Falling For The Lawyer (9 page)

Simon would
not
like the idea of her doing further study one little bit. He had plans for them and she’d gone along with those plans for so long that any alternative would be like a bolt of lightning out of the blue.

Nevertheless, JP’s words had filled her with hope. He was right wasn’t he? When you loved someone you supported that person in achieving their dreams. Perhaps she’d underestimated Simon. Perhaps he’d be happy to be talked around to her point of view. All she had to do was explain that their plans for parenthood wouldn’t be derailed, just postponed for a few years.

Yet despite talking to Simon on the phone every other day, Alex had struggled to find the right moment to raise the subject with him. It would simply have to wait until they were face to face. Then she could make him understand how important JP’s offer was to her.

And so she dreamed and stewed and prayed that JP wouldn’t raise the issue again until the road with Simon lay clear. Meanwhile JP swept in and out of the office day after day like a shifting tornado.

He was beside himself with work. Endless streams of emails with long attachments were toppling into his inbox by the hour. Client requests for appointments had blown out to six weeks. She and Vera were both flat out trying to keep on top of his practice commitments. The little spare time he had to discuss anything with them at the end of the day, if he even turned up at the end of the day, was complicating the whole process too.

When he did manage to find a few minutes to go through matters with her Alex was staggered at his ability to focus on one pebble at a time when a whole cliff-face of boulders was coming down on top of him. But business was the strict order of the day whenever they were together. Never again did he allow their discussions to get close to personal. And she certainly wasn’t expecting the call from him that came in late one evening as she was packing up for the day.

“I want you to come somewhere with me, on your way home. I’m illegally parked outside the building so you’ll have to hurry.”

“Where?”

“I’m doing a couple of hours in a community legal centre tonight. I used to volunteer there when I was living here years ago.”

Alex bit her lip. “I shouldn’t. I’m having dinner with my parents tonight.”

“What time are you due there?”

“Seven-thirty.”

“I’ll have you there by then. I can drop you off. No problem.”

“You don’t even know where they live.” She smiled at his easy resolution of all obstacles.

“Where do they live?”

“Inner West.”

“I can get you there. Come on, come with me. You’ll see how the little people need the law as much as the corporate giants.”

Alex hesitated but the problem was she desperately wanted to go and see how a community centre worked. Everything at Griffen Murphy Lawyers catered for wealthy clients and she often wondered about the people who couldn’t afford to pay their senior lawyers over five hundred dollars an hour—who looked after them?

It was not ideal that she’d be alone with JP but how hard could it be to maintain a professional distance, just as they had over the last week? Then in a couple of hours she’d be at her parents’ house and it would all be over.

“Okay. I’ll go with you. I’d really like to.”

“I thought you would. Hurry up then.”

Within twenty minutes of climbing into the passenger’s seat JP was pulling into a side street of the city’s southern outskirts and parking the car. Alex got out and looked around. They were in the middle of one of the most socially disadvantaged areas of the inner city. The legal centre they stood in front of was no more than a run-down shop front.

“What’s up?” JP asked as he came around the car to meet her on the footpath.

“I wasn’t expecting this.”

“What were you expecting? Griffen Murphy Lawyers?” he teased, his mouth lapsing into an amused grin.

“No,” she laughed. “But a little more than this.”

“These places run on the smell of an oily rag. If volunteers didn’t man the joint it wouldn’t open. There’s some funding but it’s meager. Are you ready?”

Alex nodded. JP wandered into the centre to greet a woman behind the front reception desk.

“Jonathan McKenzie!” she screamed, and lifting her wiry physique out of her chair ran into the reception area to throw her arms around his neck. “You’ve come back to us.”

“Couldn’t keep away, Marie.”

“So they finally let you escape their clutches in London, eh?”

“I couldn’t stand another winter there if you want the truth. Marie, I’d like you to meet Alex Farrer. She’s my PA.”

“Alex, really nice to meet you,” Marie cried again, turning on Alex and pumping her hand vigorously for a few seconds, her mass of tight black curls bobbing around her intelligent, fine boned face. “If you’re working with Jonathan you’ll need nerves of steel.”

Alex couldn’t help smiling in delight at the irresistible Marie. She clearly adored JP and didn’t care who knew it. And reading Alex’s expression JP gave her a wink out of Marie’s eyeshot, yet he had no idea his tiny gesture was like a blow to her heart.

“So are you back to stay?” Marie pressed.

“At this stage.”

“Now don’t go committing yourself, will you,” she teased. “You’re a hard one to pin down. Although I hear a certain English princess by the name of Caroline almost managed to do it.”

Almost imperceptibly JP flashed his eyes at Alex before switching them away. But his glance had not been fleeting enough to stop Alex nose-diving into burning curiosity about the mysterious Caroline, mentioned once again as an important part of JP’s life.

Marie and JP chatted about the centre, its funding position, who’d moved on and who was still there. Meanwhile, a handful of lone individuals wandered in uncertainly; Marie would smile acknowledgement and ask each one to take a seat in the waiting area. JP asked Marie whether it would be all right if Alex sat in on the appointments.

“Yes, no worries at all. I’ll clear it with the punters first. If they have any issues Alex can come out and have a cuppa with me.”

There was no need for a cuppa though. None of the clients objected to Alex sitting in on the interviews. And for the next two hours she sat next to JP, transfixed as he probed, questioned, advised, lectured and reassured.

Sometimes he would give them legal advice or dictate letters and file notes for the day solicitors to follow through on. But mostly he spent his time skillfully drilling down to the client’s core problems, and often their problems had very little to do with the law.

Alex was impressed. JP’s extraordinary gift for dealing with his staff at Griffen Murphy spilled over into his dealings with the clients at the legal centre too. He was able to put them at ease at once, meet them on their own level and give them advice in a way they were sure to be able to understand and take away with them. In fact he was so natural she was sure the clients had no idea they’d just received advice from one of the country’s top litigation lawyers.

Alex was still pondering that professional side to JP as she sat beside him in his car. He was heading in the general direction of her parents’ suburb according to her directions but at that moment he turned and caught her looking at him.

“What’s up?” he asked gently.

“That was an amazing experience. Thanks so much for taking me.”

“No problem.”

“You don’t really understand how bad things can get for some people until they start telling you their stories.”

“And unless you’re their lawyer or their priest you’re not likely to hear those stories anyway.”

“But the legal issues were often quite small compared to the rest of their problems.”

“That’s the way it is, whether it’s a mum and dad type client or a large corporation. The legal issues always have to be taken in context. If you deal with them in isolation you can do a lot of damage.”

“You were great with those people. You really helped.”

JP gave out a loud guffaw.

“What?”

“I’ve hardly helped them at all. Those poor individuals are so plagued by debt, addictions and violence that nothing I do will have a lasting impact upon them. All you can do is offer them a way forward in the hope they won’t do something rash instead.”

“That’s very cynical.”

“Not cynical, just realistic. You’ve been cosseted like a princess in a tower. You’ve no idea what real hardship is.”

“Just because I’ve never experienced hardship doesn’t mean I don’t care about people who have.”

“I know that. If you didn’t care you wouldn’t have been social justice captain at school. But it can’t end there. You’re out in the big, bad world now and following up on those early instincts is more important than ever. Take Marie for instance. She was the medalist in her year at law school and could have written her own job description in any law firm in the country. Instead she’s sacrificed a huge salary because she wants to help people in trouble.”

“What are you suggesting? That everyone should be helping the poor and down-and-outs on a full time basis?”

“Of course not. That’d be counterproductive. The best thing for the poor in any country is a strong economy fueled by business and backed up with a strong education and social security system.”

“So what
are
you suggesting then?”

“Nothing in particular.”

“Yes you are. These comments are directed at me, aren’t they?”

“Should they be?”

“Why are you being so cryptic?” Alex snapped, feeling irritated and undermined. He was goading her and she guessed it was over her resistance to the paralegal offer.

“If you have gifts you should be worn out by using them all up by the end of your life,” JP declared stridently. “They shouldn’t be put in a box and shoved to the back of the cupboard like an unwanted wedding present.”

“There are lots of ways people can contribute. Are you suggesting women who stay at home and raise children are wasting their gifts?”

“Of course not. My own mother stayed at home. Raising a family’s incredibly important. But for some women there has to be more.”

“It’s easy for a man to say. Men are still expected to take on the role of full time breadwinners while women are expected to manage paid work as well as a family. It’s like having two full-time jobs at once.”

“That’s true but it can be done. There are openings for part-time work now. One of our lawyers came to me yesterday and asked if she could drop back to part-time to spend more time at home. We’re going to team her up with another part-timer in a job share.”

“Mmm,” Alex murmured thoughtfully, “I wonder whether you’ll be feeling as socially progressive when your working wife’s getting home late, the dinner’s not on, the homework’s not done and there are no clean socks. Turn right here. It’s just down there on the left near the big tree.”

JP laughed at her grim picture of his domestic future. “Nevertheless, when I get married I hope I’ll support my wife in her choices and I mean practical support, not just moral support.”

“Even when your toddler’s spraying baby food all over your two thousand dollar business suit from the high chair?”

JP swung into the kerb and switched off the ignition before turning to her.

“You know, for a princess in a tower you have surprising flashes of insight into the real world sometimes. Speaking of the real world, have you made a decision about my offer yet?”

Alex couldn’t answer. His closeness was doing her head in again. And she’d been so sure she was past that; so sure his knowing about her engagement would corral those renegade feelings she’d battled during their first meetings.

“JP … I can’t …” she began but couldn’t go on because he was groaning in exasperation and running his hand through his hair. He threw himself back against his car seat and stared blindly out the windscreen, his jaw set rigid. But then he was turning to her again, his voice barely audible.

“Before you say anything more Alex, I want to tell you a story. Will you listen?”

Alex nodded, relieved she wouldn’t have to say anything more to defend her decision straight away.

“An oncology nurse, Annabelle, worked in a Glasgow hospital about fifteen years ago. She’d married very young and by that stage had a teenage son but she was still young in mind and body and incredibly bright and beautiful. She was passionate about her work and kept herself up to date with medical developments in fighting the cancers her patients were battling. The medical doctors on staff noticed her as a nurse who showed great promise academically and they encouraged her to think about studying medicine at university and becoming a doctor. She was incredibly excited about this Alex, it had been a dream of hers for a long time—one she’d never believed would come true. All she’d needed was some encouragement and support to start to believe in herself.”

“So did she do it?” Alex asked feeling strangely on tenterhooks as JP related his simple story. “Did she become a doctor?”

“I remember the night she came in through the door and I knew something incredible had happened to her that day. I’d never …”

JP stopped then, gazing out over Alex’s left shoulder, looking lost and alone as though he’d forgotten she was sitting right next to him.

“You’d never what?” Alex prompted and JP’s gaze returned to hers.

“I’d never seen her look so happy. Anyway,” JP sighed before he went on, “she made the announcement to my Da and I’ll never forget his reaction—jealousy, possessiveness, anger—every ugly motive you can think of within a marriage was going through his head. He’d always been a miserable, violent bully Alex, from as early on as I could remember. But that night she was so goddamn happy that not even
he
could bring her down.”

“What happened?” Alex asked, feeling a veil of portentousness wrapping around them both as they sat together in the quiet hush of his car.

“He didn’t hurt her that night, not physically anyway, but with the most violent psychological thrashing he could give her he told her she would not get one cent of financial support from him if she went to university. He then walked out of the kitchen, sat himself down on his lounge chair and turned the TV on and the subject never came up again.”