Like Jillie’s, Ned’s social life was almost non-existent, due to fear rather than lack of opportunity. He was exceedingly nervous at first that the truth would come out; but so far nothing more than the vaguest suspicions were expressed. He was desperately lonely, and missed Jillie dreadfully. His mother had become his only companion; together they went to restaurants, theatres and the cinema.
One night in the interval of Robert Anderson’s Tea and Sympathy, waiting for Persephone to return to the bar from the ladies, he heard someone call his name, and turning, saw Diana Gunning waving at him above the crowd. For the first time in his life he was actually pleased to see her. The same applied to her; she had been genuinely saddened at the news of his cancelled wedding and in her new persona as famous top model, admired and feted wherever she went, she felt none of the old animosity.
‘Ned, darling, how lovely. How are you?’
‘I’m very well, Diana, thank you. I see you – or rather your photograph – everywhere. Do you enjoy your new life?’
‘So much. I’m just back from New York, spending a few days in London before I go home to Yorkshire. Ned, I was so sorry to hear about your cancelled wedding. I never met Jillie, but everyone says she’s adorable. All very sad. And it must have been ghastly doing it at the last minute like that, terrible decision. Jolly good for you both, though; far better than marrying the wrong person.’
‘Thank you, Diana,’ said Ned, realising with some surprise that she was the first person not just to actually confront the issue, but to do so in a calm and sensible way. ‘It was ghastly. The most difficult decision I – we,’ he added after an imperceptible pause, ‘have ever made.’
‘I should think it was. Oh – hello,’ she said to Persephone who had returned. ‘I’m Diana Gunning. Old friend of Ned’s. Well, I hope we’re friends,’ she added with a conspiratorial smile at Ned.
‘Of course we are.’
‘I’m Persephone. Persephone Welles. Ned’s mother.’
‘How lovely to meet you,’ said Diana. ‘Oh, dear, there’s the bell. I’d better go and find my friends again. The Bellingers – you know them, don’t you, Ned?’
‘A little. Well, it was wonderful to see you, Diana. Thank you for coming over.’
‘Beautiful creature,’ said Persephone, when she had gone.
Lying in bed that night at the Bellingers’, Diana thought about Ned. He was still so sublimely handsome, and charming in that gentle, soft way. And quite old for a bachelor.
Almost middle-aged. She wondered what could have driven him to cancel the wedding at – what – four days’ notice. Must have been something very serious. And to be at the theatre with his mother. With whom he was obviously very close. A shaft of light suddenly shot through Diana’s brain. Gentle. Soft. Bachelor into middle age. Cancelling his wedding at the very last minute – she had not missed the pause between the ‘I’ and the ‘we’. And – at the theatre with his mother.
‘Of course,’ she said aloud. ‘Of course. He’s a fairy. My God. Poor Ned. Poor, poor, lovely Ned.’
She had spent so much time with homosexuals over the past few years, her instincts were very sure. Everything suddenly made perfect sense.
Chapter 34
1953–4
It was the most excruciating tension Tom had ever experienced. He knew, whatever happened, he would never forget it. The huge rather bleak room, oddly quiet, only a murmur of sound, people pacing its boundaries, sometimes alone, sometimes with a companion, heads close together, engaged in important conversation. The platform, on which he would be standing when he learned his fate. The rows of long tables at which people sat, tipping the contents out onto the area in front of them, tidying them into a neat stack and then counting, endlessly. It was a crucial by-election, and Tom’s profile was high: the TV cameras were there, the first time an election had known this experience.
This was the culmination of all the weeks of walking the streets, knocking on doors, receiving sometimes a welcome, sometimes abuse, reciting the mantra until he hadn’t the faintest idea what the words meant, handing over, if he was lucky, posters saying Vote for Knelston for a fairer Britain.
Tom was popular in the town among Labour supporters; he had worked so hard, made huge sacrifices, spent long weekends without Alice as he made speeches, judged competitions, awarded prizes, attended party meetings, drank horrible watery warm beer in disagreeable pubs, ate disgusting food at endless dinners, courted town councillors, and wondered occasionally why he had ever wanted to be an MP.
Tonight, Alice was with him – Kit left with her mother – a fake smile fixed on her face, chatting up the councillors, flirting with the men she knew, Colin Davidson particularly, Tom’s agent who had worked every bit as hard as Tom; all of them pretending to be calm, assuring each other that they had done all they could. Which they had.
The numbers made no sense at first; he couldn’t take them in. William Forbes, Liberal, five thousand, two hundred and ninety-two; Tom Knelston, Labour, seventeen thousand, four hundred and twenty-seven – that sounded like a lot – James Harvey, Conservative, seventeen thousand, nine hundred.
Then there was a great roar of applause, and clapping and cheering, and – well, that was it, it seemed, James Harvey had won, beaten him by about five hundred votes. He had failed, he wasn’t an MP, not the Labour member for Purbridge. All that work, all that shoe leather, all those evenings, all for this – failure.
He felt, pathetically, like crying; but he smiled as James Harvey pumped his hand, smiled at Alice as she kissed him and slipped her hand into his, smiled through James Harvey’s acceptance speech; and then stepped forward to the microphone and started to speak himself, aware of the cameras, both flashbulbs and TV. Half angry, half despairing, but fired up suddenly to speak the truth as he saw it about the Labour Party and its beliefs.