The Pupil (6 page)

‘Two thousand dollars for six weeks. But it’s an investment. I look upon it as a means of getting in touch with my other self. I need to relate to myself, my feelings, to find out where I’m coming from in my art.’

‘That’s great, Dad,’ interrupted Anthony, fearful that his father could go on indefinitely in this vein, unless stopped. ‘But what’s all the bit about God? I thought you were an atheist these days?’

Chay seated himself uneasily in the lotus position on a
large beanbag; his ankles were thin and unpleasantly pale.

‘It’s a mistake for anyone to commit themselves to such a state of certainty,’ he replied. ‘Which of us knows anything? What do you know, Anthony? What can you honestly and truly, searching in your heart, say that you
know
?’

‘What I know is that you’re off on an expensive jaunt in the Californian sunshine. Anyway, if you’re so uncertain about God, you should become an agnostic.’

‘I’m seeking for a means to legitimise myself, my existence,’ replied Chay blandly.

‘Well,’ said Anthony, not knowing how to counter this, ‘what do you want me for?’

‘All this,’ replied Chay, gesturing in the direction of his futon, his paintings, and the few other articles of furniture in the room, ‘needs to be stored somewhere. This flat is very vulnerable, and there’s no knowing how long I may be gone.’

‘I thought you said it only lasted six weeks? Anyway, where do you expect me to put it? Mum’s got no room.’

‘You must be able to find somewhere. You’ve got friends.’

Why do I get lumbered? Anthony wondered. Why can’t I just say no? I’ll have to. There’s nowhere—Then he remembered Bridget. Her flatmate was leaving any day now. She’d have a bit of space. He looked at his father and wondered how his new and lunatic ventures were spawned. He also wondered where Chay had got two thousand dollars from.

‘Where’s Jocasta?’ he asked.

‘She’s gone ahead. I’m sending some things to her.’

So that’s who’s paying, thought Anthony. Silly woman. He sighed.

‘I’ll see what I can do. When are you going?’

‘In a couple of weeks, or so. Plenty of time for you to find somewhere. It’s only my few humble bits and pieces – you know how I believe that the spirit becomes encumbered by too many earthly possessions.’

‘Don’t I just,’ murmured Anthony, and went through to the kitchen to pour the remains of his Aqua Libra into the sink. He came back through. ‘Look, I can’t promise anything, but I’ll be in touch. See you, Dad.’

‘Don’t call me that,’ Chay called after him.

At home, Anthony made himself a cheese and tomato sandwich and some coffee and sat down at the kitchen table to go through Edward’s papers. It took him only half an hour to rough out the work that Leo had asked Edward to do. Surely Edward wasn’t so thick that he couldn’t polish it up a bit and set it out properly? He remembered what Julia had said, and remembered Julia. He hadn’t thought about her since he left the Temple, and now the recollection surged pleasurably back. He thought about her for a while, and then he thought about Bridget. There could be no question of his going to live with her. But what about his father’s furniture? Maybe she’d agree to store it for him, anyway. Not very likely. Oh, God, he would have to see her this weekend and they would have to talk about – about ‘things’, as Bridget called them. Things. Well, no good putting off the inevitable. He put Bridget out of his mind and began to think about Julia again as he cleared the papers up and headed for bed.

Edward spent all of the following morning in the library with Anthony’s rough notes, trying to put the work into a finished state. At lunchtime he caught up with Anthony just outside chambers.

‘Look, thanks a million for doing that stuff. I’ve worked it up a bit and I wondered if you’d just cast your eye over it. I mean, see that it’s—’

‘No,’ said Anthony firmly. ‘I didn’t mind helping you out this once, but it’s your pigeon now. I can’t do it twice.’

‘No, well, I suppose not. Anyway, thanks.’

When Edward showed the work to Leo, he was gratified by its reception; so much so that he quite forgot that he hadn’t done it on his own.

‘That’s really very good,’ said Leo. ‘You’ve quite got the grasp of it. I didn’t think you’d pick up on joining the insurance company as third defendant.’

‘Oh, well,’ shrugged Edward, ‘it only occurred to me later on, actually.’

‘Yes, I suppose it was only when you really grasped the point about the indemnity.’

‘Quite,’ replied Edward easily, wondering what on earth Leo was talking about. Still, it was good that it was going down so well.

Later that day, Leo mentioned Edward’s work in conversation with Michael and Cameron Renshaw, one of the older tenants and a man fiercely keen to ensure that the good reputation of 5 Caper Court remained untarnished. He had initially been against Edward joining them as a pupil (a view expressed privately, of course), partly because he disliked the idea of someone being taken on just because
he was Sir Basil’s nephew, and partly because of his bias against anyone who didn’t have a first-class honours degree.

‘Your doubts about the old man’s protégé may have been misplaced,’ said Leo. ‘I gave him some pleadings to do yesterday and he acquitted himself quite well. Very well, in fact. A bit ragged round the edges, but he’d grasped all the essentials. So maybe we won’t have to worry about a great chambers debate over him. I imagine he’d do very well.’

‘There’s always Cross,’ said Michael. ‘He’s really very good, too, you know.’ Michael was fond of Anthony and, although the subject had not been discussed between them as yet, he knew that Anthony was hopeful of a tenancy at the end of the year.

‘And he’s got a first from Bristol, hasn’t he?’ remarked Renshaw.

‘Well, of course, I don’t know,’ said Leo. ‘Seems a nice lad. But when pitch comes to toss, you wouldn’t seriously want to set someone up against a perfectly competent pupil, who just happens to be Sir Basil’s nephew, just on a point of principle, would you?’

‘The principle being that nepotism isn’t a good thing,’ responded Michael dryly.

‘On the other hand,’ said Cameron Renshaw, lifting his large frame from one of Leo’s chairs and hitching his braces, ‘Edward Choke’s a Cambridge man. Good thing, that. We’re all Oxbridge men. Don’t want too many new influences.’

‘What rubbish!’ burst out Michael with a laugh. ‘I wouldn’t call Bristol University a “new influence”. We’re not a club, you know.’

‘That’s not what I meant at all,’ rejoined Renshaw, somewhat irked by the conversation. ‘Nothing against your lad Cross, Michael, but is he – is he exactly our sort of people?’

‘Well, I’m not exactly your sort of people, now, am I, Cameron?’ asked Leo gently, with an amused smile. Renshaw looked nonplussed. He liked Leo; Leo amused him. He didn’t care whether he came from a mining village or not. What he had meant was …

‘Oh, bugger it all!’ he roared. ‘Who cares about these schoolboys? I’m off to do some work!’ And he lumbered from the room. When he had left, Michael and Leo smiled at one another in silence.

‘A tenner says young Master Choke is still with us a year from now,’ said Leo. Michael hesitated for a second.

‘You’re on,’ he replied.

In the third week of December each year, it was customary for Sir Basil to fret about the chambers party. The party was a tradition that went back to Sir Basil’s father’s time. In those days, Sir Basil seemed to recall, it had been a fairly civilised affair, with a few bottles of excellent champagne and some canapés, and was attended only by members of chambers and a couple of outside guests of sufficiently high rank, like the Master of the Rolls. (Mind you, reflected Sir Basil, the Master of the Rolls hadn’t always behaved with the kind of decorum that one might have expected.) These days, however, the thing seemed to Sir Basil to be getting quite out of hand. The several bottles of champagne had grown to a couple of cases; there had to be a bottle of Glenmorangie for Cameron Renshaw, who absolutely refused to drink champagne; soft drinks and mineral water were laid on for those driving or bicycling home; a few cans of beer had to be provided, ostensibly for the postboy and
the inhabitants of the clerks’ room, although last year the postboy seemed to have mixed a good deal of Glenmorangie with several glasses of champagne and had to be carried to a taxi.

In addition to this, it seemed that a formidable amount of food had to be provided. Not just little biscuits with scraps of smoked salmon on them, but entire sandwiches, chicken legs, crudités, dips, vol-au-vents, sausage rolls, nuts, twiglets, crisps, cheese biscuits.

But what most exasperated Sir Basil were the numbers who attended. Far from being the intimate, serene event of former years, the dead hand of democracy had descended, and now the clerks, the typists, the postboy and, it seemed, their assorted relatives, also came. Last year a temp called Debbie had been sick on the stairs. Sir Basil was not looking forward to this year’s party. It was no consolation to him to know that, all over the City of London, the heads of multinationals, the leaders of great conglomerates, and the chairmen of mighty banking institutions were all forking out so that their staff could get drunk and offensive.

He had suggested mildly to Mr Slee that perhaps the chambers party should be restored to its status quo, in return for which he would happily pay for the rest of the staff to disport themselves at some suitable restaurant. Mr Slee had drawn in a slow, whistling breath.

‘Ooh, no, sir. Can’t see that going down very well. Not with the girls, at any rate. Bit “them and us”, if you get my meaning. If they thought you were getting snobbish about it, they wouldn’t be best pleased. Bad as if you forgot their Christmas bonus.’ This was a timely reminder.
Sir Basil had gazed at his head clerk. As always, it was with some reverence. He had no idea how much Mr Slee earned exactly, but he knew that it must be in the region of some fifty thousand a year, if not more. Mr Slee had a five-bedroomed detached house in High Wycombe and drove a BMW. Like all head clerks, his origins were lowly and his power absolute. Mr Slee and his kind could make or break a barrister’s career. They negotiated fees and arranged conferences and hearings. They wheeled, they dealed, and they kept their ear close to the ground. Rub your clerk up the wrong way, and you could lose your footing. Mr Slee’s word – though the word was always faintly humble and always discreetly spoken – was law.

So Sir Basil resigned himself to yet another invasion of his rooms by the lower orders. The best he could do would be to retire gracefully after an hour or so and hope that not too many cheese footballs were ground into the Axminster.

David Liphook, on the other hand, became quite schoolboyish in his anticipation. He loved parties and general conviviality, and he loved free champagne. There was something particularly delightful about the prospect of getting legless at Sir Basil’s expense, he reflected, as he watched Mr Slee take delivery of two cases of Moët one Thursday afternoon. Only marginally less delightful was the champagne for which one paid oneself, and he was looking forward to consuming considerable quantities of that at the cocktail party in Middle Temple Hall the following Friday night. He mentioned this to Anthony as they watched the van driver bring in the second case of champagne.

‘It’s always a spectacularly good time, the run-up to
Christmas,’ he observed with satisfaction. ‘The Middle Temple cocktail party should be fun. Are you and Edward going?’

‘I suppose so,’ said Anthony. ‘What’s it like?’

‘Oh, excellent! Always completely brilliant,’ replied David confidently, although close cross-examination would have elicited the fact that David had very little recollection of last year’s affair, save that of trying to heave his bicycle over the locked gates of Devereux Court at well past midnight.

Anthony, however, as he stood at the back of a sparsely populated Middle Temple Hall on the following evening, was not sure that the night promised to be especially brilliant. The ticket had set him back ten pounds, which he couldn’t really afford, and so far he had spent half an hour in desultory conversation with two or three fellow pupils and had drunk two glasses of warm champagne. Bridget had phoned him that afternoon, nagging at him to make a decision about the flat, and he thought he had the beginnings of a headache. Just as he was considering leaving, David Liphook and Edward made their boisterous way into the hall. They both looked flushed and riotous.

‘Tony!’ exclaimed Edward, ambling up to him. ‘Thought we’d find you here! Told you we’d find him here,’ he added over his shoulder to David. ‘Where’s the champagne? Where’s that woman?’ He found a waitress and relieved her of six glasses of champagne. The hall was beginning to fill up now.

‘We’ve been in the Devereux,’ confided Edward to
Anthony, quite unnecessarily, and launched into an account of the improbable events that had occurred in the pub. Anthony listened, amused, and drank another two glasses of champagne; he was beginning to enjoy himself now that Edward had arrived. When the crowd in the hall had grown more dense, Edward scanned the room.

‘Wait here,’ he said, and set off towards the other end of the hall. He reappeared a few moments later with two unopened bottles of champagne.

‘Here we go!’ he announced, and popped a cork. David gave a hoot of laughter. Heads turned at the sound. Anthony had often observed the rowdier element at functions before, but it was a novel experience to find himself part of it. Edward filled his glass; it foamed over and splashed onto his shoes. He licked some off the back of his hand and drained his glass in one gulp. Before he had noticed, Edward had poured him another. David was telling a story about a man in a bar and a piece of string, and at its conclusion Anthony found himself exploding with laughter. I must remember to tell Barry that, he thought. Someone else began to tell another joke, and Anthony glanced down at the floor as he listened. The polished wooden boards seemed to slope away from him at a strange angle, dizzyingly. He looked up quickly, alarmed, and leant gently against Edward.

The flow of conversation was ceaseless, and after a while Anthony discovered that he was talking animatedly to some girl about the iniquities of the judicial system, and that the girl was Julia. She was dressed in scarlet and was gazing at him with sympathy and interest. Or so it seemed.

In fact, Julia was thinking that Anthony probably didn’t
get drunk very often, and looked rather sweet doing it. He was very attractive, in a dark, serious sort of way. He had soft, messed-up hair and a nice mouth. She wondered what it would be like to kiss him. She tried to say something to him, but the noise in the hall had grown and he had to lean over to hear.

‘What?’ Whatever it was, she tried to repeat it, but Edward was braying at them about going on to a restaurant, and a few moments later Anthony found himself in the dark, crisp December air, walking up Middle Temple Lane rather unsteadily, flanked by Edward and someone called Piers. Piers seemed to be a very good bloke. Very funny. Anthony wondered where Julia was.

She reappeared sitting next to him in the restaurant. They were in some rowdy Italian place in Piccadilly Circus, all sitting round a large table. There were ten or twelve people, it seemed to Anthony, all as drunk as he was; he didn’t know a lot of them, but Edward seemed to. Edward always did. Good bloke, Edward. Very funny.

Although he was sitting next to her, Anthony didn’t really talk much to Julia. She always seemed to be talking to people in the other direction from him, laughing a lot and leaning over. Her bare shoulders glowed in the light from candles stuck in bottles, and he noticed, glancing rather often, how her blonde hair curled in softly at the nape of her neck. How nice it would be to touch it. I’m drunk, he thought. It was just as well he wasn’t getting much chance to talk to her. She’d think he was a complete idiot. God, this menu was long. Where were the rolls? He was starving.

It took everyone a long time to order, and then the
food took a long time to arrive. Someone put a plate of avocado and bacon salad in front of Anthony. He ate it. Edward ordered a lot of wine. It was red. Not as good as the champagne, but Anthony drank it, anyway. It wasn’t so bad once you’d had a glass or two. Someone put a plate of veal in a strange, sticky sauce in front of him. He wasn’t really feeling hungry any more, he decided. Then he drank three glasses of mineral water in quick succession and felt better. Edward ordered more wine. Anthony decided not to have any more. But then he had some profiteroles and a lot of Cointreau in a large tumbler, which didn’t help. Cointreau, he reflected, was really better in tumblers than those little glasses it usually came in. He should remember that – always have your Cointreau in big glasses. Better still, mugs. Big mugs. Julia was speaking to him.

‘Here’s a present. Merry Christmas.’ She pushed a cigarette packet across the table to him.

‘Oh, thanks. I don’t smoke.’

‘It’s empty.’

‘That’s all right, then.’

‘Put it in your pocket, like a good boy.’ And she leant against him, searching the inside of his jacket for the pocket. He could smell the soft skin of her arm as she moved; not perfume. Just skin. And softness. She laughed and looked at him for a moment. He looked back, wondering what he should say. But at that moment the bill arrived, and it was given to Edward to divide up. This process, conducted with the aid of a propelling pencil (whose point kept breaking) and a pocket calculator (which Edward was well beyond using efficiently), took some fifteen minutes, and spiralled
into a series of rows over who had had what and whether Piers, who hadn’t had a starter but had had cheese and biscuits, should pay extra or less. Those who hadn’t had any liqueurs then demanded a discount, and then someone pointed out that service wasn’t included, and the whole thing began all over again. Anthony eventually found himself, after complex negotiations which no one could follow, writing a cheque to David Liphook for twenty-three pounds (which he probably didn’t have in the bank) and being given five pounds eighty in change by Edward.

At last they trooped out into the night and the sobering cold of the December air. Anthony caught up with Julia.

‘Where do you live?’ he asked her. She told him; it was the opposite direction from the way in which his own home lay. But he found himself continuing to walk beside her, and as they got further and further on their way, people began to peel off towards buses and taxis and underground stations, and at last they were walking by themselves.

They were talking – inconsequential stuff about people and work. Anthony still felt rather drunk.

‘I’m very glad I met you tonight,’ he said, after a silence. He wished he knew where the hell they were going.

‘Are you? Why?’ asked Julia.

‘Because,’ said Anthony foolishly. ‘Because, because.’ He stopped on the pavement. ‘I’m drunk.’

‘I know.’ She gave a shiver of anticipation. ‘Will you kiss me?’ she asked him. Anthony looked up and down the empty street.

‘Here?’

She took a step towards him and pushed him gently
into a darkened shop doorway and raised her mouth to his. Kissing her was the softest, warmest thing Anthony had ever known. He had kissed numerous girls, mainly Bridget, but never had he felt such extraordinary pleasure as this. He pulled her closer, sliding his hands beneath her coat and caressing the skin of her back; he wanted to go on kissing her for ever. He wanted to stop kissing her just so that he could start it all over again. As he kissed her, he found himself thinking about all the other girls he had kissed and, absurdly, about the first girl he had ever taken out. Her name had been Lorraine. They had been fourteen, and they had gone to the pictures together to see
True Grit.
It had been raining outside the cinema, and when they got into their seats, Anthony remembered, Lorraine had sat there with her anorak hood up, the toggles tied under her chin. Every time he had thought about holding her hand, he had looked sideways at her and the whole thing had seemed impossible. The recollection of this suddenly made Anthony laugh in mid-kiss.

‘What’s so funny?’ asked Julia, laughing at him laughing. Anthony told her. Then he kissed her again, and this time it seemed even better than before. He was aware that she had somehow wrapped one of her legs round the back of one of his, as though to bring him even closer, and he slid his thigh between hers and gathered her against him, as though to absorb her, to melt her into him with kissing.

It stopped eventually, as even drunken kissing must, and Julia tried to look at her watch. She stepped back into the street and squinted at her wrist.

‘My God, it’s half past two! The last tube went ages
ago,’ she moaned. They walked on further, growing chillier and less light-headed with each step. They didn’t talk much this time, and to make the silence comforting, Anthony took her hand; its warmth filled his. At last they found a cruising taxi, and Anthony put Julia into it. She gave him the briefest of kisses before closing the door, but it was enough to remind Anthony of their moments in the doorway of the shop. He wished he could find that doorway; it would be sacred for ever. He watched her cab speed off into the night, leaving him in a deserted street somewhere in the West End. He had a vague idea of the direction in which they had been walking, and he headed off east. He knew it was probably four or five miles to his home, and he had no money for a cab, but in his exhilaration he felt as though he could walk tirelessly for ever.