Getting Mrs Thatcher to speak to the LSE Conservative Group would be a big coup for Caroline, but for a long time it was all uncertain.  “I think she will,” Caroline said, over Christmas in Water Langley.  “Central Office’s very keen for her to connect with “youth”.  If she doesn’t, our Plan B is to ask that Northern Ireland bloke – Bill McCready.”

“Bill McCready?” breathed Hilary, a frisson zapping through her body.

“You will come, won't you, Hil,” begged Caroline, “whoever we get?”

“Why Bill McCready?  He’s a clergyman.  Christine, my old room-mate, and the CU, were praying for him.”

“He’s chaplain at some college in Northern Ireland.  He’s been talking to the papers about IRA funding, says he’s seen evidence of weapons coming from American charities which collect money for “Irish culture”.  Justinian and I met him in Boston, when we were over there last summer.  He was great.”

“You met Bill McCready?” gasped Hilary.

Caroline held out her hands.  “What’s the big deal?”

“He was curate here in Water Langley years ago.”

“I know.  We talked about that.  Anyway, hopefully, we’ll get Margaret Thatcher.” 

Hilary hoped so too.

Hilary was enjoying her third year at university.  Occasionally, she thought about next year, but “after university” wasn’t a real concept.  She would find a job in the Milk Round, “something in administration”, as the careers teacher at Queens Girls Grammar had suggested long long ago, but, when the Milk Round came to Rushloe in February, nobody in the history department found a job.  Unemployment was soaring.  But there were theses and essays to write, final exams to look forward to.  Writing out job applications… O levels with grades, A levels with grades… then explaining (“continuing on a separate sheet if necessary”), why she wanted to join a company she hardly knew existed, just didn’t seem a priority. 

In the event, Caroline did manage to engage Mrs Thatcher to speak, in late March, right at the end of the spring term, when Hilary was engrossed in writing her thesis about village life in medieval Essex, and just wanted to carry on writing it in Rushloe.  She did go to London that weekend, however, for Caroline, and because she had said she would.  Earlier that month, Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, of the pipe, Gannex raincoat and smug, superior expression, had surprised the electorate, who had elected him 18 months ago, by announcing his resignation.  The Tories in Caroline's house were big with self-righteous indignation at his resignation honours list (soon to be called “Lavender List”) which included Joseph Kagan who produced the Gannex - an “ex-con”, as Caroline said.

“It’s the sort of thing a medieval king would do,” said Hilary.

That weekend, Caroline was taken up with Mrs Thatcher and her talk.  The authorities at LSE, those doyens of life, liberty and free speech, were unenthusiastic about the woman their Soviet friends dubbed “The Iron Lady” speaking on LSE premises.  Already, Caroline had been refused use of the student union building, so she had moved Mrs Thatcher to one of the lecture theatres, but now she had been told that her guest wasn’t welcome there either.  The Holborn Conservative Association had, at the last minute, made their hall available.

“It’s a much smaller venue,” said Caroline, as she lay in bed on Saturday morning.  “Hope she won't be offended.  And, what I'm worried about is that, with all the messing about, nobody’s going to know what’s happening and where.”  She sat up in bed and looked down at Hilary, lying, as usual, on her lilo on the floor.  “You will get Andy to come, won't you?  I'll give you some flyers for St Luke's.”  She threw a handful at Hilary's sleeping bag.  “I've never been so worried about anything in my life, Hil.  It’d be so embarrassing if I had the Leader of the Conservative Party speaking to an empty hall.”  She swung her legs over the side of her bed.  “I'm going out now, get flyers round as many LSE halls as I can.”

“You’ll be all right,” Hilary replied, half-asleep.

“And, Hil, would you mind helping me set up the hall in Holborn?  We can't get in until five.  Someone else has booked it for the afternoon.  She’s starting at 7.30 and we’ll have to move really quickly.”

“At five?  I'll be with Andy.”

“Oh, for Goodness sake, Hilary!” snapped Caroline.  “Everything with you is Andy, Andy, Andy!  You’ve been coming here and staying with me for two bloody years and I don’t think it’s too much to ask.”  She kicked on her shoes, grabbed her jacket and, half a minute later, Hilary heard the door front door slam behind her.

Now awake, Hilary got up, showered and dressed, went out and bought milk and cereal (always lacking in Caroline’s household) and ate breakfast with Caroline’s housemates, Josie and Charlotte.  Justinian, who, Hilary supposed, had gone with Caroline distributing flyers, emerged as they were finishing, in sagging, short pyjamas, torn up one side.  “Seeing more of you this morning, Just,” said Josie, giggling and lifting the tear to expose more, winter white, flesh.

Justinian took a clean bowl (which Hilary had just washed up) and, without even drying it, tipped into it some of Hilary's cereal and the rest of Hilary's milk.  Farting loudly, he sat down.

Entering St Luke's an hour before she was due to meet Andy, Hilary distributed flyers, something at which she was experienced, although Water Langley church fetes were more her style.  Hilary had already put flyer-ed four corridors when a door burst open.  “Hilary!”  It was Andy’s Etonian friend, Nick Woolfenden. 

“Oh, hello.”

“Want a hand?” he asked, grabbing a handful of flyers from her.

“You’re a member of the Conservative Group, aren’t you?”

He stooped to ram a flyer under a door.  “It… er… goes with the territory.  My poor father lost his seat in the February 1974 election.”

“Your father was an MP?” exclaimed Hilary.

“If he had held his seat - he lost by just fifty votes - how different things would be in this country now!  No pipe, no Forkbender, no Gannex!  Lots of Morning Cloud and Moura Lympany.”

“No Thatcher,” Hilary added.

Now she had help, the task was completed very quickly.  “Thanks a load,” said Hilary.  She looked at her watch.  “Still twenty minutes before I meet Andy.”

“He’s in the library.  Where else?” said Nick.  “Come and have a coffee - if you can tolerate instant and Coffeemate.”

“I'm a tea drinker,” she replied.

“Don’t think I've got any tea,” he replied, unlocking his door and waving her inside.  “Come and have a chat, since I can't offer you a drink which would be acceptable to you.”

She smiled shyly, somewhat in awe of him.

“Ooh!”  He picked up a bottle of gin from the top shelf of his bookcase.  “Got this!”

“Er… no thanks.”

“No.  Yardarm and all that.  Also… I haven't got any tonic.”  He perched on the arm of his dingy student chair.  “Just chat, then.  Your boyfriend works too hard, Hilary.”

“I know.”

“He’s often working to one, two, in the morning, and then up for a ward round at eight.  The only time he stops is when you’re here.  He’ll make himself ill.  Get him out to see Maggie tonight!  By the way, how many of those flyers did our working class Tory distribute?”

“Justinian?”  Hilary shrugged.

“He’s not working class and his name’s not Justinian.  He was at prep school with me.”

“Prep school?  He went to a comprehensive!”

“The independent, fee-paying, school he attended from the age of eleven would be very surprised to hear itself called a comp!  It was one of those very academic day schools - far harder to get into than Eton.  I didn’t make the grade in their entrance exam.  I'm rather good at not making the grade.”

“He was at prep school with you?” Hilary repeated, unable to take this in.

“Yes.  In Woking.”

Not an “ordinary area” or in west London, thought Hilary.

“I didn’t know him that well, but, when we played cricket, he wouldn’t be out.  He argued with the umpires and made a scene.”

“What’s his real name then?”

“Derek.”

“Derek?” cried Hilary, whooping with delight.  “Derek?”

Andy, as Hilary predicted, was not keen on attending Caroline’s event and, even less, on helping her set up at five.  “I want to spend this weekend seeing you, not Caroline or Maggie Thatcher,” he grumbled.

“I really feel I ought to.”

In the event, Hilary and Andy walked to Holborn with Nick, who claimed he wouldn’t otherwise be able to find the Holborn Conservative Association hall.  When they arrived there at five to five, a charity bring-and-buy was in full swing, and, when Caroline suggested to the caretaker that he might remind the organisers of the time, he said he didn’t like to.

“Where’s Derek?” Nick asked, but no one, except Hilary, knew who he meant.

The constituency chairman arrived, a traditional Conservative, navy jacket, triangle of handkerchief poking out of his pocket, like a colonel out of Agatha Christie.  The chairman spoke to the ladies in cardigans running the bring-and-buy.

“What he’s saying,” said Nick, “is that nice girl who’s Leader of the Conservative Party is coming, so would they mind awfully… just buggering off?”

“What we’ve got to do,” said Caroline, when they eventually got into the hall, “is help these ladies pack up, sweep the floor, and lay out the chairs - all by 7.30.”

“Right-ho,” said Nick.

“And please be careful,” Caroline added, “because my dad has paid a £100 deposit against damages.”

“I wish Caroline would go out with Nick,” muttered Hilary to Andy.

“Nick has more offers than everyone else at St Luke's combined,” Andy replied.

Hilary helped an elderly lady pack up her knitted teddy bear stall and heard all about how this lady sold teddy bears at her church in West London and how she had raised £56.78 (in new money!) for the church restoration appeal.  As the hall cleared, Hilary became aware of the photographs on the walls, sober, dignified, black and white, of every Tory prime minister since photography had been invented: Edward Heath, his mouth wide open; Sir Alex Douglas Home, unaware that he looked like a misshapen pixie; Harold Macmillan, the wounded cuckold, his hurt hidden in his formality; Anthony Eden, so sure of himself; Neville Chamberlain, magisterial, and sharing Hitler’s taste in moustaches; Stanley Baldwin, rather surprised to be there at all; and, in the biggest photograph, Winston Churchill grinning across his bulky face, like a schoolboy who had just broken a nonsensical school rule. 

The caretaker was now sweeping the hall with a wide brush.  Hilary went into the kitchen, at the far end of the hall, and made tea in a large china teapot, on which someone had painted “Tory Tea” in big blue letters, but everybody was too busy to drink it.  The audience started to arrive before they had finished setting out the chairs, mostly normal-looking students, although some wore badges which read Militant Brigade.

Hilary raised her eyebrows at Caroline, who shrugged.  “It’s a free country.”

“What is “Militant Brigade”?”

She shrugged.  “A stupid lefty group.”

“Hi!” called Justinian, from behind Hilary.  “How’s everything?”

“Fine,” said Caroline.

“I'll have to go and meet her in a minute,” he said.

“Where’s he been all afternoon?” demanded Hilary. 

“Oh, he’s got an unbelievable amount of work to do for his course, Hil,” Caroline answered. 

“So has Andy.  So have we all!” Hilary retorted.  “Are you going on the platform with them?”

Caroline shook her head.  “The platform is pretty small.  There’ll be her, her husband, her political agent and Justinian.”

“You ought to be there.  You’ve organised it.”  Hilary would have said more, but Caroline was called away, because the hall was now full, with people peering in through the doorway.  Caroline, Hilary and the other helpers would have to stand by the wall. 

A little after 7.30, Justinian led out a diminutive lady, with a slight stoop, wearing a conventional, but smart, Tory blue dress, and carrying a big handbag, the sort Hilary's mother would use, with unlimited capacity - anthem copies for the whole choir, if necessary.  When she spoke, her tone was slow, deliberate, the voice of someone who would be heard. 

The Militant Brigade group, sitting close to where Hilary was standing, were fidgeting and chattering as Mrs Thatcher was speaking.  One lifted his arm in a Nazi salute and called “Zeig Heil,” under his breath.

“Bloody Commies!” retorted Caroline.

A second boy picked up the refrain, both of them lifting their arms and calling out.  Now another one was doing it and another, four of them standing up to do their Nazi salutes.  The normal students turned to stare, unsure whether these Militant Brigades supported the Nazis or abhorred them.  From the platform, Justinian was gesticulating to Caroline to do something.  Caroline moved over to where the Militant Brigades were sitting.  “Could you be quiet, please?”

The Militant Brigades laughed at her and tossed her words back in a falsetto voice.  “Could you be quiet, please?  Could you be quiet?  Zeig Heil.  Zeig Heil...”

“Look, if you don’t want to listen, I suggest you just leave…”

“Zeig Heil.  Zeig Heil.” 

Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain looked down sternly from the wall.  They had heard this sort of thing before.

“We’ll have to get the police,” said Caroline's flatmate, Charlotte.

“Get the police.  Get the police,” chanted the Militant Brigades in falsetto.  “Get the Fascist pigs!”

Caroline glanced at the platform.  Mrs Thatcher had stopped speaking and sat down.  How long would she be prepared to stay?

Scenting a victory of sorts, the Militant Brigades were now out their seats, throwing things from paper bags – only eggs and tomatoes, Hilary realised in relief.  Egg yolk was now streaming down Edward Heath’s self-congratulatory “I've got you into Europe, even though you didn’t want to” smirk.  Red tomatoes were squashing themselves against Winston Churchill’s bulk and egg white streamed down Arthur Balfour’s high brow.

The constituency chairman reappeared from nowhere.  “I’m going to ring the police… Good Lord!”  A tomato splatted against his navy jacket, the handkerchief triangle wilting in tomato juice.

“Can't we get them out?” Hilary said.  “I mean, there are only four of them!”

“Yes, come on!” said Nick, reaching out to grab one of the Militant Brigades, but the boy was too quick, vaulting over a chair and into the kitchen. 

When he saw the big “Tory Tea” teapot, for just a moment, the Militant Brigade boy’s mouth twitched in amusement.  He was just a boy, Hilary observed, probably a first year student, his face smooth like a proverbial baby’s bottom, his body boyishly skinny.  But Marxism is a humourless business.  He had grabbed the teapot by the handle, but it was heavier than he appeared to expect and tea dripped on to the worktop.  Then the pot slipped from his hand and shattered, luke-warm tea and leaves gushing on to the tiled floor.

He hesitated, startled by the mess he had created.  Hilary caught Caroline's eye.  “What you need to do,” Hilary said, grabbing one elbow as Caroline grabbed the other, “is to get out of here fast.”

As she and Caroline walked this boy to the door, the constituency chairman was already seizing another Militant Brigade boy lurking by the kitchen door.  Nick had grabbed the arm of a third boy, as he was about to throw something, and was leading him out, squashed tomato dribbling from his fingers.  The other Militant Brigade boy scuttled after them through the main door. 

The whole incident lasted less than five minutes.  Mrs Thatcher was now on her feet again, talking about controlling the money supply, what she called “monetarism”.  “We cannot pay ourselves what we have not earned.”  After she had finished speaking, there were questions from the floor, some of them quite critical in tone, but, amidst tomato, egg and tea-leaves, Mrs Thatcher was equal to every one.

“Dad’s going to kill me!” Caroline muttered to Hilary, as the audience filed out.  “He’s just lost £100!”

“Caz!” Josie was shouting over the departing crowd.  “Justinian's been invited for a quick drink at the Holborn Hotel with Margaret and Denis.”

It amused Hilary how Caroline, Josie and the other Tory activists would always refer to Mrs Thatcher as “Margaret”, as if she were a close friend.  Meanwhile, Caroline, Hilary and a few others were left to clear up.  Hilary and Caroline put the pathetic broken shards of the “Tory Tea” pot on a tray. Caroline mentioned her father’s £100 deposit again and again.  It was a lot of money but Hilary couldn't think of anything helpful to say in reply.  One by one, the other helpers “had to go”, leaving just Hilary, Caroline, Andy, Nick and Charlotte.  Josie also had disappeared and Justinian had not returned.

“He’s with the Thatchers, isn't he?” said Caroline.

“What?  He went off for a “quick drink” over two hours ago!  He’s just leaving you to do all the work, again!”

“What he’s supposed to do?” Caroline asked.  “Say “Sorry, Maggie.  Sorry, Denis.  Got to clean up the Conservative hall.””

“It wouldn’t hurt him.  He can't be drinking with the Thatchers - still.”

Hilary and Caroline would sometimes bicker like this, like the sisters they almost were, and tonight they were exhausted and they hadn't eaten since lunchtime.  “Well, you seem to know more about where he is than I do!” retorted Caroline.

“I'll sweep the floor if you like,” said Andy.  “Where’s that wide brush?”

Hilary was looking for the brush, which the caretaker had been using earlier that evening, opening doors and cupboards, when she happened to walk in on Justinian and Josie having sex in the Conservative Association office.

“Oh, I'm so sorry!” Josie squealed, pulling up her knickers.

“Sorry?” Hilary screamed at them.  “You make me sick… Derek!

Justinian remained on the floor, the folds of his jeans scarcely covering his unappealing white flesh.

“All day, you’ve let Caroline do all the bloody work, while you swan off. Now this - with your housemate!  You are just disgusting!”

Andy placed his hand her shoulder, a vain attempt to calm her.

“Please don’t tell Caroline,” begged Josie, attempting to fasten her jeans and getting the zip stuck.

“Of course I'm going to tell Caroline!” screamed Hilary, stomping out, pushing past Andy in her rage.

She marched across the hall, to where Caroline was, her face grey with fatigue, her eyes sunk into their sockets.  “What is it you’re going to tell me?” Caroline asked, without looking up.  The Militant Brigade boys, in their food-throwing frenzy, had knocked Neville Chamberlain from the wall and Caroline was gathering together the broken frame and the dusty, musty black and white photograph, Chamberlain reduced to a piece of paper, cheap wartime paper.

“Don’t!” breathed Andy.

“Well?” said Caroline.

“Want to know why your precious Justinian isn't giving you a hand?” Hilary said, at last.  “He was having it off with Josie.”

“Oh shut up!” Caroline retorted without looking up. 

“Well, he was!  I saw him!”

Caroline sprung round like a tigress.  “Get out of here, Hilary!  In fact, get out of my life!”