The accident Alexia De Vere hated the euphemism for her daughter’s suicide attempt, a three story leap that had left Roxie wheelchair bound for the rest of her life. In Alexia’s view, one should call a spade a spade. But Alexia’s husband, Teddy insisted on it. Dear Teddy. He always was a soft touch.
Placing her husband’s photograph next to their daughter’s, Alexia smiled. An unprepossessing, paunchy middle aged man, with thinning hair and permanently ruddy cheeks, Teddy De Vere beamed at the camera like a lovable bear.
How different my life would have been without him. How much, how very much, I owe him.
Of course, Teddy De Vere was not the only man to whom Alexia owed her good fortune. There was Henry Whitman, the new Tory Prime Minister and Alexia’s self-appointed political mentor. And somewhere, far, far away from here, there was another man. A good man. A man who had helped her.
But she mustn’t think about that man. Not now. Not today.
Today was a day of triumph and celebration. It was no time for regrets.
The third picture was of Alexia’s son, Michael. What an insanely beautiful boy he was, with his dark curls and slate-grey eyes and that mischievous smile that melted female hearts from a thousand paces. Sometimes Alexia thought that Michael was the only person on earth she had ever loved unconditionally. Roxie ought to fall into that category too, but after everything that had happened between them, the bad blood had poisoned the relationship beyond repair
After the photographs it was time for the congratulations cards, which had been arriving in a steady stream since Alexia’s shock appointment was announced two days earlier. Most of them were dull, corporate affairs sent by lobbyists or constituency hangers-on. They had pictures of popping champagne bottles or dreary floral still-lifes. But one card in particular immediately caught Alexia’s eye. Against a stars and stripes background, the words ‘YOU ROCK!” were emblazoned in garish gold. The message inside read:
‘Congratulations, darling Alexia! SO excited and SO proud of you. All my love, Lucy!!!! xxx’
Alexia De Vere grinned. She had very few female friends – very few friends of any kind, in fact – but Lucy Meyer was the exception that proved the rule. A neighbor from Martha’s Vineyard, where the De Veres owned a summer home – Teddy had fallen in love with the island whilst at Harvard Business School –, Lucy Meyer had become almost like a sister. Lucy was a traditional home-maker, albeit of the uber-wealthy variety, and as American as apple pie. Alternately motherly and child-like, she was the sort of woman who used a lot of exclamation points in emails and wrote her I’s with full circles instead of dots on the top. To say that Lucy Meyer and Alexia De Vere had little in common would be like saying that Israel and Palestine didn’t always see exactly eye to eye. And yet the two women’s friendship, forged over so many blissful summers on Martha’s Vineyard, had survived all the ups and downs of Alexia’s crazy political life.
Standing by the window, Alexia gazed down at the Thames. From up here the river looked benign and stately, a softly flowing ribbon of silver snaking its silent way through the city. But down below, Alexia knew, its currents could be deadly. Even now, at fifty nine years of age and at the pinnacle of her career, Alexia De Vere couldn’t look at water without feeling a shudder of foreboding. She twisted her wedding ring nervously.
How easily it can all be washed away! Power, happiness, even life itself. It only takes an instant, a single unguarded instant. And it’s gone.
Her phone buzzed loudly.
“Sorry to disturb you Home Secretary. But I have Ten Downing Street on line one . I assume you’ll take the Prime Minister’s call?”
Alexia De Vere shook her head, willing the ghosts of the past away.
“Of course Edward. Put him through.”
South of the river, less than a mile from Alexia De Vere’s opulent Westminster office but a world apart, Gilbert Drake sat in Maggie’s café, hunched over his egg and beans. A classic British ‘greasy spoon’, complete with grime encrusted windows and a peeling linoleum floor, Maggie’s was a popular haunt for cabbies and builders on their way to work on the more affluent north side of the river. Gilbert Drake was a regular. Most mornings he was chatty and full of smiles. But not today. Staring at the picture in his newspaper as if he’d seen a ghost, he pressed his hands to his temples.