An Immoral Code

by Caro Fraser

  ‘We could stay in, if you’d rather. Get a takeaway, go back to bed, watch a movie … do lots of interesting things.’ She kissed his throat where his shirt was still unbuttoned.

  Anthony looked at her, and realised that his mood had been altered by the small incident of the cocaine. It was not that he disapproved, it just didn’t interest him. He generally thought less of people for doing it, although he knew that was unfair. Whatever it was, he no longer had any desire to stay in with her. He felt that the pleasant intimacy of the past hour had been dissipated, and they might as well go to the party.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘I’d rather go out.’

  At the party, Sarah compensated for her dented ego by behaving with carefree ostentation. She drank too much, smoked a couple of joints just to show Anthony that she didn’t care, and danced in a manner bordering on indecency with a good-looking Italian in snakeskin shoes which Anthony thought were the last word in rotten taste. He saw her as he wandered through from the kitchen with a drink, and watched, leaning against a wall. The music was heavy and insistent, the room was darkened, and someone had set up some fairly ineffective strobe lighting. Most of the people, it seemed to him, were in their late teens or twenties, and he felt he did not belong. He was too accustomed to spending time with people older than himself, and to moving in a more sophisticated world, to enjoy this kind of thing much. He preferred dinner with friends, or agreeable drinks parties where people could talk without having to shout over an insistent din, and drink and eat without being choked by cigarette smoke and jostled. There wasn’t any food here, either, except for a few sad little rectangles of cold pizza and some cheese cubes on a tray in the kitchen, and Anthony hadn’t eaten since lunchtime.

  The music stopped and Sarah came over to him, smiling and out of breath. ‘What about getting out of here and going for something to eat?’ he asked.

  ‘Why? Aren’t you enjoying it?’

  ‘I’m rather bored, if you must know. I didn’t even enjoy this kind of thing much when I was a student.’

  ‘God, Anthony, you must have been born middle-aged! Why don’t you dance with me?’ Some slow music had started up and Sarah put her arms around his neck and started to move sinuously against him. As they danced, Sarah suddenly noticed Camilla. She had just arrived and was talking to some people in the doorway. She looked a bit better than usual, thought Sarah, although that top she was wearing made her tits look enormous. At least she’d brushed her hair. Sarah smiled into Anthony’s shoulder. It was just a matter of timing, waiting until Camilla had seen them. She chose her moment, saw Camilla turn and glance in their direction, and she raised her mouth to Anthony’s and kissed him at some length, running her hands over his buttocks as she did so.

  Camilla hadn’t realised that Sarah would be at the party – she hadn’t seen her since that evening in the Edgar Wallace. But there she was, looking unmistakeably lovely. Then suddenly Camilla recognised the man whom Sarah was kissing, and her heart contracted with pain. It must have started that evening, when she introduced Sarah to Anthony in the pub – they must have been seeing each other for three weeks. So like Sarah, thought Camilla, trying to look away and pay attention to what someone was saying to her. Any man she wanted, she got. It had been like that at Oxford. She slept with whomever she chose, and although Camilla had always been brought up to believe that that was the way you got a bad name for yourself, it never seemed to affect Sarah. She wasn’t seen as an easy lay, but as someone who knew what she wanted and just took it. Camilla wondered whether Sarah and Anthony slept together, and this prompted a painful image which she immediately tried to push from her mind.

  The music ended, and Sarah glanced innocently in Camilla’s direction. ‘Oh, look, there’s Camilla,’ she said brightly.

  ‘Really?’ asked Anthony, turning. Because she was Jeremy’s pupil, Anthony always thought of Camilla as a sort of schoolgirl, and he didn’t really expect to see her at parties. It was ridiculous, he realised, considering she was twenty-two. Seeing Anthony looking in her direction, Camilla lifted her chin and smiled. Anthony, with Sarah at his side, crossed the room to talk to her.

  ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Nice to see you out of office hours.’

  Camilla could feel her face flushing, and wished that it was something she could prevent by exercise of sheer self-control. But she couldn’t.

  ‘Hi,’ she answered. ‘I didn’t expect – that is … I didn’t know you knew Lesley – I mean, you know, the girl whose party it is,’ said Camilla, wishing she could appear self-possessed and cool. She had so often fantasised about meeting Anthony by chance in some social situation like this, somewhere where she wouldn’t be wearing her fusty black suit from chambers, and could dazzle him with an as yet unseen image. And here it was happening, and she still felt awkward and naive, and Sarah stood smiling at his side.

  Anthony, a little surprised at the shyness of her manner, suddenly realised that she could have had no idea that he was seeing Sarah, and he felt a momentary awkward unhappiness. He had been unable to ignore the obvious fact that Camilla had something of a crush on him, and with mild conceit he acknowledged that it must be difficult for her to accept that he was going out with one of her friends. He was about to offer to fetch her a drink, when Sarah remarked, ‘That’s a pretty top. From Next, isn’t it? I’ve got one like it, but of course, you have the figure for it.’ The remark sounded entirely innocent, but Camilla felt instantly self-conscious, envious of Sarah’s fashionable, boyish figure.

  She could think of nothing to say, and so merely replied, ‘I’m just going to put this in the kitchen,’ holding up a bottle of wine which she had brought. She smiled uncertainly at them both and turned away.

  ‘Poor old Camilla,’ murmured Sarah. ‘You’ll always find her in the kitchen at parties.’

  ‘I don’t know why you say that,’ said Anthony. ‘She looks very nice – quite fanciable.’ And, indeed, he had been surprised at how pretty she looked. Very nice legs. He realised that he had never really thought of her as being female – pupils tended to be ciphers, and their place at the bottom of the pecking order in chambers prevented them from having properly developed personalities, so that one scarcely thought about them much at all. The tone of Sarah’s remark made him want to defend Camilla, because he liked her.

  Sarah laughed. ‘Am I supposed to feel jealous?’

  ‘You?’ said Anthony. He kissed her and realised he was still hungry, and that it was getting late. ‘Let’s go and get something to eat.’

  Quite content to have rubbed Camilla’s nose in the fact of her relationship with Anthony, Sarah agreed. Anthony got their coats and waited in the hallway while Sarah said protracted, air-kissing farewells to friends. Camilla was trapped in conversation in the kitchen with a short, sweaty criminal barrister who had pursued her all through Bar School year, and to whom she had not the heart to be unkind. She glanced out and saw Anthony leaning against the front door, patiently waiting for Sarah. He yawned and then looked in her direction. Their eyes met, and he smiled at her, then raised his eyes heavenwards. She smiled broadly back, happiness spreading throughout her whole being at this wordless, conspiratorial exchange. Maybe he wasn’t in love with Sarah, really. And, anyway, the fact that he could share his impatience with Sarah’s luvvie leave-takings showed that he regarded her as a friend, a proper friend. She was still smiling as she turned back to the persistent young man and his account of his recent success at Snaresbrook Crown Court.

  Anthony and Sarah found a cheap Italian restaurant a few streets away. Sarah was a little drunk from the party, and by the time she and Anthony had shared a bottle of wine over a plate of pasta, she had that languorous, utterly relaxed hunger that only sex could satisfy. Anthony paid the bill, and as the waiter disappeared she smiled at Anthony and said, ‘Why don’t we go back to my flat and start where we left off? I feel incredibly randy just looking at you.’

  ‘I’d love to, but,’ sighed Anthony, ‘I have to go home and get s
ome sleep before tomorrow.’ His mind was already focused on the work that he and Leo would have to do the next day, and he was in that singular, purposeful frame of mind where not even Sarah’s provocative charms could touch him.

  ‘Oh, come on,’ she said, leaning her head on her hand. ‘You can sleep at mine. Afterwards, that is.’

  The table at which they were sitting was small, small enough for Sarah to reach a hand below the table, take one of Anthony’s, and slide it between her thighs. The restaurant was practically deserted, and Anthony had not the strength of will to draw his hand away. As his fingers stroked the damp warmth of her crotch his insides dissolved, and his good intentions almost deserted him. Then he thought of how he would feel the next day if he didn’t get enough sleep, how his inability to concentrate would irritate both himself and Leo. He took his hand away and shook his head.

  ‘I’m going home.’

  Sarah’s desire to be made love to now combined with a fierce wish to have her own way. She was not accustomed to being turned down in this manner, and for such a reason.

  ‘You mean I’m not as important as a piece of work? Not as important as your wondrous Leo, and his good opinion?’ she asked, her tone sullen.

  Anthony had turned away to look for the waiter, anxious to retrieve his credit card and leave. Now he turned back to her, looked at her without expression, and said simply, ‘Not right at this moment, no.’ He did not intend to be rude. But she had asked a question, and he gave a short answer. He knew that his offhandedness had something to do with the fact that she had spent a small part of the meal bitching about Camilla, which he hadn’t liked, and also with his own growing sense of fatigue. He looked impatiently round for the waiter again.

  ‘If he’s so important to you, I’m surprised you don’t sleep with him as well,’ snapped Sarah, then added, ‘Or maybe you already do.’

  Anthony froze, but said nothing, and at that moment the waiter returned with his card. When he had gone, Anthony, without even glancing at Sarah, said, ‘Listen, I don’t need this. Why don’t you just go home and sleep off your bad temper? Or maybe you could take some more coke to cheer yourself up.’ The slight contempt in his voice roused a kind of impotent fury in her. She rose, snatching her coat from the back of the chair.

  ‘Don’t bother to find me a taxi,’ she said, her voice icy. ‘I can do it myself.’ And she left, a gust of cold air blowing in through the swing doors. Anthony sighed and slipped his credit card into his wallet, then put on his coat, musing on her extraordinary volatility. It hadn’t been evident when they first met, but now they were getting to know one another a little better, certain raw truths were beginning to surface. He stood thoughtfully for a moment or two, then left the restaurant, turning up his collar against the cold air. He glanced up and down the pavement. She was nowhere in sight, and he realised with guilt that he felt faintly relieved.

  The following morning at half past seven, Anthony locked his car and made his way across the cobblestones to Caper Court. The Temple was still deserted, the stately buildings silent, not yet filled with the industrious bustle of clerks and barristers going about their day. From a distance came the hum of early traffic in Fleet Street, and somewhere a City church clock chimed as the sun’s first watery rays parted the faint mist which lay over the lawns of Inner Temple Gardens and hung in the bare branches of the trees lining King’s Bench Walk. Anthony surveyed his tranquil surroundings, aware that his spirits were lower than they should be. The business of Sarah had been preying on his mind. He had thought about her as he drove into work, having changed his mind about ringing her first thing to apologise. He had nothing to apologise for. He had been seeing her for three weeks now – not long, certainly, but long enough in his books to know that he would never love her. That depressed him. Anthony had a natural propensity for falling in love, and an insatiable liking for the tenderness and intimacy which it brought. Last night had made him realise that there would be none of that with Sarah. She was not tender. She was not, he thought, particularly kind. She was wonderful in bed, and he often wondered where she had acquired certain of her more inventive techniques, but he did not think of her company as restful or easy. What had started off as a purely physical attraction had failed to turn into love, or even affection, and Anthony knew that once he began to tire of sleeping with her the whole thing would become worthless. It had happened to him so often before, and it disheartened him to know that the pattern was repeating itself yet again.

  He passed through the archway and under the two small cherry trees which grew in the courtyard, and let himself into chambers. From thinking about Sarah in this way, he found his thoughts straying to Rachel. She had possessed a gentleness and openness of heart which Sarah so singularly lacked. Perhaps that was what had attracted Leo to her. Although Anthony had reconciled himself to the business of Leo being married to someone with whom he himself had once been in love – whom Leo had effectively taken from him, in fact – he still could not think of her without a faint sense of pain. It was just as well he hadn’t seen her for months, although for some reason the fact of having Sarah in his life made him think of her more often than before. Possibly he could not help making comparisons. Then again, at least Sarah had never shrunk from him physically, the way Rachel had. As he mounted the stairs to his room, he recalled the embarrassment and clumsiness of those encounters. They were a far cry from Sarah’s expert and ardent caresses.

  He knew that Leo was already in chambers, having seen his car in the car park, and decided to make them both a cup of coffee before they got on with the day’s work. He went through to the little kitchen and found the sink was half-filled with scummy water and stacked with unwashed mugs, not a clean one in sight. Cursing Felicity, Anthony drained the sink and ran fresh hot water, into which he squirted a little detergent. Glancing around at the small, grubby space, he decided that Roderick was right. These chambers were cramped, they were outgrowing them. They were taking on two new juniors in a month’s time, he himself was thinking of taking on a pupil next year, and there simply wasn’t going to be enough room for everyone. Sighing, he took the two cups of coffee he’d made up to Leo’s room.

  Leo was sitting back in his chair with his feet on the desk, a file of papers in his lap. He looked up over his half-moon spectacles as Anthony came in.

  ‘Good man.’ He took his feet off the desk and leant forward to take the mug from Anthony, then yawned. ‘I’ve just spent an hour reading through the statements of some of our Names.’

  ‘Why? You don’t have to, you know. Leave that to the solicitors.’ Anthony settled into one of the chairs opposite Leo’s desk and sipped his coffee.

  ‘Wrong, Anthony. It’s one thing to stand up and say that our Names had no knowledge of how bad affairs were in 1985, and so could not have been expected to make a claim, but it’s quite another to believe it. It’s quite interesting getting a perspective on just how much some of them knew, and how little others did. Mrs Hunter, for instance’ – Leo flipped the pages of a blue-backed document with his thumb – ‘comes across in conversation as someone who joined Lloyd’s without having the first idea what she was going into. In fact, she probably read and understood the annual accounts and Capstall’s letters more thoroughly than most of the businessmen on this syndicate. She’s pretty sharp.’ Leo dropped the documents onto the pale polished surface of his desk and picked up his coffee. ‘And of course,’ he added after a moment, ‘it’s useful to get an idea of the kind of people one’s acting for. Greedy fools, largely, so far as one can see.’

  ‘That’s a bit hard,’ said Anthony. ‘You have to have some sympathy, surely.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Leo. ‘I accept that Capstall made some absolutely disastrous decisions, that he simply turned a blind eye to the way asbestos claims were piling up in the States. I suppose, when he started to write these run-off policies, he hoped that the claims would only arise over a very long period and that he could make a profit in the meantime f
rom investment income. That was rash in the extreme. But these people went into Lloyd’s with their eyes wide open. No one lied to them. They understood perfectly well that their liability would be unlimited.’ Leo picked up the papers from his desk and flipped through the pages. ‘Listen to this. “I was reasonably aware from the early eighties of the working of the Lloyd’s market and I understood the concept of unlimited personal liability.” And again, “The concept of unlimited liability was explained to me when I joined Lloyd’s. I treated Lloyd’s as an investment and believed my agents were good, efficient and honest.”’

  ‘Well, there you are,’ said Anthony. ‘Every one of them thought Capstall knew what he was doing, that anything he did would be in their best interests. That’s why they all feel as they do. They put their trust in Capstall – in the institution of Lloyd’s, if you like – and they were let down in ways that they never expected.’

  ‘Then they were simpletons,’ said Leo dismissively, and dropped the papers back on his desk. ‘Each and every one of them thought it was a way to make easy money, and I have no sympathy for people who are prepared to gamble not only their own futures, but those of their families as well.’

  ‘Oh, come on,’ said Anthony, growing a little heated. ‘It’s one thing to say that they went into it with their eyes open, but no one told them the real truth. You yourself accept that the scale of the asbestos claims was foreseeable as far back as the seventies, that there were really serious problems facing the market by the eighties. But nobody told these people that. All those managing agents and members’ agents were only interested in getting their commission and recruiting as many people as they could. Half of the people they brought into the syndicates had no business being Lloyd’s Names. Look at that poor sod Carstairs, for instance.’