“It can’t be much of a secret if the Scottish Office know about it,” said Andrew.
A waiter, wearing the smartest dinner-jacket in the room, approached them carrying a silver tray of thinly-cut sandwiches.
“Would you care for a smoked salmon sandwich?” Alison asked mockingly.
“No, thank you. I gave them up with my Tory background. But beware—if you eat too many you won’t appreciate your dinner tonight.”
“I wasn’t thinking of having dinner.”
“Oh, I thought you might enjoy a bite at Sigie’s,” teased Andrew.
Alison hesitated, then said, “It’ll be the first time anyone’s picked me up at No. 10.”
“I hate to break with tradition,” said Andrew. “But why don’t I book a table for eight?”
“Is Sigie’s one of your aristocratic haunts?”
“Good heavens no, it’s far too good for that lot. Why don’t we leave in about fifteen minutes? I must have a word with one or two people first.”
“I’ll bet.” She grinned as she watched Fraser comb the room. His years as a Tory party fellow-traveler had taught Andrew all he needed to know about how to make the best use of a cocktail party. His trade union colleagues would never understand that it was not in pursuit of endless smoked salmon sandwiches drowned by whisky. When he arrived back at Alison McKenzie’s side she was chatting to Raymond Could about Johnson’s landslide victory at the polls.
“Are you trying to pick up my date?” asked Andrew.
Raymond laughed nervously and pushed his spectacles back up his nose. A moment later Andrew was guiding Alison toward the door to say their farewells, and Raymond, watching them, wondered if he would ever learn to be that relaxed. He looked around for Joyce: it might be wise not to be the last to leave.
Andrew was ushered discreetly to a corner table at Sigie’s Club and it became quickly evident to Alison that he had been there several times before. The waiters ran around him as if he were a Tory Cabinet minister, and she had to admit to herself that she enjoyed the experience. After an excellent dinner of roast beef that wasn’t burnt and a crème brûlèe that was they strolled over to Annabel’s where they danced until the early morning. Andrew drove Alison back to her Chelsea flat a little after two a.m.
“Care for a nightcap?” she asked casually.
“Daren’t,” he replied. “I’m making my maiden speech tomorrow.”
“So this maiden is to be rejected,” she said to his retreating back.
The House of Commons was well attended at five o’clock the following afternoon when Andrew rose to address his fellow members. The Speaker had allowed him to follow the front-bench contributions, an honor Andrew would not be granted again for some considerable time. His father and mother looked down over the railings from the Strangers’ Gallery as he informed the commoners that the Lord Provost of Edinburgh had spent a lifetime teaching him all he knew about the constituency he was now proud to represent. The Labour party chuckled at the Opposition’s obvious discomfort, but they abided by tradition and made no interruption during a maiden speech.
Andrew had chosen as his subject the question of whether Scotland should remain part of the United Kingdom despite the recent oil discoveries. He delivered a well-argued case, assuring members that he saw no future for his country as a tiny independent state. His rhetoric, and his relaxed turn of phrase, had members laughing on both sides of the House. When he came to the end of his argument, never having once referred to a note, he sat down to loud cheers from his own benches and generous acknowledgment from the Tory side. In his moment of glory he glanced up toward the Strangers’ Gallery. His father was leaning forward, following every word. To his surprise sitting in front of his mother on the benches reserved for distinguished visitors was Alison McKenzie, her arms folded on the balcony. He smiled.
Andrew’s success was considerably enhanced when later that afternoon another member from the Labour benches rose to address the House for the first time. Tom Carson cared nothing for convention and even less for keeping to tradition and made no attempt to avoid controversy in his maiden speech. He began with an attack on what he described as “the Establishment conspiracy,” pointing an accusing finger as much at the ministers on his own front bench as at those opposite him, describing them all as “puppets of the capitalist system.”
Members present in the Chamber restrained themselves from interrupting the scowling Liverpudlian, but the Speaker stirred several times as the accusing finger appeared to cross his path as well. He was painfully aware that the member from Liverpool Dockside was going to cause all sorts of problems if this was the way he intended to conduct himself in the House.
When Andrew left the Chamber three speeches later he went to look for Alison, but she had already left; so he took the members’ lift up to the Public Gallery and invited his parents to join him for tea in the Harcourt Rooms.
“The last time I had tea here was with Ainslie Munro …” Sir Duncan began.
“Then it may be a very long time before you’re invited again,” Andrew interrupted.
“That may depend on whom we select as Tory candidate to oppose you at the next election,” retorted his father.
Several members from both sides of the House came up one by one to congratulate Andrew on his speech. He thanked them all individually but kept glancing hopefully over his father’s shoulder; but Alison McKenzie did not appear.
After his parents had finally left to catch the last flight back to Edinburgh Andrew returned to the Chamber to hear Alison’s father summing up the debate on behalf of the Government. The Minister of State described Andrew’s contribution as one of the finest maiden speeches the House had heard in years. “Maiden it may have been but virginal it was not,” concluded Hugh McKenzie.
Once the debate was over and the usual ten o’clock division had been declared by the tellers Andrew left the Chamber. One final vote on a prayer detained members for a further forty-five minutes and Andrew found the tea room—the traditional haunt of the Labour party—as crowded as it had been earlier in the afternoon.
Members jostled for the remains of unappetizing-looking lettuce leaves that any self-respecting rabbit would have rejected, accompanied by blobs of plastic-covered sweating cheese, described optimistically on the billboard as salad. Andrew contented himself with a cup of Nescafé.
Raymond Gould sat alone, slumped in an armchair in the far corner of the tea room, apparently engrossed in a