by Caro Fraser
‘I’m simply offering to help out. I do like the occasional weekend away from London, you know.’
‘Well, your offer is very kindly accepted.’ He poured her another glass of wine. ‘Do you think you could throw in a spot of gardening as well? The place could do with tidying up.’
Sarah gave a weak smile and took a gulp of wine. Child-minding and gardening, not to mention other attendant chores that a weekend at Stanton would bring. She sincerely hoped this was going to pay off in the long run.
By the time the weekend came, the frequent showers which had dogged the early part of the month had disappeared, and the weather was warm and sunny. Sarah drove to Stanton in fairly good humour, despite the fact that she had had to turn down a last-minute dinner invitation from Hugo. Still, plenty of time for amusements like that once she had achieved her aim. Being the wife of Leo Davies would bring money and enough spare time to indulge any number of fancies. When she finally reached Leo’s house, she had painted a delightful picture of her future life, one in which she and Leo lived free lives and in which Oliver didn’t figure too prominently.
By the time Saturday evening came, Sarah would cheerfully have obliterated Oliver from the picture altogether. She’d spent all day with him, while Leo worked on the case, and had discovered that keeping a lively toddler amused was an exhausting business. At half past six, when Leo abandoned work and gave Oliver a bath, Sarah slumped in an armchair with a drink. She thought regretfully of Hugo, and hoped he would keep. Was this all going to be worth it? There was no guarantee at the end of the day that it would pay off, and she couldn’t spend too many Saturdays like this. She felt so tired she didn’t think she could be bothered with sex later on. Besides, even with the ever-inventive and energetic Leo, it had become somewhat routine of late.
Leo came down with a clean and sweet-smelling Oliver in his arms, and found Sarah brooding over her gin and tonic. ‘You look exhausted. I’ll cook supper tonight.’ Sarah gave him a weary and grateful look, then hastily set her drink down as Leo put Oliver on her knee. ‘Just read to him for twenty minutes or so while I start cooking. He should be ready for bed soon.’ Leo turned as he reached the kitchen door. ‘Thanks for making a start on the garden. I’ve done most of what I need to do, so I should be able to help you tomorrow.’
Tomorrow, thought Sarah, as she turned the first pages of Thomas and the Magic Railway. She could hardly wait. Gardening, and looking after Oliver. Things at Stanton had certainly changed since that first wild summer she had spent here with Leo, James, and whatever like-minded friends Leo had cared to invite for weekend parties. Perhaps that was what parenthood did for you. In which case, Sarah decided, she was having none of it. She began to read aloud to Oliver, wondering what the crowd at the Met Bar were talking about right at that moment, and where they were going afterwards.
The following day was better, because Leo took Oliver for a walk to see some horses in a nearby field, leaving Sarah to read the Sunday papers for an hour or so. Then they had lunch at a pub in the village. It was only when they got back to the house that Leo discovered that Oliver’s supply of nappies had run out.
‘I’ll have to go to the supermarket in Oxford,’ he said. ‘The village shop will be closed by now.’
‘What about the nearest petrol station? They usually have things like that.’
‘Good idea. I won’t be long.’
When Leo had driven off, Sarah fetched a rug from the house, spread it out on the lawn, and plonked Oliver on it with some of his toys. The weather was gentle and warm. She stretched out and began to read A. A. Gill.
Melissa drove slowly up to the house and parked. No sign of Leo’s Aston Martin, just a small, red Fiat in the driveway. Perhaps she had the wrong weekend. But she had been watching his movements regularly, knew the pattern now. This was his weekend with his son, surely it was. Her heart began to thud thickly. The idea that he wouldn’t be here, that this would end in failure, was torment. She needed to feel that her planning and calculation were perfect, effective. She needed that sense of control. Above all, she needed, after all this time, to see him close to, in the flesh. It was like a physical hunger.
She got out of the car, went up to the house, and pressed the bell.
Sarah heard it from the garden, and got up, surprised that anyone should call. She ambled through the house, opened the door and saw a tall, middle-aged blonde woman, dressed in an immaculately tailored suit, with expensive accessories and abundant jewellery, standing on the doorstep. Sarah absorbed these details rapidly, noticing at the same time that the expression on the woman’s face was faintly wild and apprehensive. Melissa stared back in silence at the girl in T-shirt and jeans who had answered Leo’s door. Her mind raced with possibilities, and she had to will herself to calmness. This person was no one of significance. She couldn’t be. Not to Leo. She was just a child. She was no one.
Melissa’s manner became instantly poised and warm as she smiled at Sarah. ‘Hello – I’m a friend of Leo’s. I was in the neighbourhood and I thought I’d call. Is he in?’
‘No. He’s just popped out for a moment.’ She looked uncertainly at the woman, who seemed familiar. Should she invite her in? ‘Don’t I know you?’
‘Melissa Angelicos.’ She was gratified by the instant flash of recognition in the girl’s eyes. ‘May I wait, if he won’t be long?’
‘Of course,’ responded Sarah, sufficiently impressed by Melissa’s sophisticated bearing and media status. If she was a friend of Leo’s, she couldn’t leave her on the doorstep. She ushered Melissa into the house. ‘Come through to the garden. Oliver’s playing out there.’
‘Are you the nanny?’ asked Melissa with lofty kindness, as they crossed the lawn.
‘That’s right.’ Sarah replied without hesitation, and smiled. There was something about this expensively dressed, carefully made-up woman that told Sarah it would be better all round if she remained under this delusion.
‘So this is darling Oliver!’ Melissa knelt gingerly on the rug, high heels splayed out behind her, bracelets clinking, and stretched out her hands towards Oliver. Oliver regarded her thoughtfully, then put out his hand to touch the bracelets. Melissa slipped a couple off and gave them to him. Oliver turned them round in his small hands, then put them to his mouth, staring at Melissa once again. ‘I’ve seen him before, of course, but this is the first time I’ve met him. Isn’t he like his father?’
‘Mmm.’ Sarah rumpled her hair with her hands and sighed inwardly. She hoped Leo would get back soon. For some reason, she didn’t much care for Ms Angelicos. ‘Would you like some tea or coffee?’ she asked Melissa.
‘Tea would be lovely. Do you have any Earl Grey?’
‘I’ll have a look,’ said Sarah, and went to the kitchen. As she reached the door, she glanced back at Melissa, who was now sitting on the rug, as comfortably as her tight Chanel skirt would allow, and trying to entice Oliver on to her lap. As Sarah poked around in the cupboards for tea, she heard the sound of the front door opening and closing. Leo came into the kitchen.
‘Whose car is that?’ he asked, his voice tense. Sarah glanced at him in surprise.
‘A friend of yours - that TV presenter, Melissa whatsit. Said she was passing and thought she’d drop in. Do we have any Earl Grey tea?’
But Leo was striding out into the garden with a face like thunder. Sarah went to the kitchen door. When he reached the rug, Leo leant swiftly down and grabbed Oliver from Melissa’s arms. Oliver began to wail and the bracelets he had been holding dropped from his hands onto the rug. Over Oliver’s crying, Sarah could hear Leo tearing into the Angelicos woman like a man possessed. She actually flinched as she caught his words, and then her mouth dropped in horror as she saw Melissa, still kneeling on the rug, catch Leo round his legs in a beseeching rugby tackle. He backed off with Oliver in his arms, almost falling over, and at this, Sarah ran out into the garden to help. By this time Melissa was weeping as well as Oliver, scrabbling frantically at Leo as she trie
d to get up from the ground. Sarah took Oliver from Leo and watched as Leo, grabbing Melissa by the arm, pulled her up and marched her round the side of the house. He reappeared a few moments later, and was crossing the lawn towards Sarah and Oliver when Melissa, too, reappeared round the side of the house. The thing looked farcical. With a roar, Leo turned on Melissa. This time, when he marched her back round to the front of the house, he succeeded in getting her into her car. Sarah carried Oliver, whose sobs had subsided, through the house and watched the rest of the pantomime from the drawing room window. Melissa was sitting in her car, wiping her face with a tissue.
‘Go on, leave!’ Leo shouted.
Melissa sat weeping in her car.
‘Will you for Christ’s sake get out? Go!’
Minutes passed, but Melissa just sat there in her car. In exasperation, Leo slammed into the house and went to the phone.
‘What are you doing?’ asked Sarah.
‘I’m ringing the police. What on earth possessed you to let that bloody woman into my house? Don’t you know she’s a lunatic?’
‘Of course I don’t know! She said she was a friend!’ replied Sarah indignantly.
‘Right, so every stranger who turns up at my house claiming to be my friend, you’ll invite them in – is that it?’
‘Of course not! I knew who she was, she seemed all right. Why are you blaming me?’
‘Because—’ Leo broke off as the phone was answered at the other end. Sarah listened as Leo explained the ludicrous situation, striving to maintain his temper. ‘Well, no, she’s not doing anything threatening. She’s just sitting there. But I want her off my property. The woman’s been stalking me for the last two months, for God’s sake … Right … right. Thank you.’ He put the phone down. ‘They’ll send someone round.’ He ran his fingers through his hair. ‘The point is, Sarah, that woman is potentially dangerous. And you left her alone with Oliver.’
Sarah handed Oliver to Leo. ‘I’ve had about enough. I’ve been skivvying for you all weekend, and I get blamed for a situation which has nothing at all to do with me. Do you think it’s reasonable to expect me to know which of your friends is mad? I think I’ll head back to London now, if you don’t mind.’
She left the room, watched by Oliver and Leo. Leo sat down, feeling the trembling of spent anger in his limbs, holding Oliver close against him, kissing his soft hair. Something in the urgency of his embrace caused Oliver to look up at his father in wonder. Leo met his eyes and smiled, amazed by the force of emotion he felt as they looked at one another. If only all love could be as unquestioning, so entirely pure, he thought. The devotion he felt for his son was the most perfect and enduring he had ever known. The idea that any harm should ever come to him was worse than anything he had ever contemplated in his life. Leo sat cradling his son, his eyes fixed on Melissa’s car, still in the driveway.
Next day in chambers, Leo recounted the episode to Michael Gibbon. Michael had known from the very, beginning about Melissa’s harassment, and Leo found it a relief to confide in someone about the latest events. ‘So what happened in the end?’
‘Oh, eventually they persuaded her to put the window down, then they just talked to her for a while, and she drove off.’
‘The whole thing’s gone a bit too far, if you ask me. What are you going to do about it?’
‘Well, up till now I’ve been reluctant to do anything drastic. We do have a certain business relationship, with the trusteeship of Chay Cross’s museum, and taking out an injunction hasn’t really seemed appropriate. But I think that’s what I’m going to have to do.’
‘I don’t see that you have any alternative, now that it’s gone beyond letters and emails.’ Michael moved away from the bookcase in Leo’s room where he had been leaning and glanced at his watch. ‘I’d better let you get ready for court.’
There was a light knock at the door, and Camilla looked in. ‘Ready for the fray?’
Leo rose from his chair and picked up his robing bag. ‘As I’ll ever be. Let’s go and do battle with the deputy chairman of Lloyd’s.’
In the clerks’ room two days later, Henry was watching Felicity out of the corner of his eye as she talked on the phone. He could tell from the way she swivelled her chair away from the rest of the room that it was personal, and he could tell from the glimpse he caught of her smile that it was this new man of hers. She’d never mentioned him – she didn’t have to. Henry knew Felicity well enough to read all the signs. Out every other lunchtime, humming happily when she worked, and that particular light in her eye … He was gut-churningly jealous. He tried not to be, but he couldn’t help it. And what about Vince? Poor bloke probably didn’t have a clue that he was being two-timed, hanging about in prison, waiting for his trial date. Henry had never thought he’d feel sorry for Vince, but he did now. But this was what women were like. Henry told himself he was probably lucky he’d never got involved with someone like Felicity, if this was what she did. He tried to console himself with this thought, but it wasn’t much help in the face of Felicity’s patent infatuation with whoever-it-was.
Felicity put the phone down and glanced at her watch. Two hours till lunchtime, when she would see Peter. The way she felt about him was still a marvel and a revelation. Even the prospect of seeing him for a snatched, one-hour lunch was enough to make her day. Well, not quite. Tonight was her night for visiting Vince, and with each week that passed she dreaded the visits more and more. A few weeks ago, when she had realised that her feelings for Peter were really serious, that it wasn’t just a passing fling, she had resolved to tell Vince. But when she had gone to the remand centre that evening, he had just heard that his mother was in hospital after a heart attack, and he seemed so low, and so much in need of her, that she couldn’t say anything. It had gone on like that. Each time she went, the guilt got worse, and so did her sense of emotional detachment. She felt nothing much for Vince any more. Not just because the situation he was in seemed so pathetic and hopeless – she still felt intensely sorry for him – but because what she felt for Peter was so different, so much more romantic than anything she and Vince had ever had. Peter seemed to care about her in a way in which Vince never had. Not only that, he had opened her eyes to possibilities in life which she hadn’t appreciated before. He took her to places, clubs and expensive restaurants that she never knew existed. She liked being shown how to spend money well. Particularly now that she had plenty of it. The amount she was earning now was fantastic for a girl of her age. Peter had recently suggested to Felicity that she should look for a bigger flat in a better part of London. He even pointed out clothes and shoes in magazines and suggested she buy them, change her image. In the time she’d known Peter, Felicity had begun to form a new concept of herself, and her worth. At the end of the day, the kind of person she now wanted to become, and the lifestyle she had begun to adopt, were as remote from Vince and his ideas of life as Belmarsh was from Notting Hill. Which, it so happened, was where Felicity was thinking of buying a new flat.
But tonight had to be faced. She wondered how many more visits she would be making in the future. On the last visit, Vince had told her his trial date had been fixed for the 27th of May. Felicity had thought this news might focus and energise him, bringing as it did some prospect of hope and change, but it just seemed to make him more dispirited. She would make no decision about how and when to tell Vince about Peter until the trial was over. Whichever way it went, whether he was acquitted or found guilty, she had to tell him. Of course she hoped, for Vince’s sake, that he would be acquitted. But she had to acknowledge to herself that it was a possibility she dreaded. That was the worst and most selfish thing of all.
Robert’s voice interrupted her thoughts, calling over to her that he had someone on the phone who wanted to know when Jeremy Vane would be back in chambers.
‘I think his plane gets in midday on Monday, but whether or not he’ll come in that day, I don’t know. Hold on, I’ll check in his diary.’ She tapped away at the keyb
oard, and cheered herself with the thought that she would see Peter in just a couple of hours’ time.
All that week and the following week, as April turned to May, Lloyd’s introduced one witness after the other, and Leo cross-examined them. The case was not one which called for theatricality or devastating displays of advocacy. The pace was leisurely and the atmosphere almost stultify-ingly polite. Even so, thought Camilla, as she watched Leo put a former deputy chairman of Lloyd’s through his paces, Leo knew how to turn the screws: Gerald Ruddick, a plump, prosperous man now in comfortable retirement, had been sworn in that morning and had seemed affable and confident at the beginning of his cross-examination. Now, mid afternoon, his smile had long since faded, and he seemed flustered and ill at ease. He had made much play of searching through the papers before him for information with which to reply to Leo’s questions, but now gave up and answered them baldly.
‘Let’s go back to 1981,’ said Leo, ‘where sometime in the future it was within possible contemplation that there might be thirty thousand asbestos claims. What would bring home the risk of that range to me, as a person, a prospective Name, applying to join?’
‘Well,’ replied Ruddick, ‘only, I suppose, if your members’ agent had knowledge about it and decided he was going to inform you.’
‘So if my members’ agent either didn’t inform me or had no such knowledge, as a prospective Name I just wouldn’t know. Is that right?’
‘No, you wouldn’t know, but then you wouldn’t know exactly what your exposure to earthquake was either. All you would be told was that joining Lloyd’s was a risky business.’
‘Indeed. But there’s a distinction between an earthquake and asbestosis, isn’t there? Unless an earthquake had happened, it would only be a contingency, wouldn’t it?’ Leo gave Ruddick the most charming of smiles, leaning forward a little as he spoke. I love him when he does that, thought Camilla, her eyes fixed on Leo’s face. She could watch him for hours.
