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“I want to stay. Michael would want me here.”
“No.” The steel in Alexia’s tone left no room for negotiation.
Summer opened her mouth to protest but Teddy wisely put a hand on her arm. “Not now,” he whispered. Outside in the corridor, he spoke more openly.
“You mustn’t judge her too harshly, my dear. She’s in shock. We all are.”
“But she’s so cold, Teddy!”
She hadn’t meant to speak so bluntly, but the words just came out.
“I know it seems that way,” Teddy said kindly.
“But that boy means everything to her.”
He means everything to me, Summer thought desperately.
“Can’t you convince her to let me stay? What if . . .” She started to cry. “What if he dies in the night?”
Teddy gave her a look of infinite kindness.
“If he dies in the night, he won’t need either of you. Will he?”
The next morning’s Sunday papers were full of pictures of the Kingsmere party-that-wasn’t, and lurid accounts of Alexia De Vere’s son’s near-fatal motorcycle accident. The Sun on Sunday was the first to coin the expression that was to haunt Alexia over the coming months, with its questioning headline: THE CURSE OF THE DE VERES? With this latest juicy tragedy to chew on, the tabloids delighted in dredging up all the old rumors about Roxie, and the “real story” behind the home secretary’s daughter and her mysterious three-story fall. Pictures of a wheelchair-bound Roxie were run alongside images of the John Radcliffe, where Michael De Vere remained “critical but stable.” Even the old, infamous shots of Sanjay Patel, taken before his imprisonment and subsequent suicide, were given a fresh airing. Instead of sympathy, the fickle British public seemed to react angrily towards Alexia, interpreting her stoicism (about Michael’s accident) as cold-heartedness, a reverting to type. Overnight, it seemed, the positive image that Alexia had worked so hard to build with voters all year began to unravel. She was more alone than ever.
At home in East London, Gilbert Drake devoured the coverage with gleeful relish.
Just as in Exodus, when the Pharaoh refused to release God’s people and the Lord killed every firstborn, both man and animal, in retribution, so Alexia De Vere had been punished for keeping poor Sanjay behind bars.
“She will sacrifice the first male offspring of her womb to the Lord.”
I must guard against the sin of pride, Gil warned himself. Vengeance is the Lord’s, not mine. I am but his instrument.
Gilbert Drake prayed for guidance. Show me your will, O Lord. Show me the way from here.
Retribution had begun at last. But it was far from finished.
Two weeks after Michael’s accident, Alexia met with the prime minister.
“You are entitled to compassionate leave, you know,” Henry Whitman told her. “No one would blame you if you felt you needed to step down for a while, to be with your family.”
Alexia’s eyes narrowed distrustfully. Senior cabinet ministers did not step down “for a while.” They clung to their jobs or they lost them. Henry Whitman knew this as well as she did.
“Trying to get rid of me, Henry?”
“Of course not,” Whitman blustered. “I wouldn’t dare!”
“Good,” Alexia said, not returning the prime minister’s smile. “Michael hasn’t regained consciousness since it happened. According to his doctors, he’s highly unlikely ever to do so.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Please, spare me the sympathy.” Alexia sounded almost angry. Henry Whitman hoped it was grief talking, but it was hard to tell. “If it were up to me, we’d turn off the damn machines tomorrow. It’s Teddy who insists on keeping them going. But I’ve no intention of wasting my life in a hospital room holding my son’s utterly unresponsive hand when I could be here, being useful, simply because it makes some judgmental hag at the Daily Mail feel better.”
“No one’s suggesting that, Alexia.”
“Aren’t they? I’ll bet Kevin and Charles have been helpfully pointing out how negative my press has been since this happened.”
“Not at all,” Henry Whitman lied. Alexia’s enemies in cabinet had indeed wasted no time renewing their attacks. But Henry hardly needed his cabinet to tell him that which he could read for himself. Whatever her true feelings, Alexia De Vere had come across as cold and heartless in the extreme in the wake of her son’s accident, insisting on “business as usual.” The effect on her image had been catastrophic, and the bad press was rubbing off on the entire Conservative Party.
