Without Prejudice (19 page)

There was a tension now between them, one that had been brewing but only spilled over with her determination to have Duval eat with them inside the house.

He had not felt this strain with her since the very early days of their relationship. When he’d met Anna her flat had been a chaotic mess of dirty dishes, and affidavits on the kitchen table. An unsavoury mix of clients and dodgy suitors had moved in and out of her four-room flat in Kilburn like a pack of undomesticated dogs, sizing up a new place to doss.

He made her get out of the flat and do things – she’d never seen Hampton Court, so they went there; never been to Waddesdon Manor, so he drove her out for lunch and a walk through the Rothschild parkland. Twice she cancelled at the last minute; he didn’t know if this was due to the exigencies of her clients or her ropy personal life, and he made it clear he didn’t care which – it was unacceptable.

For if at first he had plunged into the centre of her life’s counter-centrifugal stew, now he stayed outside the fray, sensing that if he hung around passively waiting for her, he would soon get relegated to the status of these other passers-by, some of whom seemed to have been (he hoped the past tense was accurate) lovers.

There had been a kid named Spado, for example, half-Moroccan, half-Italian, a mix which meant it was unclear whether he could be deported – or where – under the uneasy state of EU laws at the time. He’d done eighteen months in Pentonville for sleeping with an underage girl, and hovered around Anna unattractively. One night when Spado had been allowed to sleep on the sofa in the front living room, he’d opened Anna’s bedroom door, unaware that Robert was in there, too. One of the reasons Robert wouldn’t stay in her flat any more was that he reckoned fairly soon either he would hurt Spado, or Spado would hurt him.

Anna complained when she came to his Camden Town flat for supper. ‘Spado says you were being hostile.’

‘Spado’s right.’

‘Oh,’ she said, as if she hadn’t considered such a possibility.

He did not hide his impatience. ‘Look, if you want to have this circle of creeps floating around you, that’s your business. I’m just not going to make it mine.’

‘That’s a harsh way to describe people who’ve had their rights violated.’

‘But entirely accurate, don’t you think?’

It was a critical moment between them. To his everlasting relief she had laughed. Then she caught herself. ‘It’s my job to look after these “creeps”, you know.’

‘It’s your job to look after their
rights
, and that’s all. The rest is a mug’s game. If you can’t see that, then God help you, Anna. Because I won’t.’

‘Won’t?’

‘Can’t.’

She thought about this, her face betraying no emotion until suddenly she crumpled. ‘But what should I do?’ she said, looking tearful. She added half-accusingly, ‘I thought you were different.’

‘Why? Because I didn’t run off right away? Or stick around and exploit you?’

She contemplated this and he thought she was about to get cross, but she seemed to decide against it. She wiped an angry hand against her nose, which perversely made her even more attractive. Sniffling slightly, she said, ‘Something like that. And because you were the only one who liked me more
after
you slept with me.’

‘I was just pretending to, so you’d sleep with me again.’

She laughed and reached out for his hand. He said, ‘Why don’t you stay here from now on? Make your flat your office if you must, but don’t sleep there any more.’

He imagined the objections forming in her mind. But to his surprise she said, ‘Are you sure?’

‘Positive.’

‘Last chance,’ she said warily, adding, ‘You may find I get on your nerves.’

‘I’m sure you will. But this way, you can only cheat on me under my nose.’

‘I haven’t cheated on you at all,’ she said, and looked teary-eyed again. ‘Big nose.’

So she’d moved in with him, and used her flat as a post collection depot and emergency refuge for her down-and-outs, though the latter usage tailed off once she wasn’t there to minister to them. It wasn’t that he’d wanted to run her life; it was just that he refused to become one more counter on a board game that had too many pieces and too few rules.

He could see that she was relying on him more than he on her, and did his best not to exploit the advantage, and to accept with gratitude rather than complacency her loyalty to him, which was something he found (though this was his problem, not hers) almost unbelievable. For there remained in him the childhood-bred conviction that it was only a matter of time before she would leave him, a prejudice born in childhood and unshakeable. Women let you down. Men probably did too, but he hadn’t ever loved a man that way.

In time this reflexive assumption of his would doubtless have started to damage their relationship, possibly even destroy it, as it had destroyed his relationships before – one marriage, several long-term girlfriends. It was a distrust that would have kept him from the essential closeness that allowed relationships, whatever their ups and downs, disagreements, boredoms, their occasional flurry of agitations, to survive. Yet this time, before the inevitable disintegration could occur, something happened. Sophie.

With Anna pregnant they got married, then sold their respective flats and bought a mortgage-laden house on Ainger Road in Primrose Hill, even then escalating in value with each new rock-star arrival. The smartest investment I ever made, thought Robert now, looking out at the playground from his office window. It had let them come here and make a fresh start, one which Anna seemed to be enjoying even more than him. And now, settled in this brash city, Anna had found her feet and then some.

Until now, it seemed, when the old gallimaufry life seemed to be reasserting itself, all Anna’s new calmness deserting her.

He knew he had to talk with Anna about Duval. However much he would prefer to let things lie, Robert was determined to put his foot down: he didn’t want Duval in the house, breaking bread at their table. It was starting to look to Robert as if Duval might well have been innocent, and he shared Anna’s mixture of excitement and anger over twenty-four wasted years. But helping Duval did not entail bringing him into the house, not as far as Robert was concerned. He didn’t want anyone else in his family.

Tonight, he would wait until Sophie had gone to bed, and then he would raise the matter. Maybe Anna and he could compromise on a picnic on Saturday, sit out in the yard while he barbecued chicken and hamburgers, convene at the picnic table after Duval finished the painting job. But not in the house.

6

It was high summer, but already the days were growing shorter. They never seemed that long to begin with; he had grown used to the northern latitude of England, the light fading out as late as ten o’clock. Chicago sat on the eastern edge of its time zone, and it was already dark at eight thirty when Anna came home this evening.

She had called to say she would be late again, and he had given Sophie supper – her new American favourite of sloppy Joes, some leftover minced beef in a barbecue sauce poured over a hamburger bun. He had been tempted to join her out of pique at Anna’s delay, but was determined not to sulk and made lamb chops for later, keeping them warm on the stove next to a vast pot of water on the boil for some pasta. He heard the front door open as he sat at the kitchen table, reading a local weekly paper, which was still alien even after almost a year. In the back yard he could just make out the pale penumbra of the fence’s new coat of paint.

‘I have to go to Washington next Thursday,’ she declared, before she had her coat off. ‘I’ll only be gone a night.’

‘That’s sudden,’ he said mildly.
Business or pleasure?
That was what he really wanted to ask.

‘Philip was supposed to go, but something’s come up and he asked if I’d go instead. I don’t have to do much, but all the consulates will be there, and we have to have a presence.’

‘Where are you staying?’

She seemed to hesitate. ‘I think it’s the Madison Hotel.’

‘How swanky. It’s quite a compliment they asked you.’

She shrugged, and taking the open bottle from the fridge, poured herself a glass of white wine. ‘I don’t know about that. Probably no one else was willing to go. Maggie Trumbull acted like I’d pulled the short straw. Two days in a hot room listening to Foreign Office functionaries boast about how well Atlanta’s doing.’

‘You’ve never been to Washington, have you? That will make it interesting.’

‘Not much time for fun; I have to have dinner at the embassy the one night I’m there.’

She seemed determined to paint the trip as a grind, so he wasn’t going to argue for a rosier picture. He took the chops from the top of the oven, drained the spaghetti, noting that he’d made too much, and put helpings on two of their bone-ware plates, along with a bowl of dressed lettuce. Placing them all on the table, while Anna riffled through the
New York Times
, he said, ‘Well, I’m glad it’s not this week anyway.’

‘Hmm?’ she said, eyes still on the paper.

‘I’m having drinks with the coach at his house on Thursday. Six o’clock. I should be home by eight. Hope that’s okay; it’s important I see him.’

‘That’s fine,’ is all she said. She put the paper down and drew her plate towards her. ‘This looks delicious.’

This time he did sulk at her lack of interest. She didn’t seem to notice his silence, for halfway through her chop she said, ‘I think I found out why Duval did so much time.’

Here it was – Duval – and before he’d brought it up himself. Still, he was curious. ‘Why?’

‘For parole, you need good behaviour and you need remorse. Especially remorse.’

‘That was a problem for Duval?’

‘Not the behaviour. The remorse. You can’t expect it from someone who says he didn’t do the crime.’ There was no gentleness in her voice.

‘Catch-18,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘That was the original title.’

She served herself some salad. ‘Spare me the literary allusions, just for once please.’

‘I didn’t know there were so many of them.’

She seemed about to speak, thought better of it, and shook her head wearily. He didn’t see how he could forbid Duval’s presence in the house on Saturday without provoking an explosive row. He thought about Anna’s discovery. Who would protest their innocence if it meant staying in prison for many more years, unless they were innocent?

‘So what’s the next step then?’ he asked.

‘For Duval?’

‘Who else?’ After all, she didn’t want to hear about Coach Carlson.

‘I think he needs to talk to professionals. I spoke today with a woman named Donna Kaliski at the Centre for Wrongful Convictions.’

There was a centre for that? It seemed injustice was big business these days, Robert thought, then felt he was being churlish. He had always admired people like Anna who spent their time helping people who’d been chewed up by a legal system that made its own victims.

Anna said, ‘She’s happy to meet with Duval, and I think she’ll try and overturn the conviction. I’m glad, because there’s not much more I can do.’ She almost hummed with the patness of this, but he simply didn’t believe she intended to walk away from Duval’s case.

‘Any more pasta?’ she asked.

He wanted to say no, since he figured if she could lie to him, he could lie to her. Maybe he was growing up at last, for he forced a smile and said, ‘Lots.’

7

The acquisitions meeting was held on Wednesday morning. Robert had chaired it since he’d arrived, taking over from Dorothy who had run it in the hiatus between Robert’s arrival and his predecessor’s departure. She had been loath to let go, but he had insisted, since he was determined from the start not to isolate himself from the small staff – there were fewer than twenty-five employees, and he let almost all of them attend.

This morning when he came in there was no sign of Dorothy and no one seemed to know where she was. He sensed a slight tension in the room; people weren’t joking as they usually did.

It was an even smaller agenda than usual – a couple of history monographs, a coffee-table history of Evanston that was being subsidised by the local historical society. Yes to one of the monographs. Maybe to another (sales wanted to check with a library or two), and a nod-through to the subsidised text.

‘Vacation beckons,’ he said cheerfully, before turning to progress. ‘How many of you are away for part of August?’ Half of them raised their hands, but there was something sullen in the way they responded. He resisted the temptation to try and lighten the mood. ‘Anything else?’ he said, gathering his papers.

Burdick, the production controller, who had been an ally from the start (probably because he clashed continually with Dorothy), raised a hand. ‘Someone said there’s a problem with the Carlson autobiography. Is that true?’

He turned half-instinctively to Dorothy’s usual seat, but of course she wasn’t there. Robert realised all eyes were on him, watching intently.

‘Hard to say. I’m seeing him soon. We’ll know better then.’