few. You do, you understand. I need you. I will not allow you to resign.'
Mycroft stared into his friend's angular face. He found himself thinking the King's leanness made him look drawn and older than his years, particularly with his hair grown so thin. It was as if a furnace inside was burning the King up too quickly. Perhaps he cared too much.
Care too much - was it possible? Fiona had tossed Mycroft back into the pool and he was struggling in the deep waters, unable to touch bottom. It dawned on him that he had never touched bottom, not once in his life. Far from caring too much, he realized he had never really cared at all and the sudden understanding made him panic, want to escape before he drowned. His emotional life had been shapeless, without substance or roots. Except here at the Palace, which now provided his only support. The man he had once tossed fully clothed through the ice of the college fountain and who had come up spitting bindweed and clutching a lavatory seat was saying, in the only way a lifetime of self-control allowed, that he cared. Suddenly it mattered, very much.
'Thank you. Sir.'
'I don't know a single marriage. Royal, common or just plain vulgar, which hasn't been through the wringer; it's so easy to think you're on your own, to forget that practically everyone you know has jumped through the same hoops.'
Mycroft remembered just how many nights of their marriage he and Fiona had spent apart, and imagined what she had been up to on every one of those nights. There really had been a lot of hoops. He didn't care, not even about that. So what did he care about?
‘I need you, David. I've waited all my life to be where I am today. Don't you remember the endless nights at university when we would sit either side of a bottle of college port and discuss what we would do when we had the opportunity? We, David, you and me. Now the opportunity has arrived, we can't throw it away.' He paused while a liveried footman deposited a silver tray with two mugs of herbal tea on the poolside table. 'If it's really over with Fiona, try to put it behind you. Look ahead, with me. I can't start on the most important period of my life by losing one of my oldest and most trusted friends. There's so much to do, for us both.' He began towelling himself vigorously as though determined to start that very minute. 'Don't make any decisions now. Stick with it for a couple of months and, if you still feel you need a break, we'll sort it out. But trust me, stay with me. All will be fine, I promise.'
Mycroft was unconvinced. He wanted to run, but he had nowhere and no one he wanted to run to. And the thought of what he might find if he ran too far overwhelmed him. After so many years he was free, and he didn't know if he could handle freedom. He stood, water dripping from the end of his nose and through his moustache, weighing his doubts against the Sovereign's certainty. He could find no sense of direction, only his sense of duty.
'So, what do you feel, old friend?'
'Bloody cold. Sir.' He managed a weak smile. 'Let's go and have a shower.'
'Circulate, Francis. And smile. This is supposed to be a celebration, remember.'
Urquhart acknowledged his wife's instruction and began forcing his way slowly through the crowded room. He hated these occasions. It was supposed to be a party to thank those who had helped him into Downing Street, but inevitably Elizabeth had intervened and turned it into another of her evenings for rubbing shoulders with anyone from the pages of the social columns she wanted to meet. The voters love a little glamour,' she argued, and like any self-respecting Colquhoun she had always wanted to preside over her own Court. So instead of a small gathering of colleagues he had been thrust into a maelstrom of actresses, opera stars, editors, businessmen and assorted socialites, and he knew his small talk couldn't last the evening.
The guests had clattered through the dark December night into the narrow confines of Downing Street, where they found a large Christmas tree outside the door of Number Ten, placed at Elizabeth Urquhart's instructions to give TV-viewers the impression that this was simply another family eagerly waiting to celebrate Christmas. Inside Number Ten the