The Prime Minister's Wife

You’ll have to excuse me if I get tongue-tied. I can’t get used to all this, you know. I ought to, though. In the papers, one slip up and I’m done for. Those pesky press are misinterpreting everything these days, aren’t they? I stepped outside to get the milk this morning, wrapped in my nice fluffy Marks and Spencer dressing gown, and there they were, taking pictures. Terrible voyeurs. Oh, well. I suppose I’ll have to get used to it soon. It’s not easy being the wife of the most talked about man in Britain. Well, after David Beckham. And those people on that X Factor programme. But they don’t govern the country. They don’t host the Obamas for Sunday lunch. We, on the other hand... do. Mrs Obama didn’t seem so keen on cauliflower cheese, much to my chagrin. Oh, well.
I helped him come up with some of the policies. For example, whose idea was it to come up with opt-out organ donation? Actually, it was his, but that’s beside the point. If I hadn’t had that little liver problem, I wouldn’t have needed a new one and he would never have known about the dire shortage of livers, would he? So, in a roundabout way, I think I was responsible for that policy. I came up with legalising euthanasia, too. It wasn’t passed, but that’s only because he would have had to do so much paperwork. Oh, well. I try my best. When that doesn’t work, I keep out of the way, open endless primary school fetes and don’t wear any short skirts. He wouldn’t want you to think that the country was being run by a tart’s husband. Not that any woman with Hilary Clinton hair could ever be considered a tart, I think. Although, the highlights in my hair... he didn’t like the highlights. Said they looked cheap. That was the night before the Election. What can I say? I’d spent three hours with a plastic bag on my head that day, having my hair pulled about like no one’s business, smelling that horrid dye, listening to the hairdresser chattering on about her Maisie’s pregnancy at the age of thirteen, and all he cared about was that silly house in Downing Street –nowhere near as nice as our old house in Kensington. Less bedrooms, less privacy, you know. Oh, well.
Apart from the children asking why Mummy was in the spare bedroom, nothing had changed, the next morning. The children still needed ham and pickle sandwiches, he still needed me to knot his tie. But then the ballot was staring up at me. His name, sandwiched between the enemy. And his smug politician’s grin is plastered across all the fliers and handouts and television sets over the last few months... I may have snapped. My pen, certainly, slipped. Two strokes later and it was done. Don’t tell him, will you? – I seemed to have voted for the Liberals. By accident, I assure you. Oh, well.