Chapter 3: Ministerial Efforts

Florence Daniels, Minister for Home Affairs in the New Order Government, had decided that she’d had enough for the week.

There had been long nights in the House, pushing the Government’s legislative programme through, turning up to Committees on this or that manifesto commitment, trooping dutifully through the lobby for every vote, and sitting in Cabinet while the Prime Minister chivvied them all to make sure they were delivering on the party’s commitment to go on being a government of women, for women.

On top of that she had needed to put in long days in her own Department, trying to stay one step ahead of those that thought she should never have had the job in the first place. And that was without the particularly full post bag of letters from her constituency raising issues of local concern. It was the same for any Cabinet Minister, she thought, but even so, by Friday evening, she felt it was time for a drink.

Florence felt the bars that clustered in the streets around the Houses of Parliament were far too close to work, with too many opportunities to bump into people she really didn’t want to have to talk to. Her preferred watering hole – something she didn’t share with any of her team – was across the river in Lambeth Palace Yard. Once the residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the red-brick, Tudor buildings had been converted long ago into a shopping mall and leisure precinct. There were restaurants and bars that offered a chance to relax. The other benefit of the location was that she could be back in the House or in her Marsham Street office quickly enough if she needed to be.

She walked through the entrance to the complex. The signs on either side, a male symbol, inverted in a red ring with a red diagonal bar through it, was universally recognized now. “No Males” it said. Florence couldn’t remember when it had first appeared. It wasn’t something the Government had introduced, she thought, just something that had sprung up. Now it was quite common.

Of course, there were men in the complex, waiting at tables, serving in the bars, things like that, but they came in through a rear entrance for the staff and they all had a reason to be here. Florence looked around. She couldn’t see a single one apart from those that were obviously waiting at table.

Mondo Bondo was in part of the main building. Florence liked it because it was the complete antithesis of anything the party apparat-chicks (as she called the Prime Minister’s young, go-getting, conformity chasers) approved of. It was noisy, it was dark, and it was sleazy. Florence hadn’t been entirely surprised, when New Order came to power, how quickly women had taken on many of the characteristics traditionally associated with the male. Alcohol-fuelled women displaying rowdy behaviour, echoing the scene in the nineteen nineties – “ladettes,” they’d called them then – had become commonplace in recent years. It wasn’t uncommon for women to openly display sexual interest in men and the odd bit of kinkiness was neither illegal or particularly remarked on.

Mondo Bondo catered for those that liked to see their men in chains. While Florence told herself she went because of the music and the atmosphere, the amusement from being served by shackled and ball gagged waiters naked from the waist up appealed to a part of her that she knew stretched back to her adolescence.

“2010 Retro Disco” the poster’s outside had announced and sure enough the speakers inside were blaring out Kesha’s We R Who We R, practically pinning the bar’s customers to the walls with the volume.

Florence found a table. A waiter approached. “Vodka tonic, straight up,” Florence announced. The waiter nodded and disappeared in search of her drink. Florence watched him go, following the roll of his buttocks as he walked back to the bar, his steps impeded by the chain between his ankles. As he stepped behind the bar, Florence caught sight of someone she knew sitting on a stool. The slim young woman with short, dark, spiky hair lifted her drink in recognition and came across to greet her.

“Hello, Florence. I thought I’d find you here.”

“And I thought I’d get some peace.”

“Is that any way to greet someone that wants to do you a favour.”

“Corey Preston, I’ve lost count of the number of favours you’ve tried to do me that have somehow ended up being to your benefit.

Corey smiled and sat down.

“Join me, why don’t you?” Florence reacted acidly.

“That’s no way to greet an old friend. Especially one that has an idea that might be of benefit to you.”

“You’re still lobbying, then?” The constant parade of people trying to get you to steer government policy for their benefit was one of the down sides of being in the Government, Florence knew.

“Yes, and I’ll declare my interest straight away. I’ve been asked to look at helping the Chinese Trade Delegation with some of the practical issues of their trading relationships with the UK. Nothing related to public policy, of course.”