and then the weekly attendance at one fatuous debate after another.
‘And anyway,’ she continued, ‘it didn’t quite work out that way for him, did it? So much for the Oxford Union plan.’
‘He didn’t do so badly,’ said Charles, his voice serious, ‘he got deputy prime minister. And I think you, Camilla, could do just as well.’
Camilla stopped and looked at Charles intently.
‘Politics? But what about the law?’
‘Ach, do you really want to be a QC?’ said Charles dismissively. ‘Would that be the end of a satisfying career for you?’
Camilla knew she had to tread carefully. But the truth was, the law didn’t put the fire in Camilla’s belly. Yes, she was good at it. She had the discipline and the intelligent, incisive mind to reach the very top of the profession, and once she knew she was good at something, she didn’t stop until she was the very best she could be. But Camilla wanted more, much more.
‘It’s something I have thought about,’ she replied truthfully. ‘But I’ve still got my work here and I’m not even thirty.’
‘Don’t even begin to bring age into it,’ chuckled Charles. ‘Did you know I ran about, gosh, thirty years ago now?’
She shook her head. ‘I assumed the law was your life.’
‘Many barristers are frustrated or failed politicians,’ laughed Charles. ‘I’m one of the failed ones.’
‘So what happened? You’d have been excellent.’
‘I was twenty-eight, twenty-nine when I ran for parliament. I won a Tory nomination OK, but they made me fight some unwinnable seat in South Wales that had been held by a Merthyr Tydfil teacher for twenty years. I didn’t have a chance with my Edinburgh accent.’ He started shaking his head at the memory.
‘I can’t imagine you gave up that easily, though,’ said Camilla, leaning forward, fascinated and excited at the same time.
Charles shrugged. ‘Well, I did. I was making good money in fees, my name was being mentioned as a future silk, and that’s nice when you’re married with a couple of kiddies with a big fat mortgage to pay. Truth is,’ he said slowly, ‘it gets too tempting to stay put in the law. Who wants to trade a five-hundred-thousand-pound salary for fifty thousand as an MP? I didn’t. And maybe now I regret it.’
Camilla looked at the sad expression on Charles’s craggy face and wondered how it was possible for a successful man to have such a huge, unfulfilled ambition. And suddenly she felt a desperation, a desire to reach that pinnacle Charles had so regretted turning away from.
‘Isn’t your wife chairwoman of a Conservative Association somewhere?’ asked Camilla.
‘Esher,’ he replied. ‘Do you know Jack Cavendish?’
She nodded again. ‘Well, my father knows him. Tory MP for Esher, right?’
‘Yes, but who knows for how much longer?’ Charles responded softly. ‘A whisper has started that Jack is going to stand down at the next election, which could be as soon as May next year.’
‘Is Esher a safe seat?’
‘Not by a long shot. His majority has been whittled down to a couple of thousand. But if he does stand down, the party will be inundated with CVs. It’s a wonderful seat for somebody. Wealthy, close to London …’
Camilla could barely contain her excitement at where this conversation was going. ‘What sort of candidate is the party looking for?’ she asked, trying to keep her cool.
‘Someone capable of winning a campaign. Someone like yourself, Camilla.’
‘How do you know I’m a Conservative?’
‘Oh dear,’ laughed Charles, suddenly embarrassed. ‘I assumed like father, like daughter.’
Truth was, Camilla was political without having any particularly strong party affiliation. Some of her opinions swung to the right, others were squarely towards the left.
But in her mind, politics wasn’t about policies, and there was very little between the three major parties now anyway. To her, politics was about power. It was the thought of the respect and authority that turned her on. The glamour of her heels clicking down the corridors of Westminster, the credibility she would get when compared to Cate and her fancy magazines or Venetia with her over-decorated society houses. More importantly, to the outside world she would no longer just be a satellite in Serena’s Stardust-sprinkled universe.
‘I voted Tory in the last election,’ she replied, without adding, ‘only just.’
‘Then you have everything you need to win a campaign,’ nodded Charles, pulling a leather cigar holder from out of his top pocket. ‘Do you mind?’
Camilla shook her head. One of her first memories was the heavy smell of cigar smoke and damp tweed; she was used to its sticky, woody aroma.
‘You have political nous; you have determination. And you have profile. Never discount the importance of celebrity,’ he smiled. ‘Look at Boris Johnson and Glenda Jackson. And surely your father could canvass some support for you.’
Camilla doubted that. Her father wanted more than anything to get back into the Lords in one of the elected seats, but had been defeated in the last two by-elections. She wondered how he’d take to the news of Camilla running for the Commons. Not well, she suspected.
‘Are you sure I’m not a bit young?’
‘No. The party needs an injection of youth and fresh, modern ideals. It needs to modernize – completely – in the way New Labour did in the nineties, and that process has already begun.’
‘You’re sure I’m eligible?’
‘You’re the daughter of a baron. It’s fine.’
She paused, more confused than she thought she would be. ‘If I do decide it’s something I want to do, and if Jack Cavendish announces his retirement, what do I do next?’
‘I assume you’re not on Central Office’s approved candidates’ list?’
She shook her head.
‘Well, that’s step one.’
‘It’s obviously something I need to think about carefully,’ she replied, running her thumbnail up and down the grain of the table. Then she looked up into Charles’s knowing eyes. ‘But I don’t suppose there’s any harm in looking into it, is there?’ she grinned.
‘I’ll smoke to that,’ replied Charles, inhaling his big fat brown Cohiba and blowing a perfect smoke ring into the air as a fat-faced barrister behind them started coughing. And Camilla began to smile.
Michael Sarkis’s Mustique villa, La Esperanza, was the complete
