LITMIR.BIZ

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her mind which rose up every time she drank or spent too many moments alone that she had failed Charles. Her end of the bargain was to give him children whilst he went out into the world and made the money. Beside her famous husband Elaine felt like dead weight. Charles and his career were all she had.

      ‘I’ll be fine, I’m sure. Perhaps I’ll try those sleeping pills again,’ Charles said as he rose from the table.

      ‘Whatever is troubling you, I’m sure that we will get to the bottom of it,’ Elaine smiled reassuringly.

      ‘Indeed, dear.’ Charles took his plate and the remains of his egg into the kitchen and Elaine sat contemplating her husband’s odd behaviour, as she had taken to doing most mornings. Whatever the matter was with him, she vowed to discover the cause of his distress and solve the problem. She mentally ran through a list of people she knew who might help, from sleep therapists to tarot card readers. Elaine couldn’t stand seeing her husband so miserable. If sleep was what he needed, that it was her job to ensure that he slept. She would do anything she could to help him.

      It was a myth that time healed all wounds. Half a dozen months had passed since Lorna’s suicide and Charles’ pain had only intensified. Everywhere he went he was reminded of her, bar his home, which was off limits because he was struggling to face Elaine, sure that she could see through his work façade and knew deep down of his deceit towards her.

      But his work offered some solace. He threw himself in to his role as Deputy Prime Minister with more gusto than ever. He accepted every invitation, attended every meeting. His face had never been more seen by the people of Britain. Little did they know that behind the beaming smile lay a cracked and broken heart.

      As he undertook his sacred morning ritual, Charles would pause and regard himself in the mirror and pull his face into the Cheshire cat grin he wore for the media. Whilst his smile appeared warm and friendly, his eyes belied his inner turmoil. They sat lifeless in his head, without their former sparkle. A few of the tabloid papers had commented, attributing his saddened eyes to his inability to cope with current political issues such as the potential collapse of the National Health Service. But Charles was dealing with those issues easily – they were nothing compared to the battle he faced each and every day when he had to sit in his office, alone, his palms on his desk, unable to think of nothing but Lorna’s naked body writhing upon it.

      ‘Remember you have that press conference at ten,’ Elaine poked her head around the bathroom door, ever the eager assistant. She perused his appearance with interest before entering the room and realigning the blue tie he had just been securing into place. Charles stood, lifeless and submissive, and let his wife alter his collar and tie.

      ‘There – much better,’ Elaine declared triumphantly, patting down the collar with her freshly painted nails.

      ‘Come on now, dear, try and look less tired. What did the doctor say?’

      ‘More tablets,’ Charles said absently. He had tried every medicine known to mankind in his attempt to sleep through the night but Lorna’s ghost was persistent, being able to penetrate through the thickest drug-induced fog to find him and torment him; forever placing her last kiss upon his cheek before collapsing to her untimely death.

      ‘What are your plans for today?’ Charles asked, wanting to divert the conversation away from his ongoing fatigue, wary that his wife might continue to pry. He would have enough awkward questions to answer at the press conference; he did not wish to answer them in his own home.

      ‘Today,’ Elaine said with a hint of grandeur, clearly excited by her impending plans, ‘today I shall be choosing colours for the dining room as we are redecorating it, remember?’

      ‘Didn’t we decorate the dining room last summer?’

      ‘And then I’ve been asked to chair a book club somewhere over in Mayfair, which is exciting,’ Elaine continued, ignoring Charles’ question.

      ‘You do love your books.’

      ‘Oh yes, today we are discussing Wuthering Heights. Ah, I used to love that book as a girl. It’s all so turbulent and dark. I hate how Heathcliff ends up being haunted by Catherine’s ghost. I remember reading that bit as a young girl and being terrified!’

      ‘I can imagine.’

      ‘Well, writers love to dramatise things, don’t they. Love, in most cases, is simple. Look at us. It’s when you don’t go for your own kind, which is what happened in the book, that you end up in trouble.’

      Charles frowned at the implications of his wife’s comment, but she had left the room, calling to him as she left about various shades of beige. He pondered on what she had said. Was he possibly now being punished for loving someone he shouldn’t have? Did all those who commit adultery suffer similarly?

      ‘Good morning, sir,’ Faye handed Charles his messages as he strode past her, heading for his office.

      ‘Good morning,’ he managed to smile at his assistant before thankfully entering the solitude of his office. For a brief moment, he would enjoy the quiet, but then the memories of Lorna would begin to surface and he would long to be released from what had started to feel more like a prison than a retreat.

      Charles tried to occupy his mind with the papers left on his desk but everything in them felt superfluous to him. He tried to engage himself in the news stories but it was hopeless. His mind was already sinking into the pit of despair it did every morning. Clearly, the papers were not a strong enough distraction, so he turned his attention to his handful of messages.

      There was nothing of note; a few calls he had to return, nothing more. As he was about to return to the papers he noticed the final note Faye had wrote down for him in her tidy, cursive hand and his heart sunk. In his eagerness to be more proactive at work in an attempt to place a plaster over the wound Lorna’s death had left upon him, he had agreed to a meet and greet session with the latest intake of interns.

      The Prime Minister was always far too busy for such meetings and so in his role as Deputy he had the responsibility of being the face of the ruling political party, to be available for hospital openings, charity balls and any other relevant events.

      As he sat behind the desk, which had once nearly been burnt to the ground by the fires of his own passion, he knew that he could not do it. Not enough time had elapsed. He was not strong enough to face a room full of interns, because any of them could be Lorna, young and eager to make their mark upon the world, and he did not want any further reminders of the one woman he had loved and lost.

      He considered cancelling the meeting, but Charles knew that Faye would be aware of his reasoning which made him feel ashamed. The meeting was not until three that afternoon; hopefully something would come up before then relieving him of his requirement to attend. Until then, he needed to focus on his press conference, which meant, more than anything, perfecting his smile. He didn’t want the people to look at him and his tired, sad eyes and believe that it was because their country was beyond hope. In reality, everything was fine, more than fine. He had some very clever men in his Cabinet that had reduced benefits to the unemployed to the bare minimum, which meant that there would be additional funding for the health service, leaving the country in an even greater position than it had been for many years. But Charles knew that he needed to represent these positive changes in himself. People would not believe his good words if he delivered them from a haggard face.

      ‘Heavy is the head which wears the crown,’ his mother had said to him warningly when he had told her of his decision to accept the position of Deputy Prime Minister. It was a rare moment when she had spoken her mind to him. Usually, she kept herself in the background when it came to these sorts of decisions, leaving the men to plan out the future of the family.

      ‘I’m not trying to be king, mother,’ Charles had joked.

      ‘You know what I mean,’ she had said stubbornly, her always quiet voice still barely above a whisper. ‘I just don’t want you to end up unhappy.’

      ‘What, like you?’ Charles’ comment was cruel and it was the adolescent who still dwelled in him

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