Politics is Murder

The thud of the envelope on the mat should have given away the weight of the situation.

That’s what she thought afterwards, anyway, when she was practising how she’d tell the story to the press if she ever got out. As it had actually happened, she hadn’t heard the post arrive that morning. She’d been lying on the bathroom floor, two fingers inside herself, trying to work out whether her cervix had prolapsed.

Something they didn’t tell you when you squeezed a child out of an area that had previously only been pleasurable was just how much anxiety you’d have for yourself. It was taken as a given that you’d worry about your baby, about money, about not losing your sparkling career – even if that was in data entry for a GP surgery in the arse end of South Wales. And if you had room left to panic after that, it was assumed you should really start worrying about making sure you heaved your broken body on top of your husband at least once a week. Otherwise, he might just get bored and leave you for the eager brunette just-this-side-of-legal who served him his morning coffee.

It was slightly terrifying how quickly these concepts were absorbed. Before she’d even conceived the idea of wanting to conceive Leo, her brain was years-saturated with the idea that her post-childbirth agenda should include keeping her husband coming regularly before she even considered worrying about the body that had produced the child in the first place.

Not that she had a husband, of course, she’d reminded herself as she fumbled for the tap with her non-vagina-tainted hand. Not even a partner. Leo’s dad had been back on dating apps in his mam’s spare room quicker than you could say “social media isn’t real life” as soon as he’d realised his fantasy of weekly date nights – and blow jobs from an Instagram mummy – had been replaced with the nightmare of a real, actual post-partum woman.

Self-examination done, she’d scooped Leo up from his cot, telling herself she had to wait at least an hour before she Googled anything else. He was a patient baby, always ready to greet his mother with a smile after she’d dumped him amongst his toys in a panic, wondering if that specific amount of bleeding or cramping definitely meant something sinister this time.

She’d swept up the envelope along with the leaflets advertising companies who’d never heard of digital marketing, and bin bags from charities begging her to stop being such a lazy bitch and empty her wardrobe, and tossed it onto the kitchen table. It had sat there, unopened, as Leo kicked his legs in his highchair, shrieking in delight as banana aeroplanes whirled above him.

Eventually, she’d got bored, as she always did, presumably because she was fundamentally flawed and not cut out for motherhood, and reached for the pile of letters. If nothing else, it represented adult life and something more interesting, if not more heartening, than a gummy mouth full of mushed fruit.

She’d thought it was a court summons at first. The paper felt thicker between her fingers than the loose leaf the energy companies used, and the crest at the top produced the familiar twist in her gut that she’d known since she was eight and started reading all her mam’s letters before anyone else came downstairs. Her heartbeat had quickened slightly on realising it was from Daniel Drislop, her MP. It seemed that he, or some aspiring politician working for him, had actually opened her letter. It looked, too, she realised with a thrill of delight, like they’d actually considered what she’d written, as this wasn’t a generic response promising to keep her opinions in mind. He actually wanted to meet her!

She’d grabbed her phone and messaged Pip, her best friend, in a thrill of excitement, noting the date, time and place. Not out of fear, as she did with any other man she’d go to meet, but out of genuine anticipation. She couldn’t have known, she told herself now. Couldn’t have known what was to come. But she was glad she’d told Pip, and hoped someone would have the sense to look for her.