Candlenight by Phil Rickman Page A

collecting driftwood on
the shore, the shadowed stillness of a cathedral close at dusk, that kind of thing.
The picture of the cottage was the only one that hadn't appeared in a paper or
a magazine. Giles loved it. He was still amazed by Claire's ability to move at
once to the right angle, to link into a scene.
        "Peter. Listen, sorry to
bother you. but I've just heard about Burnham-Lloyd, the MP for Glanmeurig. Was
there time for you to run it in the final?" Giles sniffed. "Well I think
you should have. Peter. I really do, even if it is only Wales." He and Claire
exchanged meaningful glances.
    "Anyway, listen Peter, what was
his majority?"
        Giles waited. Claire perched on
the edge of the sofa and cupped her small face in her slender hands, short,
fair hair tufting through the fingers. She wore a cream silk dressing gown and
wooden sandals. Giles, re-energized by the news, eyed her lustfully.
        "Bloody hell." he
said. 'That's not bad. That's not at all bad. Thank you, Peter, thank you very
much indeed."
        He cleared the line and made a
whooshing sound.
        "Narrow?" Claire
asked.
        Giles said, very slowly and
precisely, "Eight hundred and seventy-one." His freckles were aglow
again. He tossed the phone almost to the ceiling and caught it. "Eight
hundred
and seventy fucking one! It's marginal, Claire! Plaid's been slowly gaining on
him for years! Oh God, I really do feel something's working for us."
        "I suppose," Claire
said thoughtfully, "I feel a bit scared now. It's all coming at once.
Propelling us into something. Out of our control." She was still feeling
upset, actually, by
    her mother's reaction. She'd phoned her while Giles was out, to explain
about the inheritance, tonight being the first opportunity since her parents
had returned from their cruise.
        Giles was hungrily pacing the
carpet "What I'll suggest is a bit of a recce. Zoom up there this weekend.
Take the air. Talk to people."
        "I can't. I've got that
thing for the Observer in
Norwich." Claire was glad to put it off. She'd been frightened by her own
emotional response when they'd first gone to look at the cottage. The feeling
that somehow she was meant to live
there. Now she wanted to slow things down, give them time to think. Giles,
however, had to be firing on all cylinders or
none at all.
        "Well, all right, next
weekend." he said impatiently. "You see, what we have to do is build
this up as a really significant mid-term by-election, knock up a couple of prelim
pieces, hype it up a bit. We can have the cottage as our base, save them hotel
bills and stuff. And while we're there ... I mean, with the run-up and everything,
we're talking well over three weeks for a by-election campaign. So we can do
all the groundwork, either for persuading them they really need a full-time
staffer in Wales or setting up some decent freelance outlets. I would have
sounded people out tonight, but they were all being so bloody snide and superior."
        Slow down, slow down , Claire yelled inside her head. But Giles in
overdrive was not open to reasonable argument. She wanted to tell him about her
mother, but in his present state of drink-enhanced euphoria he wouldn't take it
in. And even when stone cold sober, hearing what she'd had to say—the
bitch—would only harden his determination.
     
        As expected, her mother had
been stiff and resentful, so Claire herself had gone on the attack. "Mother,
why didn't you tell me he was dead? Why did I have to find out from the
solicitor?"
        Elinor made an impatient noise.
"Because . . . Oh, look, we only found out the day we left. I mean,
really, what was I supposed to do, put it in a postcard from Greece? Weather
fine, old Rhys dead?"
        Old Rhys. Claire's grandfather.
        "Mum — I can't believe
this—he was your father ."
        A distant snort.
        "I know, I know,"
Claire snapped. "But that doesn't alter anything, does it?"
        "It