16. Political Affair

"POLITICAL AFFAIR"

R osie's peaceful morning cuppa was rudely interrupted by a frantic pounding on her front door. Perhaps Richard had returned with a mariachi band, or David was looking to sue them for ABH after they pelted him with toilet rolls?

She approached the door cautiously, peeping through the spyhole.

Instead of Richard's hangdog expression, she was met with the sight of Lisa's perfectly coiffed hair, now resembling an electrocuted poodle. Rosie flung open the door.

"Lisa? What on earth?—"

But Lisa was already barrelling past her, slamming the door shut and leaning against it as if expecting a battering ram to follow.

"They know!" she gasped; eyes wild. "The press, they found out about Gerald!"

Rosie blinked, trying to process this information. "Gerald? You mean Gerald Fitsimmons, Chancellor of the Exchequer? What about him? They know that you're writing his book? Is that so awful?"

Lisa groaned, sliding down the door to sit on the floor, her usually impeccable suit crumpled. "We've been... seeing each other. Romantically. For months."

Rosie's jaw dropped. "You've been having an affair with the Chancellor?"

"Well, when you say it like that, it sounds so tawdry," Lisa muttered. "I'm being followed everywhere by journalists. I'm on the bloody news."

Before Rosie could respond, her phone began to buzz incessantly. She glanced at the screen to see a barrage of messages from the rest of the Sensational Sixties Squad:

Emma: "Turn on the telly NOW! Channel 4!"

Julie: "Oh my god, Lisa's on the news!"

Trisha: "I knew that 'economic stimulus package' she kept talking about sounded suspicious!"

Maria: "Ladies, focus! We need to help her!"

"The girls all know," said Rosie. "What can we do to help? What do you need?"

Rosie fumbled for the remote, switching on the TV just in time to see a grainy photo of Lisa and a distinguished-looking man fill the screen. The headline below screamed: "SHADOW CHANCELLOR'S SECRET SEXAGENARIAN SWEETHEART!"

"Oh, bugger," Rosie muttered.

Lisa whimpered from her position on the floor. "What am I going to do? There are reporters camped outside my house. I had to sneak out through Mrs. Higgins' garden."

No wonder her hair looked like that.

"Right," Rosie said, snapping into action. "First things first. Tea."

Ten minutes and two fortifying cups of Earl Grey later, Lisa had calmed down enough to explain the situation. She'd agreed to write his book because she admired him professionally, but she also did quite fancy him, and their meetings to discuss narrative flow and chapter structure had resulted in romance developing between them.

"He's not even married!" Lisa wailed. "We weren't doing anything wrong. But now the press is making it sound like I'm some kind of... of..."

"Cougar?" Rosie supplied helpfully.

Lisa glared at her. "I was going to say 'homewrecker,' but thank you for that delightful image."

Before Rosie could apologise, the doorbell rang. She opened it to find the rest of the Sensational Sixties Squad on her doorstep, each looking more frazzled than the last.

"We came as soon as we saw the news," Emma announced. "There's a hell of a lot of journalists out there. Did you know?"

"Yeah. I had an idea," said Lisa.

For the next hour, Rosie's living room became a war room.

"Does he not have any advisers? Can't they tell you what to do?"

"Nope. Noone seems interested in my welfare at all. I knew this, of course. They just want to protect him from any fall-out. Noone gives a toss about the woman whose house is surrounded."

"We care," said Julie. "We all care a lot."

"I know," said Lisa. "I'm lucky to have such amazing friends. You're all wonderful. It's just disappointing that of all the advisers in the entire British government, not one person is interested in advising me.

"Actually, it's worse than that…not one person has given a second thought to me or that I am caught up in this as well."

"I remember when you wrote speeches for that famous actor and it was the same then," said Emma. "He had about 50 million people on speed dial and none of them were interested in you."

"You had an affair with a famous actor?"

"No, no. But it gave me an insight to what fame does to people and the power it has. I remember walking up to a door with him, people would rush to open it for him then let it close in my face. We'd walk towards a taxi and the driver would take his bag and carry it while I was left struggling with fine. Fame is an odd thing…it attracts interest and help, money and hangers on. People like being part of it. They're blinded by it."

As Lisa spoke, her phone rang. "It's him. Listen, I'll have to get this," she said.

The women stood still while Lisa muttered a succession of ‘yes', ‘no' and ‘I don't know'. Eventually she put the phone down and turned to them.

"I need to get to the little layby near Esher station," she said.

"It's about a 10minute walk," said Catherine to the astonishment of everyone.

"She can't walk down the street, there are about a dozen photographers outside," said Rosie. "We need a plan. We need to be like Cagney and Lacey."

"Oh my God, I loved that sow," said Emma.

"Right. My car is parked behind the house. We can reach it by going through the back garden, but someone will need to distract them at the front," said Rosie. "I'll have to come round onto the main road and there's only one way to do that…it takes me right passed them. We need them to be otherwise occupied or they might spot me."

"Sure," said Emma. "We can think of ways to distract them."

Rosie should have known, in that moment, that things were going to drift seamlessly from the ridiculous to the utterly absurd.

Ten minutes later, Rosie and Lisa were poised by the door leading out of the sitting room and into the garden. It was a small garden with a gate on the end which led out to a string of garages. Rosie never used her garage. When she and Derek had lived together it was a store for a wide range of tools that she never understood the use of and her husband never used. Now it was a store for all of his things that he didn't take when he left. She'd asked him to take it several times in the past, and now it just sat there, presumably damp, covered in mould and no use to anyone.

Instead her car was parked directly at the bottom of her garden…easy to slip into and unlikely to be spotted until they were on the main road and going past the media scrum.

She looked at Lisa. "OK?'

"Yes. Thanks so much for this."

"My pleasure," said Rosie. "I'll just check that everyone is in the right place and ready to go."

She moved from the kitchen through to the small sitting room at the front of the house, and peeped out between the slants of the closed blinds. Emma was crouched behind her hydrangeas, wearing oversized sunglasses and clutching a homemade smoke bomb that smelled suspiciously like vinegar and baking soda.

Lisa came crawling along the carpet behind Rosie, determined not to be seen.

"Are you sure about this smoke bomb thing?" she said to Lisa. "Is this really going to work?"

"Of course it is," said Lisa. "Shall we go?"

They walked and crawled back through the house and ran down the garden to the car. Lisa climbed into the back and lay down with a pile of coats on top of her, while Rosie jumped into the driver's seat.

"Ready?"

"Yes, all covered up and ready when you are."

Rosie sent a message to the group. "All units, all units. Be aware. Principal is on the move. Principal is on the move."

She was quite enjoying all this. She was keen to help Lisa in any way she could but was also immensely enjoying acting as if she were a close protection officer assigned to royalty.

She heard Lisa giggle from the back seat. "You've been watching too many terrible American films," she said.

"Principal is moving her lips, principal is moving her lips," said Rosie, as they drove round the corner. As they approached the house, Rosie saw the Sensational Sixties Club members emerge from their hiding places and hurl the homemade floury bombs at the journalists. Rosie kept driving. She wanted to skid round the corner Starsky and Hutch style, but knew that drawing attention to her little car and its precious cargo was the last thing she should be doing when the others were working so hard to distract the media.

As Rosie turned, she saw the clouds of floury smoke filling the air behind her. She drove on, now happy that they would make their rendezvous safely.

Meanwhile, there was chaos back in Rosie's garden. The reporters were scattering in confusion. Cameras swung wildly, trying to capture the madness. Rosie's perfectly manicured lawn devolved into a battlefield.

In the middle of it all stood Emma, overjoyed by the carnage, thrilled that she'd been able to help her friend, and wondering whether they could get everything cleaned up and sorted out before Rosie returned.

The next few days passed in a blur of media frenzy. Rosie's house became the unofficial headquarters of "Operation: Save Lisa's Reputation" (Emma had wanted to call it "Operation: Hot for the Chancellor," but had been firmly vetoed).

They took turns fielding phone calls from reporters, each coming up with increasingly outlandish stories to throw them off the scent.

"Lisa Worthington? Oh, you must mean my great-aunt Lisa," Rosie found herself telling one particularly persistent journalist. "Lovely woman, but bit old now. She's lost touch with reality. Thinks she's having an affair with Winston Churchill's ghost. Sad, really."

It was on the third day of this madness that things came to a head. Rosie was in the middle of assuring a reporter that Lisa had joined a silent monastery in Tibet when she heard a huge commotion in the street.

Peering through the curtains, she saw a sight that made her heart sink. There, striding up her garden path with the confidence of a man who'd never had to throw homemade bombs at reporters, was Gerald Fitsimmons himself.

"Oh, blimey," Rosie muttered. She turned to the others, who were all frozen in various states of panic. "Ladies, we've got company. Important, political company."

Emma's eyes gleamed with mischief. "I've got a plan," she said. But there was no time, the doorbell rang before she had time to think, and Rosie stepped forward to answer it.

Gerald Fitsimmons was every bit as distinguished in person as he appeared on TV. His silver hair was immaculately coiffed, his suit crisp despite the warm weather. He fixed Rosie with a penetrating gaze.

"Mrs. Brown, I presume?" he said, his voice smooth as silk while cameras clicked and flashed, and Rosie really wished she were wearing something nicer. "I believe you know where I might find Lisa Worthington."

Rosie opened her mouth, prepared to deny everything, when a voice from behind her said quietly, "It's alright, Rosie. Let him in."

Lisa stepped into view, looking more like herself than she had in days. She'd borrowed one of Rosie's dresses, her hair was neatly styled, and there was a determined set to her jaw.

As Gerald entered, the atmosphere in the room could have been cut with a knife. The Sensational Sixties Squad watched with bated breath as Lisa and Gerald faced each other.

"Lisa," Gerald began, "I came to?—"

But Lisa held up a hand, silencing him. "Before you say anything, Gerald, I want you to know that I don't regret a single moment of our time together. But I won't be your dirty little secret, hidden away while you play the respectable politician."

Gerald blinked, looking taken aback. "I... what? Lisa, I came here to ask you to marry me."

The room erupted in gasps. Emma dropped her coffee cup. Catherine, who had been stress-eating Maria's muffins, choked and had to be thumped on the back by Trisha.

Lisa stared at Gerald, her eyes wide. "Marry you? But... the press, your career..."

Gerald shook his head, a wry smile on his face. "Lisa, I'm the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Do you really think I care what the tabloids say about my love life? Besides," he added with a chuckle, "my approval ratings have gone through the roof since this all came out. Apparently, the public loves the idea of a politician who can balance the budget and still find time for romance."

Lisa's face broke into a radiant smile. "Oh, Gerald," she said, stepping into his arms.

Rosie felt a wave of emotion wash over her. She looked around at her friends – Emma pretending not to cry (and failing miserably), Julie already sketching out designs for wedding centrepieces, Catherine and Maria hugging each other and jumping up and down like schoolgirls.

"Wait," shouted Lisa. "I haven't said anything."

The women stopped and stood still, waiting for the formal acceptance of the proposal.

"I'm sorry," said Lisa. "I love you, but I'm not ready to marry you."

Gerald looked crestfallen. The women didn't know where to look.

"Can we carry on seeing one another? I want to know you better before we get married. I don't have completely great memories of married life. I'd like us to proceed slowly."

"But if we got married it would look so much better…I mean – I would be happier," said Gerald.

Lisa looked at him. "It would look better?"

"No. That came out wrong. I mean that it would take the pressure off. There wouldn't be all this judgement from everyone."

"Yeah, because this is all about us making sure you're judged properly."

"No, Lisa. You're completely missing the point."

"OK. But the fact remains that I'm not ready to get married. Not yet."

Rosie slipped away to the kitchen to put the kettle on. Some occasions, after all, called for a proper cup of tea.

She was just pouring the water when she heard a knock at the patio doors at the back of the house. If it was a journalist, she'd lose her mind. They were filling the street at the front but so far hadn't trespassed on her back garden. She peeped through the closed shutters to see Mike standing there, a bemused expression on his face and a bouquet of flowers in his hand.

"Rosie," he said as he saw her peeping through. "Why's there's a throng of photographers and a news van parked outside your house?"

Rosie opened the patio door and looked at Mike, took in his twinkling eyes and the warm smile that made her heart flutter, and smiled. "Come in," she said.

As Mike kissed Rosie on the cheek and handed her the flowers, Gerald walked into the kitchen.

"Ah," said Mike. "Well, that answers one question, but it throws up a hell of a lot more."