A Scandalous Man

‘Whoever invented it, it came across as so … so very American,’ she added slyly. ‘Optimistic. Positive. Problem solving. Not the kind of pessimism we associate with the British.’

‘One out of three isn’t so bad,’ Jack Heriot said.

‘One out of three?’ Peter Doberman the American diplomat asked.

‘Bearing down on inflation,’ Heriot explained. ‘At least we are doing that. The rest of Robin’s crystal ball seems a bit fuzzy. The Soviet Union will be with us for many years to come. And what’s worse, so will the unions …’

I wanted to kick Heriot in the balls, crystal or otherwise.

‘You see, that’s the difference between the two sides of the Atlantic,’ Leila Rajar suggested, as if Heriot had just proved her point. ‘Typically, you guys always see the glass half empty. We always see it half full. That’s why I thought Professor Burnett was more like an American. He believed things were possible, which is maybe why he’s Chief Secretary to the Treasury now, and why he was such a big hit on his recent visit to Washington.’

Briefly she laid a hand on my arm as she talked about me. No more than half a second, but it contained a jolt of pleasure that I wanted to repeat. I could sense her perfume. Her eyes washed over me. Silk and lace on tanned skin. I was lost, but I did not yet know how completely.

‘They say that you, single-handedly, got the Reagan administration on-side,’ she smiled at me. ‘That you wowed Hickox and the neo-cons, and that they all love you. They say that you are “One of Us”.’

‘Then they say wrong,’ I replied firmly. ‘I have many friends in the Reagan administration and I can tell you that your President is a proud defender of democracy against military dictatorship. He needed no prompting from me. Supporting Argentina was never a realistic option.’

She laughed.

‘You say that with a straight face?’

Not any more. I burst out laughing too. She got to me with her wit, as well as with her beauty.

‘Let me just repeat the wisdom of Winston Churchill,’ I said. ‘That the American people always do the right thing – usually after having exhausted every conceivable alternative.’

Doberman and Heriot began arguing cheerfully about European pessimism and American optimism. It was standard diplomatic party talk, and a silence fell between me and Leila. I drank in her beauty. Her eyes were big and dark brown, her hair long and thick. I felt a strange apprehension strike me. I wanted her, but I did not want to be at that party any more, not in the Locarno Suite, not with any of these people. It was almost my last attempt at sanity, before what was to become the madness of falling in love with her. It was as if I was to make a last attempt to break free, before Leila overwhelmed me.

‘Very nice meeting you, Ms Rajar.’ I put out my hand suddenly, to shake farewell. Her hand felt small and soft in mine and the touch of her fingers moved me again like an electric charge. ‘I’d better circulate a bit.’

I tried to read her expression, hoping it might be one of disappointment. I don’t think many men said goodbye to Leila Rajar, but if she was surprised then she did not show it. She merely smiled. It was a diplomatic cocktail party kind of smile, with no meaning or warmth.

‘Very nice to meet you too,’ she said. ‘I hope our paths cross again.’

‘I hope so.’

‘Well, if you are not prepared to admit to your secret diplomacy – which is not so much a secret anyway thanks to some well-orchestrated leaks – then perhaps you could give me an interview about the future health of the British economy?’ she suggested cheekily.

I nodded.

‘It would be a pleasure, Miss Rajar. Call my office and arrange it. Tell them I have definitely agreed to it.’

And we parted. My heart was thumping. I was nervous, and I was almost never nervous. I felt my hands tremble and my legs go weak as I moved towards the door through the journalists who launched another fusillade about the economy. Remorseless. Relentless. Feed the beasts. Feed the beasts.

My heart was beating curiously and I wanted to get away, far, far away. I answered questions for a few more minutes. I told the woman from The Times that it was not simply up to the government to manage the unions, it was up to employers.

‘Like The Times?’ she suggested mischievously. Clearly mentioning Rupert Murdoch had hit a chord with her.

‘Fleet Street is home to some of the worst abominations in British industry,’ I told her. ‘Over-manning. Restrictive practices. Buying off trouble rather than confronting it. One of these days some proprietor will have the courage to take on the print unions. Perhaps it will be your proprietor. We in government admire Mr Murdoch’s robust leadership.’

‘Take on the unions with government support?’

‘With enthusiastic government support. Perhaps you should mention that to Mr Murdoch, if the opportunity arises. Or perhaps I will.’

She could not have mistaken what I was suggesting. As I left I looked back to see Leila smiling at some remark from Jack Heriot. I closed the door and ran down the stairs. When I reached King Charles Street I sucked in the cool night air, and hurried off to my desk at the Treasury for the therapy of some late night work on the monetary supply figures. They never failed to calm me down.

Leila fixed up a meeting almost immediately. I was impressed, though I should have guessed that she would not wait. She called my office after a day or so, although it took another forty-eight hours for a slot to be found in my diary. Since Leila worked for CBS News at the time, it would have been reasonable to assume she might want a television interview. Reasonable, but wrong. She asked for an off-the-record chat. I felt a shiver of pleasure. I suggested lunch. Lunch is the best meal in London. It can have the air of business. It can be innocent. Dinner or breakfast with a woman as strikingly pretty as Leila carried an entirely different connotation. And yet I’d bet that more careers and more love affairs are made or broken over lunch than any other meal or meeting. My staff booked a quiet sushi place in St James’s, and I walked over through the park. They have private booths in the sushi place. I go there when I want to plot something. It occurs to me now that perhaps I was plotting my own downfall.

‘Tell me about the Lady,’ Leila whispered, almost immediately as she sat down opposite me. She touched me gently on the arm as she spoke. Again it was for less than a second, the merest brush of her hand, but I felt my body stir. ‘She’s such a superstar now in the United States. You must tell me everything.’

‘Everything?’ I laughed. ‘That would be a breach of the Official Secrets Act.’

‘Oooh,’ she giggled, ‘how exciting.’

‘Then perhaps I will tell you everything,’ I replied. ‘After all, you’re a journalist. I can obviously trust you. It will go no further.’

When she laughed she threw back her head and I watched her dark brown hair fall on her shoulders. My life until that point had been full of rational choices and decisions, some hard and some easy, but falling in love with Leila was not like that. It was not a choice or a decision. It was as involuntary as breathing, and I sometimes think that perhaps it was as necessary. I had always thought there was a rational world, which was where I lived, a world of graphs and statistics and economic theories, of university departments and Treasury meetings. There was also an irrational world, which I despised – a world of horoscopes and beliefs, of hatreds based on race or bigotry or religion. Falling in love with Leila made me realize there was also something else. I called it a meta-rational world, a world which was beyond explanation, but which also, somehow, made sense even if I could not say exactly why.

That was Leila. Meta-rational. I looked at her, straight in the eyes. It was a long time before either of us blinked. I handed her the sushi menu and for the briefest of moments our hands touched, and I thought again of silk and lace. We ordered. I chose the set sushi menu because it did not involve any thought. I didn’t care what I ate. In the years with her that followed, I was rarely hungry for food. I was hungry for her, and it showed.

And so that very first day I did tell her about the Lady. Not everything, of course. No real secrets. I am loyal and discreet. But I did tell her a lot about the mechanics of how government worked, about how the Lady was so very meticulous, so very neat, how she had her own dresser whom she relied upon, how she really responded to men in uniform, how – there is no other word for it – she flirted with those she liked, and demolished those she did not. Leila listened and played with her food, pushing a stray hair behind her ear and sometimes cocking her head to the side as she lifted a tuna roll or a slice of sashimi. I had a sudden desire to touch her cheek gently with my fingers. The thought made me gasp.

‘Do you mind if I take notes?’

Do you mind if I make love to you, I thought.

‘This is off the record.’

‘Yes, but … deep background? Who knows, I may one day write a book about all this.’

‘So might I,’ I joked. ‘I keep a diary and one day it might keep me. Go ahead. Take notes if you wish.’ She had a frank way of holding my gaze that I have never seen in a woman before or since. ‘Curiously, I trust you,’ I said slowly. I thought I was about to die. After a minute or so getting out a suitable pen and notebook, she plugged the silence.

‘You clearly think the Lady is wonderful.’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘I have heard she is also bossy, intolerant of dissent, that she doesn’t listen to her Cabinet and …’

I stopped her.

‘But that is precisely why she is so wonderful. These are compliments.’

‘It is a compliment to say she’s bossy and won’t listen?’

I sighed.

‘The British Cabinet is full of people who think they should be Prime Minister. They all think they are in with a chance to succeed her, eventually. In the meantime, most of them do what they are told. Some of them – like Michael Armstrong – in their hearts despise her because she has the capacity for greatness, whereas they do not and they know it. She is intolerant of dissent. But she loves argument. That’s not the same thing. She listens and she argues back, then she takes a decision and you fall in line or you get out. In government you need to be bossy when you’re right. That’s why she fired Armstrong.’

‘And what if you’re wrong?’