by Jo Kessel
“Actually, he came back last night.”
“Only two days out then.”
“No, you’re not out at all. He came back early.”
“Oh sweet. How come?”
“To surprise me.”
‘What the FUCK are you doing here’, I think were my first, precise words, when I realised the strange man in the beanie hat was in fact Adam. That quickly progressed into hysteria, raised voice laying into him for not warning me of his imminent arrival, for scaring me so and letting it go far enough for me to fear a very real tete-a-tete with a burglar. I eventually calmed down. We hugged, he apologised, saying he wanted to surprise me, not upset me. He thought I’d be happy. I assured him that I was happy, just shocked, and to ignore my tantrum. He was being lovely and didn’t deserve a grumpy girlfriend. Oh, and then I had to lie. He asked why I was back so late and I said it was a works do.
“So,” he said, once we’d kissed and made up. “I know it’s late, but am I back in time?”
Jesus, I panicked. Did he know?
“How do you mean?” I asked.
“You know, have I got my timing right?”
I hadn’t a clue what he was going on about.
“Timing right for what?”
His expression hinted that I’d lost the plot.
“Come on Ali. You made such a song and dance about it.”
It slowly dawned on me what he was getting at and, although I’d thought about it at the beginning of the month, for the first time in well over a year, I’d not thought about it at the actual time. Well, not until that moment.
“Oh, um, yes,” I stuttered. “I suppose so.”
I didn’t react quickly enough. I should have said it was too late.
“Some enthusiasm Ali. Your sex stallion’s just cantered all the way from fucking America to make it home on time,” he joked.
He pulled me towards him and surprisingly, my body responded. So we went up to the bedroom where, for the second and last time that night my clothes came off and where, again, my pink panties were remarked on. I was ticked-off, light-heartedly accused of being a big, fat coward, waiting for Adam to go away before plucking up the courage to wear those knickers. It showed my weakness in all its glory, because I knew how he felt about them. Then they came off. I, of course, tell Neeta none of this.
“Well, he must be doing something right, that man of yours,” says Neeta, sucking her second malteser. I’m already onto my fifth. “Like I said earlier, you’re looking pretty damn fabulous. You’ve found a good one, Ali. I’ve always said that about Adam. Make sure you hold onto him.”
She picks the little statuette up off her table, and goes to place him tenderly next to my keyboard.
“Hey Ganesh, how about a double wedding on New Year’s Eve?”
MAY
Chapter 14
“Oh my God,” I clap a hand over my mouth in amused horror. “So, what on EARTH did you say?”
It’s Tuesday morning. Anthony’s a good raconteur. He’s been telling me all about his grandmother’s funeral. The send-off of a wonderful, spirited and philosophical woman in her late eighties, who had endured highs and lows, hardship and hedonism, healthy till the end, passing on as most of us would desire, peacefully, whilst sleeping. His father’s mother, a white South African with staunchly black politics, she’d left everything she knew to join family in England, way before the world apartheid movement began in earnest. The day had been a fabulous celebration of a life lived to the brim, with few regrets. Mourners had shared memories of a beautiful lady over drinks and nibbles at Anthony’s parents’ home south of the river. Reggie, however, a 90-year-old former naval officer sporting full medal regalia, took the concept of sharing a little too far. Perked up by a couple of whiskeys, he was confiding to Anthony that at events like this, oldies like him have a good look round the room wondering who will be next, when something came shooting out his mouth, landing in Anthony’s glass of champagne with a fizz. On inspection the object was identified as a set of upper dentures, fake enamel already dangerously effervescing.
“Come on,” I urge again. “Tell me. What did you say?”
“I said ‘swap’ and offered him my drink!”
We laugh into a natural silence. I had been thankful to his grandmother, over the weekend, for the timing of her moving on. Had Anthony come into work last Friday, I may have felt differently, things could have got more out of hand. As it was the weekend gave me time for some personal reflection. We bickered a lot Adam and I, unusual for us, but the more time we spent together, the more I looked into his nice face, his trusting eyes, the more the guilt rose to the surface. I was rotten to the core. If Adam only knew he would never forgive me and quite frankly, he deserved better. Instead of being nice to him, for some reason I kept picking inconsequential fights. He’d gone and spent two thousand quid on a new guitar because he’d decided to have lessons and I laid into him about how he should have got a second-hand model from a charity shop until he was sure it wasn’t just a phase. And when he was glued to some snooker competition on the box instead of mowing the grass, which he’s been promising to do since last Autumn, well, I lost it. Voices were raised, the television was turned off and the grass did get cut, but there was an atmosphere, a tension. I made up for it by taking him out to dinner, by making him breakfast in bed, by winning him a giant crocodile on the coconut shy at the fair. Walking along, hand in hand, crunching toffee apples, I was reminded me of how much we had, of how real our relationship is, of how much there was to lose, of how pathetically weak I’d been. I had resolved to tell Anthony that it was too complicated, that it should stop now before somebody got hurt, before it went too far. That was then. Not that I’ve changed my mind, but in his presence, him perched casually on my desk, me standing close to his side, alone in my office, the chemistry is taking hold, an invisible smoke of lust and temptation. It’s only nine in the morning, far too early for this kind of stuff, but my every bone, my every organ, all of me suddenly feels all of how it felt lying there, naked together. I inhale slow and deep, his subtle scent, musk and masculine, stirring up memories I’d vowed to shelve.
I clear my throat in the vain hope it will clear my head.
“You know, we really need to talk ab-
“Yes, I know,” he interrupts. “Scott Richardson. Sorry, I should have asked sooner.”
“Oh, um, yes, um, right,” I stutter, slightly thrown, although I shouldn’t be. We do, and ought to catch up. I drag my brain from the half-planned speech it was ready to launch into, back to work mode.
“Actually there is something I wanted to discuss. I’m getting nowhere with this Cameron Matthews, however much probing I do, so I thought I’d drop by Scott’s flat this afternoon, for an informal chat.” I screw up my face, raise my eyebrows and freeze, preparing to be ticked off. “It’s a bit unorthodox, I know,” I continue, in light of Anthony’s lack of response, “but I don’t know. I thought maybe on his territory, home turf so to speak, I might get a bit further.”
In truth I’m loath to go round to his flat. It’s a measure of how desperate I am to win this case.
Anthony scratches his head, distracted.
“I’m sorry. It’s probably the last thing you feel like talking about,” I apologise.
“No, no,” he smiles. “I think it’s a great idea, although you shouldn’t really be going alone.”
“Listen,” I start. I mean, Jesus, I’ve got to work with this guy. There’s a lot at stake here. He’s senior counsel on a case I really don’t want to fuck up. What the hell was I thinking getting involved in the first place? An end must be put to this. “We really need to-
Neeta waltzes in. “Hey you two,” she trills, slipping out of her raincoat, hanging it on the stand by the door. Anthony gets up to leave, despite Neeta’s protestation that he shouldn’t do so on her account. Oh well. Now probably wasn’t the right time for our little talk anyway.
***
There are certain things I
don’t like to do alone – walk through an empty park or alleyway, watch horror movies, drink wine, drive through Kings Cross at night. Visiting Scott Richardson’s flat can now be added to the list. There’s nothing too offensive about the apartment itself. It’s on the top floor of a gothic looking house on a pleasant enough, trendy Kensington Road, a few streets behind Portobello. It’s large and lofty, blessed with high ceilings and sloping eaves. The lighting is soft and relaxing. Uniformly painted to a high spec throughout, walls a deep cream, white ceilings, it’s a well-appointed, luxury bachelor pad. The long living room, which is where I’m led, houses a dining table and chairs one end, a lounge area the other. The sofa is made miniscule by the insanely huge TV plasma wall opposite.
Despite weakly muttering that I don’t need any help, Scott’s quickly up close, taking off my coat. I swear I feel a finger trace down my spine, which makes me shiver, as my jacket slips effortlessly into his hands.
“May I use your bathroom?” I ask.
My bladder’s never responded well to nerves.
“Sure, first on the left,” he directs, hanging my coat up on a stand.
I try the first door on the left, but it’s locked with no key, which I find a little strange. I don’t dwell on it, however, and move on to the next door, which is indeed the entry to the toilet. There are a couple of framed snaps of Scott with beautiful, unidentifiable (to me) women, as well as two enlarged, mounted shots, both taken on the Look Who’s Talking set. One’s of Scott sitting next to Nelson Mandela. The other’s of him with ex page-three-girl- EE boob job-turned pop star Sahara. There’s also a thin, long rectangular photo in a wooden frame with Wellington College School written in Italics below. I quickly scan it, to see if I can detect which little maroon clad adolescent is Scott. A sea of spotty, unkempt teenagers, with their hopes still ahead of them, stares back at me. It’s easy to find my client. Even then he had that knowing look of control, a sense of his own destiny.
“So,” I say as I enter the galley kitchen adjacent to the lounge, where Scott’s got a pot of tea on the brew. “What was Nelson Mandela like?”
“Oh, yes, the loo gallery,” he laughs, slightly imperiously. “Well,” he pretends to think about it, as if it’s the first time that question’s ever been posed. It’s probably an interviewer’s trick, to make everyone feel special. “You know what, if I’d been granted one wish of meeting someone, whoever I wanted, I’d have picked him, so it was a real honour to have him on my show. And he didn’t disappoint. So many of them do. So many celebrities have become parodies of themselves, full of hot air and hyperbole, but Nelson was genuine and humble and inspiring and polite. And off camera he kept asking me stuff about myself, as if he were genuinely interested. And when you think about his life, what he’s achieved, what he’s been through. If only we could all be a hundredth of the man he is.”
I nod, impressed. Even if it is fake modesty, at least he’s giving humility a bash.
“And Sahara? Did she live up to your expectations?” I doubt it was her politics that interested him.
“Sahara lives up to my every expectation,” he says enigmatically.
It’s my job to note and register everything someone says. Even off duty, my brain’s on constant radar to pick up nuances, grammatical slips. It’s how to trip up witnesses in cross-examination, repeat something they’ve just said, even if they didn’t mean it or if it came out the wrong way, to get them flustered. So my ears pricked up the instant Scott used the present tense when talking about Sahara.
Scott hands me a mug. “Thank you,” I say, as we walk through into the lounge. “The school photo. I got you straight away.”
“You sure?”
He leads us back to the toilet, squeezing into the tiny room behind me, so horribly near that once again I feel hot air rings blowing intermittently on my neck and flare up in hives. Rammed up tight against him in the snuggest of rooms, the skin on my chest itching like heat rash, the horrific nightmare of Scott holding me in a neck-lock with a blade to my throat, flashes before me. The mirror ahead throws back the image of his bulbous nose and pointy chin. I cast my eyes down to the school photo, imagine my tea’s a triple whisky on the rocks and take a huge swig.
“There you go.”
I point to an extremely pretty looking boy, in the middle of the back row. Tall and golden, not a smidgen of acne or coarse skin in sight. He nods that I’m right.
“How old were you then?” I ask.
“Thirteen.”
“Tough age to be at an all-boys school,” I tease, trying to lighten my mood.
“Fear not. There was an all-girls school round the corner.”
“Cameron Matthews, is he here?”
“Yes, yes, he is, hold on,” his eyes travel back and forth along the rows. “After you first told me of his allegations I came back to check the picture, to see if we were really at school together. There’s a key on the back,” he adds, “otherwise I’m not sure I’d have recognised him. That’s him there.”
He points to a slightly overweight looking kid sitting cross-legged in the front. He has a flat, squashed fairly nondescript moon face with square NHS spectacles perched on his nose. His hair is brown and neatly combed with a side parting.
I soak up his image, trying to worm into the mindset of Cameron Matthews. If I’m to believe my client, and as his Barrister I must, then I need to work out Cameron Matthew’s motive for trying to frame Scott first for attempted murder and now for murder, going to the police with allegations even before Rupert died. Sex and money, in my experience, are the most common motivators.
“What does he look like now?” I ask.
“Well, he’s swapped the specs for contacts, his hairline’s receding and (Scott pats his stomach subconsciously) middle age spread’s got the better of him.”
Not like Scott then.
“Did you have any friends in common?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Are you still in touch with anyone from school?”
Maybe his friends will remember Cameron better, because Scott’s got no recollection whatsoever.
“Yeah, a couple of guys, but I haven’t seen either in ages. Just the odd e-mail, the yearly Christmas card, that kind of thing.”
“That’s a start,” I say, shifting my body carefully past his, making a beeline for the safety and space of the lounge. Some contact’s better than no contact. I’ll be following up all the leads I can get.
He pulls the most genuine, most charming of smiles, looking most boyish, most handsome, most benign.
***
Adam and I are enjoying pasta at our favourite Soho Italian, Pulcinella. I’d not hung around long at Scott’s and was about to head back to chambers when Adam called, to say he’d just been offered freebies to this new hit West End show and did I want to go. I didn’t hesitate. The more time I spend with Adam the better. There was no point returning to work, so we decided to meet at his office and grab a quick bite to eat before making our way to the Apollo on Shaftesbury Avenue.
“You look really beautiful,” Adam says, picking up a piece of French bread from the little basket on our table to soak up the residue of creamy sauce left in his bowl from his spaghetti carbonara. Adam always does that, when he’s finished his meal. If there’s no bread left on the table, he’ll usually ask for more.
“Oh shut up,” I say, taking my last mouthful of lasagne. I haven’t finished it. It’s just that I’ve had enough. I wasn’t particularly hungry in the first place. I haven’t felt in the mood for food since that night with Anthony.
“No, really. I mean it.” He looks at me intently, as if he’s never clapped eyes on me before. “You look different. I can’t work it out. Your skin, your hair, you look softer than usual.”
“Oh come on.”
I’ve never taken compliments well. I find it hard just to accept and say thank you.
He leans over, takes my hand in his. “I really love you Alison Kirk, do you know that?”
<
br /> I don’t deserve the loving way he’s looking at me. If this scene had taken place a month ago, I’d have been screaming inwardly ‘then marry me, ask me to marry you’. Now it’s just enough to know that I haven’t lost him. Yes, I’m attracted to Anthony and yes, if I were single I’d jump into bed with him again and again, but I’m not. I’m in a long-term relationship. We’ve got history. I know that he’s going to wipe his plate squeaky clean with bread. I know that first thing, when he gets up, he blows his nose with three loud honks. I know that he keeps a bottle of whisky by his bed for when he can’t sleep. I know that he likes to fiddle with ingrown hairs on his neck. It’s not all sexy, but it is comforting. We’ve got a future. I don’t want to jeopardise that. I sigh quietly, vowing to myself that tomorrow I will talk to Anthony.
