Chapter Text
She realised even before she got it, this was going to be a job like no other. The ad had called for an experienced personal assistant; excellent administration skills, willingness to work long and flexible hours, ability to focus under intense pressure, all the usual guff successful senior men wanted in their staff. It wasn’t until the third round of interviews, conducted by a ferocious Scotsman in the party’s own slightly dated and faded HQ, all deep leather sofas and peeling paintwork, she’d begun to appreciate just whose office she might be approaching.
The fourth interview was the first time she’d met him; the first time she entered Number Ten, Downing Street by the tradesmen’s entrance at the back. He dashed in late and apologetic, fresh out of performing one of those live autopsies of an elected representative he so enjoyed. Only later did she appreciate her good fortune. On a dull day he would have dissected her employment history, political position and probable commitment to the cause far more thoroughly than he did in a half-hour’s grilling no prosecuting lawyer could have bettered.
Even so, by the end of it she was convinced he detested her. What really puzzled her was why that mattered.
Then he had sighed, pulled himself up from the depths of his big leather chair and clasped the long, surprisingly graceful hands that had held her transfixed as they moved with his rapid flow of speech. “Well, Miss Cassidy – you prefer Sam, do you? – I’ve seen lassies with more experience, but I think there’s a spark about ye. When can you start?”
“I – well, whenever’s convenient for you, Mister Tucker,”
That got her the raise of an eyebrow and a look that could pierce steel. “Not Mister Tucker, or sir, thank you, young lady. So – Samantha or Sam?”
“Sam.” No hesitation, despite the bubble of bemusement that surrounded her. He punctured it with a firm handshake.
“Monday, eight o’clock.”
“I’ll be here.” Now she did waver, before finding courage in the unlikeliest of place: his cool grey eyes. “Malcolm.”
“Guid girl.” The crisp Glaswegian accent softened slightly and he almost smiled. As if, Sam realised, she had passed her first test.
It wasn’t until she’d been working for him a few weeks she realised. She had.
*
He’d been gentle that first day, not that she understood until later. One minor telephone roasting of an impertinent editor that had left him with a grin on his face for half an hour after; a quick shout at Jamie when the Motherwell pitbull had dared to suggest in “the big fucker’s” absence, Sam might see fit to provide tea and coffee for the deputy. Then he had apologised for his subordinate’s “fucking terrible language”, daring her to object.
Sam had arched an eyebrow, asked where he kept the muzzle, and sashayed off to the bathroom with the sound of their laughter ringing in her ears.
It was, she gathered, held throughout the department a feather in a new girl’s cap. Not intimidated by MacDonald. She heard the whispers in the corridors of power. This one might last!
Three days later she’d seen the excrement connect with the air conditioning for the first time.
The Department of Social Affairs. Department of Shit All. Department of Sodding Arseholes. The alternative titles ran into hundreds. Sam heard most of them bellowed through the half-open door of her boss’s spacious office that afternoon.
Cliff Lawton staggered past her with the dazed air of a hurricane survivor mauled by a lion. “Would you like some tea, Minister?” she suggested. He waggled his head. Babbled something.
“Sam! Tell that fucking circus act he’s got a fuckin’ department to run! And when you’ve done that, can you find me yesterday’s Observer?”
“Certainly, s – Malcolm.” No, she rebuked herself. This probably wasn’t a moment to slip up over his sensitivity to titles. She didn’t wait to see the minister out.
*
Sometimes he’d call her mid-bollocking, have her summon Jamie to make a tag team of angry Scotsmen, one taking over the serious business of bellowing insults while the other paused for breath. The younger man, she discovered, took off as fast as his boss but recovered more slowly. Malcolm Tucker could be roaring one moment, smiling the next. There wasn’t the same variety to his countryman’s repertoire.
Nor the mischievous glint that she caught in Malcolm’s eye at the oddest of moments. Nor the aura of absolute control that crackled around him even when the verbal torrents were a-broiling. When Jamie lost it, he lost it. Malcolm – never.
Other people, she discovered, were afraid of him. Fucking terrified, in fact. For the life of her, Sam couldn’t see why.
Oh, he shouted a lot. Yes, he used language you wouldn’t hear at the vicar’s garden party. And yes; that energy crackled around him like a permanent electrical storm. Part of her recoiled in horror when he stormed through the department at above eight on what was dubbed the Fuckter Scale, spitting out obscenities and orders at whomever happened to catch his eye.
Part of her was fascinated. Even awed. He had such vitality, an overwhelming force of personality that bore him along on an invisible tidal wave. And he seemed to do it all on occasional snacks and several gallons a day of strong black coffee. If it had been all rage and fury – like Jamie – he might have roused her contempt. Instead, he had her absolute, almost appalled admiration.
Powerful men – and the odd powerful woman – shuffled past her desk every day, heads down and fingers kneading lapels or cuffs like kittens at their mother’s belly. Feeble. Frightened. Some of them pleasant enough, one or two complete tossers. Yet without exception they were nonentities. Cannon fodder.
Pygmies next to him.
And dismissive of her, the mere secretary, as he never was. Few of them knew her name within the first six weeks; one of those who thought he did kept calling her Sally until loudly corrected from beyond the half-open door. “How’re you going to convince the fuckin’ electorate you care about their fucking problems when you can’t even get a lassie’s name right, you pompous public-school nonce! Sam, get Liam and Jack from Defence over in ten, yeah? And tell them if Geoff wants to trail after ‘em like a dribble of weak piss, there’s a coal shed just outside the front door and they have my fucking authority to lock him in it, OK?”
“Certainly, Malcolm.”
His head popped around the doorframe. “That’s my girl. And next time you’re making tea…”
She presented him with a fresh mug between appointments and got a squeeze of the shoulder in thanks. “You passed on the message?”
“Verbatim.” She felt like a conspirator. When he laughed, tossing her a wink over his visitor’s shoulder, she was a conqueror.
When she reached two months without running from the office in tears or slapping her resignation letter down on his desk her colleagues bought her a special “Smiley Face” mug.
He never asked about it, but somehow she knew he got the joke. She made a point of having it on her desk on particularly difficult days, for both their sakes.
A week later, she discovered just how difficult some of those days could be.