The Decision (94 page)

‘Don’t you bloody well start.’

‘Sorry.’

‘No one fucking believes me. No one. Except the lawyer and I pay him to.’

Louise was silent for a moment, then picked up her glass of wine, walked over to the window and looked out. And then she turned round and faced him and said that if he would like her to, if it would help, she would go into the witness box for him, and that she felt she knew enough of him for her words to count.

When he had gone, clearly as shocked and surprised as he was grateful, and as near to lost for words as she had ever seen him, she poured herself another glass of wine and sat down and thought for a long time about what she had done, and why she had made the offer. And to feel deeply thankful she had managed to keep her counsel, and not tell him, in the inevitably high emotion of the moment, why she had done it.

For how stupid that would have been, how crassly stupid, after fighting it down for years, all those long, heady, confrontational years, where she had followed him and argued with him, and admired him and hated him and beaten him at his own game and never, ever allowed herself to recognise how Louise the person felt about Matt the person, had put up a steely barrier indeed between herself and her feelings about him. For what good would have been served by doing otherwise? If ever a man had been in love with a woman Matt had been in love with Eliza. And it had only been then, that evening, moved beyond anything at his hurt and his resolve, and making what was really a rather reckless offer, for what did she know, really, about Matt’s performance as a father, that she had finally been forced to admit to herself how much, actually, she loved him.

And she went back into the kitchen and sat down and poured herself a cup of the now-cold coffee and sat licking her finger and picking up the crumbs of Matt’s French bread from his plate and eating them one by one. Which was probably about the closest to intimacy, she reflected, as they were ever going to get.

‘I’ve got some really good news – at last,’ Eliza smiled almost proudly at Philip Gordon, ‘on the witness front.’

‘Good,’ he said. Cautiously. She knew he was worried about her situation in this area.

‘It’s my friend, Heather. The one who moved away, one who really can vouch for me being a good mother. Well, I hope so. She’s written to me.’

She still couldn’t believe it; seeing her letter lying there, on the mat. She hadn’t realised it was from her, of course, written as it was in a schoolgirl hand, and in a small, flimsy envelope, but once she had thumbed through what seemed some rather more impressive missives, invitations to fashion shows and parties and a letter from Emmie’s school saying she was doing well and would be moving up into the third form in September, she tore the small envelope open. And stood there, reading it, saying ‘Oh, my God’ over and over again.

Dear Eliza

I am very sorry I haven’t written before, but my life has been quite busy lately and I wasn’t sure at first about writing at all. I have a little boy, called Bobby, he is so gorgeous, Coral loves him and isn’t jealous at all. He is quite big and sleeps well and the birth was a complete doddle, he practically fell out and I nearly had him in mum-in-law’s front room, wish I had, and spoilt her carpet for her. Anyway, we’re not there any more, thank goodness, we’ve got a very nice council house, I can’t believe it, with a garden, quite small, but big enough for Coral to play and have a swing. The waiting lists are much shorter out here, and with two children we went to the top.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, Eliza, and I feel bad about how I left things. I can see now, it wasn’t your fault, just a chapter of accidents, and you wanted to help. It was difficult for a bit, but Alan has got over it now, as well as me, and you did us a favour in a way as we could say we’d been hounded out of that flat.

Coral still talks about Emmie and I often think of our happy times together and I just wanted to say if ever you were in this area, it would be lovely to see you. We’ve even got a phone. Alan doesn’t like me using it, but this is the number, Watford 4694.

Love, Heather.

Eliza managed to find herself in the area the very next day, and she and Heather and Bobby went out for lunch in a café and Eliza begged her to come and speak up for her at the divorce.

‘I just need you to say I was a good mother and loved Emmie and always looked after her well. Because we were friends for such a long time, and it was when she was little, and also at the time I had the baby, it would really mean something. Will you, Heather, please?’

‘Oh, I don’t know about that,’ Heather said, ‘it sounds very scary.’

‘It might be,’ said Eliza truthfully, ‘but if you think that’s scary, think what it’s like for me, facing losing Emmie.’

‘I can’t believe he wants to do that to you,’ said Heather. ‘And to her for that matter, poor little thing. It’s really shocking. How can he say all those things about you, they’re just so untrue—’

‘I know. Please, Heather, please! I think in the first instance’ – God, she was beginning to talk like a lawyer herself – ‘in the first place, a written statement from you would do. It might be all that we needed. Will you think about that, please?’

Heather said she would, but she’d have to ask Alan, and he might act up a bit; ‘might think we’d be back in the papers.’

‘Of course you wouldn’t,’ said Eliza, touching wood surreptitiously under the table; Philip Gordon had warned her that with Matt’s high profile in the business world, and her own media-based career, it was a very real possibility.

‘You said that last time,’ said Heather with a grin. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll do my best to talk him round. He’s so pleased with himself, having a son, honestly, men are all the same – oh, sorry, Eliza, I’m sorry, what a stupid thing to say—’

‘Heather, it’s OK. I’ve kind of got other things to worry about now.’

‘I know. Poor you. It does sound so awful. Anyway, Alan’s much less grumpy these days, he’s up for promotion next year and that plus the house, you should hear him going on about our spare bedroom and what sort of mower he’s getting for the lawn. The lawn! It’s a little bit of dead grass the size of our living room in Clapham.’

‘Oh, Heather,’ said Eliza, ‘I do love you. It’s so nice to be friends again.’

All this she announced to Philip Gordon, who was hugely delighted, and said he knew Toby Gilmour would also be very pleased.

‘Yes, and also more good news: we know who the blonde is.’

‘The blonde? Oh, the one in the restaurant?’

‘Yes. She’s called Georgina Barker, she’s an ex-girlfriend of Matt’s. Jerome, my photographer friend, recognised her from an article in the
Sunday Times
magazine, she runs a boutique in Kensington.’

‘She could well be an important witness,’ said Gordon. ‘Very good, Eliza. The tide seems to be turning just a bit. In our favour.’

‘Not before time,’ said Eliza. ‘I was beginning to feel like Queen Canute.’

Alan Connell, Heather’s husband, said she wasn’t to appear in court under any circumstances; but he did agree to her giving a written statement as long as he could approve it.

‘Well, that’s marvellous,’ said Philip, at their final meeting before the hearing. ‘I’ll go along and see her next week, and invite him to sit in on the interview. How would that be?’

‘Could I – could I come along?’ asked Eliza.

‘Possibly best not. Keep it professional,’ said Gilmour.

‘Oh – all right. But do you think it matters that the article – the one Matt was so angry about – was about her?’

‘No, no. Why should it?’

‘I feel everything matters at the moment,’ said Eliza gloomily, ‘you know, like I have to be careful not to pick my nose …’

‘Oh, now that would be very serious,’ said Toby Gilmour. ‘In court at any rate.’ He actually winked at her; it was the first time she had seen a side of him that was remotely humorous.

After the meeting, he escorted her out onto the street and offered to get her a taxi.

‘I think I can do that for myself,’ said Eliza, amused by this rather archaic chivalry.

An empty cab was moving towards them; she put two fingers to her mouth and gave an ear-piercing whistle. The taxi pulled in.

‘That was rather good,’ said Gilmour.

‘I know. I learnt it when I was a fashion assistant. First rule of the job, being able to get a taxi at any given moment, even in Oxford Street in the rush hour. Where are you going, Mr Gilmour, can I give you a lift?’

She’d expected him to say no, but: ‘I’m heading for Chelsea.’

‘I’ll drop you off.’

‘Thank you. Very kind. So how are you feeling about the hearing tomorrow?’ he asked, settling in beside her.

‘Oh – fine. Not worried at all, obviously. I just think I might vomit every time I think about it.’

‘I have to say, that would be worse, even worse, than picking your nose. Do try to make it outside the courtroom at least. In both cases.’

‘OK.’ She smiled at him. ‘It’s nice to joke about it, it makes me feel better.’

‘I wasn’t joking,’ he said, and his face was totally serious. She stared at him; he stared implacably back. Then, ‘Well, certainly the vomiting. You could pick your nose very discreetly if you really have to. No, seriously, how do you feel?’

‘I just told you.’

‘Well, better that way round. Cocky clients, not ideal. But honestly, tomorrow won’t be anything much. No difficult questions even. We’ll arrive, find out what court we’re in and what judge and wait.’

‘What, you’ve no idea? I thought—’

‘No, ’fraid not. They very often get allotted the morning of the case. I’m going to a dinner tonight, you can sometimes find out on the grapevine, but I wouldn’t bet on it. It does help to know if you’ve got some fusty old disciplinarian, or one of the new, quotes compassionate close quotes, ones. You can angle your presentation accordingly. But, again, less important than next time.’

‘Won’t it be the same one?’

‘’Fraid not. You might think that, but no. Anyway, then we sit and wait for a bit on some excruciatingly uncomfortable stone benches, and we see the other side sitting on theirs and nod politely.’

‘Could we nod rudely?’ she said, encouraged by his earlier hints of humanity.

‘I’m not sure how you would nod rudely, I’ll give it some thought tonight. But a frosty smile probably better, never goes amiss. In our profession developing the frosty smile is one of the first things we learn, bit like your taxi whistle.’

‘OK.’ She was liking him increasingly.

‘Then we all go in. It’s a court like one you’ve seen a hundred times on TV. The judge up on the bench. Us all ranged below him, gazing up respectfully. No wonder they enjoy their jobs so much. And then they will present their case, say what it’s about, that it’s an uncontested divorce and an application for custody, and present the relevant papers, we’ll do the same, both sides will say that they have several witnesses to call and the judge will harrumph about for a bit, and then say right, well, six witnesses each, so that’s going to take a bit of time and then we need to have time for the law—’

‘What does that mean? I thought this was the law?’

‘It means legal arguments, a sort of recitation of the whys and wherefores, and then of course, they allow time for the summing up, that can take a while in a case like this, and the judge might say he would want to talk to the child—’

‘WHAT!’ Eliza’s voice was almost a scream. ‘Emmie in court! No, no, surely, surely not, no one mentioned that.’

‘Well, yes, it is a possibility. But don’t worry, not in the witness box, he would talk to her in a side room, I thought you realised that.’

‘No. No, I didn’t. How absolutely horrible – I—’

‘I’m sorry. It’s not absolutely a foregone conclusion, in fact sometimes when it’s an open-and-shut case, he won’t.’

‘But this isn’t. Hopefully. Oh, God. This gets worse and worse. Do you think Matt knows this?’

‘I don’t know. I would have thought so, yes.’

‘He’s kept that to himself.’ She was silent, fighting back the tears, picturing the scene, tiny Emmie confronted by the judge, in his long wig; then she suddenly giggled.

‘What?’ said Gilmour, smiling.

‘I was imagining Emmie cross-examining the judge back. Which she probably might. Sorry. Not funny.’

‘I’m sure it would be,’ he said, politely brisk. He obviously found it beyond his imagination. And probably considered it inappropriate as well.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Eliza, pulling out a tissue and wiping her eyes. ‘I didn’t mean to be flippant about it. But – it was such a shock. It’s all such a shock. Every day seems to bring a new one.’

‘Yes, of course,’ he said rather abruptly, and just as she had decided not to say any more, that she was back in her idiot role in his eyes, he added, ‘It’s all very difficult and distressing. Of course it is.’

‘Yes,’ she said and then, encouraged by this flash of humanity, ‘All this – this pulling apart your marriage, the way you used to feel for someone, and then dragging up bits of evidence—’