Judicial Whispers (9 page)

‘I think we’d better stop apologising to each other,’ he said, smiling as he twisted in the corkscrew. ‘You like the flowers and I love spaghetti. In fact, I believe my own spaghetti bolognese is the envy of all Kensington.’

Rachel laughed; she could feel her nervousness ebbing a little. ‘Well, this is carbonara, so that lets me out of the competition.’

‘Far too sophisticated for me to attempt,’ said Anthony. He poured them each a glass of wine and they talked as she cooked. She seemed very bright and jokey, a little nervy, Anthony thought, as he leant back against the fridge and took a sip of his wine. But it was wonderful just to be with her, just to watch her and talk to her. He liked to feel that, once he had managed to bring down a little of that wary resistance of hers, a real affinity existed between them; warmth, amusement, an unspoken understanding. If only he could bring down that physical resistance, too. If everything had gone the way it should have last time, he thought, then I should be able to walk over to her and kiss her, just hug her. But watching her back as she stood at the cooker, he could almost sense how she would tense if he were to approach her. It puzzled him. There is so much affection between us, he thought, but this great physical barrier. He brushed against her shoulder with his arm as he leant across to pick up the wine and take it into the next room, and felt her jerk nervously away. Then she smiled awkwardly at him, trying to move away more naturally from him as though simply to pick up some plates. Oh Lord, he thought – so it’s still going to be like that. Irritation swept him. Very well, then – she won’t have a thing to worry about, he told himself. I won’t lay a finger on her.

Rachel watched him nervously throughout the meal, examining the lines of his face as he talked and his hands as they stroked the base of his wine glass absently. She looked for a long time
at his hands, watching their movements almost with fascination. Then she looked back up at his face and smiled. She liked him so much. She wanted so much to want him that maybe, if she tried very hard, then she could do it. She could let him touch her without turning to ice. Then he would come here often, and the hours would be less lonely, and life might gradually become safe. When he had touched her in the kitchen, she simply hadn’t been expecting it, that was all. Next time she would be ready. Better.

‘I can’t believe how wonderfully tidy your flat is,’ remarked Anthony, as he finished his salad. ‘Adam and I just lurch from one scene of domestic chaos to another.’

She smiled and tucked her hair behind her ear with slender fingers, then glanced around. ‘I tidied up especially for you,’ she lied. ‘It doesn’t always look like this.’

‘So,’ said Anthony, leaning forward, ‘what do you usually do with your weekends?’

‘Oh, not much.’ Her voice was flat, transparent. ‘Shop. Go to a film. See friends. I like to go to art galleries. I think I might go back to look at your father’s exhibition again tomorrow afternoon, if it’s open.’

‘You’re a glutton for punishment,’ he said with a laugh. ‘But you did say you liked modern art.’

He watched her speculatively as she began to gather the plates up. He had been wondering if there had been some man – some relationship that had recently broken up. That might account for a lot. But he thought he recognised, as he looked at her, that her arid manner, her watchful aloofness, were a result of not having been in the company of any man for a long time. Not intimately.

He helped her to clear the dishes away, and was conscious, as they moved past one another in the kitchen, that she kept her body at a careful distance.

Rachel was conscious of this, too. Don’t be absurd, she told
herself. You must let him touch you if he wants to. You mustn’t be afraid.

When she brought the coffee cups through and set them down on one of the little low tables, Anthony was standing flipping through one of her magazines. As she straightened up, he looked towards her, then put down the magazine. There was a pause. ‘Come here,’ he said gently, his earlier resolution quite forgotten.

His eyes were fixed on hers as she moved towards him, her limbs feeling like water, slack and without sensation. Walking into his embrace was like walking into a cage; she stiffened at the clasp of his hands upon her back, as he moved one hand up to her neck to lay her head gently upon his shoulder. He held her for a moment as though she were a child, and she stood, arms at her side, trying not to tremble. When he pulled his head back to look at her face she could feel every atom of her concentration focused upon what he would do next. It will be all right, she told herself. It happened once before, and – just let it happen again. As he put his mouth to hers she did tremble, but there was a sweet liquidity about the sensation that allowed her to put her arms around him. She felt as though she were clinging to a rock, and the kiss was like a wave which must cease, eventually, to beat against her. Remember who it is, she thought, remember you are safe.

For Anthony, the feeling of her arms around him, the little surge of response to his kiss, filled him with relief and affection. He lifted his mouth from hers; he looked at her eyes, still closed, and at her parted lips, her tilted head, and smiled. He murmured her name and unthinkingly traced a line with his hand from the curve of her neck over her breast. She suddenly took a deep, shuddering breath, and pushed him away. Her eyes were open, cold and terrified. ‘Don’t!’ she whispered.

Anthony stared at her. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said; he felt chastised, foolish. Her expression was fierce and rigid. Again he was aware of a sense of confusion, of proportions slipping. He tried
to draw her back into his embrace, but her body seemed to be half-crouched in resistance. He lowered his mouth to hers, but she shook her head frantically from side to side and began to struggle and push herself away. ‘Don’t! Don’t!’ she said, her voice hoarse and high. He took his arms from her and watched her back away, trembling.

Suddenly anger and frustration seized him. He walked forward and put his hands on her arms; they felt hard and tense, like the sinews of some animal poised to fight.

‘Rachel, what is the matter with you?’ he muttered, and his gaze travelled across her face, across her body, which was heaving with the effort of containing her fear. He suddenly wanted her very much, and without thinking he pulled her to him and kissed her over and over, heedless of her struggles as she tried to twist her mouth away. ‘Please,’ he whispered as he covered her throat with kisses, ‘I don’t want to hurt you. I just want to hold you …’ And he spoke her name over and over again, his hands upon her back, pressing her body against his. Rachel could feel, through her panic, the stiffness of his erection, and a new fear mounted higher and higher from her stomach to her throat. ‘Stop it!’ she managed to scream.

And suddenly there was silence, and they stood apart, Anthony breathing heavily, Rachel tense and shuddering. Anthony stared at her for a few seconds, then sat down on the arm of one of the sofas.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. Look, what I—’ He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. ‘Rachel,’ he said after a long moment, ‘why did you ask me here tonight?’ His voice was genuinely curious.

‘Not for that,’ she replied levelly, her voice dead, her eyes turned away from his.

‘Not for what?’ he asked in exasperation. ‘I kissed you. I’m sorry. That was all. I find you very – very desirable.’ He looked at
her, and she slowly turned her eyes to meet his. ‘Anyone would. But it’s more than that. I just want us to be close. Everything is so good—’ He gazed at her expressionless face and haunted eyes, the tension between them almost palpable, and wondered what was so good. ‘I just want it to be more than – than talking, looking at one another. I can’t look at you for long without wanting to touch you,’ he finished.

Rachel clasped herself defensively and took a deep breath. ‘It’s not your fault,’ she said. ‘It’s—’ No, she could not tell him. He would feel pity, maybe distaste; it would drive him away. She must deal with it alone. ‘It’s just me. I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t you – don’t you like me to kiss you?’ asked Anthony hopelessly. She closed her eyes momentarily at the question. He was so touching, so naive. What was there to say?

‘I – want to like it,’ she answered tentatively.

Anthony pondered this. ‘You want to like it,’ he said. His gaze wandered away from her face and around the room, the neat, pretty, tasteful room, the table where they had eaten, their wine glasses, the gentle glow of the lamps which Rachel had switched on to light the room softly, invitingly. I must be reading the signals all wrong, he thought. I do not understand. ‘You want to like it,’ he repeated thoughtfully.

Then he sighed and stood up. Part of him wanted to stay here, to sit with her in the shadows and go gently over all of this, work some way towards an understanding. After all, he knew he loved her. Everything he felt for her amounted to that – except for … whatever it was that kept going wrong between them. And the other part of him was tired, sexually frustrated and unable to cope with all this heavy stuff on a Saturday night.

‘I think,’ he said, picking up his jacket from the chair next to the door, ‘that I’d better wait until you’ve worked out what it is you
do
want from me.’ He spoke as kindly and as gently as he could. She looked so beautiful, less tense now, standing
in the middle of the room. He thought for a moment of going over to her and—Oh, no, he thought. No. Not again. His pride and his desire could not stand it. As he gazed at her, he suddenly thought, how alone she looks. ‘Don’t you think that’s best?’ he added.

She nodded. But how could she know what she wanted unless he helped her? Yet that was the last thing she could ask. Let him go. Let it go, she told herself.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘Thank you for supper. I really enjoyed it.’ This was all so uncomfortable, so unnatural. He should never have come. She should never have asked him.

‘I’m glad you came,’ she replied. How awful it sounded. She walked slowly over to the doorway and watched as he opened the front door.

‘Goodnight,’ he said.

‘Goodnight,’ she murmured. Then the door closed, and she was left standing in the empty silence of her flat.

As he walked to his car, Anthony thought of her kiss, of the warmth of her body against his before she had pushed him away, and felt as though some pain were tearing at his heart. This relationship is pure destruction, he thought. He stood looking at his car, keys in hand. The last time he had been in love, he recalled, he had been twenty-two and happy and the greatest of his worries had been scraping together the Tube fare home from Julia’s. Now he almost wished that the car did not exist, so that he might be forced to let the cold night and a few miles of empty streets eat up all the misery and confusion.

Felicity sat in the noise and smoke of The Star in Coldharbour Lane, and decided to stop trying to pretend she was having a good time. The thump of the live band in the back room drifted through, and she leant over to try to catch what her friend Lisa was saying.

‘You want to go through, have a bit of a dance?’ asked Lisa,
her voice raised above the roar and hum of late Saturday night in a Brixton pub.

Felicity shook her head. ‘No, thanks. Tell you the truth, I think I’ll go home. I’ve got a splitting headache.’ She knew she had drunk too many vodkas. She lifted her elbow from the puddle of beer in which she had placed it in leaning over to listen to Lisa, and mopped at it with a tissue. Then she glanced into her cigarette packet and saw she had only three left. She felt depressed. She had only come out because she kept hoping that she might see Vince somewhere, and that he might be on his own. She couldn’t believe that he’d dropped her like that, not saying anything. All she had to do was talk to him. She could fix it so it would be all right again.

She came out into the cold air, the door of the pub flapping behind her, and began to walk up the road. Twice someone called out softly to her, asking her if she wanted anything, but she just glanced away and shook her head. She didn’t have the money. But, oh, for a bit of a smoke. Just something to make it all float away, bright and sweet, into the corner of the room. Maybe Sandy would have some stuff, maybe he was at home right now. She quickened her step.

She passed a couple locked in an embrace in a doorway; the girl had long dark hair, and Felicity was reminded suddenly of Rachel. She pictured Rachel, imagined her spending a sophisticated evening in some expensive restaurant – decent food and really nice wine, not a Wimpy and too many vodkas – and then going back to some clean, comfortable West End flat, all low-lit and chic, and having fantastic sex with that hunk she’d had in the office the other day.

Coming round the corner, Felicity glanced up at the windows of the flat and saw that they were dark. Lucky fucking Miss Dean, she thought.

Anthony sat in Number Fourteen Court on a dreary Tuesday afternoon at four o’clock, and smiled to himself. It gave him a peculiar pleasure to have won this case against Leo. Not that it had been through any particular merit on his part, he had to acknowledge, since the point was an academic one which they had both rather suspected would be decided in Anthony’s client’s favour. But still, the thing had a dash of the sweetness of victory about it. He listened as Leo, who had been prepared for this eventuality, now sought leave to take the matter to the Court of Appeal.

‘As for the jurisdiction point,’ Leo was saying, ‘which I think your Lordship has decided on an obiter basis, I would certainly need leave to appeal, in order to take that further …’

Anthony glanced up at him as he made his notes, thinking how alert and concentrated Leo’s entire person seemed to be when he was on his feet in court, no matter how pedestrian the task in hand. His glance strayed to the lean, restless hands, now tugging at his robe, now twitching it aside, now adjusting his wig. Perhaps it is because I still like him so much that I
take pleasure in winning against him, thought Anthony. Some sort of subjection. He suddenly remembered once telling Leo he loved him, and he turned his gaze abruptly away and back to his notes.

‘… in my submission,’ continued Leo, ‘it is common ground between these parties that this provision arises very frequently, and therefore gives rise to a point of general importance.’ Mr Justice Lewis was sitting with his eyes closed. They had been closed for ten minutes now, and Anthony was wondering whether he was asleep. ‘Your Lordship may recall looking at the affidavit sworn on the part of my learned friend’s client—’ Leo seemed to be wondering the same thing, for he paused rather pointedly in his discourse. The judge, his cheek resting lightly on the forefinger and thumb of one hand, nodded and, without opening his eyes, said, ‘Yes.’

Leo coughed and continued. As he jotted down some notes, Anthony’s mind tentatively fingered the events of eighteen months ago, his thoughts straying to the various encounters with Leo since then. Now that the memory had been broached, he began to recall the way his pulse had once raced at the mere sight of Leo’s face or the sound of his voice. He laid down his pen and leant back. Someone must love Leo now. Every day someone waited for his return, thought of him constantly, felt alive because of him. Anthony wondered who it might be. No doubt there were even women who had broken their hearts over Leo. Certainly he ruled the typists in chambers through sheer charisma – shouting at them one day, charming them the next. They would sooner work for Leo than for any other member of chambers. Perhaps it was merely Leo’s force of personality that had made Anthony imagine he was in love with him once. Infatuation was a peculiar thing.

Mr Justice Lewis opened his eyes and interrupted Leo’s flow of eloquence and Anthony’s idle thoughts. ‘Now, are we dealing
with section one? I think I should have a look at it, because—’

Anthony roused himself, annoyed at having let his concentration slip.

‘Would your Lordship like to look at my copy of Mustill and Boyd?’ asked Leo, and handed his book to the usher who, with a look of infinite boredom, handed it up to the judge. ‘It is page 655, my Lord, section one, sub section seven.’

Anthony paid attention again for a few moments, but he knew in his own mind the rest of the points which Leo must make, and he took up his former train of thought again. He had, he believed, rationalised this business with Rachel. It had merely been a very forceful initial attraction, an infatuation, intensified by his own frustration at finding someone so lovely to be so physically unresponsive. And his disappointment, his sense of failure and humiliation, had all combined to make the thing seem more important than it really was. They just hadn’t hit it off. A pity, but there it was. Next time he saw her, which he supposed might not be for a while, it would all have settled back into proportion. She was clearly a very confused young woman who didn’t really know what she wanted. She would be nothing to him from now on.

And as he thought all this, he suddenly remembered very vividly, the way she had been that night in the restaurant, the fun they had had, the sweetness of her smile, and the heartbreaking emptiness of his attempts to make love to her. His heart filled up with a hopeless pain. He sighed. Winter afternoons in gloomy, near-empty courtrooms were death to the soul. He must just hope time would make it all better. Or perhaps there would be someone at Lawrence’s dinner party on Saturday, someone new, someone to obliterate Rachel. He doubted it, and turned his attention again to Leo, who was obviously winding down.

‘… naturally, my Lord, these other two issues may not
need to be taken further, but if your Lordship would like me to address your Lordship on them—’

‘Well, I do not think you need do so, Mr Davies, not at this stage. Let us hear what Mr Cross says.’

Anthony rose, with that customary surge of adrenalin which he experienced whenever he addressed a court, even one which consisted only of himself, Leo, the judge, the usher and the court reporter. He had known largely the grounds on which Leo would seek leave to appeal, and was prepared with arguments to counter Leo’s, but still, certain items had been thrown up in the judgment which neither of them had expected, and he was touched with a slight thrill of nervous misgiving as he began to speak.

‘My Lord, I wish to deal with a number of things. First of all, there is no doubt that this is a provision of general importance. We would not dispute that …’

Leo leant back, glancing speculatively at Mr Justice Lewis. Lewis had been on the Bench for eight or nine years now, and Leo had appeared as his junior in a lengthy and important salvage case some ten years ago. They didn’t often meet – Lewis seemed to spend most of his spare time down at Leamington, devoted to his yacht – but they were on pretty cordial terms, nonetheless. Definitely worth sounding out. He would send a note round to his clerk once the afternoon’s business was over, suggest a drink next week. He leant forward and concentrated on what Anthony was saying.

‘… so, for that reason, my Lord, I would submit that this is not an appropriate case for your Lordship to grant a certificate under section seven—’

‘I think, Mr Cross, that we are looking at section one, are we not? I have Mr Davies’ copy of Mustill and Boyd before me …’

Anthony reddened and looked flustered, then glanced down at his notes. ‘I beg your pardon, my Lord. Section one. And
so …’ He frowned, flicked through the pages with finger and thumb. He’d lost track of what he’d been saying. ‘That is … Yes, I would submit that it is not appropriate under that section.’

Leo felt a stab of sympathy for Anthony. No matter how much self-confidence one had, any perceived slip in competence at that age always threw one. Leo remembered his own hesitations, his own awkward beginnings, and felt a little tender impulse towards the younger man.

‘Well,’ said the judge quite gently, ‘even so, Mr Cross, I take it that you would not deny that it is always open to the Court of Appeal to grant leave under that section?’

Anthony paused. Why wasn’t I paying attention? he thought. What a waste of time thinking about that wretched girl. His mind sped back, and recollection rescued him. ‘No,’ he stammered, ‘naturally your Lordship can give leave or, additionally, the Court of Appeal.’

Mr Justice Lewis nodded and Anthony carried on without any further mishaps. At the end of the hearing, Anthony came over to where Leo sat scribbling in a page of his notebook.

‘I wasn’t sure if he was going to take that point about the certificate,’ said Anthony.

‘Hold on,’ said Leo, as he finished writing. He tore the page out, folded it up, and handed it to the judge’s clerk, who was clearing books away. ‘Would you give that to the judge, please?’ Then he came back to where Anthony stood. ‘No, I don’t think he was sure about it, either, for a moment or two. Still, there you are.’

‘And on we go. I’ll need a leader, if it goes to the Court of Appeal.’ Anthony smiled. ‘If you weren’t on the other side, I’d be able to suggest you in a few months’ time.’

Leo raised his eyebrows as they made their way out of court and along the echoing, sombre corridors to the robing room. ‘I shouldn’t like to count those particular chickens …’ He paused
at the wooden arched doorway to the robing room. ‘By the way, what were you dreaming about while I was astounding Mr Justice Lewis with my exceptional eloquence? I looked at you twice and you were miles away.’

Anthony took off his wig and gown and bundled them into his bag. He would leave his bands on, since he was just walking across the Strand to chambers. He felt his face flush slightly as he replied, ‘Oh, just some problem. Something that’s been troubling me.’

Leo glanced at him shrewdly as he unfastened his collar. ‘For God’s sake, don’t let your love life get in the way of work. Always save it for later.’

Anthony shrugged and sighed, leaning back against the large oak table and watching as Leo carefully knotted his tie. Then Leo turned to Anthony, thinking that although young men on the whole did not lounge very gracefully, Anthony seemed to have the knack; he said to him, ‘Take those off,’ indicating Anthony’s bands, ‘and I’ll take you for a drink.’

‘It’s only five,’ replied Anthony, pleased but a little surprised. Then he felt a faint misgiving; Leo was always so perceptive, and he wasn’t sure that he wanted to talk about Rachel. Just let it be.

‘So what?’ said Leo, shrugging into his jacket. ‘El Vino’s is open. Come on. I can give you half an hour before my little rendezvous with Roger Ware, the Honourable Sir.’

‘Oh?’ Anthony unfastened his bands from his collar.

‘Just buttering the Bench up a little in preparation for their Easter cogitations. Makes them feel good. Nothing like the feel-good factor.’

El Vino’s was almost deserted when they went in. ‘Remarkable,’ said Leo, glancing round as they sat down in a corner. ‘Not so many years ago half of Fleet Street would have been in here at this hour. Now they’re all in Wapping, dry as dust.’

‘Yes, I remember,’ said Anthony.

‘Do you?’ said Leo, as a waitress came over to their table. ‘Yes, I suppose you do,’ he murmured. He glanced at the waitress, then at Anthony. ‘A bottle?’

‘Just a glass for me, thanks,’ replied Anthony. ‘I’ve still got some papers to look at. Got an arbitration next week.’

Leo ordered two glasses of house white. ‘So,’ he said, fishing in his pocket for his cigars, ‘who or what is so troublesome that you’re not paying proper attention in court?’ He took out one of his little cigars and lit it, lifting his chin slightly as he did so.

Anthony sighed and sat back, thrusting his hands into his trouser pockets. In a way he was glad of the opportunity to talk about it. It wasn’t really the kind of thing he could discuss with Adam. ‘Well,’ he began, ‘I did a rather stupid thing, I suppose. I got a bit involved with this lady solicitor who instructed me in the case I told you about – the explosion in Bombay.’

‘Oh, yes.’ Leo nodded, blowing out a plume of smoke. There was something bright and attentive about his manner which struck Anthony for a second as being almost prurient. He knew that Leo loved gossip, the details of other people’s personal lives. There was almost a sort of greed about it. But Anthony felt he didn’t much mind. In a way he wanted to involve Leo; it made him feel closer to him, and that was something he wanted to recapture. Just that part of it. Just the friendship. That was all.

‘Anyway, I realise now that it wasn’t a very good idea, but—’

‘Certainly not something I would ever recommend,’ put in Leo, ‘but that’s not to say that I haven’t been tempted. Take young Jonathon Webster at Holman’s.’ He chuckled, smoothing his hand over his grey hair.

Anthony felt slightly embarrassed at this. He didn’t really want to know about Leo’s feelings for other men. He was curiously struck by this realisation and said nothing for a moment.

‘Sorry – I interrupted you,’ said Leo. ‘Ah!’ The waitress set their wine down before them, and some water biscuits.

Anthony decided to continue. ‘Well, we went out together a few times and it was all very good. You know, we got on well together. I make her laugh, she makes me laugh, all that sort of thing.’ He stopped. He suddenly felt he did not know how to say any of this, especially to Leo. He wished now he’d just gone back to chambers.

‘But?’ Leo sipped his wine, not looking at Anthony.

‘Oh, I don’t know … Look, I probably don’t really want to talk about any of it. I thought I did, but – anyway, it doesn’t matter. Let’s talk about something else.’ He drained half of his glass in one swallow.

‘But the physical side of things is not all it should be?’ said Leo, tapping a little ash from his cigar. His voice was mild and assured.

Anthony looked at him in surprise. Leo was wearing his best worldly-wise expression; he looked up, met Anthony’s glance and smiled. ‘Is that it? Oh, don’t look so surprised. I mean, what else could it be? It’s just what one would expect to be coming next.’

‘Yes,’ said Anthony. ‘That’s about it. I mean, I really like her—’

‘You fancy her but she doesn’t fancy you. Is that it?’

‘Well, no,’ replied Anthony thoughtfully. ‘Not quite. If it were just that, I wouldn’t give it a second thought. Just give up and go home. No, the thing is, I think she likes me as much as I like her. I think she really wants—’ He stopped, staring at his wine. His look of boyish, wistful candour was such that Leo felt a slight rush of rekindled affection for him.

‘Well,’ replied Leo lightly, amused at how deeply the young could be touched by life’s trivia, ‘perhaps she’s one of those rare commodities – a blushing virgin.’

‘Good God,’ said Anthony, smiling a little ruefully and
glancing at Leo, ‘things certainly never progressed that far. No, even on the most basic level we’re not hitting it off. At least … Well, she’s just so remote, sort of frightened. Or else it’s some awful sort of game. I mean, she asked me round to supper, just the two of us …’ He rubbed at the side of his face with his hand. ‘Oh, I know you can’t take that to mean anything, but – well, it was all set up as though something was meant to happen. As though she wanted—’ He sighed. ‘Oh, I don’t know. Anyway, I won’t be seeing her again, I’ve decided – not in that way – so I don’t suppose it really matters.’