An Immoral Code (24 page)

Rachel was lunching with a friend from the firm of solicitors where she had worked before joining Nichols & Co, a woman in her early forties called Anthea Cole. She was small, spare and energetic, expensively dressed in a businesslike fashion, with a face which was still gamine and pretty, but with the faint aridity of early middle age. Anthea had been Rachel’s mentor at her old firm, had seen her through her articles, and had encouraged her to develop an assertive manner, aware that beneath Rachel’s hesitant manner there lay genuine talent and ambition. She had been pleased when Rachel had been offered a partnership at Nichols & Co, and at Rachel’s and Leo’s wedding she had watched and wondered, hopeful that her protégée would not be consigned ultimately to a life of domesticity and child-rearing, yet half-envious, too. She, Anthea, had no children. Now she sat listening to Rachel’s tale of discrimination at the hands of her fellow partners.

‘Of course, Rothwell fobbed me off with some stuff about a salary review in the new year, but so far as I can see everyone’s pay, including Fred’s, has gone up by a couple of thousand. Which leaves me in exactly the same position. And yesterday I discovered, quite by accident, that they’ve given him a car as well.’ Rachel shook her head. ‘I honestly can’t believe it.’

Anthea sipped her coffee and gave Rachel an expressive look. ‘You’re only a woman, my dear. What do you expect? No doubt they imagine that, being married to Leo, the salary issue is neither here nor there. That’s the way their minds work.’

‘But they shouldn’t care who I’m married to! I’m me! What if – what if I was on my own, and had to rely on my money to bring up Oliver? Why shouldn’t I be treated exactly as Fred is treated? They made some noises about “commitment” and how they wouldn’t expect the same dedication from someone with a young family, but that’s rubbish. I know it is. I should be paid for the job I do. Everything else is irrelevant.’

‘You’re right, of course. But it doesn’t always pay to be right. When I was your age – well, a few years younger, just starting out – I saw the way the cards were stacked. I decided that I simply had to outperform any man around me.’

Rachel smiled. ‘Which you did.’

‘Which I did,’ agreed Anthea briskly. ‘But one discovers, eventually, that women can’t have it all. The great Shirley Conran myth is a lie. You can’t work from nine till five, and be a wonderful mother, an amazing cook and hostess – not without an army of help. I thought I could make a career for myself, a really good one, and still have time for all the rest. A family, the lot. Then I began to look at the other women around me and saw that the deal wasn’t cutting that way.’

‘It’s true,’ murmured Rachel. ‘My nanny, Jennifer, clocks off just when I get in, and there’s still washing to do, ironing to attend to, meals to cook, shopping at the weekends …’At least, thought Rachel, as she catalogued the domestic chores which crammed her hours outside work, it keeps me from dwelling too much on where we’re all going, how we’re going to be in five years’ time.

Anthea nodded slowly. ‘I realised it was a question of priorities, and so I decided to put my work first. Max and I
agreed that we wouldn’t start a family until I’d got a really secure footing in the hierarchy at work. It seemed to me that lots of women put off having children until they were in their late thirties, and it didn’t seem to matter. If anything, you had more money to spend on bringing them up. That was what I thought.’ She broke off, staring at her coffee. ‘And then we discovered it wasn’t as simple as all that. Babies don’t just come to order. God, when I think of all the time and money we spent, the tests, the endless visits and consultations … The worst of it was being told that if I’d decided to get pregnant in my twenties, I probably wouldn’t have had any problems.’ She glanced up at Rachel. ‘But that’s the breaks. No children, but a powerful, lucrative job and no domestic ties.’ Rachel noticed that Anthea’s knuckles as she crumpled her napkin in her fist were white. Even in her moments of vulnerability, Rachel realised, Anthea was terse, unemotional. ‘What a choice. I think, now, that I would sacrifice every paltry thing I’ve gained over the last twenty years, if we could only have a family. What is it, after all?’ She looked up at Rachel and shrugged. ‘It’s just a job, when all’s said and done. Just a job.’

Rachel thought of Oliver and nodded. ‘At least you still have Max,’ she said.

‘You say that as though the having of Leo might be in some doubt,’ said Anthea in arch surprise, her moment of semi-confession past.

Rachel smiled ruefully. No, she would not tell Anthea. She couldn’t bear to explain to anyone how things were. She had been able to tell Charles, though. Why was that? She sighed, and looked away. ‘You never know. I mean, with Leo. That’s partly why I’m so anxious to make a success of my job. To be taken seriously. Not to be palmed off with second best just because everyone thinks that Leo is the answer to everything. I want to feel that if ever it’s just Oliver and me, I can still hack
it. Make a decent life for both of us. I live in fear, I suppose.’

‘I don’t know what to tell you about the set-up at work. Go to see your employment partner, I suppose. I’m sure you could get a sex discrimination case off the ground, if that’s what you want.’

Rachel shook her head. ‘That’s not what I want. It seems too petty. It’s like whining about the unfairness of everything. And what chance would I stand of an equity partnership if I stirred things up like that? No, what I want to do is to prove myself. There’s a Pacific Rim conference coming up in Australia in a month’s time, and I’m thinking of telling the partners that I’ll present a paper. The Japanese clients I’ve been telling you about give me a sort of edge. The thing is, if I go, it means leaving Oliver.’

‘Go. You’ve got a nanny. That’s what nannies are for.’

‘But it means asking Leo to be home early each evening to take over, and he’s got this Lloyd’s hearing coming up sooner than he expected. I think he’s got too much to do for me even to ask him.’

‘Rachel! Stop putting Leo ahead of yourself, just because he’s a man! Pay the nanny overtime, for God’s sake! Double time, if needs be. Make some use of Leo’s money while you’ve got it. If you can show that lot at Nichols and Co that you’re prepared to go abroad on business, and do a damn good job into the bargain, then things will change. You’ll be able to make threatening noises, say that unless you receive equal treatment, you’ll sue them. The way things are these days, that will have them quaking. Very bad publicity.’ Anthea’s eyes shone, and everything she said filled Rachel with a sense of resolve.

She nodded. ‘You’re right. I’ll do that. If I can prove to them that I’m as good as any man around the place, including Fred Fenton, then they haven’t got a leg to stand on.’

When she got back from lunch, Nora called out to her from reception.

‘Two messages while you were out,’ Nora said, handing Rachel the telephone notes. ‘One from Mr Nikolaos. Could you ring him back urgently at his Piraeus office. He sounded in a bit of a tizz.’ Rachel groaned, wondering what fantastically complex mess her pet Greek shipowner had managed to get himself into this time. ‘And the other was from a Mr Beecham. Didn’t leave a number, didn’t say if he’d ring back.’

‘Thanks,’ said Rachel, and turned towards the lifts. She realised that she was smiling. It pleased her to know that Charles had called. She had few male friends outside work, and she liked the idea that he had been thinking about her. Of course, it could never be more than a friendship – she had too much hope invested in Leo and their future together. Still, it would be nice to see him. Perhaps he would call later. But the afternoon passed, and by the time Rachel left the office at half past five, there had been no word from Charles.

Camilla sighed deeply and leant back, weary of the documents she had been reading for most of the afternoon, and glanced at her watch. Nearly six o’clock. Anthony came into the room, his session with Leo and Murray Campbell over.

‘How’s it going?’ he asked.

‘I don’t think I ever want to read another word about asbestos. I’ve just finished a light-hearted little report entitled “Asbestos: A Social Problem”, plus medical reports from the
Lancet
, the
British Medical
Journal
and the
British Journal of Industrial Medicine
. They’ve taken me the better part of three hours.’

‘Cheerful stuff, I imagine.’ Anthony dropped his papers on his desk and sat down.

Camilla grimaced. ‘None of it exactly reflects well on Lloyd’s.
It’s pretty obvious that the warning signs were there as far back as the early seventies. All those decisions of the US courts, construing insurance policies in strict favour of plaintiffs, circulars sent round the market by the Asbestos Working Party. Listen to this. This is an American attorney specialising in defending insurance companies addressing a meeting of the Lloyd’s Underwriters’ Non-Marine Association in 1981.’ Camilla leant forward, and the earnest expression on her face as she tucked her hair behind one ear and bent over her notes made Anthony smile slightly. ‘“There will be many more claims than we can possibly anticipate from toxic substances … such claims will often take many years to manifest themselves, and the pounds and dollars involved will be far greater than we can possibly imagine.’’’

‘That’s why Alan Capstall and others began to write those run-off contracts,’ said Anthony, and yawned. ‘To satisfy their auditors that they had made adequate provision for latent disease claims. I suppose it looked like good business – high premiums, good potential profits when margins on conventional policies were falling. But very, very rash, as it turned out. And, of course, all the outside Names knew nothing about what was going on. The run-off premiums were totally inadequate for the risks being carried. Asbestos claims began to mount, the US courts went for the deep-pocket approach, and bang – disaster for Freddie, Charles, Basher and all the rest of them.’

‘What I don’t understand is why Capstall and the others didn’t see what was coming. There was all the medical literature available, and our research into asbestosis seems to have been ahead of the American stuff, if anything. You would have thought that someone like Capstall would pay attention to that kind of thing, since he was in the business of assessing risks. What made him write all those run-offs?’

‘A mixture of arrogance and stupidity, I’d say. Which is
why Leo should have a field day with Mr Capstall when he gets him in the witness box,’ said Anthony, laying down his pen. ‘Though no doubt Capstall will be busily blaming the reinsuring underwriters. It’ll be interesting to watch.’ Anthony glanced at his watch and looked speculatively at Camilla. ‘Now, it’s six o’clock and I don’t have to talk to you about run-off contracts or long-tail syndicates any more. What are you doing this evening?’

Camilla smiled. ‘Nothing.’

‘In that case, I suggest we go back to my flat and I’ll cook us a meal. Adam’s going to the theatre.’

Camilla hesitated. She’d been back to Anthony’s flat before, but Adam had always been there. She was aware, from the way in which things were going, that going to bed with Anthony was inevitable, and the idea, though desirable in itself, filled her with apprehension. When it came to sex, Camilla knew she was somewhat naive, but she couldn’t pretend to sophistications which she didn’t possess. She had had no more than five boyfriends since the age of sixteen, and apart from occasional sessions of what women’s magazines used to call ‘heavy petting’, her sexual experience consisted of a series of unsatisfactory and guilty couplings with a university boyfriend in his room at the hall of residence two years ago. At that time it had seemed like something she should do, part of becoming grown up, and she’d felt that once she’d started it, once it had become part of the relationship, she had to go on with it. Lust or enthusiasm hadn’t played much of a part. Her feelings about Anthony were entirely different. When he kissed or touched her she was conscious of acute desire, and she knew, as she gazed at him across the space between their two desks, that she couldn’t spend the evening alone with him without something happening. Anthony, she assumed, possessed a wealth of sexual experience. She imagined that his past must contain a string of
lovers – Sarah, for instance, was only one of them. She dreaded the idea of her own gaucheness, of her inability to compare with someone as knowing and lovely as Sarah. She had no idea, really, of what Anthony would expect, but when she thought back to the sweaty embraces with Derek in the Clem Attlee hall of residence two summers ago, she did not feel particularly confident. She had always been shy about her body, and even the knowledge that Anthony cared about her, wanted her, did not convince her of her own desirability.

‘Why don’t we just go out?’ she said diffidently. ‘I mean, you needn’t go to the trouble of cooking.’

She met his eye, and he knew immediately what she was thinking, what she was afraid of. This was something they couldn’t skirt around any longer. He shook his head. ‘No. I like cooking. And I feel like staying in, for a change.’

‘All right,’ she said, wondering if it would be.

Camilla sat self-consciously on Anthony’s sofa, trying to read the paper and failing. She could hear Anthony clattering around in the kitchen, ostensibly putting some food together for them both. Since they had come back to the flat she had grown aware of a distinct atmosphere, an unmistakeable sexual tension which made her nervous. She wished, really wished that they had gone out, instead of coming here. Then it could just have been as it usually was, and the most she would have had to anticipate would be a kiss at the end of the evening. What on earth was she worried about? she asked herself. It was absurd – after all, she wanted it to become a proper love affair. It was the kind of thing she had desired very much in the days when she had hero-worshipped Anthony. But that had been different. That had been fantasy, and this was very much real. Camilla sighed and tried to focus once more on the paper. But her thoughts wandered back remorselessly to sex and Anthony. She had to
face it – however easy and affectionate she might feel nowadays in his company, the thought of going to bed with him terrified her. What if he didn’t like her with her clothes off? What if she didn’t know what to do, was too inexperienced for him? The whole prospect was depressing, and she knew that that was the last thing it should be.