Eden knew she’d been so careful. Plus, it was so long ago.
So while Diarmuid’s people had examined her, they wouldn’t have found this. Astonishingly, the examination she had had for the party was far more strenuous than any vague enquiries Diarmuid had made personally when he heard she was going to marry his son.
Personally, he didn’t care what she was like, because she was good political material. Ralphie could figure it out on his own.
A sense of irritation hit Eden. She loved Ralph. And when she’d married him what had interested his father more – not his mother, but certainly his father – was whether or not she was as good for politics as she looked. Because by then, Eden had become interested in running for political life. Ralphie was a good man, she was a good person, this would not bring her down. Renewed, she stared at her father-in-law.
‘Diarmuid, I don’t know what they’re looking for, but they’re not going to find anything, are they?’ She could see Rian, who had been leaning against the wall, straighten up and she repeated the sentence a little differently. ‘They’re not going to find anything.’ God, that had been stupid, sayingare they? But Diarmuid didn’t appear to have heard it.
‘No, no,’ he said, ‘they’re not going to. And yes, if it’s a tactic, you’ve got to know how to handle it.’
She was on firm ground again.
‘Course I can handle it, Diarmuid,’ she said. ‘I’ve learned from the best, haven’t I?’
She hated having to butter up his ego but it was the only way. Despite all their bluster about the Freedom Party being about uniting people, it was still run by grey men like Rian O’Donoghue with their freaky, emotionless eyes and by old school titans like Diarmuid, who could appreciate women but just didn’t want to do political business with them. Women were part of the ‘gender quota’, unless they were his wife, Agnes, who was happy to remain in the background and work for the party.
The likes of Eden – still under forty, outspoken – scared them all.
The party, despite some efforts, was the least inclusive and all-gender-rights aware place she’d ever worked and that included a pub in the city once where the clientele were exclusively male and her signature move was flicking hands off her rear end as she passed by with a tray of beer.
Half of the party still went to church on Sundays, despite living life in a very non-church way for the rest of the week. Plus, they’d vote in Attila the Hun if he said he was pro-life because despite the Eighth Amendment making abortion legal, they were all terrified that the older populace was still wildly pro-life and saying anything about abortion at all would mess up their future election prospects. Which infuriated Eden beyond speech.
Women’s bodies and their rights had taken possibly tenth place in the minds of the vast army of white, older male politicians for centures, millennia.
Agnes had told her it would probably be a mistake to wear her ‘Smash The Patriarchy’ T-shirt to the last party conference but had added; ‘your time will come, honey. I promise. You just have to wait for the right time.’
When was it going to be the bloody right time for her?
‘Now is that it?’ Eden said in her bored voice to her father-in-law. ‘Because I’ve some personal time booked off – my parents’ wedding …’
‘Yes, yes, go,’ said Diarmuid with a wave of his hand, an almost presidential wave. He’d love to be President, Eden knew, but there were definitely skeletons in his cupboard. Favours given to developers, donations from the same grateful developers.
Were his skeletons as big as her secret was? She didn’t know. She didn’t want to find out, either. This was a pivotal point in her career. With the next election in the autumn, she could be in national politics, finally. And could drag the Freedom Party out of the Middle Ages.
She could not, would not, allow some random blackmailer to ruin that.
Rory
The ring of the doorbell woke Rory.
She sat up in bed, realised she had the day off, then lay back down again.
Her boss at the ad agency hadn’t been in the slightest bit pleased at her taking the week off but she didn’t care. Rory allowed herself a small shudder that she wasn’t sure was the remains of yesterday’s hangover or a brief hint of anxiety. Not something she normally suffered from.
A memory from Sunday night hit her.
She’d been nursing her glass of whiskey, ruminating. Her childhood hadn’t been perfect, she knew it hadn’t been perfect. And everyone knew that, didn’t they? But different children remembered childhoods differently. It was well known.
Eden seemed to think it had all been tickety boo. Indy behaved as though they’d been a happy family from TV sitcom-land. Savannah – who knew whatshebelieved?
Rory had shuddered suddenly. Well, they’d know what she thought when the book came out. She could say that hints of the book had been inspired by her real life but that it was fictional. Saying that with a straight face would be tough, though.
And then – Rory cringed, as this went to the heart of the matter– Louisa had said: ‘What do your family think about it?’
In a move she recognised as being exactly the same as her father’s, Rory had downed her glass in one.
‘Oh, they don’t know that much about it,’ she said quietly.
