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surrounded by a cluster of small oriental gentlemen.
    â€œTaken in Hanoi,” said Perkins when he saw Molly examining the photograph, “two years ago with a delegation.”
    â€œAnd this?” Molly fingered the white bust which sat on the mantelpiece beside the photograph.
    â€œThat,” said Perkins in a slightly patronising tone, “is J. Keir Hardie.”
    â€œOh,” said Molly, none the wiser.
    â€œI don’t suppose they taught you anything about him at school.”
    â€œNot that I remember.”
    â€œKeir Hardie was the first Labour MP,” he said, pulling the cork from a bottle of Côte du Rhône.
    He poured two glasses and passed one to Molly. “Your health,” he said, raising his glass.
    â€œYours,” said Molly, her blue eyes looking straight at him.
    They sat at the oak dining table eating the steak that Perkins had just grilled. A Handel organ concerto played on the stereo. They talked about Sheffield. About Firth Brown. About Molly’s Dad and Mum who lived in Hallam, on Sheffield’s posh side. Perkins told her about the life of a Cabinet minister. Up at six. In the office by eight. Home at midnight. About the red despatch boxes full of letters to sign, memoranda to digest and reports to read. About the time he sat next to the Queen at a lunch for some Arab potentate.
    After the steak they had Marks and Spencer’s cheesecake and then Perkins suggested a stroll in Kennington Park.
    That was how the affair began.
    Before she went to bed with Harry Perkins, Molly first looked him up in
Who’s Who
to see if he was married. Not that she would have been especially upset if there had been a Mrs Perkins. She just thought she ought to know. Molly was one of those girls who only seem to attract married men. She did not go out of her way to find them. It was just that in the circles in which she moved she had lost the habit of talking to people of her own age.
    Affairs with married men had schooled Molly in the art of discretion. At the time the newspapers were engaged in one of their periodic anti-extremist campaigns and Perkins was a prime target. Had Molly been seen with him she would certainly have found her picture on the front page of the popular dailies. The idea appealed to her, but she knew it wouldn’t appeal to Perkins.
    Molly came once a week, usually on a Sunday. Perkins spent Friday nights and most Saturdays in Sheffield and when he returned he brought with him a pile of constituency mail to be dealt with. More than once Molly arrived expecting to make love and instead found herself sitting up into the small hours typing out what Perkins insisted were urgent letters urging the Home Office not to deport one of his constituents.
    From the start Perkins knew there was no future in it. He sensed that she knew too. He was a lonely man, but he had long since reconciled himself to loneliness. Marriage required concessions which he was not prepared to make. He would have had to sacrifice time to small talk and to take an interest in things that bored him stiff. Marriage meant children. Children meant disruption of a life that was already spoken for. There was a time when he might have married. Maybe when he was at Firth Brown. Even perhaps in the early years in Parliament, but not now. Although Perkins would have argued that his life was dedicated to the service of others, it was also a selfish existence in which there was no room forfull-time residents, only the occasional guest. That was where Molly came in.
    She made no demands on him. Usually she arrived after dark to avoid the prying eyes. In the lighter summer evenings she would ring first from the Oval tube station and he would go downstairs and open the front door to minimise the risk of alerting the neighbours. The routine rarely varied. There would be a record, usually Brahms or Handel, on the stereo. The table would be set for two. The Sunday newspapers, half read, would be