I fell in love with Mrs Male long before she went into national politics. She was married to Victor Male, who was on Streatham borough council. She worked in an East Croydon solicitor’s office when I first met her, but she found her degree to be more useful at Gault Thomson, a small accountancy firm in those days. When Vic burnt out on the council, she stood in the same ward and won it easily. I still saw her if she had time for me, though I was living north of the river by then. We generally met at lunchtime in the sparkling anonymity of the Kensington Park Hotel, always walking in the park for a bit after we’d made love.
Even then she was fitting me in between other errands. She visited Westminster every four days or so, was friendly with all the right people. When she became an MP she dropped me. She had too much at stake, she said. I remember her last determined, regretful kiss.
She was never the shrew the cartoonists drew; never the arrogant maîtresse of Spitting Image. I always found her a bit sentimental. I think that’s why she stayed in touch, long after she had the baby.
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