Union Jack. V. McDermid L.

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      ‘Delegates are reminded that their duty is to follow debates and cast votes on behalf of their members. However appealing the bars, cafés, fringe meetings, gossip sessions and members of your gender of choice, the conference hall is where you should be. We know it can be boring; we even know of delegates who prefer hanging around at Standing Orders Sub-Committee rather than staying in the hall. In the interests of preserving your SOS members’ sanity, please do not attend our sessions unless you are entitled to a voice [see S05(b) (ii) and Footnote xiv]. Flattered though we are to be the centre of delegates’ attention, this does not help the smooth flow of conference order papers!’

      from ‘Advice for New Delegates’, a Standing Orders Sub-Committee booklet.

      Lindsay sighed. In spite of sitting up past midnight ploughing through the final conference agenda, with all its proposed amendments, she still hadn’t a clue what this discussion was about. She was sitting on the margin of a group of a dozen delegates arguing with Brian Robinson, the Standing Orders Sub-Committee member responsible for preparing the industrial relations order-paper.

      As Brian wiped his perspiring pink face with a flamboyant silk handkerchief, Ian leaned over and said quietly to Lindsay, ‘With it so far?’

      ‘Not really,’ she admitted. ‘What exactly are they arguing about?’

      ‘Manchester Branch and Darlington Branch have both submitted motions on the same broad topic, and Brian wants to amalgamate them into one composite motion. Now they’re each arguing about what they think their motion really said. Brian has to make sure they end up with something that includes all of the key points in the two original motions, without incorporating anything that wasn’t there to start with.’

      Lindsay shook her head. ‘I can’t believe grownups think this is a reasonable way to spend their time,’ she muttered. ‘It’s like an Oxford tutorial without the relevance to real life.’ She tried to concentrate on the obscure negotiation that continued like some quaint ritual dance whose meaning was lost in the sands of time. But it was no use. There wasn’t enough meat in the argument to occupy her mind, and her grief kept butting in like an anarchist at the trooping of the colour. After another half hour, she leaned towards Ian and muttered, ‘I’m going to get some air.’

      She emerged into the foyer of the Winter Gardens with a sense of relief. The large committee room had begun to feel unreasonably oppressive. Oblivious to her surroundings, she wandered down towards the stands of the assorted pressure groups who had rented space for the conference. She didn’t notice the chipped tiling on the walls, the scruffy paintwork or the garish posters for the forthcoming summer attractions. She paused long enough to buy an enamelled metal badge proclaiming ‘Lesbians and Gay Men Support the Miners’ before walking back into the stuffy hall to rejoin her colleagues.

      No one glanced at her as she slipped into her seat. Only five others of the twelve-strong delegation from her branch were at the table. One of them was fast asleep, head pillowed on his arms. Another two were reading the morning papers. That left two who actually seemed to be following the debate. Lindsay shook her head. For weeks, every chapel meeting had been dominated by the impending annual conference. They had discussed their attitudes to motions, the importance of driving through certain policies, the crucial impact of decisions taken here in Blackpool. She’d spent the first morning taking notes on the debates and the results of the votes, until she had realised that she couldn’t see another soul in the hall doing anything with a pen except the Telegraph crossword. She could only assume that the real politicking was going on elsewhere, perhaps in those tight huddles that seemed to spring up all over the place every quarter of an hour or so. As she looked around, Lindsay spotted one of her own delegation coming away from a group clustered around the platform.

      Lindsay watched Siobhan Carter, a feature writer on the Sunday Trumpet, weave through the delegation tables and wondered how long it would be before she understood what the hell was going on around her. Siobhan seemed to fit in perfectly, yet it was only her second time at conference. She flopped into the seat next to Lindsay and fanned herself with an order-paper.

      ‘Whew! It might only be the second day of conference, but there’s already enough scandal going the rounds to keep a clutch of gossip columnists going for a month.’

      ‘Is that what you’ve been doing? Gossiping?’ Lindsay asked.

      Ignoring the note of censure in her voice, Siobhan giggled. ‘What else? You surely don’t expect me to listen to this boring load of crap?’

      ‘I thought that’s what we were here for,’ Lindsay said.

      ‘What? To die of boredom listening to some obscure, incomprehensible motion that’s only relevant to television journalists in the Republic of Ireland? No way! Listen, Linds, you stick with me. I’ll keep you on track. I’ll tell you when you need to be listening, okay? Trust me. I once screwed a doctor!’

      Lindsay looked dubious. ‘I don’t know, I feel guilty if I don’t get involved.’

      ‘Fine. Get involved. But stick to the stuff that’s got something to do with you. I mean, tell me the truth. Did you enjoy SOS?’

      Lindsay pulled a face. ‘Enjoy. Now, there’s a word. You’d need to have a mind more twisted than a corkscrew to get off on Standing Orders. I had to get out before my brain blew a fuse.’

      ‘Exactly. You’re getting the idea. And you missed a wonderful bit of goss while you were gone,’ Siobhan said eagerly, completely ignoring the passionate debate on the platform about whether the union’s perennially troubled finances could stretch to a major publicity campaign in Eire. Siobhan wasn’t the only one, Lindsay realised, glancing round the hall. She reckoned that less than ten per cent of the delegates even knew which motion was under discussion. Why should she join yet another minority group?

      ‘Tell me,’ she asked, putting Siobhan out of her obvious misery. ‘What have I missed?’

      ‘You know Jess, don’t you? Jess Nimmo, from Magazine Branch?’

      ‘How could I not?’ Lindsay said with feeling, recalling the braying upper-class voice that had dominated every meeting of the JU Women’s Caucus that she’d ever attended. ‘She thinks consensus is a head count the government takes every ten years.’

      ‘And you know Rory Finlayson, the Glasgow Broadcasting Branch heart-throb?’ Lindsay nodded. Everyone knew ITN’s Scottish correspondent, who gazed lovingly out of their TV screens several times a week on News At Ten. It was obvious to anyone who had ever encountered Rory in the flesh that his biggest fan was himself.

      ‘Well, Jess has been trying to get into Rory’s knickers for a million years now, just like half the other women in the country. And in spite of throwing herself under his feet at every available opportunity, she’d never managed to get him to pay her the slightest bit of attention.’

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