Law and Disorder (9 page)

‘Er, yes. Well, that’s one way of putting it,’ replied one of the waitresses.

Maybe it was the champagne, or maybe it was simply because he was so dreadful, but I ploughed on.

‘One way of putting it? Boy oh boy, if boring people to death was an Olympic sport he’d be its very own Steve Redgrave.’

‘Well, er, that might be going a little far,’ said the waitress again.

‘A legend in his own time. The undisputed heavyweight, yes definitely heavyweight, champion of the world in boring the socks off anyone in his firing line.’

‘Well, I see, er . . .’

‘Anyway, enough of him. I’m BabyBarista. What are your names?’

‘Well, my name is June Dawson and this here is, er, well, it’s, er, Liz Waller.’

A little penny started dropping in my mind. Slowly at first. Waller, Waller, Waller. Sounded familiar. Then it all seemed like slow motion. Waller . . . The name of the second-in-command . . .

‘Er . . . no relation, I hope?’ I tailed off as I said it, not looking at all hopeful.

‘I’m his wife,’ and with that she stormed off and left me standing and fretting as to whether my foot-in-mouth disease had scuppered chambers’ lucrative line of work with this particular firm of solicitors. As I hovered between coming up with an awkward apology and on the other hand simply letting it lie, fear and inertia got the better of me and I eventually left quietly and most definitely in shame. Not, it has to be said, my best day so far.

Monday 11 December 2006

Day 51 (week 11): UpTights

Had lunch with the person who will take over from TheBoss as my pupilmaster at the start of April. Well, pupilmistress to be exact. I shall call her UpTights. She’s in her late forties with a civil and criminal practice. She’s never married and has no kids (having always put career first) and is Very High Maintenance. Considered calling her BoTucks due to the work she’s had done, which gives her a very peculiar ‘Mother of Barbie’ kind of look. But it’s her attitude which defines her.

‘The most important thing at the Bar is boundaries, BabyBarista.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Clearly defined boundaries between work and non-work.’

‘Er, yes.’

‘I will never ask you about your life outside chambers and you will reciprocate. Life here. Life outside. Separate. Is that clear?’

‘Of course.’ Crystal.

Ouch. And she barks her words in high, clipped military tones reminiscent of a cross between Margaret Thatcher in her poll tax years and a Dalek screaming ‘Exterminate!’ UpTights is definitely her name. Looks like there’ll be big changes when I start with her in April.

‘Unless you are in court, you will arrive into chambers at 8.30

a.m. and leave at 6 p.m., during which hours your time belongs to me. Time outside those hours does not exist as far as I am concerned. Understand?’

‘Yes.’ I got it the first time, thank you.

‘And there’ll be no skiving in the library, just so you know, although you will get thirty minutes between twelve thirty and one each day when you will disappear from sight.’

It seems she also has what the Americans might call ‘personal space issues’.

‘When you are in my room, you will not hover around my desk. Absolutely no hovering. Got it? No hovering.’

No hovering. Right. I think I got that too. Promises to be interesting. Particularly as somehow I have to get her onside before the tenancy decision in September. First thoughts revolve around the question of why she is so defensive. Barriers built over years of working with lecherous dinosaurs such as HeadofChambers and OldSmoothie? Resentment that the rest of the world seems happy? Or just plain nastiness? Whatever it is, there’s plenty to be getting on with.

Later BusyBody was back in TheBoss’s room again. I’m beginning to suspect that she’s started flirting back. She stayed about an hour doing more ‘research’ at OldRuin’s desk. I gave TheBoss fifteen minutes before he mentioned the Ferrari. He did it in ten.

Thursday 14 December 2006

Day 54 (week 11): Chambers party

It’s the party season and this evening it was the official chambers drinks party. I was there simply to serve the drinks, as were the other three pupils. The most interesting thing about the evening was seeing what each of the spouses were like. HeadClerk’s wife was the most glamorous by a country mile. OldSmoothie’s wife was the most daunting and treated him like he was some over-aged naughty school boy in front of everybody all night. Which of course he is. TheBoss’s wife was, well, noticeable only by her absence.

It was held in chambers’ large meeting room and for two hours there was free-flowing champagne and canapés provided courtesy of Marks and Spencer. For just a short space of time it was almost as if everyone forgot their petty differences, of which, I have already discovered, there are many. But it wasn’t long before the cliques started to regroup and the gossip flowed more freely than the champagne.

Interesting to see how badly UpTights gets on with OldSmoothie. They don’t even seem to pretend to be polite. OldSmoothie strolled over to her in the middle of the party and looked her up and down in mock admiration before opening with a sarcastic, ‘Nice work you’ve had done recently, UpTights. Is this what they call growing old ungracefully?’

‘Maybe you should try dyeing those ever-receding silver wisps of yours, OldSmoothie. Looking a bit tired, I must say.’

‘Not half as tired as your neck and wrists, UpTights. Shame your miracle doctors can’t hide all the evidence.’

TheBoss spent quite some time talking to BusyBody about how she was enjoying pupillage as she quietly sipped away on the champagne in between rounds of serving. It was during their little flirtation that I overheard her getting stuck into me.

‘Did you hear about what he said to the senior partner’s wife at the party the other night?’ she whispered just loud enough for me to hear standing nearby.

‘Er, no. What happened exactly?’

‘Well, I don’t want to be indiscreet or anything but I guess it’s right that you know since you do a lot of work for that firm. But, well . . .’

‘Go, on. Don’t worry, it won’t go any further, I promise.’

Yeah, right! As if she believed that. She ploughed on, ‘Well, I heard that he was rude about one of the partners in front of his wife. I mean, I’m sure he didn’t mean it or anything but, well, I just thought you should know.’

Well thanks a bundle, Little Miss BusyBody the SuperGrass. I just hope it doesn’t cause even more damage.

As for TopFirst, predictably he wasn’t drinking. Says he’s on a detox. More like a delife.There seems to be no chink in his armour at all.Poor Worrier is already out of the picture and BusyBody – despite obviously living up to her name and trying to undermine me – is likely to annoy just about everyone except TheBoss. But TopFirst unfortunately remains a complete conundrum. One thing I have noticed is that despite having a beautiful fiancée, his ego is so bloated that he can’t seem to help being an almighty flirt with the opposite sex, and in the naffest way possible. I’ve seen him at it a few times, but perhaps the most cringeworthy example was today. He was ostentatiously carrying around a bowl full of sweets and as he approached TheVamp he bowed slightly, offered her the bowl and in his best Austin Powers voice delivered the lamest of all his lame lines,‘Jelly, Baby?’

Though he isn’t at all fat, he certainly isn’t what you might call athletic either and TheVamp immediately responded by patting him on the stomach and saying, ‘Jelly belly, more like,’ before leaving him standing slightly dazed.

Now by that point, although like most people I knew her by reputation, I still hadn’t actually met TheVamp and so I slowly made my way in her direction. I have to admit that she’s extremely attractive, though in a way Claire, who has met her a few times, has described as ‘obvious’. I think she was referring to her style as much as her looks, with the short skirts, low-cut tops and bleach-blonde cropped hair. All of this she carries off, in my opinion, if not in Claire’s, with a redeeming wit that comes through most of all in the form of innuendo, even on the most innocent of subjects. When she’s on form, she’s a twenty-first century, living, breathing Carry On film. When I eventually sidled up to her she was chatting to TheCreep, who despite the fact he was talking about one of his cases was looking almost furtive. TheVamp was out to embarrass him. ‘BabyB, how nice to meet you. Do join us. Mr CreepyWeepy here was asking me to help him with his manual handling,’ she coochie-cooed.

TheCreep fell for the bait and blushingly mumbled, ‘Er, well . . . er, yes, The Manual Handling Operations Regulations, to give them their full title.’

‘Absolutely, Mr CreepyWeepy. Whatever you want to call it. I hope I helped?’ she pouted.

He looked lost, and only managed a vague nod.

‘Very sweet. Now Mr CreepyWeepy, run along, will you.’

With which she dismissed him with a wave of her little finger and gave me the full glare of her attention for all of ten minutes before moving on to her next victim.

Monday 18 December 2006

Day 56 (week 12): Trouble

‘So, how’s GavisconMan then?’ Claire asked.

‘Who?’

‘You know, TheBoss. “Will settle anything in under five minutes.” ’

‘Too true in his case, I’m afraid.’

‘How about your pupilmistress?’

It was all going swimmingly until I told Claire that TheVamp was coming along. She’d popped round mid-afternoon and asked what I was up to later. Call me naïve, but I had foreseen no trouble. But hey, I’m a guy and therefore genetically blind to such things. I say that because even before TheVamp arrived, Claire had started huffing about having to meet up with ‘TheTramp’. ‘She’s had every male member of your chambers who’s single, BabyB, along with half the married ones, I wouldn’t wonder.’

‘That’s a bit harsh. I know she’s a flirt, but . . .’

‘She’s more than a flirt, BabyB. Believe me, I can tell. That woman is trouble.’

Given that there’s nothing between Claire and me, I didn’t see what the problem was. Despite this, I could feel Claire bristling for a fight within a few minutes of TheVamp arriving and after about half an hour she eventually stropped off claiming to have a dinner engagement that she hadn’t mentioned until that moment.

‘Very nice little friend you have there, BabyB,’ TheVamp commented.

‘Drinking buddy throughout Bar School. Much needed.’

‘Pretty keen on you, I’d say.’

‘Oh, no. You’ve got the wrong end of the stick with that one. Definitely just friends. Never been anything between us except a very small thing early on.’

With that, TheVamp switched to her flirt mode. ‘Oh, BabyB, a very small thing indeed? Don’t be so modest.’

Well, if she wanted to add a notch to her barrister’s wig (or maybe a curl?), who was I to argue?

‘Come on BabyB, where are we going next? You’re young enough to be trendy. What bars do you know?’

Young enough to be poverty stricken, more like. The only late-night place that I knew was a Spanish bar just off Tottenham Court Road where you had to say the owner’s name after ringing the door bell to be let in as part of a kind of ‘open sesame’ routine. Girls dancing salsa, couples eating Spanish beans and old men playing cards out the back. Not a place I’d think of taking a fellow member of chambers to try and impress her. But hey, it was TheVamp and she was demanding late-night drinking, and despite my reservations it went down pretty well.

So well, in fact, that I ended up having breakfast with her the next morning. Actually about four hours after arriving back in. I was definitely still drunk and was glad I didn’t have to go to court.

TheVamp, on the other hand, was moaning that she had a big trial starting in a couple of hours and not only had she not yet read the papers but worse, her vision was still so blurred that she wasn’t actually able to start.

‘Don’t worry, BabyB. I can do these cases with my eyes shut. I’ll just get the client to tell me what happened in his own words beforehand. Always good to hear it from the horse’s mouth. Should be enough.’

Yet she was positively steaming alcohol from her pores and I didn’t think that any amount of perfume or extra-strong mints was going to mask that. Whilst she was rushing around making coffee and downing glasses of water, I sat there like a lemon not really knowing what to say.

‘Now BabyB,’ she said.‘That was a great evening last night,but if we’re going to be friends let’s get one thing clear. This isn’t the start of anything. Not even the start of the start of anything. I’m a free agent and will continue to be. All very enjoyable and everything, but it goes no further.’

Fine by me. In the meantime, I just hope that after the half hour it would have taken her to get to court she didn’t look even a fraction as rough as when she left the house. Sometimes having a wig and gown to hide beneath can be rather helpful.

Tuesday 19 December 2006

Day 57 (week 12): Hard disks

TheBoss received a letter today from the solicitors in the case involving the accident on the ship. It sought formal pre-action disclosure of chambers’ computer records and access to the hard disk. His first reaction was to rant against the ways of the modern world, with some of his choice lines being: