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‘Bloody hell, Ollie, are you ok?’ Nicola ushered him gently into a seat.
Glenn looked at him with something close to genuine concern. ‘You ok, mate? You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Or a car crash. Or perhaps the ghost of socialism being gently fucked to death by Malcolm Tucker and friends.’
‘Robyn!’ Nicola yelled, opening her office door. ‘Coffee, please. And a lemon zinger for me. Actually, you look like you could do with something stronger,’ she murmured, glancing back at Ollie.
‘No one’s died, have they?’ Glenn asked, with slightly more nosy enthusiasm than was seemly.
‘No,’ Ollie shook his head. His face was pale, eyes still wide. ‘Though if they find out what I’ve just seen, I will be dead. Or being dead will look like the better option.’
Nicola, having established that this was almost certainly Ollie being dramatic rather than a genuine personal crisis, clapped her hands together. ‘Right, as our policy meeting clearly isn’t going anywhere until we unravel Ollie’s psychodrama, do you want to tell us what’s wrong? What did you see?’
Ollie wrung his hands. ‘You won’t believe me.’
‘I’ve been in politics a long time, son.’ Glenn grew more avuncular the more he tried to pretend concern. ‘Try me. Did Dan Miller get his cock out on the squash court?’
‘I doubt Ollie’d be upset if that had happened,’ Nicola commented. ‘And it would hardly count as news.’
‘Where did the bad man touch you then?’ Glenn continued, gleefully.
Ollie snorted, briefly roused from his shock. ‘Don’t say that, Glenn. You don’t want to put the idea of you and the bad man together in people’s heads. It’s all too plausible.’ He paused, chewing at the inside of his cheek. ‘I was going to Malcolm’s office,’ he started, hesitantly, torn between desperation to pass on his news and abject fear of potential repercussions. ‘And the door was shut, but he’d specifically asked me to come and sent a text telling me hurry the fuck up and everything, so I just knocked and opened the door and-'
‘This isn’t HBO,’ Nicola pointed out, when it was clear Ollie had stalled. ‘No need to spin it out over 22 instalments.’
‘I saw Malcolm and- Julius Nicholson.’
Glenn, more attuned to the joy of Westminster gossip than Nicola, stared at Ollie with wide eyes. ‘No,’ he breathed.
Ollie nodded dumbly.
‘Really?’
Another nod.
‘And they were-?’
Nod nod.
‘I’m sorry, could someone tell me in actual words - that you speak aloud - what the fuck is going on?’
‘Young Ollie, with his usual impeccable timing, has assured his own demise by walking in on Malcolm Tucker and Julius Nicholson. In a cinch. In flagrante delicto. Making the beast with two backs, bumping uglies-’
‘Yes, thank you, Glenn. Really? Malcolm and- and Julius? What on earth-‘
‘I don’t know- I mean, Nicolson’s always looked at Malcolm as though he’s a particularly nice biscuit, but really.’
Ollie was still doing his impression of a rabbit in the headlights. ‘Malcolm will kill me. He can’t- they didn’t notice me, but that has to count as a weakness, doesn’t it? Malcolm would see it as a weakness, indulging in petty human emotions other than anger and incandescent rage. And now I’ve seen it. His weakness. He’s going to kill me.’
‘If they didn’t see you, you might get away with it?’ Nicola suggested.
‘Oh yes, because you and Glenn are just going to keep this to yourselves, aren’t you.’
‘If they don’t lock the door,’ Nicola pointed out as calmly as she could, ‘then it won’t be long before everyone knows. You can’t keep secrets in this place. They’ll never trace it to you. And Nicolson’d probably stop Malcolm from actually killing you.’
Ollie groaned. ‘Nicolson would slap me across the face with his glove, ask me to step outside and then run me through. Or give me a sporting chance with one of his pistols. I’m not sure that’s any better than Malcolm pouring whisky on me and then setting me on fire.’
‘Malcolm’d never do that,’ Glenn remarked. ‘Waste of whisky.’
At that moment, Terri walked it, balancing a tray of coffees.
‘No Robyn?’ Glenn asked, smirking.
‘Bad luck, Glenn. She’s probably hiding from you in the bathrooms.’ Nicola sounded unsympathetic to either Glenn or Robyn’s plight.
‘Actually, I thought this sounded like quite an interesting meeting, so I brought in the coffee. And a lemon zinger for you, Minister. Has there been a development of which I should be aware?’
Nicola sipped gratefully at her lemon zinger and put some sugar in Ollie’s coffee before handing it to him. ‘Ollie walked in on Malcolm and Julius Nicolson.’
‘Really? And you walked out alive?’
‘They didn’t see me.’
‘You don’t sound that surprised, Terri.’
Terri shrugged. ‘Stranger things have happened. And it’s not a very well-kept secret that Nicolson was interested, though God alone knows why.’ She glanced round the room, taking in the others’ shocked expressions. ‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve all been sitting here discussing what Malcolm sees in Julius Nicholson. The collective masochistic hard-on you lot have for Malcolm Tucker is really quite disturbing.’
‘What?’ Glenn hectors, ‘it’s hardly a surprise that Nicolson wants Malcolm, you said so yourself. What’s news is that Malcolm’s apparently letting him have him. What does he see in Nicholson?’
‘That’d be the multi-millionaire, kind, biscuit-loving gentleman, Julius Nicholson, who seems to be perpetually in need of something on which to lavish his considerable wealth and affection?’ Terri murmured. ‘You know, I can’t imagine what Malcolm might see in him. ’
‘I doubt Malcolm’s that aware of the long-term benefits of a, er, relationship with Nicholson,’ Glenn sneered. ‘Though the thought of Malcolm having a- er- a sex drive, is disturbing enough.’
‘I can’t say I’ve ever thought about it’. It was testament either to Nicola’s increasing political skill, or Ollie and Glenn’s inability to process emotional cues that this lie passed without comment.
‘Er,’ Ollie cleared his throat and shuffled his feet. All eyes turned back to him. ‘That’s what was so fucking disturbing. They weren’t- I mean- it wasn’t caffeine- or exhaustion- or adrenaline-fuelled madness. Not get-a-room stuff. Not like if we’d caught him and Jamie at it.’
There was a silence except for Glenn and Terri, who both started to make exaggerated gagging noises and stopped abruptly when they realised they were doing so in unison.
‘Just- they were just kissing. He had his hand on the back of Nicholson’s baldy head,’ Ollie continued. ‘Stroking his skin. Like- like he was giving, or, or taking comfort. Julius had his arms round him.’ He shook his head, trying to clear the image. ‘Malcolm made this little whine. I’m going to need therapy.’
‘Perhaps you’ve finally snapped and you were hallucinating,’ Glenn suggested helpfully. ‘Too much coke and not enough sex has sent you psycho.’
‘If lack of sex could send people insane, Glenn, you’d have been staring at padded walls for the last fucking twenty years. And I don’t do coke. It’s not the fucking eighties any more, in case no one’s told you.’
‘Well, this has all been fascinating, but some of us actually have work to do, so I’ll leave you to discuss it in peace.’ And Terri bustled out.
‘Off to work, my arse. I bet you she’ll on the phone within sixty seconds. It’ll be round Westminster any minute now,’ Glenn told Ollie sombrely. ‘I would say it’s been nice knowing you, but that’d be a lie.’
‘I still can’t believe I actually saw it.’
‘For God’s sake. Is it really so surprising that Malcolm’s a human being? He was married at some point, wasn’t he? I can’t be the only person who’s realised he can’t be a demonic shape-shifting, journalist-eating, shit-dealer for his entire existence.’
The ringing silence suggested that Nicola was, in fact, the only person to realise that. Nicola wondered just what it said about the man that they were all far happier with the idea of him in some sort of possessed frenzy than they were with the idea of him kissing. Nothing good, certainly.
‘What’s this then? Nice cosy little circle you’ve got here. Goat-Fuckers Anonymous, is it?’
Nicola managed a smile, and Glenn a frozen rictus that might have passed for one, but Ollie flushed an unmistakeable scarlet.
‘M-Malcolm. Good to see you,’ he managed to murmur. Nicola could see the cogs whirring in his head. Was it better to pretend he forgot their meeting altogether and risk a bollocking for that, or to admit that he went to the meeting and found Malcolm… busy.
‘At ease, Cockwomble. You’re a shit-for-brains little clitwart, but even you don’t just forget when you’re meant to be meeting me to discuss strategy. Or rather,’ Malcolm favoured him with a snaggle-toothed smile, ‘to discuss your updated to-shag list of key Tories, eh? So I guess from your wee confab here, you’ve already rushed back to the mothership to tell all the other space cadets that you saw me an’ Julius.’
Ollie managed a petrified nod. ‘You can’t have expected it to stay a secret,’ he stuttered, with a desperate attempt at weaselling out of trouble that even Nicola had to admire. Drive Ollie into a corner, back to the wall, and he’d try to break himself down into his constituent molecules and ooze through the wall. ‘You hadn’t even locked the door.’
Malcolm shrugged disarmingly. ‘It’s no’ a secret. Just because I hav’na fuckin’ announced it, doesn’t make it a secret.’
‘Congratulations,’ Nicola said and, greatly daring, kissed his cheek. ‘To both of you.’
Malcolm reeled for just a fraction of a second then regrouped. ‘ I would take it as a personal favour,’ pale eyes swept over them, reminding them just how useful favours from Malcolm Tucker could be, ‘if you kept quiet about it, at least until our official statement appears at the weekend. It would be only fair after the number of times I’ve kept your sorry excuses for private lives out of the press.’ If it hadn’t been Malcolm, it might not even have registered as a threat. ‘Toodle-fucking-pip.’
‘Bye, Malcolm,’ Glenn muttered while Malcolm made for the door. Ollie was trying to remember how to breathe.
Malcolm paused just as he was leaving. ‘Jus’ one thing. I’ve been in this game a long time and I’ve got a thick skin, ok. So if you an’ Terri and her fucking friends want to talk about me, that’s your funeral. Go mad. Help yourselves, think it all out – bent over the desk or on the sofa, strawberry or banana fucking lube, doggy-style or face-to-face, yak away to your fucking heart’s content. Let me brighten your sad, lonely little lives.’ Nicola, cursed with an imagination, had gone a nasty shade of green. Glenn was staring steadfastly at his feet. ‘I’ll be making a personal fucking note of everyone who so much as thinks about it, but chat away. The list’ll be for my own reference, ok? But if I hear any of you fucking breathing a word about Julius, or if anything, anything at all, gets back to his baldy ears, I’ll put my fist so far into your fucking face you’ll be using your teeth as anal beads. ’ He smiled. ‘Good to have this wee chat. We’re still on for our 4 o’clock, Nicola. See you then.’
‘Bloody hell,’ Glenn breathed. ‘He actually loves him. We should get Terri off the phone’
‘Too late for that,’ Nicola replied grimly. ‘Still, her funeral.’
‘He fucking loves him.’ Ollie echoed. ‘Fucking hell. How’d Malcolm-'
‘How’d Julius-'
‘I hope they’ll make each other very happy.’ The others looked at Nicola in astonishment. She’d even sounded sincere.
‘I suppose it’s too much to hope Malcolm chokes on Nicholson’s-'
‘Ollie!’ Malcolm’s head popped round the door. Ollie coughed nastily. ‘Just remembered we never had our meeting. A wee word outside, please.’
Glenn gave a doleful salute and Nicola smiled cheeringly as Ollie went out to meet his doom.