The Divine Wind (New England Book 15) by James Philip

Author:James Philip [Philip, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-07-04T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21

Wednesday 17th June 1981

Strangers’ Gallery

House of Commons

Palace of Westminster

London

England

Emma Hamilton’s husband had been in good spirits last night at dinner. She would have been relieved had she not been so preoccupied, so obviously distracted that he had realised something was amiss.

“Are you alright, my dear?” He had queried, concern in his eyes.

“Yes, yes,” she had rallied, cursing her carelessness, “I’ve felt a little off colour today, that’s all. Nothing to worry about…”

They had both moved beyond white lies years ago; it probably explained the longevity of their, for the most part, relatively happy marriage despite having to spend well over a third of it living in that hellhole in Downing Street.

She had contrived to pull herself together that morning, even though she had slept fitfully and only then for a few hours. She and Hector had got out of the habit of sharing a bed – regularly at any rate – during his long stints as Prime Minister. He had worked stupidly long hours and was always liable to get awakened in the middle of the night; separate beds in separate rooms had become de rigueur quite early in his first, in retrospect somewhat tentative ‘shot’ at the job.

Today was one of those days when she remembered what she had sacrificed in the name of King and Country; and rather resented it even though she knew she was being unspeakably crass about things. Nevertheless, it was hard not to regret the brilliant career she might have had if she had never met Hector, or if she had married George Walpole – who had proposed to her almost a year before Hector had got around to it – or not got married at all, having children had never been important to her even before she discovered in her mid-twenties that there was something wrong with her womb, or her tubes, or something like that, it was all so long ago and she had not been paying attention at the time. Anyway, here she was now, her life possibly two-thirds run and what had she achieved?

People still talked about her poetry; she had given up that particular conceit when she was twenty-nine. She had hoped to pick up her TV career anew but that had not happened, the EBC and the independent broadcasters wanted younger, trendier talking heads, and it seemed their advertisers did not care for the political baggage she brought with her. There were still quiz shows, of course, but most of those were on the radio and strictly for morons. Hector had always talked about writing his memoirs, once upon a time she would have enjoyed editing, possibly penning sections of them, but again, her husband had gone off that idea. Unlike most other former prime ministers and senior cabinet members he had no need of cash, he had a private income that had kept them both in clover, and so far as she knew, no difficulties with the taxman mainly because unlike so many of his contemporaries he had been damned nearly incorruptible during his long spells in office.

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