Huge asset
‘What are you doing here?’ Millie asked after she’d wrenched open her front door. Pav’s mouth fell open and he took a step back.
‘Bloody hell,’ he whispered, his eyes sweeping her figure in the long, deep-blue evening gown she was wearing. Her hair had been artfully styled into an up-do of waves at the side of her head. Her make-up seemed even more flawless than her usual perfect, and her heels were a few inches higher than normal. ‘You look … incredible.’
Millie wasn’t listening to him. Her eyes were darting up and down the street. ‘You have to leave,’ she whispered.
Maybe he’d misjudged this situation. Her face had drained of colour and there was actual panic in her grey eyes. But Don had implied that she needed him to be here. For the hundredth time since that conversation earlier, Pav cursed himself for being such a self-absorbed arsehole and not bloody knowing why Millie’s parents were such an issue.
‘Okay, look, can I just stay to meet them? What’s the worst that could happen?’
Millie bit her lip and looked away from him for a moment.
‘You’re not ashamed of me are you?’
Her eyes snapped back to his. ‘Of course not,’ she said, her voice and expression fierce. ‘I would never … I mean … nobody would ever be ashamed of you.’
She looked horrified that he would even suggest such a thing. A split second later and she had grabbed his hand and dragged him into the house. Once the door was closed behind them he grinned down at her still fierce-looking face, slid one hand around her tiny waist and the other up to her neck to touch the sapphire earrings she had on.
‘Have I told you how stunning you look?’
‘Pav, I –’ He cut her off with a brief kiss, or at least it was intended to be brief. Once he was engulfed in her expensive perfume and had her chest pressed up against his, it turned into something a little less PG than anticipated. She blinked up at him as he pulled away, her lipstick smudged, her pupils dilated and her breathing shallow.
‘Okay,’ he said, keeping his hands on her but allowing them both some space for sanity to return. ‘Before they arrive I think we should talk about wh –’
A loud burst of staccato knocks interrupted his speech and Millie jumped in his arms.
‘My father –’ she started, only to be cut off by another burst of knocking. She sighed, her shoulders drooping and her gaze dropping to the floor. After closing her eyes briefly she straightened and turned to the door, opening it wide. Pav started to smile, ready to launch an all-out charm offensive on these people and prove to Millie that his gate-crashing was not the end of the world. But in the shock of recognition his smile died and his mouth fell open. The current Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, and bookie’s favourite for the next Prime Minister, was standing on the doorstep next to his wife: David and Valerie Morrison. David wasn’t as tall as he looked on the telly but he had the same greying hair, the same three-piece suit, the same smug expression and a pair of all-too-familiar grey eyes. Valerie looked exactly the same in real life: thin, perfectly tailored – the only difference being the black evening gown that now replaced her normal suits.
Pav was standing slightly behind Millie and to the side, so they didn’t notice him at first. Valerie stared at her daughter, her eyes sweeping from the top of Millie’s head to her shoes before they narrowed.
‘Mother,’ Millie said, her voice devoid of any emotion.
‘Your lipstick is smudged,’ Valerie told her, her lip curling in disgust. ‘And your heels don’t tone with your dress.’
Pav cleared his throat. Millie’s mother’s gaze snapped over to him and her eyes narrowed even more before she cleared her expression. She did another sweep, this time of Pav’s appearance; he was glad he’d worn his best suit, and exceedingly grateful to Don for the warning.
‘Mother, Father, this is Pavlos Martakis.’ Millie’s quiet voice cut through the silence. ‘He’s a consultant surgeon at St George’s hospital. Pav, these are my parents: Valerie and David Morrison.’
Valerie’s posture visibly relaxed at the mention of consultant surgeon and her eyebrows lowered. Pav shook himself out of his shock after witnessing possibly the coldest family reunion in the history of the planet, and moved forward to the couple with his hand out to shake.
‘Pleasure to meet you,’ Pav lied as he shook first Valerie’s (he didn’t dare go in for a kiss) and then David’s hand. David Morrison was known for his global-warming-sceptic views and his politics were the polar opposite to Pav’s.
‘Right, yes … well, this is a surprise,’ David said, his politician’s facade slipping into place to mask his obvious shock. Valerie was frowning as her gaze flicked between Millie and Pav.
‘Are you here for work, Mr Martakis?’ she asked, with a fake smile. ‘Is there a project you and Millie are doing together? I’m terribly sorry but we are going to have to steal her away for the evening.’
‘No,’ Pav said slowly. He moved next to Millie and felt her stiffen as he put his arm around her shoulders. ‘No, Millie’s my girlfriend. We’re together. I asked if I could meet you both.’
Valerie’s carefully controlled expression dropped for a moment and her mouth fell open as her eyes went wide. Her father simply burst out laughing; it wasn’t a kind, encouraging laugh either, it had a cruel, mocking edge to it.
‘Sorry, sorry,’ he said, after he’d controlled his hilarity. ‘It’s just … girlfriend? Young man, I’ve known Millie all her life and that seems … unlikely.’
Pav’s expression closed and he pulled Millie even closer into his side.
‘I’m not sure what it is that you see as unlikely, Mr Morrison.’
Valerie flicked her husband an irritated look, then stared at Pav again, having managed to school her expression. Her head tilted to the side as if she didn’t quite know what to make of him. ‘You’re coming with us tonight?’
‘Yes,’ Pav said.
‘No,’ Millie put in at the same time. Pav gave her shoulder a light squeeze, remembering Don’s words from earlier and just instinctively knowing that he wasn’t going to leave Millie alone with these people.
‘Yes,’ Pav repeated. ‘I’m coming too.’
‘Right, well …’ There was a brief pause as Valerie looked between them again. ‘We’ll wait in the car whilst you fix your make-up and change your shoes, Camilla. We need to leave in ten minutes.’
*****
‘You understand what’s expected of you?’ Valerie asked as Millie stared out of the window of the Mercedes. She was sitting in the back with her parents; Pav was in the front with her parents’ driver of the last fifteen years, Michael.
‘Yes,’ Millie said.
‘I don’t want a repeat of last time,’ her father put in. ‘You’ve got to actually speak, Camilla. None of this mumbling like a mental deficient.’
‘And you can’t hide in the loos like you did at your graduation party,’ her mother said. ‘I’ll never understand you. We put on a huge dinner for you to celebrate, and you barely spoke a word and cowered away for most of the night.’
Her parents were trying to keep their voices down so that they couldn’t be overheard from the front, but if Pav’s back stiffening was anything to go by, that was not working. Normally Millie wouldn’t have responded. She’d learned long ago that fighting back against the relentless criticism didn’t get her anywhere. It was in general better to just shut herself off from it. But whilst it was okay for just her to hear all her faults listed, knowing Pav was listening too was humiliating.
‘I didn’t want a party,’ she said, her voice brittle and tightly controlled. ‘You knew that.’
There was a pause as her mother took a shocked breath. ‘How dare you, you ungrateful brat,’ she whisper-hissed, grabbing Millie’s elbow in a death grip. ‘Lots of normal young people would have killed for a big party in their honour.’
Millie snorted; actually snorted. It was the most disrespectful she thought she had ever been to her parents.
‘It was not a party for me. It was a party for you … to show off to your friends. No, that’s not right … to your acquaintances. You wanted to use me to show off the fact that your clever daughter graduated medical school before she was even twenty-one. Just like you’re using me tonight. It was nothing to do with me. None of my friends were even there.’
Valerie turned her cold glare on Millie and a shiver went up her spine at the hatred in her mother’s eyes. ‘You didn’t have any friends to invite, Camilla.’ Millie swallowed hard. She hadn’t allowed this woman to see her cry since she was five years old, and she was not about to start now.
‘Get your fucking hand off her, now.’
Millie started as Pav’s angry voice filled the Mercedes. He was turned fully round in his seat, his eyes locked onto Valerie’s grip on Millie’s elbow.
‘How dare you sp –’
‘I don’t know what the bloody hell is going on here,’ Pav cut her off, his voice now low and dangerous. ‘But I do know that if you don’t remove your hand from your daughter’s elbow right fucking now I’m going to do it for you.’
‘Well …’ Valerie huffed, but she did release Millie’s arm. ‘I don’t think that –’
‘Millie may not have had friends back then,’ Pav told her. ‘But you’d do well to remember she does have them now.’
‘Now, now, old boy,’ said David, his fake smile having little effect on Pav’s furious expression. ‘You know what families are like. Things can get a bit heated and all that. No need to go off the deep end.’
‘I know what my family is like, sir,’ Pav replied through gritted teeth. ‘And I can assure you it’s a world away from this.’
The car pulled up to the entrance of the Savoy just as Pav finished his speech. Millie was in a state of shock and sat frozen in place as Michael (who had been studiously avoiding the drama unfolding in the enclosed space, just as he had pretended to ignore so many ugly exchanges in the past, other than giving Millie small encouraging smiles or taking snatched opportunities to squeeze her hand) pushed open his door and stepped out. Instead of moving to the back passenger door where her father was sitting, Michael moved to Pav’s door and yanked it open. As Pav emerged, Michael gave him a slap on the back and shook his hand.
‘Well … I … what a ridiculous, vulgar display,’ Valerie muttered as she was forced, likely for the first time in a long time, to open her own door. Millie’s stomach clenched as she followed her mother out of the car.
A nanny had tried to intervene when Millie was nine during a particularly spiteful tirade from her mother. She was replaced the next day. A teacher at school had even gone as far as reporting her concerns of emotional abuse to social services after an ugly parents’ evening. That had resulted in a couple of visits to their house from a harassed-looking, overworked social worker, during which her mother put up a good front.
The fact that Millie lived in a huge house in Hampstead (the social worker had joked during her visit that she was more used to visiting drug dens in far less salubrious parts of north London) also contributed to the case being dropped. The teacher had left the school shortly after. So Millie had been conditioned to think that any help from outside was pointless. Indeed, it often resulted in a person Millie had cared about being removed from her life. Her parents were a force to be reckoned with, and they had power. Millie had never been in a situation before where they didn’t have the upper hand. And if she lost Pav …
‘You okay?’ his low voice sounded close to her ear as he slipped his hand into hers and pulled her away from the car to stand next to him on the pavement. His tone was gentle but his words were still tight with anger.
She nodded. ‘Look, maybe it’s better if you don’t come in … I mean …’ She trailed off and Pav turned her towards him, taking her other hand.
‘Maybe we should both go home,’ he said, and she rested her forehead against his chest, just for a moment.
‘You don’t understand,’ she whispered. ‘I have to go with them tonight. It’s … it’s complicated, but I have to. What they say to me … it doesn’t affect me, not anymore.’
‘Maybe not,’ he said, his tone laced with doubt. ‘But I am not leaving you here by yourself. I don’t care how complicated it is.’
She sighed and then looked up from his chest to his face. His mouth was set in a stubborn line; he was so beautiful.
‘Okay, but don’t engage with them. Don’t argue with them. Speaking to them like I did in the car was a mistake. They’re … easier to handle if you don’t respond. Trust me.’
‘Okay, baby,’ he whispered back a little too easily; then he stole a brief, hard kiss and dropped one of her hands but kept the other as he walked her towards the entrance.
*****
‘Ah, the prodigal daughter!’ Mr Tinsdale, the party whip, cried as Millie was steered towards a group of Tory ministers and supporters inside the entrance to the ballroom. ‘We were beginning to think you were a figment of your dad’s imagination.’
The group all laughed and Millie managed to force a small smile. There must have been about ten of them, mainly older men but with some women and two younger ministers. The youngest she recognised as the Minister of State for Energy and Climate Change, Barclay Lucas, who’d been in the news relentlessly for the last few months as an avid supporter of cold fusion and the energy revolution – which was in direct opposition to her father, who unfortunately held the higher office and had succeeded so far in stalling the process. A green Tory was a rare thing indeed and Mr Lucas had been very vocal about making the UK carbon neutral over the next five years. The press loved him. It didn’t hurt that his looks were catwalk-worthy and his relationship status was single. Instead of chuckling like the rest of them, Mr Lucas was staring at Millie’s father like he was something he’d scraped off the bottom of his shoe. Millie liked him instantly.
Her mother gave her a sharp elbow in the ribs and her body jolted slightly into Pav, who still had her hand in his. He glared over her head at her mother and opened his mouth to say something. Desperate to head him off, Millie forced a smile and made her mouth form words.
‘Yes … um … I exist,’ she told the group, drawing more faint chuckles. ‘I’m Camilla.’
Silence. She bit her lip. Her conversational reserves were totally depleted. She felt her throat close over.
‘And you’re a doctor, Camilla?’ Mr Tinsdale pushed, staring at her in a strangely assessing way.
‘I’m a radiologist,’ she managed to get out through her tight throat. Pav squeezed her hand.
‘Oh, so you’re one of the chaps … er, sorry … chapesses who sit in the hospital basement and look at x-rays all day?’ Millie was about to nod but she stopped herself at the sound of Pav’s irritated voice.
‘Well,’ he said, drawing out the word as he unleashed the most charming smile in his arsenal on the assembled group. ‘I guess she does do that, when she’s not extracting actual blood clots from the arteries of the brain to restore blood flow for the stroke team, or inserting nephrostomy tubes into my patients to drain their obstructed, infected kidneys and save their lives, among many, many other things. Then, yes, I guess she does sit in the basement a fair bit, making sense of complex scans and images whose interpretation is beyond the capabilities of every other speciality.’
There was a long pause, during which a few throats were cleared and Millie noticed Barclay Lucas’s small smile.
‘Pavlos Martakis,’ Pav added, extending his hand to Mr Tinsdale, who gave him a tight smile and shook it with obvious reluctance. ‘I’m Millie’s partner.’
‘You’re a urologist?’ Barclay Lucas put in.
‘Yes, I met Millie at the hospital. Never been to one of these political shin-digs before and … between you and me,’ he mock-whispered, ‘I’m not actually a Tory, but even a die-hard Jeremy Corbyn fan does what needs to be done for his missus.’
Barclay Lucas stared at Pav for a moment before he let out a bark of laughter. For a man who was rarely photographed even smiling, it was quite a sight.
‘You’re married?’ Mr Tinsdale asked.
‘Not yet,’ said Pav, giving Millie’s hand another squeeze as she turned wide eyes to his profile.
‘Yes, well,’ her father cut in quickly, ‘as you can all see my daughter does in fact exist, and being a professional working in the NHS she’ll be a huge asset to the campaign next summer.’
‘Aren’t you getting a little ahead of yourself, David?’ Barclay asked, his smile dropping and the more familiar icy expression replacing it. ‘We haven’t even had the first-round ballot yet. The Prime Minister only announced she was stepping down last week.’
‘Of course, of course, old boy,’ David blustered. ‘But I think we can all agree that …’
The ringing in Millie’s ears cut off her ability to hear any more and she took an involuntary step back. She felt her vision narrow as the sweat started forming on her back. Her father really was going to go for the leadership of the Conservative party. He was going to run for Prime Minster. Everything made sense to her now: the insistence that she attend this fundraising dinner tonight; the threats her mother had made to get her here. They needed her to be the dutiful daughter during the campaign. They needed her for his image.
But Millie couldn’t be photographed; she couldn’t be on camera beside her father on a stage for the whole country, the whole world, to see. Her head started shaking from side to side in a reflex action of denial. ‘Excuse me,’ she whispered as she yanked her hand from Pav’s and turned to run to the nearest toilet.