it again.’

I read Greg’s note as I wait for the kettle to boil. ‘That proves it, Molly,’ it says. ‘Vicky’s after
your
job. Surgery’s usually your responsibility, except for when Andrew plays silly buggers and makes me
Goldenballs
. So we need a survival plan for you – and
fast
.’

When she comes back into the office after surgery has finished, Vicky looks as if she needs one more than I do. Her face is unusually pale, even through all the foundation she wears, and she’s chewing the side of one of her precious nails.

‘You all right, Vicky?’ I say. Now I can tell Josh I really
am
trying to be nice, though the effort’s killing me.

‘Of course she’s all right,’ says Andrew, helping Vicky put on her coat with a rather excessive flourish. ‘Cope with anything, can’t you, Vicks?’

‘Well, I can’t,’ says Greg. ‘I need to go the chemist and get something for this persistent nausea.’

Andrew offers to do it for him, as he says he’s taking Vicky for lunch ‘very close to Superdrug’, but Greg says he needs some fresh air and stomps off ahead of them. I stay at my desk, trying to think of the best way to word a ‘Thanks for the egg, but no thanks’ email to Johnny. It sounds
much
simpler than it is.

I’m still on draft one when Greg returns. ‘Christ,’ he says, before throwing himself onto the sofa in the Oprah room and closing his eyes as if he’s in pain.

‘What on earth’s the matter?’ I say. ‘And get off there before The Boss and Vicky come back and decide that you’ve been sleeping on the job.’

‘I shall just tell them that I have had a relapse of PTSD,’ says Greg. ‘Caused by the trauma of encountering Steve Ellington at the pharmacy counter in Boots. Is it too much to expect constituents to keep their bloody distance when you’re on your lunch-break and engaged in a sensitive transaction?’

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I mean, no. Well, you know what I mean.’

Greg nods. MPs’ staff should be like teachers and live anywhere other than the town in which they work. You never know who’s going to pop up and start demanding to know what the point of the United Nations is, right at the moment when you’re trying to read the instructions on a tube of KY jelly – not that that’s ever happened to me. It’s just a hypothetical example I thought up off the top of my head.

‘What were you buying?’ I ask. ‘Something embarrassing?’

‘Imodium,’ says Greg. ‘I can’t tell you how much fun Steve had with that, but suffice it to say that it involved lots of increasingly tedious references to politicians’ tendency to verbal diarrhoea. So I’ve come up with a cunning plan to camouflage ourselves while we shop, in future and I’ve bought you something to help. Pass me that carrier bag.’

I do as I’m told, and then wait while Greg rummages through endless packets of Imodium, two cans of Red Bull and three bags of Haribos. After what feels like hours, he finally says, ‘Got it!’ and chucks something towards me.

I catch it, without even trying. It’s automatic, thanks to Josh. When he was about two, he went through a rather lengthy and dangerous stage of saying, ‘Catch!’ at the same time as throwing hard objects straight at Connie’s head.

So now I’m staring at the shapeless thing that’s landed in my hand, and which seems to be knitted from thick black wool. ‘Um, thanks,’ I say. ‘It’s very nice. But why are there holes in it, and what is it for?’

‘It’s a balaclava, you fool,’ says Greg. ‘I bought myself one, too. We just put them on whenever we leave the office – and then we can stay incognito wherever we go. Brilliant, eh? Let’s try them on, and see how we look.’

That idea may have been a mistake, in retrospect – judging by how Andrew and Vicky react to the sight of us when they walk back into the office. Vicky starts screaming and The Boss pulls her in front of him, as if she were a riot shield.

‘Who are you, and what do you want?’ he says.

‘Whapf?’ says Greg, which is a significant achievement with a mouthful of Haribos. My teeth are so firmly stuck together that I’m incapable of making any sound at all.

The Boss drops his voice and pulls Vicky closer to him, before continuing: ‘Are you the Russian Mafia? If so, I’m not Igor Popov – but I do know where he lives.’

‘Nompf, you foof! S’mee,’ says Greg – twice, before he gives up and removes his balaclava, and gestures at me to do the same.

Some people have no sense of humour at all. Even after Greg’s pointed out that terrorists and Mafioso don’t usually fill the time spent lying in wait for their victims by typing letters, The Boss still can’t see the funny side. He doesn’t speak to us for the rest of the afternoon, and Vicky doesn’t speak to us,
or
him.

‘Why’s Vicky giving The Boss the silent treatment?’ I say to Greg, when we sneak off to the Labour Party’s office to get away from the chilly atmosphere pervading ours.

‘Didn’t you hear what she said when Andrew finally released his grip on her?’ says Greg.’

‘No,’ I say. ‘I was still trying to pull my balaclava off, so I couldn’t hear anything at all. It’s a bit tight and I couldn’t get it over my ears.’

‘Yeah, I spotted that,’ says Greg. ‘You looked a bit like Colonel Gaddafi crossed with a meerkat who’d joined the Special Forces. Anyway, Vicky called Andrew a spineless coward for hiding behind her – so maybe she’s not as daft as she looks.’

Or as me and Greg look, when we’re wearing our new shopping kit. Greg reckons it’s worth it, if we’ve finally managed to put Vicky off stealing my job.

SATURDAY, 23 OCTOBER

I get up very late to find Max making poached eggs on toast for him and Josh while listening to the radio. It is playing James Blunt’s new song, so I turn it off.

‘I don’t see why you hate James Blunt so much,’ says Max. ‘Most women seem to love him.’

‘Well, you wouldn’t understand why I’m not one of them, would you?’ I say. ‘Seeing as you’re such a fan of the blonde female version next door.’

Max just huffs at that, and then there follows one of those uncomfortable silences. Josh decides to try to break it by taking an interest in politics. ‘What do you think of this Daylight Savings Bill,
^fn3
Mum?’ he says.

‘I’m against it,’ I say. ‘The less daylight I have to look at myself in, the better. How about you?’

‘I’m against it too.’ Josh sounds as if he’s actually given this some thought. I am very impressed and settle myself for a long discussion. Another mother-and-son bonding session coming up.

‘I was only joking,’ I say. ‘I’m in favour, and I thought you’d think it was a good idea, too. Why don’t you?’

‘I don’t like change,’ says Josh.

He looks meaningfully at Max and me. I squirm, while Max says, ‘Why not?’

‘Because change brings pain,’ says Josh. ‘Oh, and did I tell you Connie’s coming home for the weekend? She should be here in a bit.’

Max and I look at each other, then both shake our heads. How does Josh know something about Connie that we don’t? They must have spoken to each other on the phone, though that’s so rare as to be almost unheard-of.