Coralie narrowed her eyes. “Please don’t forget we’re going to Daniel’s boyfriend’s.”
Adam froze. “Tonight?”
“Oh my God,” Coralie cried. “On Friday!”
“I won’t forget!”
“You already had!”
“Silly old Cor.” Adam gave a superior smile. “I mean I won’t forget itnow!”
She didn’t find this as annoying as usual. Was it possible she was ovulating?
•••
That day,at lunch, Coralie ate a Pret tuna sandwich at her desk and watched Prime Minister’s Questions on her laptop. It was sadbut sort of sweet to see Philip May in the Commons to watch his wife. In 2017, after she’d lost her majority in the election, Theresa May had been horribly humiliated during her speech at Tory conference. A prankster had run up to her to make a joke, the set had collapsed around her, and she’d coughed a horrible dry anxiety cough for what seemed like minutes at a time. After that, apparently, May had gone offline for five hours, and no colleagues or advisers could reach her. According to Adam, Philip had “talked her off the ledge.” (The “quitting as prime minister” ledge? Or theledgeledge?)
Coralie drank her cup of tea and studied the Tory leader. She was elegant and profoundly unusual. It was dreadful that this practical, dutiful woman with awful Tory politics but a firm hold on reality was being hounded by her colleagues (mainly men) who were living in a fantasy world, where the UK should be able to leave the EU with no penalties—only rewards! Even Florence, at two and almost three-quarters, could grasp the sad fact that if you ate a cake, you no longer had it.
Well, it was not Coralie’s problem. She squashed her apple core into her sandwich box and tossed it in the bin.
•••
That night,Coralie and Adam sat on the sofa together to watch the results of the confidence vote. Immediately afterward, Adam would have to repair to the spare room to record an “emergency podcast” (under a blanket to boost the sound quality). Now he looked up from his phone with a grimace. “Apparently May had to swear she wouldn’t fight the next election as leader. Apparently MPs were crying.” On the screen, a group of men and one woman trooped into the room and stared out solemnly from a splendid Westminster backdrop. “Oh—turn it up.”
“The parliamentary partydoeshave confidence in Theresa May,” a tall man proclaimed. Tory cheers rang out, a complex mix of “Ooh” and “Wahey!” as well as a bit of “Hyar, hyar, hyar!”
“Oh, good!” Coralie said.
Twitter had the figures. Only 200 Tory MPs had voted for her; 117 had voted against. “She won, but it’snota win,” Adam explained. “Thatcher got two hundred and four, and she still had to resign. May just can’t catch a break.”
“They won’t rest until she’s sobbing on the floor,” Coralie said. “I hate them.”
Parliament wouldn’t vote for the withdrawal agreement, the Tories wouldn’t change the leader, and the EU wouldn’t change the deal. Two and a half years after the shock referendum result, Brexit had hit a brick wall.
14
On Friday night, Miss Camilla from the Duckling Room came round to mind the girls and earn some cash-in-hand. Before she arrived, Coralie had given Florence her bath and dressed her in pajamas. (Miss Camilla had been so proud when Flo had “moved on” from nappies. She didn’t need to know she still wore pull-ups in the night.) Zora was lying on the sofa readingMy Story: Suffragette.
“We’re off, sweetheart,” Coralie said.
Zora lowered her book. “What’s Daniel’s boyfriend like?”
“That’s what I’m hoping to find out.”
“Okay. Well.” Zora raised it up again. “Report back.”
Coralie straightened her back in a salute. “I will.”
•••
Outside,the cold air smelled deliciously of other people’s wood stoves, pumping out fine particulate matter injurious to human health. All week she’d been bracing for Adam to let her down and not come because of work. But there he was, next to her. “I feel like we’re on an adventure,” he said. “Bravely setting off toCasa Millennial—a whole new world.”
“You know, I was born in 1983,” Coralie said. “I’ma millennial.”
“A geriatric one—no offense. Daniel’s a real one. What do you think we’ll find when we get to Amhurst Road? Another squat? A flat above a chicken shop? A sort of Sally Rooney scenario: thin brunettes eating a single orange, messaging each other about socialism?”
“I’ve read those books. I love those books!Youhaven’t read a novel the entire time I’ve known you.”
