This Was a Man (The Clifton Chronicles #7)(106)

Emma’s morning routine also began at six o’clock, and by seven she was at her desk in Alexander Fleming House, signing letters that had been prepared the day before by a senior civil servant. The difference between her and many of her parliamentary colleagues was that she read every single letter, and didn’t hesitate to add emendations if she disagreed with the proposed script or felt a crucial point had been overlooked.

Around eight a.m., Pauline Perry, her principal private secretary, would arrive to brief Emma on the day ahead; a speech she would be making at the Royal College of Surgeons that evening needed the odd tweak here and there before it could be released to the press.

At 8.55 a.m., she would walk down the corridor and join the Secretary of State for the daily ‘prayer meeting’, along with all the other ministers in the department. They would spend an hour discussing government policy to make sure they were all singing from the same hymn sheet. A casual remark picked up by an alert journalist could all too easily end up as a front-page story in a national newspaper the following day.

Emma was still mercilessly teased about the headline, MINISTER SUPPORTS BROTHELS, when she’d said in an unguarded moment, ‘I have every sympathy with the plight of women who are forced into prostitution.’ She hadn’t changed her mind, but had since learnt to express her views more cautiously.

The main topic for discussion that morning was the proposed bill on the future of the NHS, and the role each one of them would play in seeing any legislation through both Houses. The Secretary of State would present the bill in the Lower House, while Emma would lead for the government in the Upper House. She knew this would be her biggest challenge to date, not least because her brother would, to quote him, be lying in wait.

At eleven a.m., she was driven across Westminster Bridge to the Cabinet Office to attend a meeting to consider the financial implications for the government of keeping to pledges the party had made in the last election manifesto. Some of her colleagues would have to make sacrifices when it came to their pet projects, and each minister knew that just promising to cut costs in their department by being more efficient wouldn’t suffice. The public had heard the paperclips solution once too often.

Lunch with Lars van Hassel, the Dutch minister for health, in the privacy of her office; no civil servants in attendance. A pompous and arrogant man, who was quite brilliant, and knew it. Emma accepted that she would learn more in an hour over a sandwich and a glass of wine with Lars than she would from most of her colleagues in a month.

In the afternoon, it was her department’s turn to answer questions in the Lords, and although her brother landed the occasional blow, no blood was spilt. But then, Emma knew he was saving his heavy artillery for when the NHS bill came before the House.

Questions were followed by a meeting with Bertie Denham, the chief whip, to discuss those members who sat on the government benches but had voiced misgivings when the white paper on the bill was first published. Some sincere, some ill-informed, while others who had sworn undying loyalty to the party if they were offered a peerage suddenly discovered they had minds of their own if it resulted in favourable coverage in the national press.

Emma and the chief whip discussed which of them could be bullied, cajoled, flattered, and in one or two cases bribed with the promise of a place on a parliamentary delegation to some exotic land around the day of the vote. Bertie had warned her that the numbers were looking too close to call.

Emma left the chief whip’s office to return to the ministry and be brought up to date on any problems that had arisen during the day. Norman Berkinshaw, the general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing – Emma could only wonder how much longer it would be before a woman held that post – was demanding a 14 per cent pay rise for his members. She had agreed to a meeting with him, when she would point out that if the government gave way to his demands, it would bankrupt the NHS. But she knew only too well that her words would fall on deaf ears.

At 6.30 p.m. – but by then she would probably be running late – Emma would attend a drinks party at the Carlton Club in St James’s, where she would press the flesh of the faithful and listen intently to their views on how the government should be run, a smile never leaving her face. Then she would be whisked off to the Royal College of Surgeons, with just about enough time to check over her speech in the car. More emendations, more crossings out, then finally underlining the key words that needed to be emphasized.

Unlike Harry, Emma needed to be at her best in the evening, however exhausted she felt. She’d once read that Margaret Thatcher survived on only four hours’ sleep a night, and was always at her desk by five o’clock in the morning, writing notes to ministers, constituency chairmen, civil servants and old friends. She never forgot a birthday, an anniversary or, as Emma had recently experienced, a card of congratulations on the birth of a great-granddaughter.

‘Never forget,’ the Prime Minister had added as a postscript, ‘your dedication and hard work can only benefit Lucy’s generation.’

Emma arrived home at Smith Square just after midnight. She would have phoned Harry, but she didn’t want to wake him, aware that he would be up at six in the morning, working on chapter two. She retired to the study to open another red box, delivered while she was having dinner with the president of the Royal College of Surgeons. She sat down and began working on the first draft of a speech that she knew might well define her entire political career.