Anyway, it was simply Richard’s bad luck that he happened to be watching pornography on his work computer, in his department office, at the end of a very long day when he had, admittedly, enjoyed a long, somewhat lubricated dinner in The Adjournment restaurant in Portcullis House with Arthur, one of his political advisers. He always forgot Arthur was in his twenties and able to drink more with less noticeable effect. By the time Richard wove his way back to his department, most of his colleagues had gone home. The building was empty apart from a couple of cleaners and security guards. In his office, it was just him and his desk and his computer and it seemed – well, how can he put this? – it seemed that the natural thing to do was to unzip his trousers and enjoy a little post-prandial relaxation. A stress-relieving digestif, if you will.
He’d forgotten about the CCTV. Within days, it had been leaked to a tabloid.
‘It’s not great,’ Arthur had said when he called to tell him the news. Then there’d been the chilling ‘We need to speak’ WhatsApp message from Edward Buller’s chief of staff. He knew he’d have to step down from the front benches. He was told to move out of his departmental office immediately, which made for a logistical nightmare. Terri, his constituency office manager, had offered to come down from Alderhead to help co-ordinate the move and although he disliked Terri andthe feeling was abundantly mutual, he had said yes in a state of desperation.
Richard’s wife had not been understanding. Hannah Take (nee Collins) had graduated top of her year in law from Exeter (the university, not the Oxford college, as she was fond of pointing out) and had neither the time nor the inclination to suffer fools gladly. Richard was always slightly shocked that he’d persuaded Hannah to marry him. She’d been in her late thirties when they’d met at a networking event at a corporate law firm. Plastic name badges and bowls of sumac-coated nuts. Hannah had come striding across the room, making a beeline for Richard in a way no other woman had made a beeline before or – now that he thinks about it – since. She was tall, with auburn hair and fearsomely broad shoulders and her black tailored jacket flapped across a cream shirt as she moved.
‘You’re Richard Take,’ she said, thrusting out her hand to be shaken.
‘Yes, I mean …’ He was immediately flustered. ‘Yes, I am.’
‘You don’t seem very sure.’ She spoke without smiling. It was outrageously sexy.
‘No, I am. Promise. Ha ha.’ And then, without knowing why, he formed fists with his hands and pummelled his chest and in the manner of what he imagined to be an African chieftain said, ‘I be Richard Take. It be me.’
The small group of corporate lawyers to whom he had, just a minute earlier, been talking about cheese factories and the preservative merits of potassium sorbate were shocked into silence. One of them dropped their paper napkin. It fluttered to the carpet. Hannah fixed him with a laser-like gaze.
‘That’s racist.’
‘No it’s not,’ he spluttered.
‘It is.’
‘You’re the one who has made the inference that I am mocking some particular race,’ he said, warming to an argument he now decided he believed in. ‘In fact, I was doing an impression of … of … a family member.’
‘Who?’
‘Who?’ he repeated.
‘Yes. Which family member?’
‘My grandmother.’ He didn’t know why he said it. He could only blame the four glasses of Prosecco he’d drunk on an empty stomach. ‘May God rest her soul.’
‘Really.’ Hannah crossed her arms. ‘What was her name?’
‘Phyllis.’
There was a sharp, barking sound. He realised, when he looked up from his shoes, that Hannah was laughing.
A year later they were married, in the village church near his parents’. Hannah wore a voluminous dress that surprised him with its convention. They’d had a reception in a marquee in his childhood garden. His best man had made a terrible speech referencing acts performed with dead sheep. Their first dance was to something by Robbie Williams. All very conventional. All very middle class, middle England, middle-aged.
They’d continued in this vein for the first few years – moving to Pimlico, Waitrose red wine with dinner, the odd night at the theatre, a twice-yearly minibreak in a country house hotel with spa – and it had been comfortable and easy. Or so Richard had thought. They’d never had children, that was a sadness, but Hannah faced infertility in the same brisk, straightforward way she dealt with everything else: she simply steamrolled through, shoulders back, head held high, a ‘let’s get on with it then’ attitude that was always what he thought of when he spoke mistily in political speeches of ‘the very backbone of Britain’.
Were they in love? Well, to paraphrase King Charles, what did that really mean? It was the right time for both of them to settle down. He was in awe of Hannah and she was amused by him. It seemed to work. She was a workaholic and was made partner at her Magic Circle law firm well before she turned forty. She didn’t mind his long hours or the midnight votes. Her fat salary subsidised his politician’s wages. His MP contacts and political gloss were helpful to her clients. They rubbed along nicely.
The sex was fantastic. For Richard, at least. He never stopped finding his wife a bit terrifying, which brought him to orgasm with chaotic rapidity. As a boy, he’d had a newspaper photograph of Margaret Thatcher Blu-Tacked on his bedroom wall and the sexual frisson he enjoyed with Hannah was not unconnected. But over the years, Hannah’s interest in sex had diminished and Richard could never bring himself to ask why. On the rare occasions he could persuade her into bed, Hannah would lie back with her eyes squeezed shut.
‘Oh do get on with it,’ she had said the other month, just as he was about to come.
What was a man supposed to do if his wife no longer showed any sexual interest in him? He had no answers and nowhere to turn to ask the question. His father, a Mancunian accountant, remained both emotionally and geographically removed. Richard’s friends tended to talk exclusively about rugby, cars, kids and encroaching physical ailments. His closest ally in Parliament, Ben Fitzmaurice, might have been able to help, but Richard was too intimidated by Ben’s poshness and governmental seniority. They were part of the same intake but whereas Richard had languished in mediocrity, Ben had been parachuted into a safe seat by Edward Buller and speedily made Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero by his former university chum. Now that Buller was rumoured to be stepping down, Ben was being talked of as a frontrunner to be his replacement. He had the backing of his former parliamentary colleague, Andrew Jarvis, who ran a hedge fund and was a prominent Conservative Party donor. Richard had met Jarvis once in the Strangers’ Bar and been struck by both his girth and his vacant, assessing stare – a bit like Henry VIII without any of the charm.
Richard felt no bitterness at Ben’s seemingly frictionless ascent. It was simply the way things were, the way things had always been. Ben was upper class; Richard distinctly middle. No matter how hard he worked, the chasm between them would remain. This, in spite of the fact that he’d been an assiduous student at his grammar school: one of the only sixth formers to work his way through the entire history A-level reading list.
‘But it was only suggested reading,’ his teacher had said accusingly, when Richard asked for more material to prepare for his Oxford interview (he didn’t get in and went to Durham instead, where his abiding memory was of the dark).
He approached PornHub with the same conscientiousness, first watching videos with higher percentage ratings from other users, then, when that didn’t fully align with his tastes, going through each alphabetical category one by one. Pornography seemed a more moral choice than having an affair. Besides, it was so easy these days – a swift click on incognito mode, a shortcut to PornHub, and there you had it – thousands upon thousands of free videos. Fake taxis. Nubile. Orgy. Squirting. Stepfamilies. He hadn’t meant to become addicted, but there was just too much of it to watch and he was a completist. So, in the absence of anyone to turn to over his marital anxieties, Richard had taken matters into his own hands. Literally.
On the night that had marked his political and personal nadir, his drunkenness had made him less cautious than usual. The browser hadn’t been in incognito mode after all. The CCTV camera had been pointed almost directly at his desk. His penis had to be pixelated when the footage was replayed on the evening news, with what had felt like an unnecessary trigger warning from the anchorwoman that ‘some viewers may find this distressing’. TheSunhad a high old time coming up with puns. ‘Dick Take Out After Taking Dick Out’ was a particular low point.
