Mannochie cornered me one evening. He looked embarrassed. ‘Fanny, could you keep your thoughts on local transport to yourself?’

I was startled. ‘Do I have any?’

‘Apparently you do, and you were overheard talking about them at the Guides’ coffee morning.’

‘I said I thought there should be more buses.’

Mannochie looked concerned. ‘Precisely. You are playing into a lobby’

On the evening before polling day, I planned that Will and I would eat together quietly in a local Chinese restaurant. But he was caught up with a last-minute conference at the headquarters and we made do with a snatched sandwich that Mannochie had conjured. Will barely touched his but drank two glasses of a dreadful wine.

At the other end of the room, the television beamed last-minute predictions and figures. I eased my aching shoulders. Only a few more hours… Then Will and I would have some privacy and we could return to the business of making our lives together.

Mannochie came up. ‘Figures are looking quite good.’ The two men conferred and I ate my chicken sandwich. I listened and I did not listen but, at that moment, it flashed across my mind that in marrying Will I had launched my boat on to a sea that was stormier than I had supposed. Eventually Mannochie moved off and Will grabbed my hand.

‘Do you hear? The figures. We might be in with a chance.’ He squeezed my fingers painfully. ‘Do you think we might just do it?’

My heart filled with love and hope for him, I cherished his hand in mine. ‘Yes. Yes, I do.’

At midnight we arrived in the town hall. The last two ballot boxes had just been brought in and the final count was on. The tellers bent over the trestle tables, forefingers and thumbs encased in rubber guards. The piles mounted, shifted; a couple were re-counted, the tally noted.

Will and the other candidates strode up and down between the trestles, but kept a wide berth of each other. The returning officer hovered by the microphone on the stage.

Someone touched my arm and I turned. ‘Hallo,’ said Meg. ‘Sorry I didn’t get here earlier.’ She was flushed and bright-eyed, impeccable in a red linen dress and pretty shoes. ‘I couldn’t miss little brother’s big day.’

At one thirty, Pearl Veriker chivvied me into a side room. ‘Looking good,’ she said. ‘Let’s check you out.’

Skirt long enough? Tights? Make-up?

‘Where’s your wedding ring?’ Her eyes were fixed on my naked left hand.

I fished it out of my pocket. ‘It’s given me a rash. I’m not used to it yet.’

‘Wear it, Fanny.’

I pushed it over my red, swollen finger and endured the itch and burn. To my astonishment, the itch and burn of my rebellion was no less urgent. As surely as an ox, I was being yoked and, if I had not bargained on it, it was far too late to do anything about it.

I pulled myself together and went over to talk to our party workers, whose average age was well above mine but there were one or two younger ones. ‘Isn’t it funny how the other side always seems so much uglier than your own?’ a sharp youth breathed to me.

I was pouring orange juice into plastic cups when I happened to look up and caught Will’s gaze. Our eyes met for a long moment and his mouth moved in a faint smile. He was asking me to keep faith. Short-lived and unfocused, my rebellion died.

At three o’clock in the morning, I stood beside Will on the platform as the returning officer read out the votes and Will was declared the new Member for the constituency of Stanwinton. We stood side by side, both of us light-headed and almost incoherent. There was pleasure and pride – and an explosion of joy in my chest. The future seemed as if it could be tackled.

Down below, the indomitable Pearl sat down suddenly and pressed a handkerchief to her mouth. Mannochie was clapping, and a couple of the party workers danced.

Will slid his arm round my shoulders and kissed me, and I promised silently to give him what I had and more. I promised to do my best for him.

‘Will…’ Meg pushed her way up to the platform, her red dress a bright blur, and linked her arm through his. ‘Darling Will…’

The photographers flashed away, someone else cheered, Mannochie continued to clap.

Later that day the official photograph was published in the Stanwinton Echo. It had that grainy, blurred look that local papers sometimes have and it was hard to make out some of the figures crowded on to the platform. A smiling Will stood tall and straight. He looked young, happy and full of promise. Beside him was a slender, fair-haired figure, wreathed in smiles. It was not me. It was Meg.

I set about my first task as Mrs MP of sorting out Will’s tiny one-bedroom London flat. This involved wresting an extra inch in Will’s cupboard to hang up my clothes, winnowing out boxes and papers, and rearranging the sitting room to accommodate my antique chair. I gritted my teeth and searched for a space to stack my business files.

I made the bed and my foot nudged one of Will’s abandoned shoes. I picked it up and my heart melted. It was part of Will, the man I loved. I slipped my hand inside. Burnt into the inner sole, was the private imprint of a person. My shoes held one too. Will’s second toe was longer than the first and I rubbed my finger over the indentation in the leather. It was my secret, and my secret knowledge.

The phone rang. ‘Fanny Savage? My name is Amy Greene.’ She went on to explain that her husband was a backbencher and she was organizing a get-together in Westminster for the new wives. ‘We oldies like to take care of you infants.’

For all the briskness, an underlying note of depression was detectable. I asked her politely how long her husband had been in Parliament. ‘How long as an MP as opposed to a sod? Twenty-five years, three months and two days.’

‘Oh.’

She gave a smoker’s cough. ‘You might as well know that Parliament hates women. Hates them. Be warned.’

Will made his maiden speech in October when Parliament reassembled after the long vacation. The night before, we argued over which colour suit he should wear. I opted for the grey. He preferred the blue. Did it matter? Apparently. Colours (or so the apparatchiks had suggested) conveyed subtle meanings. This was, I felt, a little puzzling for I had assumed it was the message that was the important thing.

‘I know it’s nonsense,’ he maintained stoutly, ‘but just this once, I think I ought to listen to what the advisers advise.’

I rubbed his shoulders which felt like tensed steel. ‘Hey, take a few deep breaths. Loosen those muscles.’

I did not tell him that my own nerves were conducting a nauseous dance in the pit of my stomach. All I had to do was to watch Will get to his feet and talk about the social benefits of cheaper housing, and impress his peers. But this first showing would affect his future – and mine.

‘I must not muck this up, Fanny,’ Will said.

‘Spare a thought for your sister and me,’ I pointed out. ‘We get to look down at all the bald spots where we sit in the strangers’ gallery.’

He gave a muffled snort.

Will’s speech went off well.

At least, I think it did for, when he got to his feet, cleared his throat and began to speak easily and fluently, my attention veered off into another sphere.

It was nerves, I know, but I found myself thinking about trees. Tall ones, like the sycamore, whose stout uncompromising leader branches emphasize its winter nudity. I thought of poplars swaying in the summer breeze, and feathery acacias and the astonishing reds of the maple. But the trees that speak to me most particularly have always been the cypress, the Cupressus sempervirens, the dark exclamations dotted over medieval and Renaissance Italian paintings. And the box, which is not strictly a tree. Box was probably introduced to this country by the Romans and its stems and roots are so heavy that they sink in water.

Meg caught my eye, and I coloured up guiltily. I had promised to hang on Will’s every word, in order to assemble a useful Situation Report.

You spoke too quickly. Your hands were too busy, they distracted the listener. Don’t look at your feet.

Etc.

‘To the manner born,’ whispered Meg.

Meg misinterpreted my lack of response as lack of control. Furthermore she would be thinking of Will: indeed, I suspected, that she thought of little else. Her Situation Report would be immaculate and very helpful.

She laid one small hand with its exquisitely shaped nails on my arm. Today, they were painted pink to match her lipstick. ‘You have to learn to lighten up, Fanny,’ she advised in a low, concerned voice. ‘Develop a sense of humour. Then you will cope better.’

I gritted my teeth. Quite apart from the insult to my perfectly operational sense of humour, did she consider I was that lacking in the requisite qualifications? Was my ignorance and inexperience obvious? ‘I will bear it in mind,’ I muttered.

Meg pressed on. ‘Please don’t be offended,’ she said. ‘You are so nice, Fanny, and I am only trying to help.’ She smiled understandingly. ‘I’ve been at it a bit longer than you.’

Outside the House of Commons, a photographer was on the prowl for a national newspaper and he inveigled Will and I to pose for him and we were snapped, hand in hand, framed in the doorway.

‘Parliament’s newest Golden Couple,’ ran the caption in a weekend paper. The camera had caught Will looking grave but irresistible. I less so, I concluded, after glancing briefly at the photo, for I had a wary look on my face, startled almost.

At any rate, Mannochie, who had bedded down overnight on the sofa in the flat, pronounced himself pleased. ‘This will go down well in the constituency.’

Will studied the photograph for longer, it seemed to me, than was decent. ‘Better of me than you,’ he pronounced.