Alison Higgins smiled down at her godson as he sat at the desk in his bedroom, staring intently at the monitor of his computer.
Mark was a highly intelligent little boy, and with his gifts came a tendency to be more serious than his contemporaries. Where they would have been playing with the latest blood and thunder video game, he was exploring the marvellous world of Leonardo da Vinci on an interactive CD-ROM package which Alison had given him as a sixth birthday present.
She noted with some concern that he had selected the section which described the great inventor's designs for flying machines, but he seemed unconcerned as he appraised an animation of a pedal-powered wing. 'It's like a hang-glider, Auntie Alison, isn't it?' he said.
`That's right, Mark, it is, and Leonardo designed it five hundred years ago.'
`What happened to it? Did it crash?'
A tremor flicked at her stomach. She framed her reply carefully. 'It's only a design, Mark.
There's no record of it ever being built, or ever flying. But if Leonardo had built it, I'm sure that it would have worked. He was a genius.'
What's that? A genie, like in Aladdin?'
She laughed. 'No, not quite. A genius is someone who's very, very clever.'
`Like my dad is?'
She winced inwardly at his use of the present tense, and at the awkwardness of his question. The late Roland McGrath had been called many things in his abbreviated lifetime, but genius was a description that had never been applied to him.
'Your daddy was a very clever man, Mark, that's right, but in a different way from Leonardo. Your dad was very good at looking after people, the people who voted for him, and very good as a Minister.'
The Ministry comes in Red Boxes, doesn't it?'
Alison shook her head. 'No, not quite. The Ministry is a big organisation, like the police.
It's run by people like Mr Hardy and your dad: all the papers that the different parts of the Ministry send to them are delivered in Red Boxes.'
Mark looked up at her, with a faint pathetic light of hope shining in his eyes. 'Is my daddy at the Ministry just now?'
She knelt beside him and took his hand. On the monitor screen the pilot of da Vinci's powered wing was pedalling rhythmically.
`No, love,' she said. 'Like I told you, your daddy's gone to be with Jesus.'
`But why did he go?'
`He didn't have any choice in the matter. None of us do, when it's our time.'
The child's chin trembled. 'But I want him. I want my daddy!' He gulped in a great breath of air. It emerged in a long, rending wail, which exploded into violent heaving sobs.
Alison gathered him to her and hugged him, rocking him in her arms.
I know you do, my love, but it just can't be any more. You've just got to be the best boy you can be for your mummy. She needs you to be strong for her. You can do that.' She felt his head nod against her chest.
`Here's something you can do. I did it when my dad went to be with Jesus. At night, when you go to bed and Mummy puts out the light, close your eyes tight and think of your daddy. Make a picture of him in your mind.' She rubbed his head. 'He'll be real in there.
You try it and see if he isn't. Will you do that?'
`Yes,' said Mark softly.
She kissed the top of his head, and ruffled his hair. 'There's my good boy. Now let's dry those eyes before Mummy sees you. That would upset her and we don't want that.'
She released him from her hug. Picking a paper handkerchief from a box on the desk she wiped his face and nose. 'There you are. Good as new.' She stood up. 'Go on back to Leonardo. See if you can do the puzzle.'
He looked at her, reproachfully. 'Auntie Alison! I did the puzzle weeks ago!'
She laughed. 'Well, see if you can do it again, then. Maybe the gremlins have been in and changed it.'
He looked at her with that special pity which bright children reserve for ignorance in adults. 'Auntie Alison, there are no gremlins. And once I've done something I always remember it.'
It was true. Since the age of two, Mark's remarkable memory had been in evidence, and had been a talking point for all of his parents' friends.
Leaving him to his educational play, she went downstairs to the living room where Leona McGrath was watching a political magazine programme on television. 'Come and see this,' she said. 'They're discussing the accident, and what it means for the Government. They're saying that if they lose Roly's seat, and Cohn Davey's it could be all up for them.'
Is that likely?' asked Higgins.
Her friend looked at her and hunched her shoulders in a ”who knows”?' gesture. 'Davey had a rural seat, with a majority of twenty-three thousand. Even we should hold that. But our seat's a different matter, with such a small majority. I know that Roly and Marsh were pessimistic about our prospects at the General Election.'
Ah, but Mr Elliot told Bob Skinner that he thought that in the circumstances of the by-election, the right candidate would hold it.'
Did he indeed,' said the little widow, intrigued. 'I wonder who he had in mind.'