Division Bells

By Iona Datt Sharma

In politics, love is a stranger...

It’s a bitterly cold winter in London and Jules Elwin has no idea what he’s doing. As the newest special adviser to a government minister, he’s drowning in arcane procedures and party politics, and the civil servant who’s supposed to be helping him is doing nothing of the sort. Ari is sarcastic, intolerant and has no time for a special adviser who’s only there because his father is a peer of the realm.

Jules is only one of Ari’s many problems. As well as nursemaiding a special adviser, he’s got to get a Bill through Parliament, keep his irrepressible minister happy and stop his esteemed colleagues from hiding alcohol in their filing cabinets. And there’s something else, too: a deep, unspoken grief, that’s consuming him like frost.

But despite everything, Ari sees the world around him clearly––and Jules has been waiting all of his life to be seen.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Iona Datt Sharma
• Release date: Oct 13, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005677701

Book preview

Division Bells

by

Iona Datt Sharma

Division Bells © 2020 Iona Datt Sharma

Cover design © 2020 Lodestar Author Services

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This book is a work of fiction. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author.

Contents

Division Bells

Division Bells

Second reading

Committee

Consideration on report from committee

Third reading

Epilogue

About the Author

Acknowledgements

Division Bells

by

Iona Datt Sharma

Division Bells

In both Houses, the principal stages of bills are: first reading, second reading, committee, consideration on report from committee, and third reading.

—Erskine May, Treatise on the law, privileges, proceedings and usage of Parliament (25th edition, 2019)

Second reading

In a sense it was all the fault of the Department for Regional Infrastructure and Development, and in another sense it was Diggory's fault for pouring half a cup of coffee into Ari's briefing pack. In a third, very real, sense it was just another consequence of anthropogenic climate change. The wonk from Regional Infrastructure had come by the previous night to say, Ari, darling, your department's going to have to speak to its own Bill clauses, and Ari had sworn at a number of inanimate objects and got to it. He'd enjoyed himself, in a masochistic sort of way. It was what the job was about, at an essential level: distilling a raft of policy and legislative issues into a tight fifteen pages with a tricolour scheme and judicious use of eighteen-point font. Energy and Efficiency had fifteen clauses in the Bill, concerning funding, technical specifics and operation of new wind farms. By the end of the night, Ari knew how to pronounce ‘praseodymium' and ‘Darrieus turbine' and felt that for once he had a grasp of an issue before it had had a chance to blow up excitingly in his face.

Then the Committee for the Order of Business and Legislation switched the order of proceedings, Diggory fumbled his latte all over Ari's three-colour indicative scheme, and the minister's private secretary rang to say she wanted advance briefing before she had to go to the dispatch box and could Ari please, for the love of God, hurry the fuck up.

Sir, said parliamentary security at the College Green gate, I understand the urgency, but you've got to come through security the same as everyone else. Short of making you strip naked in public in October—

We'll do it, Ari said, instantly. Diggory squeaked. Look, I'm a departmental official, I'm supposed to be in a briefing right now. Diggory's no trouble to anyone, he's only twelve.

Diggory, who was twenty-two, looked outraged.

Jesus Christ, the security guard said. He took Ari by the hand like a wayward toddler and led him and Diggory past the public queue, to the peers-and-MPs-only fast track. Belt, watch, shoes, pass.

Just to be sure, Diggory said, you're not actually making us take off all our clothes?

Not that we wouldn't enjoy that, the security guard said, gesturing at his two colleagues, but no. Get on with it, you'll miss your proceeding.

Even the kid didn't need telling twice. He and Ari threw their coffee-soaked papers and electronics through the scanners, grabbed their belts and watches without putting them back on and sprinted into St Stephen's Hall. Yaz, the minister's private secretary, was waiting at the top of the steps, the red light through the stained glass offsetting her rage nicely.

That's right, Ari, carry your watch rather than look at it, that helps, she snapped. And if either of you loses your trousers between here and the Residence Room, I will have you both strung up by the balls, I swear to God.

No one lost their trousers on their way to the Residence Room – which was just as well; the BBC's political editor was in the upper gallery and looked up with interest at a pack of sprinting officials – but Ari paused at the threshold. Take two breaths, Lil said inside his head, a calming trick from playing reels and strathspeys. He opened the door.

The minister looked up from her phone. Oh, how exciting, she said mildly. It's my department. I wondered if I still had one.

I apologise, minister, Ari said. We had trouble with security.

Never mind that, the minister said. Sit down there. Good man. Now someone tell me something about these damn-fool Regulations.

Clauses, minister, Eilidh said, and Ari started paying attention to the world around him rather than to the Northern Infrastructure Bill. The Residence Room, rich and plush with its seventeenth-century tapestries, was familiar; so was Diggory, Ari's policy assistant as of six not-very-competent weeks ago; so was Yaz, who had been the minister's private secretary for all her tenure at Energy and Efficiency. Eilidh, Ari's assigned departmental lawyer, had got here on time and had apparently been managing to make small talk with the minister while they waited. Ari made a mental note to buy her a sugary drink with cream.

The stranger was sitting opposite Ari, scruffy but composed. Dark eyes, an amused, almost sneering, expression, a bright red scarf that clashed horribly with ginger hair. Ron Weasley without the freckles or humility. Ari had been a departmental civil servant his entire working life and knew what he was looking at. Spad?

Special adviser, please, the minister said, also amused. This is Julian Elwin. Jules, this is a whole bunch of people from my department.

Hi, Diggory said awkwardly; Eilidh muttered something; Yaz knew everyone without being introduced.

Ari wasn't feeling inclined towards niceties. Are you here for the briefing, Mr Elwin? Do you have some sort of expertise in respect of wind farms?

Wind farms, yes! the minister said. How terribly thrilling they are. Could someone tell me something about them before the heat death of the universe? You, Ari. Talk.

The Northern Infrastructure Bill, Ari said hesitantly, is a cross-departmental bill covering a number of issues related to infrastructure, procurement, transport and climate change.

It was the first sentence of his briefing, recited verbatim, and it made him feel better. So, strangely, did the ticking clock. What with lattes and security and the general vagaries of the British political system, he now only had fifteen minutes to bring the minister up to speed on the policy area before she brought the legislation to the House of Lords.

It took him ten of the fifteen minutes to talk through the Bill: that it was being brought by the Department of Regional Infrastructure as a whole but sprawled over so many topics that each subject area would need to be covered separately; that their department, Energy and Efficiency, would be covering the wind farms; and that the minister – Ari's minister, Baroness MacKay of Forth and Rosyth – would need to handle the relevant portion for the second reading debates.

Thank you, Ari, the minister said when he was done, and Ari exhaled in relief and glanced at the watch that was still in his hand. Three minutes or so before they'd need to head down. "And thank you for the briefing pack, which contrary to what Yaz may have told you, I have read. A question on page