The Bill was in committee for two sitting weeks, during which time the Lords tabled amendments in groupings every day, to be debated each Tuesday and Thursday. It had an urgency to it, but a predictable one; it wasn't like the documentation stage, when no one had had time to do anything, let alone each other. Ari made this observation as blandly as he would have proffered a remark about parliamentary proceedings, and it took Jules a second to register it and then feel an abrupt non-workplace-appropriate stirring. "Don't say things like that," he said. "Not while I'm trying to read this extremely serious and fascinating report."
"All right, I won't," Ari said, tranquilly, which was more alarming than any refusal would have been. Jules was learning the perils of a workplace romance, even a successful one; it was at once delightful and unbearable to be around Ari most of his waking hours, knowing the vast majority of them were constrained. They had had that first, careful weekend together, spent in equal parts lazy sex and quietness, and after that they took what they could from around the Bill procedure, evenings and Saturday afternoons and hastily snatched dinners and breakfasts. Being a young gay man in a large city, Jules had had experience of passing encounters, frenetic and urgent, and not much else; he had a suspicion that this slow unfolding might indicate something very much more than passing, that might become as much part of him as the salt in his bones. He was conscious always of the need to be careful, to not push too far or fast, but Ari's restiveness had settled, like a flock of birds on water. Jules left food on Ari's desk in the evenings as usual and found himself stilled in place, as Ari reached to tuck a stray lock of hair behind his ear without noticing he was doing it. Of such things might love be made, Jules thought, dizzily. He put that dangerous word away for later consideration and went back to work.
The cloud on the horizon was the memo.
At first Jules was able to rationalise the delay. The two sitting weeks were broken up by Christmas and New Year, which carried their own distractions. Jules remembered with barely contained panic that he'd meant to do his Christmas shopping the day he'd gone to check on Ari and had never actually done anything about it since. He got a nice scarf for his mother and a fuzzy elephant for his niece and some more macarons for Ari, before recalling something else he'd forgotten. "You don't do Christmas, do you."
"Only the music," Ari said, amused. "But thank you."
Later, Jules found a lapel pin in the shape of a wind turbine in his coat pocket, and decided he'd probably been forgiven for cultural insensitivity. He spent Christmas Day with his parents, sitting dutifully through a turkey dinner and the Queen's Speech, and was relieved to be rescued by Ari for New Year's Eve. At Ari's suggestion, they abused their security passes to watch the fireworks from the roof of the Treasury, the sky shattering above them into pink, green and blue.
"My father will be so disappointed," Jules said, amid the crackle and roar. "When he finds out I have, once again, been seduced by a homosexual."
"How terribly careless of you," Ari murmured, looking up at Jules through his lashes. "Also, why does everyone always forget I'm bi? I have a little flag on my desk and everything."
"Oh, well, that's fine, then," Jules said, kissing him. He wanted to push Ari up against the parapet and do something to him that he shouldn't do in public, but more than that, he wanted to hold on to this memory: Ari, here with him on the year's cusp, the sky above them exploding into light. When Jules got back, he told his mother he'd had a lovely New Year's with a dear friend, and watched her face light up with understanding. The rest of the holiday period was bearable.
But then it was January, the Lords were sitting again, and Jules realised abruptly that he couldn't put it off any longer. On his first day back, Eilidh pinned him down to ask him if he'd given the memo any further thought; Time Remaining issued a new report about the possibilities for hydroelectric power in Northumberland; and Diggory reported the Bill had now survived the first three sets of committee debates with the wind farm clauses unscathed. "It'll make it out of committee," he said, sounding quite certain. Jules wasn't the only one who had been growing in confidence during the passage of this Bill. "And then it's just consideration on report and the third reading debate."
If Jules was going to do anything about it, it would have to be now. Steeling himself to it, he gathered the relevant papers off his desk and went to see Ari.
"I sent you a memo," he said.
"Everyone sends me memos," Ari said, looking up in surprise. "I don't want them. I want to make completely uninformed policy based on whatever I feel like."
"Absolutely," Jules said. "That is definitely one hundred percent true. I sent you two memos. One on the scope for going beyond wind power and one on how we could give effect to it by legislation."
"You mean the thing about… freestanding provision," Ari said. "I think. It was a little difficult to tell."
"That's the one," Jules said. "I knew you'd seen it. You just never responded to it."
"I meant to."
"But you didn't." An edge had crept into Jules's voice. "Why not?"
Ari put down his pen. "Jules, what did you want me to say in response? That it's a jolly good idea? I'm sure it is, but we can't do it right now. You know that."
"Do I know that?" Jules said. "I did send you an entire memo on how we can do it, like I told you literally a minute ago."
"It's not that simple." Ari was resting his head on his hands, looking tired and closed-off. "The wind farm clauses are in the Bill that's in committee right now, if you recall? We've already put the time and effort into them."
"I do recall," Jules said, irritated. "I was there, remember? Just because we thought it was a good idea a few months ago doesn't mean we always have to think so. It's supposed to be an evolving process."
"I'm not saying it's not an evolving process," Ari said. "I'm saying we're well into the last stage of that process. The Bill will be out of committee in a few days and then considered on report."
"That doesn't mean it's too late to pull it," Jules said. "Diggory told me the government can table its own amendments even at third reading. Surely that means it can also pull its own original clauses."
"It can," Ari said. "But it will make us look like utter lunatics. We've already expended our political capital on the Bill we have in hand."
"Not our political capital," Jules argued. "Regional Infrastructure's. They're the ones who made us do it in the first place, aren't they? We don't lose face by pulling clauses from their Bill."
"When did you get so quick off the mark?" Ari asked, and didn't wait for an answer. "Look, Jules, I appreciate the work you've done on this, I do. I don't think you're wrong to pursue it, either. But now isn't the time."
"Ari," Jules began, but Ari shook his head.
"That's my final word," he said. "I'll send you a response for the audit trail. See you later."
It had been a while since Jules had been on the business end of one of Ari's less-than-tactful dismissals. He wandered off with his pile of papers and when he got to his own desk, found that Ari had sent him the audit trail response immediately, a note that merely stated filed for the record, not appropriate at this time. Handwritten in the margin was one of Ari's notes to self: don't let the minister do the idiotic thing.
Jules closed it, tidied away his own papers and tried to get on with something else. He'd discovered during this period of relative inactivity that the department actually did work on things not related to bills and regulations. He had somehow been brought onto a piece of analysis being done by a different energy team on proposed methods of disposal of fuel rods at Sellafield. It had all been surprisingly interesting, even if Ari had complained that he could do without pillow talk about nuclear waste. Jules read a few paragraphs on dumping at sea and found his eyes slipping off the text, his mind unsettled and uneasy. He rubbed his eyes, tried again, dropped the report and leaned back in his chair. Diggory was attending the debates alone because Regional Infrastructure was providing officials in the box for the committee stage. Any minute now, he would be back again with his report on the last batch of debates, and Jules would still be uneasy.
He thought about it all afternoon. Diggory's report, when it came, was brief and dull: the Bill was progressing exactly as planned and would be at the third reading stage in another few days. The Time Remaining memo made for much more interesting reading. Jules went through a jittery quantity of coffee while absorbing information about the feasibility of generating energy from large-scale movement of water. After his third cup, he got up and went up to private office, a cosy name for what was really a chaotic room full of private secretaries yelling at people. Yaz was on the phone to someone at Order of Business and Legislation – he could tell by the fact she was talking through gritted teeth – but hung up on whoever it was at the sight of him. "Jules! What can we do for you?"
"I was just wondering," Jules said. "When we send a submission up to the minister, who does it get copied to?"
"Pretty much everyone," Yaz said. "Me and the other private secretaries, everyone who's worked on it, the lawyer who cleared it, the relevant policy lead – that'd be Ari, in your case – and probably half a dozen others I'm forgetting. Why do you ask?"
"No reason, really," Jules said. "Just trying to get to grips with the practicalities, now I've been here for a while."
She didn't look quite convinced, but her phone rang again – presumably Order of Business and Legislation wanting to know why they'd been hung up on – and Jules slipped out while she answered. For the first time, he was understanding how well-maintained Ari's network of information was. If Jules did what he was about to do through the usual channels, it would be on Ari's desk within five minutes.
Jules went back to his own desk. He moved some pens and pencils around, considered more coffee and decided against it. He fished his phone out of his pocket and stared at it for a while. Then he resigned himself to it and called his father, hoping for voicemail.
Lord Elwin picked up. "Jules?"
"Hi," Jules said. "Can you get me Baroness MacKay's personal email?"