Part I.4

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I.4

The rain was pouring down when, close to midnight, Robert Montgomery and Alistair Bennison at last made their way toward the Strand and the do at James Cowerd’s club. In the end, Robert hadn’t felt himself equal to the task of making nice with the Populists while trying to watch his boss on the programme; he and Bennison had ensconced themselves instead in a pub near the venue, until at last Bennison insisted they make an appearance. The two men had George Merchant in tow, emotionally and intellectually drained from the battle before the audience and cameras on Question Time. Earlier in the evening, he had been assertive, confident, and primed with energy; now, he stumbled along serenely, almost moonily, having passed through the magnificence of his effort and into the calm waters of mental fatigue on the other side.

‘I’m not sure they’re going to want us there after that drubbing,’ Robert commented as they walked along, crowded into the narrow space beneath the overhangs of the shops lining the street. Only Bennison had thought to carry an umbrella.

‘They shouldn’t have invited us, then,’ said Bennison shortly. ‘Let them turn us away if they will.’ The umbrella dipped in his hand; a spoke stabbed Robert in the top of the head.

‘Let me carry that,’ he snapped, wrenching the umbrella away and holding it appropriately aloft.

‘It was lovely, though, wasn’t it?’ Merchant said dreamily. ‘Tiptoft looked an utter arse.’

‘That he did,’ Robert agreed. ‘I adored the look on his face when you asked him what superhuman probity he owned that would make him a better judge of what’s fit for people to see than the people themselves.’

‘All your prompting,’ Merchant acknowledged. ‘Your good ideas. I’m not sure I would have thought to emphasise the question of where politicians derive their fitness to choose what’s appropriate and what’s not.’

‘And then everyone laughed when he said he’d do it through public consultation,’ Bennison continued, grinning. ‘So instead of Tiptoft’s deciding what’s fit for people’s eyes, he’d let their neighbours do it. Not a popular plan, that.’

‘You don’t seem as gleeful as I thought you’d be,’ Merchant addressed Robert. ‘Is something the matter?’

‘Just personal problems,’ said Robert, adjusting his grasp on the umbrella. ‘I didn’t realise I’d let it affect my work.’

‘No, not at all!’ Merchant reassured him. ‘I just thought you’d see tonight as a celebration of sorts. Instead, you look a bit like your dog has died. Lady troubles, hmm?’ he asked shrewdly.

‘George,’ Bennison warned, but Robert shook his head. ‘No, it’s all right. Lady troubles indeed.’

‘Don’t let it worry you,’ advised Merchant. ‘Nothing gets you over the last one like the next one. Put your party face on and chat up some totty. You may not find another girlfriend so quickly, but at the very least you can enjoy the attentions of a one-night wife.’

Grimacing in distaste, Robert said, ‘That seems unwise, George. It’d be all over Dick McSwinney by morning: Liberation MPs in Hedonism Scandal.’

‘Nonsense!’ said Merchant. ‘Implicate the other side—pull a Populist.’

Bennison shuddered, and Robert sighed impatiently. ‘You’re particularly bizarre tonight, George,’ he observed drily.

‘And I say you are,’ Merchant countered, drawing himself up into disquisition posture. ‘Love, my boy, like politics, does not have to be a situation wherein you marry yourself to one ideology and spend the rest of your life trying to reconcile with it everything you see around you, right through to internalising contradictions that would have had Orwell screaming “doublethink!” Yes, ideology grows and changes; it takes into account the new and discards the old; it mutates with the acquisition of data and wisdom. The truly wise do not espouse principles rashly in their youth and cling to them in the face of evidence that they have chosen wrongly. Rather, they espouse sense and acknowledge with humility that to err is human. So should the truly wise love: a lover who is appropriate to one stage of life and its values is not necessarily appropriate for all time. A frequent change of lovers also permits the acquisition of data and wisdom, until an individual discovers which of his values endures. Then, when he finds a lover who shares those enduring values, he can settle down; but the process of growth and change never truly ceases. In politics, the bedrock of enduring values helps perfect the ideology; in love, it helps perfect the relationship. You need a woman who believes what you do: that the world makes sense, that the best quality of humankind is its capacity for reason, and that the single duty an individual has is to support and encourage the exercise of that reason in himself and those around him. You need a woman who will support and encourage that in you, who doesn’t demand that you set aside this capacity for her sake—’

‘Enough, George, thank you,’ interrupted Robert.

‘I was only trying to help,’ said Merchant vaguely, his mind already turning to other things.

‘Is this it?’ Bennison asked, drawing the group to a halt beneath an awning outside a pair of glass doors flanked by uniformed doormen. ‘We’re awfully late…’

‘It’s only just gone midnight,’ said Robert. ‘That’s practically early. Shall we go in?’

Bennison gestured toward the doors. ‘Lead on.’

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