Goodfellowe MP

‘I’m Jewish and I’m still breathing. What do you expect?’

‘I long ago learned to stop expecting anything,’ he said, meaning it.

‘Look, you’re supposed to be the grown-up one. So you haven’t got an invitation to the fashion show. You think she’s going to issue one in gold-block lettering and send a chauffeur-driven car? Go. Surprise her. If you can’t find the right words, at least show her that she’s more important than your bank manager or bloody Beryl or any number of your complaining constituents. Just be there for her.’

A chink of light appeared through the storm clouds. ‘OK,’ he nodded. ‘Put it in the diary, will you.’

‘I already have.’

‘For pity’s sake, won’t you let me win one round?’

‘For your sake, not if I can help it.’

He stood up abruptly. ‘That’s it. I’ve had enough. I’m going to leave you to handle all the post today on your own. I’m going off to broaden my mind.’

‘Where, in case Downing Street or the Vatican should ask?’

‘You can tell them I’m going for a therapeutic Chinese massage. With one of Jya-Yu’s prolific tribe of cousins, Dr Lin. She’s set me up with some free sessions.’

‘This isn’t something menopausal, is it?’

‘If it is,’ he said, searching for his shoes, ‘I intend to enjoy it.’

He was halfway through the door when he turned with an after-thought. ‘Tell me, what would you do if you discovered that Justin had – how can I put it delicately? – spent the night in a hotel room?’

She stretched out a leg, casually examining her tights, as though deeply unconcerned. ‘I’d have him for sausage stuffing, little bits and all.’

‘Do I detect the odious whiff of double standards?’

‘Not a bit. A man doesn’t get filleted for what he’s done, but for getting caught. I’d remember that, if I were you, while you’re having your Chinese massage.’

Corsa’s relationship with women benefited from two principal advantages – three, if one remembered his ability as a press proprietor to keep the dogs at bay. The first was his sense of physical control – the green-black eyes, the hand movements, the careful tailoring, even the deliberate way he walked, not hurrying as some shorter men might. Others waited for him. His second advantage was a wife who had known even before they had married that she would have to share him, and not solely with the Granite. But besides the Granite, she comforted herself, there could be no other mistress of importance. And there never had been. Sex for Corsa was simply another aspect of power, to be exercised and indulged over as broad a landscape as possible, particularly with wives of important men, the sort of St James’s club men who could neither hide their disdain nor satisfy their brides. An empire of English cuckolds, as outdated as the ugly oil paintings that hung in their drawing rooms. The saving grace in Corsa as far as most women were concerned was that they knew exactly what they were going to get – a physical intensity which he would lavish on them in the most elegant of surroundings, for a while, so long as business did not intervene. ‘A hand on my chest and an eye on his watch,’ as one of his lady acquaintances had remarked, but not in complaint. The eyes hovered restlessly, trembling, like the tip of a hawk’s wing, but the smile at the corner of his mouth was constant and unwavering. So was the passion. Irresistible, for some. Then, with an insouciant wave of farewell, it would be over.

Diane Burston, however, was a different matter. Since he had met her at Downing Street his mind had been tossing on an ocean. Every wave lifted his spirits, allowing him a tantalizing glimpse of what might be the way ahead, a way to survive. Then he would be cast down, the vision dashed, and he would be surrounded by hideous, violent seas that threatened to overwhelm him and smash him on the rocks. The bankers had been more difficult than he’d expected, solicitous as ever but posing more questions and requesting more paper, which on this occasion it seemed they were intent on reading. They had begun to feel the pressure, too, and like all bankers were keen on passing that burden onwards. He’d found himself struggling, even at one stage leaning in argument on their long relationship and friendship. That’s when he knew he was in deep water, for friendship didn’t travel far down Lombard Street.

And he had found his thoughts straying all the more frequently to the oil executive. Not to her body, as delightfully preserved and presented as it was, but to who she was, and what she was. As the seas grew steadily rougher they threw him higher still and for fleeting moments he was finding a clearer sight of salvation, and such was Corsa’s natural self-confidence that only rarely did he allow himself to think that he might not reach it, however distant and difficult the goal might seem. Yet he knew it would not be possible without Diane Burston, and others like her.

He’d arranged supper at Le Caprice, and Mayfair at that time of night was choked. He was driving himself – the chauffeur already knew more than enough without needing to know where Corsa might be spending the night – and he’d been cruising for ten minutes. He’d found not a single free parking space around the streets and already two clamping teams were patrolling, falling like flies upon a feast. The NCP right next to the restaurant had space but parting with money was tantamount to admitting defeat. Parking in London was war, and Corsa refused simply to quit the battlefield. Maybe it was meanness, perhaps it was the growing tension or the meeting with the bankers that reminded him that every penny might yet count – he put it down to his Neapolitan instinct, which abhorred being told what he could or could not do, and drove round one last time.

He’d passed the ancient mini-Honda three times already. A bright yellow anti-nuclear sticker shone out from the back window, and there was a sign warning of babies on board. It was also so outrageously parked that it took up space which could have accommodated two large saloons. Selfish bitch. And it was getting late. Time to put up or push off. Fa fan culo. This time he did not pass by, but eased his car up against the rear bumper of the Honda until he felt the gentlest of rocking motions to indicate they were in contact. Several tons touching tin. Then he gave it a little more gas, scarcely more than a kiss of encouragement. He was surprised how easily the Honda shifted, almost four feet. It bounced along the kerb, scraping the wheel trim, but a woman driver would scarcely notice the difference. And space had been created, he was in. A minor victory. And an omen, he hoped.

The restaurant was crowded – tonight’s highlights were a celebrating playwright, the moment’s slickest fashion photographer, a leading libel lawyer whose hennaed hair was betrayed beneath the overhead lights. They all paused as Diane Burston walked in, men and women alike, wondering who she was meeting, where she bought her clothes, envying the maître d’ as she let her coat slip from her shoulders and into his hands. She bore that quality in a woman which goes beyond beauty and suggests control, a reversal of the primeval rule that men hunted and women waited helpless within the cave for the hunter’s return, the type of woman for whom a man’s first reaction is a buckling at the knees rather than any stirring of loins.

‘Good evening, Mr Corsa. Hope I haven’t kept you waiting.’ Which she had, deliberately. He didn’t mind, not with the eyes of every man in the restaurant upon him.

They busied themselves with the functions of ordering. She cast her eyes over the menu for no more than a few seconds but knew precisely what she wanted. He had planned for champagne but everything about her suggested this was a woman of substance rather than froth; he ordered a vintage Montrachet.

‘I was intrigued by your invitation, Mr Corsa …’

‘Freddy. Please. And I wanted first and foremost to apologize. I’ve read again some of the coverage the Herald has given you. I didn’t care for it. I’m sorry.’

‘A letter of regret would have been sufficient.’

‘No it wouldn’t. I mean what I say. The Herald was wrong.’

‘That’s kind of you to say so. Sadly, of course, the damage has already been done.’

The waiter had finished laying out fresh cutlery, fish for her, côte de boeuf for him. Corsa picked up the steak knife, placing his thumb to the blade in the half-light as though checking its capacity to do damage.

‘I’ve got rid of the City Editor.’

‘Goodness,’ she replied, ‘what you men will do in pursuit of an advertising contract.’

‘Oh, no. Don’t misunderstand. This has nothing to do with your cancelled advertising. I’m in pursuit of something much bigger. And to avoid any confusion, as much as I appreciate your coming here this evening in a manner which is more than capable of starting a Cabinet crisis, I am not talking about trying to get into your bed.’

‘Then I have failed,’ she mocked. ‘When I talk business with men who don’t want to get into my bed I find I’ve lost half my advantage. Men are such little boys at heart. They seem incapable of concentrating on both coitus and contracts at the same time.’

‘I didn’t say I don’t want to get into your bed. But that’s not the point of this evening’s discussion. And I’m a very grown-up boy.’

They paused as the waiter arrived with sparkling water. The fresh ice cracked and spat in the glass.

‘You told me when we met at Downing Street that your corporate image is everything.’

‘True.’

‘Then why don’t you start taking it seriously?’

She refused to rise to his bait. ‘I spend tens of millions of pounds on it, as you know. Some I used to spend with you.’

‘On advertising, yes, but it’s an art form that has had its day. You’ve got to grow far more sophisticated. At least as sophisticated as your enemies.’

‘Enemies?’

‘You go into battle every day with eco-warriors who are trying to kill you. One oil spill, one rusting drilling platform being towed around the North Sea in search of a burial place, a baby seal which dies on a beach from unknown causes – any event like that, so long as it happens in front of a camera, and all the millions you spend on your image as a warm and caring oil company become about as effective as confetti in a Force Nine gale.’

‘Much the same can be said when newspapers like yours scurrilously and inaccurately accuse me of greed for getting a pay increase.’ She intended to wound but with Corsa it had no more effect than a soup spoon lobbed at a charging rhino.

‘Precisely! But have you ever asked yourself why you get such a hard time in the media? You’ve got to remember that even if journalists aren’t bone idle they’re all up against tight deadlines. We need news in a hurry. So the pressure groups lay a feast before us – videos, apocalyptic quotes, regular updates, even free propaganda T-shirts to wear in the garden at weekends. If we want a picture, they lay on one of their helicopters to get us the best shot.’ The bottom half of his face had grown animated, yet the eyes remained hard as coal. ‘D’you know the last thing they do before they chain themselves to trees or cut holes in the fence around a nuclear power station? They check to make sure that the batteries on their mobile phones are fully charged.’

‘But those bloody people make it up as they go along. They lie.’

Her lips had tightened, he was getting to her. He raised a patronizing eyebrow. It was his turn to mock.

‘They lie!’ she repeated. ‘Doesn’t that matter to the press?’ Her nostrils flared in protest, then slowly subsided. ‘Forgive me. I’m not usually naive.’

He leaned forward tenaciously, both hands gripping the table. ‘You told me yourself that it’s a war out there. And how do you fight it? Maybe you call a meeting of some planning committee, prepare a holding statement, discuss what, if anything, you dare to say. By which time it’s already too late. As far as the media are concerned you give us nothing but yesterday’s sardines wrapped in slices of stale bread.’

She paused, running her finger around the rim of her wine glass, listening to the mournful note.