With a brush and a can of hairspray, I tease my hair slightly bigger in the dressing-room mirror. Then I step sideways through the bedroom door, and I put my hands on my hips.

“Now, now John,” I coo. “It’s time you were up. You’ve a very busy and important day ahead of you!” John turns over, and says something that sounds like “fglutlnp”.

“Grumpy grumpy! It’s all happening, John. This is what you went into government for! You haven’t forgotten your 11 o’clock Cabinet committee meeting on national staircase harmonisation? Those staircases aren’t going to harmonise themselves!” “Oh, no,” says John, sitting up. “Oh, God.”

“And then,” I continue, brightly, “you’ve got that even more important Cabinet committee meeting about how sticky stamps ought to be! Remember that one?” John rubs his eyes and flops back on the bed. “Why am I even alive?” he moans. I sidle back into the bathroom. Bigger hair. I must have bigger hair.

TUESDAY

Mary, John’s new diary secretary, calls at lunchtime. She’s the one I chose myself. The one who looks like Yassir Arafat. She wanted to speak to him about his visit to that ranch last year, which belongs to the man who bought the Millennium Dome. It seems there’s a fuss.

“I’m not surprised at the interest,” I tell her, removing one of my earrings so that the telephone will reach my ear. “John told me that he and Mr Anschutz had some very high-level conversations. About Wilberforce and slavery. And also about the sea. The Prime Minister wants him to find out why it looks so blue, when actually it is see-through. My husband is a very important man, Mary.”

“Indeed,” says Mary, quietly. Also, she says, a few Cabinet ministers will be missing his committee meetings this week. Patricia Hewitt can’t make the one about how cheesy cheese ought to smell, and John Reid and Gordon Brown have pulled out of the one to discuss whether there ought to be a new word for very small sticks.

Pathetic. Sometimes I think John is the only member of the Government who gives a damn about this country at all.

WEDNESDAY

Mary was right. Quite a fuss. On the plus side, this humidity does wonderful things to my hair. In the afternoon, I go for a walk in St James’s Park, to lift my spirits. A group of Italian students take refuge in my shadow, and have a picnic.

THURSDAY

“Wow,” says the Prime Minister, when he calls in the afternoon. “Doesn’t John’s new diary secretary look an awful lot like Yassir Arafat?” I’m in my dressing room, volumising, and I quickly close the door. Except for the Today programme this morning, and a quick visit to the Wilberforce Museum in Hull, John’s been in bed all day.

“Well dear,” I say, thin-lipped. “The last one looked like Peter Stringfellow and even that didn’t quite do the trick. What do you want? You’re not taking the flat?” “Lord, no,” shudders the PM. “Can’t shift the things these days for love or money. No, I wanted to speak to John, about, ah, restructuring some of his responsibilities. I was thinking of taking him off some of this boring planning and regeneration business and giving him an important new project instead. Maybe I can tell you about it. I don’t want to get him up.”

We have a nice chat in the end. And actually, I think John will be thrilled to be in charge of chewing gum. There’s so much of it stuck to pavements these days and something really must be done. A quick boost and a blow-dry, and I’ll pop through and let him know

FRIDAY

John is more upbeat today. The pressure seems to have eased off a bit. He’s in the kitchen, making some breakfast.

“Pauline!” he calls. “Come and have a kipper, love!”, “I don’t think I can!” I shout back.

John’s laugh booms through the flat. “Watching your waistline?” he says.

I cock my head this way and that, and approach my dressing-room doorway from a variety of angles. No chance. And my waistline isn’t the problem.

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