Bold Counsel (The Trials of Sarah Newby) (11 page)

But for Terry, Trude was just a child. Beautiful, yes, but out of his class. He was old enough to be her father, after all - a point quite clear to Trude. There was a glass barrier between himself and girls like her. She saw him as a safe, trustworthy employer; he trusted her to care for his daughters. That was as far as it went.

But then, there was a glass wall between Terry and most women. It had been there since Mary’s death. He could
see
that other women were beautiful,
understand
how men found them sexy. He could even imagine going to bed with them, as he had done with many girls as a student. It would be pleasant, exciting, enjoyable.

But it wouldn’t
matter.
Not in the way it had mattered for years, with Mary. That was why he’d married her. Because she was different to other women. Because she’d become, quite literally, the other half of himself. The person who understood him more than any other. Who looked back at him as if she were the female face in his mirror.

So when Mary had died - snuffed out in a second by a careless, cruel teenager - he had thought that love for him was over. Sexual love, that is, between himself and a woman of his own age. Love for his children, of course, was different. That was a responsibility he would never lose. His daughters were what remained of Mary; she lived in their eyes. But other women looked like strangers.

Some were beautiful, some were sexy, some witty or amusing; a few were all of those things. One or two had made passes at him, without success. He wished them well, but they did nothing for him. They existed behind a glass screen.

Until he met Sarah Newby.

She was the first woman, since Mary’s death, who was truly
there
for him. Who really
mattered
. Who filled his mind with her image when she wasn’t there, and made him see no one else when she was. Who made him feel light and happy when she spent time with him. Who made his chest tight and painful when she turned away, or seemed to ignore him.

Which, sadly, she often did.

Because, unfortunately, Sarah Newby came with several serious disadvantages. Firstly, she was married. Terry didn’t think it was a very happy marriage. He’d met her husband and despised him; he’d seen husband and wife quarrel in public. But it was a marriage nonetheless, and one Sarah set some store by. She’d made that quite clear in the past, on the one occasion when he’d almost managed to get her into bed.

They’d been at a wedding that day. She had quarrelled with her husband, who stormed out of the hotel and left her. Sarah had got drunk, danced with Terry, and invited him up to her room. But then she’d ruined it all by being sick, and nothing happened. It might have been nerves, or the alcohol, or both; Terry wasn’t sure. Next day he’d sent her flowers, hoping for a second chance. She’d thanked him, but explained she’d made a mistake. Her marriage and her career came first. An affair with Terry would wreck them both. That wasn’t going to happen. Ever.

That was the second drawback to Sarah Newby. The phrase ‘career woman’ had been invented for her. Terry didn’t know all the details, but he knew she’d had to fight to get her place at the Bar. So hard, that her career had become part of her character. She’d got pregnant at fifteen, and left school with no qualifications, no connections, no hope. And a child to bring up, in the slums of Seacroft, near Leeds. Somehow, with her husband’s help, and her own iron determination, she had clawed her way up from that disastrous beginning to this triumph on today’s TV News. A victory in the Court of Appeal, in the Royal Courts of Justice in London.

That was Sarah, that’s what she did. Terry thought of that smile on her face, the quiet smile of victory. That was what she lived for, what she wanted. It was admirable and terrifying at the same time. Admirable as an achievement; terrifying to a man, like Terry Bateson, who feared he might be in love with her. Because she’d made it quite clear that an affair that might wreck her career was simply not going to happen. Not even with him.

And yet.
Terry had also seen her put her career on the line for her son, Simon. When the boy had been accused of murder, she had defended him, knowing that if she lost, her career was over. Who would employ a barrister who had spawned a murderer? She didn’t have to do that, she could have backed away. But she’d done it for the love of her son. One thing that mattered to her more than her work.

Terry thought about this now, as he’d often done before. He couldn’t help it; with all her faults, the woman fascinated him. And she had faults in plenty. When he’d first met her, her children had been in open rebellion, the daughter running away from home, the son wanted by the police. Part of this, probably, was because she’d been a poor mother. She was never home, she was always working; her career came first. Terry understood, since Mary’s death, how difficult it was to get that balance right. But when things went wrong, really wrong, Sarah
was
there for her children. She’d fought for her son like a tigress. It was terrifying, and admirable. Terry had never seen a woman fight like it.

When the news broadcast ended, Trude yawned and went to bed. Terry sat for a while longer with his whisky. The house was quiet, the children sleeping. Jessica’s homework lay on the table, ready for the morning. She’d worked hard on it, two full pages of drawings and descriptions, carefully written and coloured in. If she gets a poor grade this time, he told himself, I’ll see the teacher. Or better still, send Sarah Newby.

He smiled at the thought. That would put a bomb under the old dragon, all right! He sipped his whisky, feeling the warmth spread in his chest. An image came into his mind, of Sarah Newby in full barrister’s gear, chasing Jessica’s geography teacher down the long corridors of some gothic girls’ boarding school. They took to the air suddenly, like witches in Harry Potter. In midair Sarah whisked the broomstick from under the geography teacher, who fell screaming to earth. Terry grinned to himself. Jessica’d like that, he thought. If only.

Then another image came, of Sarah in this house, sitting opposite him, having fought the good fight for his child. She smiled at him, as Mary had once smiled. Then she got to her feet, stretched out a hand, and said, ‘Come to bed?’

You sad old bastard, Terry muttered, shaking his head ruefully. Snowballs will freeze in hell, before that happens.

Still, the chance would be a fine thing.

13. Mother and Daughter

A
RRIVING IN Cambridge, Sarah caught a taxi to her daughter’s college, Sidney Sussex. Emily met her at the porter’s lodge. Sarah hugged her, then stood back to examine this new phenomenon, her undergraduate daughter. She looked blooming, Sarah thought, her cheeks healthy, a sparkle in her eyes, her hair - well, perhaps the hair could do with a little more attention. But then she was a student, not a fashion model. Torn jeans, desert boots, combat jacket. Oddly, she seemed more of a child than Sarah remembered, as if she had shrunk somehow.

Emily led the way around a quadrangle towards her room, Sarah pulling her wheeled suitcase behind. Her heels echoed smartly on the ancient paving stones.

‘Mum, what have you got on your feet?’

‘What, these?’ Sarah extended a leg, proudly displaying her new suede spike heeled boots. ‘Do you like them? I bought them yesterday in Harrods.’

‘They’re ... very ostentatious.’

‘Yes, that’s why I bought them.’ Sarah beamed, suddenly realising why Emily had shrunk. ‘They make me taller for one thing. More impressive in court.’

‘Great. Now I have a mother on stilts.’ Emily ducked through a passageway, shaking her head at the perverse ways of adults. Sarah followed, noting with a grin how everyone they passed - students, dons, even the porters - lived with a dress code far scruffier than in the world of her work.

In Emily’s room she strolled to the window and looked out over the walled college gardens. Last time she had been here - with Bob - the trees had been beautiful and green. Now the leaves were falling. Emily lit the gas fire.

‘You’ve made yourself comfortable, I see.’

‘Yeah, it’s not too bad. Coffee?’

‘Please. Just black.’ Sarah looked into the small kitchen area and winced. ‘I could take you out for dinner, if you like.’

‘Yes, okay. Unless you want to eat in college. Meet my friends.’ Emily brought two mugs of coffee and they settled either side of the fire in two ancient battered armchairs.

‘You’re making friends, then?’

‘Yeah, quite a few.’ Emily peered at her mother through the steam from her coffee. ‘Mum, you look tired. Is everything all right?’

Sarah bit her lip. She’d intended to save this till later. But ...

‘I stayed in a hotel for the last two nights. I didn’t sleep so well.’

‘Oh well. Let’s hope the one here in Cambridge is better.’

‘Yes.’ Sarah sipped the coffee. It was bitter, sharp. ‘Emily, there
is
something, as a matter of fact.’ It was harder to say than she’d expected. ‘I’ve ... had an argument with your father.’

‘So? Is that news?’

Emily looked puzzled. Sarah gazed at her, thinking, I don’t want to do this, but I have to. It’s already too late. An image came into her mind of a film she’d once seen where a developer blew up a beautiful old house to make way for a housing estate. There’d been a moment, like this, just before it happened. The camera lingered on the facade of the ancient, two hundred year old building, calm and peaceful in the sunlight, and then the plunger was pressed. There had been a pause - perhaps a quarter of a second, no more, when the building still stood as it had for centuries, warm red brick against a blue sky, and then it was gone, just a cloud of smoke and a heap of rubble.

‘He wants a divorce.’

‘What?’
The teenage self-confidence in Emily’s face suddenly crumpled. There was shock, disbelief, and somewhere behind it, welling up from the depths, anger and insecurity. ‘What are you talking about?’

Slowly, carefully, trying to keep her voice and emotions as much under control as she could, Sarah tried to explain. How for months, things had been difficult between her and Bob. How he’d had an affair last year with his secretary, Stephanie, which Sarah had hidden from the children at the time. And how, since he’d moved to his new school in Harrogate, they had drifted apart again.

‘So it seems he’s met this supply teacher, Sonya’s her name. She’s a single mum with three small kids. Only it’s not just an affair, he says. He wants to ... move on, make a new start, whatever the correct phrase is.’

She fumbled in her handbag for a tissue. To blow her nose; she had no intention of weeping. Emily’s response, in any case, contained more anger than sympathy.

‘But why? How could this happen?’

‘Well, it was a new situation, I suppose. We were both busy with our work, he had his new school, you weren’t at home any longer ...’

‘Oh, so it’s my fault, is it?’

‘What? No, of course not, darling, how could this be anything to do with you?’

‘Well, you said I wasn’t there any more. Mum, is this because you wouldn’t let us move to Harrogate? You know how Dad wanted us to.’

‘I don’t know. Maybe that’s part of it, but ...’

‘We only stayed in York because of you, Mum, and you’re hardly ever home. Perhaps if you’d gone with him, he’d never have met this ... Sonya.’

This wasn’t the way Sarah had imagined the conversation. ‘Darling, if you remember, you wanted to stay in York because of your friends, you know you did. You insisted.’

‘Yes, but I didn’t know this was going to happen, did I? Or about this Stephanie woman either. That was much more important and you and Dad kept it to yourselves.’

‘We didn’t want to bother you with it, darling. You were in the middle of your A levels, how would that have helped?’

‘And now I’m here at uni and you’re telling me my home has blown apart. How do you think that’s going to help me when I’m sitting writing essays? As if that matters anyway, compared to this.’

‘It does matter, Emily, of course it does. More than this, in fact. You’ve got your career to think of.’

‘Oh, that’s you all over isn’t it, Mum? Typical. Work, work, work. That’s probably why Dad wants to leave. He wants a woman who doesn’t work all the time.’

‘Emily, that’s not fair.’ Sarah could face most demons, but not this one. She got up and turned away from Emily, staring out of the window. A young couple stood on the college lawns, their arms wrapped round each other for warmth, as they gazed indulgently at a child searching for conkers. ‘I was like that when your father married me. I’ve always been like that.’

‘Yes, well.’ Sarah could hear Emily behind her, but didn’t dare turn round. If her daughter rejected her too, what was there left? Only her son, Simon - God knows how he’ll take this. Only Simon, and her work.

Work’s important, it rescued me from poverty and failure and disgrace, it gave me everything I wanted, it gave me freedom ...

Only this isn’t quite the sort of freedom I need.

‘Mum, I’m sorry.’ Emily’s hand was on her shoulder. Tentative, insistent. ‘I shouldn’t have said that, I wasn’t thinking. After all Dad’s the one who’s cheated, isn’t he? You didn’t cheat on him.’

‘No.’ Sarah turned, grateful for the embrace. ‘Only with my work, as you say, and that’s just me.’

The shock of the news put Emily off the idea of eating in hall with her new friends, so they went in search of a restaurant instead, and ended up in Garden Court Hotel, beside the river. Emily had brushed her hair and put on a skirt and make-up for the occasion. She seemed at once impressed and resentful of the opulent surroundings.

‘This is what you get, is it, for all your hard work?’ she said, as the waiter lit the candles, and left them with the menu. ‘Creepy waiters and high prices.’

‘Sssssh,’ Sarah said. ‘He might hear you.’

‘Well, I suppose he knows he’s oppressed, without me telling him. All these rich capitalists eating here.’

‘Emily! For heaven’s sake! You have servants in college, don’t you? Bedders or gyps or whatever you call them?’