Heads You Win

SASHA

London, 1994

“Order! Order!” said the Speaker. “Questions to the Foreign Secretary. Mr. Sasha Karpenko.”

Sasha rose slowly from his place on the opposition front bench, and asked, “Can the Foreign Secretary confirm that Britain will finally be signing the Fifth Protocol of the Geneva Convention, as we are the only European country that has so far failed to do so?”

Mr. Douglas Hurd rose to answer the question, as a badge messenger appeared by the Speaker’s chair, and handed a slip of paper to the Labour whip on duty. He read the name before passing it down the front bench to the shadow minister. Sasha unfolded it, read the message, and immediately stood and walked uneasily along the opposition front bench, stepping over and sometimes on his colleagues’ toes, not unlike someone who has to leave a crowded theater in the middle of a performance. He stopped to have a word with the Speaker to explain his actions. The Speaker smiled.

“On a point of order, Mr. Speaker,” said the Foreign Secretary, leaping up, “shouldn’t the honorable member at least have the courtesy to stay and hear the answer to his own question?”

“Hear, hear,” shouted several members from the government benches.

“Not on this occasion,” said Mr. Speaker without explanation. Members on both sides began to chatter among themselves, wondering why Sasha had left the chamber so abruptly.

“Question number two,” said the Speaker, smiling to himself.

Robin Cook was on his feet by the time Sasha had reached the members’ entrance.

“Taxi, sir?” asked the doorman.

“No, thank you,” said Sasha, who’d already decided to run all the way to St. Thomas’s Hospital rather than wait for a taxi that would have to drive around Parliament Square and contend with half a dozen sets of traffic lights before reaching the hospital. He was out of breath by the time he was halfway across Westminster Bridge, having had to dodge in and out of camera-laden tourists. With each step he was made painfully aware just how unfit he had allowed himself to become over the years.

Charlie had suffered two miscarriages since the birth of their daughter, and Dr. Radley had advised them that this could well be their last chance of having another child.

When Sasha reached the southern end of the bridge, he ran down the steps and along the Thames until he reached the hospital entrance. He didn’t ask the woman on reception which floor his wife was on, because they had both visited Dr. Radley the previous week. Avoiding the overcrowded lift, he continued on up the stairs to the maternity wing. This time he did stop at the desk to give the nurse his name. She checked the computer while he caught his breath.

“Mrs. Karpenko is already in the delivery room. If you take a seat, it shouldn’t be long now.”

Sasha didn’t even look for a seat, but began pacing up and down the corridor, while offering a silent prayer for his unborn son. Elena hadn’t approved of them wanting to know the child’s sex before it was born. He could only wonder why a situation like this always caused him to pray, when he didn’t at any other time. Well, perhaps at Christmas. He certainly neglected to thank the Almighty when things were going well. And they couldn’t have been going much better at the moment. Natasha, whom he adored, had had him obeying her every command for the past fifteen years.

“Otherwise what’s the point of fathers?” Charlie had overheard her telling a friend.

Although they’d tightened their belts—another of his mother’s expressions—after the closure of Elena’s 3, it had taken another four years before the company was back in profit and the taxman had been paid in full. Elena’s 1 and 2 were now making a comfortable profit, although Sasha was aware that he could have made a lot more money if he hadn’t chosen to follow a political career. The prospect of a second child made him wonder about his future. A minister of the Crown? Or would his constituents dismiss him? After all, Merrifield was still a marginal seat, and only a fool took the electorate for granted. Perhaps they were never going to be rich, but they led a civilized and comfortable life, and had little to complain about. Sasha had long ago accepted that if you decide to pursue a political career, you can’t always expect to travel first-class.

He had been delighted by his promotion to Shadow Minister of State at the Foreign Office when Tony Blair took over as leader of the opposition. A man who seemed to have an unusual failing for a Labour leader: he actually wanted to govern.

Robin Cook, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, was calling for an ethical foreign policy, and told Sasha that he expected him to keep reminding his Russian counterparts that their country’s newfound wealth should be distributed among the people, and not handed out to a group of undeserving oligarchs, many of whom had not only taken up residence in Mayfair, but weren’t paying any tax.