"Absolutely, George," she agreed, nodding vigorously.
"Absolutely." The chairman was convinced that loyalty was something genetic, a measurement of the evolution of the species. The pressure of Central Office was mounting with each passing week of the summer, in anticipation of an autumn election. No one had decided a date, of course except perhaps that political manipulist, Events.
"Of course, I entirely agree not without proper consultation, not even when we're still thirty points behind in the polls." Her election agent's features sagged at the jibe. Pat, beside Bill and slightly in awe of the chairman's wife hers was older money and she was far better educated — was engaged in a pretence of interest in matters political.
The chairman was angry at an article Marian had written for the Telegraph on the European issue. His features were suffused with more than wine and food and the heat of the marquee.
"Just so, George," she offered into another long, slow pause in his harangue.
George was running out of steam. Not long now… There was already a general drift from the marquee to the lawns in anticipation of the fireworks.
Suddenly, as if his wife had decided that Marian's patience had been put to a sufficient test, she took the chairman's arm and murmured:
"Come on, dear I'd like a good view of the fireworks."
George seemed reluctant to let Marian slip, then patted his wife's hand and nodded.
"Goodbye, my dear. Think about—" But his wife was already drawing him away, a smile of genuine affection, even admiration for Marian on her lips.
The marquee continued to empty, the long trestles of food and the copious drink temporarily abandoned for the lawns and the lake. The ducks and wildfowl had, with the wisdom of foresight, long since retired to more distant water. Marian swigged at her Chablis.
"Phew crikey!" she said mockingly, smiling at Bill. Pat seemed puzzled, Bill irritated.
"I listened, Bill," she soothed, forcing a nod of admission from her agent.
Ben Campbell, the Euro MP for the constituency that contained her own, was approaching, shepherding a group which included Bryan Coulthard, the CEO of Aero UK. Another of the conspirators, she thought, the notion changing from amusement to chill in an instant. She waved at Ben Campbell over Bill's head, but he seemed intent on ignoring her and his party passed out of the marquee. She had seen the two EU Commissioners, too, from time to time, glimpsing them across the crowded marquee. Pleasure did not seem their pursuit, but she may have been mistaken.
"Hello, Marian!" she heard, as Pat was attempting to move Bill out on to the lawn.
She looked down. Pat seized the opportunity to distance herself from Marian.
"Hello, Sam." They shook hands.
"Sorry to mess you about cancelling our meeting, after ringing your office." Egan almost purred.
"It wasn't important then?"
"No. Forget it." He winked. Thought you could put in a word about… but the matter sorted itself out just after I called you." His smile was eager.
Sam Egan was short, plump, apparently jolly. A great many of his business rivals had been disarmed by his appearance and been taken up the garden path at the same time by the shrewd brain behind the innocent, slightly myopic eyes. His wife was sun bed-browned to a crisp, and there was too much middle-aged flesh revealed by her voluminous frock. She disliked Marian, seeming to distrust her husband's association with her. Egan's lump of a gold watch and his gold bracelets caught the subdued lights of the marquee. His face was shining.
She remembered, Sam Egan's company, Egan Construction, was heavily involved with the Urban Regeneration Project — mostly beyond the constituency, though he and his wife lived just outside the cathedral city. Had he experienced difficulties with cash-flow, like Ray Banks?
What had he wanted to see her about?
The remainder of Egan's party had already disappeared. One or two of the men, sleeked and coiffured, had glanced at her stature, her features, then seemed somehow disappointed at her mannish suit.
"Sam," she murmured, taking his arm and bending her lips to his ear, to Mrs. Egan's evident irritation, 'a little bird told me that there are funding problems on the Regeneration Project… Anything in it?"
His reaction surprised. A natural and comfortable assurance, a sense of his having eaten and drunk well but not to excess, was removed like a disguise. He was at once possessed of a suspicious, drunk like aggression towards her.
' Who told you?" It was as if someone had initiated a damaging rumour about his company or his sexual capacity. His hand gripped her arm, champagne spilling from his flute on to the sleeve of her suit.
"You don't want to listen to bloody rumours, Marian there's always a couple of whingeing buggers in the construction trade…" The words seemed like a mantra, recited to recapture calm, confidence, repose.
His smile faltered like a neon strip light then came on. There remained, however, an edge of warning in his voice.
"You don't want to listen to gossip, Marian. I'm surprised. You want to see it, some time. It's going to be a bloody marvel… We don't need people running it down — sounds like a London attitude to the Midlands to me!" The smile remained like that of the Cheshire Cat, but around it Egan's features hardened rather than disappeared. His eyes studied her flintily.
"Well, that's good news, anyway," Marian soothed and disarmed.
"Just what I was hoping to hear."
"Who's been bending your ear, Marian?"
' "The isle is full of noises"," she quoted, smiling.
"Just something I heard cash flow, late payments—" Egan's features distorted in a grimace of anger, then he masked it by raising his champagne flute to his lips.
The moment was tense, filled with suspicion, until it was defused by Egan's wife, who spotted a woman with a small role in a regional TV soap with whom she shared a hairdresser. Waving, she dragged Egan reluctantly away with her other hand. Little sparks of suspicion, even anger, played around his features like a dull St. Elmo's Fire as he departed.
The marquee was all but empty. It was no more than a moment or two before she replenished her plate with prawns and more salad, had her glass refilled. The encounter with Sam Egan clung about her like a chill mist. There had been knowledge, and the attempt to disguise it, in his eyes; the sense of secrecy.
Marian wandered out of the marquee into cooler air and the anticipatory noises of the guests. A smile slowly spread across her face as she walked towards the house. She knew exactly where she needed to be to watch the firework display, a window from which she had watched such events as a child.
Had Clive's Silver Wedding been one such occasion? The playroom window on the top floor of the house the idea amused and attracted her. She'd watched the domestic rituals of the gardens, the loves and quarrels and hoeing and planting, from that window. In the company of David and his long-dead brother… She climbed the steps to the rear terrace, pausing to look back at the floodlit guests like a corralled horde of peacocks and blackbirds. Then she entered the house. The housekeeper smiled at her with an old, affectionate familiarity, shrugging at the litter of abandoned glasses and plates obscuring the polish and inlay of eighteenthcentury tables. Marian shook her head in sympathy.
The long hall was deserted, silent after the babble outside. Then she heard a voice she recognised, and another so recently familiar, raised in quarrel. She hovered, feeling exposed and foolish in the middle of the hall, standing on a faded Persian carpet that covered the marble floor. She had no real sense why she had paused to listen. She had heard no distinct words, only David's raised voice and that of Sam Egan. Where—?