Suddenly the camera pans in on the man’s face. He has heard something. He listens. We, in the cinema, we listen too. We lean forward in our seats, all ears.
At first, nothing. The water tinkling, a bird breaking from a tree (by now we too are on the raft, down there alongside the hero). Then, there, there it is: a distant, constant roar. What could it be? What could that sound be?
Then everybody notices something about the river: the water: it has whitened and quickened, and the raft is really moving. The current, it is suddenly clear, is far too powerful for us to jump overboard or to steer ashore. Meanwhile the roar is growing louder and louder and the raft is travelling faster and faster towards it. Then camera closes in on the hero’s face, on his horrified, wide open eyes: it has dawned on him.
The camera withdraws to a safe spot up in the woods, whisking us away with it. Down on the raft, in the booming air, there is nothing the hero can do about anything. Inexorably his vessel is sucked towards the edge of the huge waterfall …
I shall stop that story at this point, because what happens next is irrelevant. The significant moment in it, as far as I am presently concerned, is that moment when we all realize that the hero is at the mercy of the muscular water, that he is being borne wherever it wills. So it was with the Donovan case. The trial date loomed like that roar downriver and an irreversible onrush drove us all towards it.
Now it may be objected that the comparison I have just drawn is misleading: the Donovan story may have been a drama, yes, but it was a real-life drama, utterly distinct from your picture show. But to that I say: it is not so simple, this distinction. Just as, at the cinema, there is the illusion that what you see is not just a fast series of consecutive photographs of, say, a foaming river, just as it can seem that the river is foaming right there in the auditorium, so the reverse can sometimes be true: sometimes, in real life, it can feel as though you are being flashed up on some screen, as though somewhere rows of eyes are drinking in your magnified actions. I once went to a play (Susan had bought the tickets, there was no way out of it) where, out of the blue, the actors ran into the stalls and began involving the audience in the action, grabbing us by the sleeves and forcing us to our feet. I did not know what was going on, whether I was a viewer or a participant or what. At times, these last months, to my confusion and exhilaration, it has been the same. And right now, looking back at it all from my desk, I feel like a movie goer as the touched-up, superreal action rolls before my eyes …
With the trial closing up on me, I embarked upon an analysis of how it might go and what tactics to employ. Usually one leaves these things to the last possible moment, but in this case I began my preparation well in advance. I did not want to be caught out by Donovan should he suddenly fire me some question. I fetched the pleadings from my file and looked again at the allegations.
Boiled down to its essence, Arabella’s complaint was that Donovan had cruelly degraded and neglected her.
The accusation of cruelty I found rather old-fashioned. The law had moved on since the days when a wife had to show cruel behaviour which threatened her health. It was an unwisely harsh allegation to make, I thought – all that a wife needed to show these days was behaviour on the part of the husband that would make any expectation of continued cohabitation unreasonable.
Still, the question of cruelty had to be gone into. What was meant by ‘cruel’? Some guidance was to be obtained, I saw, from the case of Le Brocq. Cruel means cruel, Harman CJ defined. I looked at the facts. The husband was found to be a morose and withdrawn man. This was not due to any wilful malice on his part but due to his ‘make-up’ – ‘his conduct flows from a personality for which he is unable to help himself,’ the judge held. It could not be described as cruel. Petition rejected.
That was a possible line of argument, I reasoned. Donovan may have ignored and therefore degraded Arabella, but he did so unwittingly. He could not help it that he was so absorbed in his thoughts, and surely you could not describe absent-mindedness as cruelty? Or could you? The categories of cruelty, another authority informed me, like the categories of negligence, are never closed. Nor was there any requirement of evil or malice, I read somewhere else. Confused, I looked at the dictionary definition of cruel: disposed to inflict pain, it said. Was an unmalicious disposition to inflict pain possible?
By this stage I was beginning to have difficulties in distinguishing and cohering all the various dicta on the subject, so I put away the books. Donovan would have the legal side of things wrapped up, there was no need for me to go into the matter too deeply. The facts, too, he would be on top of: had he not assured me that Arabella would be unable to prove her contention? The important thing was that I had identified the question which lay at the heart of the case: had Donovan been so preoccupied with his work and himself that it would be unreasonable to expect Arabella to live with him?
My money was on Michael Donovan. I knew my man. In a case like this one, a winnable case, he always did the business. But that is not to say that I relished the prospect of the trial. No, I feared the worst, I feared what Donovan might do to his wife during cross-examination. Donovan v. Donovan was a mismatch, and no sensible person could look forward to it.
Around Christmas-time most firms of solicitors hold an office party or a bash of some kind to mark the occasion. Batstone Buckley Williams is no exception, and just before the break everybody clears up their room and decks it out with the tinsels and shiny fripperies you always see at these sorts of festivities. Work stops early and the fun and drinking begins. Before long crackers, whistles and other items of revelry are in evidence, and as the evening progresses there is loud music and a disco.
I must confess that it is only after I have had a lot to drink that I feel entirely comfortable in the conical, brilliant hat which someone has insistently placed on my head, and that I am able to forget the redness of my face and the perspiration patch along my spine. And it is only then, when I have drunk enough to forget myself, that I am able to take to the dance floor, and even then it is only to participate in the communal dances – the ones where everyone holds the person in front of them by the waist and, having formed a tight, warm human centipede, we shuffled around the room cheering and singing. At moments such as this, in the midst of this joyous chain-gang, I am suddenly aware of how interlocked we all are at Batstone Buckley Williams and how integral and fortunate my position is there, and also how contented I am just to be around in the rowdy, glad night.
As a partner I am allowed to invite a handful of guests (preferably persons with some useful connection in the law). If Donovan and his father had not been abroad I would have considered inviting them, but as it was my thoughts turned to Susan. Poor Susan! Maybe she would appreciate an invitation, it was not often that she enjoyed a carefree night out … And then I abandoned the idea. I remembered our last meeting; I remembered that it might not be a bad thing to be unencumbered by a female partner at an office party (not that I had definite aspirations in that regard, but one never knew …). So in the end I finished up by asking Oliver Owen.
‘James, I must say that it’s very kind of you to think of me.’ Oliver sounded a little perplexed. ‘But I don’t think I’m free that night.’
I said, ‘Well, it would be nice to see you there, that’s all. Don’t worry if you can’t make it,’ I said. ‘I know how it is – family and all that.’
‘Exactly,’ Oliver said.
On the afternoon of the 23rd I packed up my things and watched as the Christmas tree was brought into the room. For some reason – maybe because of the twinkling view it affords of the Strand – my room always hosts the Christmas tree. This leaves me with the wearisome task of having to decorate it with the usual baubles and angels and electric stars. Luckily for me, June does not trust me with this important task and takes it upon herself to weigh down the tree with the trinkets. I am left to spray on the snow and to cover the drooping branches in glistening aluminium tassels.
As evening app
roached most people went home to change and eat something before the party, but I just popped out for a quick chickenburger and a glass of milk to line my stomach. When I returned to the office one or two people had started the celebrations, so I took up a position behind the drinks table and acted as barman. It is a job I am happy to do because it clarifies everything. Usually at parties my identity is fuzzy around the edges and it is unclear exactly how and where I come into things. When I am behind the bar, though, my role and my responsibilities are clear and there can be no mistake about what I am doing and why I am there: I am there to pour the drinks. This is not a negligible responsibility, and it must be said that I enjoy the status it confers upon me for the evening.
On this particular night things went particularly well. I fell into a nice rhythm of sloshing and mixing and icing and pouring and before long the party around me was in full, sweating swing. People were enjoying themselves and one ripple effect of this was that they were very friendly to me – perhaps even over-friendly. People I hardly knew roared with delight at the sight of me and pounded me on the back as I handed them their liquor. So when, at around eleven o’clock, I heard a voice shout out jovially, James! James, old boy! I barely took notice, I took it to be yet another of the exaggerated greetings I had been receiving that night.
‘Come on James, come on! You’re slacking!’ the voice cried. ‘Two bloody marys, pronto!’
When I saw it was Oliver and a friend I immediately wiped my right hand on my shirt and extended it.
‘Oliver!’ I said joyously. ‘Oliver! I thought you couldn’t make it! Here,’ I said, furnishing the two of them with big, red doubles, ‘knock these back, there’s plenty more.’
As I leaned over to hear what he was saying, Oliver suddenly let go of his glass, splashing my shirt with juice. He looked at me apologetically and grinned.
‘Shit,’ he said. ‘You’re going to have to top me up.’
I laughed. Oliver is a charming, if mischievous, drunk and it was no bother at all to replenish his glass. I was aglow with the encounter; there is nothing quite like unexpectedly running into an old friend.
‘Let me introduce you,’ Oliver said. ‘James Jones, meet my pupil, Diana Martin – the apple of my eye.’ Oliver said to her, ‘Did you know that James here was once in your shoes? So near we came to taking him on, and yet so far.’
I flushed. I tried to cover my face with my drink.
‘He washed his hands of us,’ Oliver said. ‘And how wise he was. Look at James, my child, indeed look around you, and learn: there is more to life than the Bar.’
We looked. On the floor a line of drunken men and women were pretending to be rowers. They were chanting and shouting and throwing objects – shoes, pens – at the ring of laughing onlookers. Usually such a spectacle – the sight of people so clearly enjoying themselves – would have warmed my heart, but this time I felt ashamed. I felt like disowning them.
‘Why did you turn down a tenancy?’ Diana asked me.
I looked at Oliver. He had placed me in an embarrassing situation.
I said, ‘Well, I didn’t exactly turn it down, not exactly …’
Oliver said to Diana, ‘Well, it’s a rather unfortunate story. You see, a vacancy arose, and James wasn’t around to take it up.’
I was confused. ‘Vacancy? What vacancy?’
Oliver was not listening. He was explaining to his pupil what had happened. ‘Just after James here had finished his pupillage, Lord Tetlow went to the Bench, and so there was an extra space in chambers. We tried to get hold of James to offer him the tenancy, but no one knew where he was. We tried everywhere; I remember manning the phone myself and ringing up every chambers in the Temple to get hold of him.’ Oliver put his arm around my shoulder. ‘No one thought of ringing up this firm, which is not surprising because no one had even heard of it. James?’ Oliver looked at me. ‘Are you all right?’
It rocked me: Oliver’s news knocked me off my physical equilibrium. It actually batted me across the head; my cranial nerves were signalling the same dizzy, tinny pain that I had felt once when, hurrying along my dark corridor at home (the telephone was ringing, there was no time to switch on the lights), I had walked straight into the edge of the half-open door and my skull had given off a great crack.
‘I’m OK,’ I said to Oliver. I said, ‘Look, excuse me, will you,’ and rushed off bent almost double.
The lavatory floor was wet with urine but I slumped down on it all the same. I had to, my legs could not hold me up. My whole body, in fact, felt liquid and powdery, and it suddenly came home to me that that was all I was made of, water and dust. That is not all: I also felt misshapen, mashed up. I felt like a cartoon animal that has fallen with a whistling noise down a mile-deep canyon to crunch face-first on the road at the bottom, only to be immediately mown down by a whizzing truck: flattened and splatted, my torso a pancake with tyre-patterns all over it.
On my knees, I vomited into the lavatory bowl. I must have stayed there like that, my head sunk in the bowl, for quite a while, because the next thing I became aware of was hammering and shouting at the door.
‘Open up!’ somebody was yelling. ‘What are you doing in there, open up!’
I got to my feet, wiped my mouth with my sleeve and went to the door. A bunch of people were waiting outside. I pushed past them and headed for the exit.
‘Gross!’ a man shouted. ‘Look at that puke! Gross! Jones, you’re sick!’
I caught a cab and crashed out as soon as I got home. I did not even bother taking off my clothes or pulling back the duvet; I just kicked off my shoes and slumped out on the bed. I was floored.
The next day, Christmas Eve, I spent in bed. When I woke up, from dehydration, at eleven-thirty, I stumbled over to the bathroom to swallow three aspirins, filled a bottle with tapwater and went back to bed, this time first slipping off my smoke-scented, drink-stained clothes. It was like this, burrowed in the duvet, with the curtains drawn and the room half dark, that I spent the daylight hours, occasionally leaning over to take a swig from the bottle. I did not feel terrible, I felt nothing. That was the whole idea, not to feel anything at all.
By the time the room was fully dark I was ready to make myself a cup of tea and watch television. I must have watched three or four films back-to-back before I returned to bed. I fell asleep at once. I fell into a bear’s sleep. When I awoke and switched on the radio, the Queen of England was rounding off her Christmas speech. Then I watched some television and, suddenly famished, rang my local Indian for a chicken tikka and nan bread. Then, feeling a bit better, I rang up my parents and my brother Charlie and wrote a Christmas card to Susan. Afterwards I soaked in a sweet bath and tidied up the place. I brought the duvet from my bedroom and a bottle of red wine from the kitchen and spread out on the sofa to watch some more television. Boxing Day morning found me still there, watching breakfast television. All in all, not that bad a Christmas. I have known worse.
I must leave the story there and swing back to the present for a moment, because there has been an important development.
It happened this morning. A man came storming into my office, pushing June aside with a brusque movement.
‘Jones, I want to talk to you,’ he shouted.
I was working on this Donovan story at the time, on the above section to be precise, and for a number of days it had almost completely overtaken my work. This was grossly irresponsible of me, I know, but that was the way my priorities worked out.
I looked up. I failed to recognize who this man was.
‘Jones, I’ve had it up to here,’ he shouted. ‘I must have rung fifty times, and every bloody time I get your secretary here trying to palm me off with some bollocks about a meeting.’
He advanced purposefully towards my desk. It was not until he grimaced unattractively that I recognized him: that stone in my shoe, Lexden-Page.
I said nothing and looked blankly at him. My mind was on my work.
Lexden-Page leaned over my des
k, knocking books and papers across with his hand. He was raging. He could barely contain himself.
‘Get out my file,’ he said, the words escaping slowly through his gritted teeth. ‘Get it out. Now.’ A great force exuded from him which raised me up: I felt as though I was being grabbed and hauled to my feet. ‘You heard me, Jones,’ he said. ‘Get out the bloody file. Right now, Jones. Right bloody now.’
I saw June in the background, clutching a file and waving her finger to attract my attention. She was distressed, yes, but even so she had the presence of mind to dig out the file. What a dear she was! What a treasure!
I looked at Lexden-Page. He was towering over me in an intimidating fashion, his top lip curled into an angry strip of fur. He was physically frightening.
‘Fuck off,’ I said. ‘I’m working. June will show you out. June?’
Lexden-Page was stunned. He was transfixed. His feet were stuck to the floor.
‘You heard me, Mr Lexden-Page,’ I said, returning to my papers.
June hesitated, then came forward. ‘Come on, Mr Lexden-Page,’ she said gently. ‘Mr Jones can’t see you right now. Let’s get you a cup of tea. Maybe he’ll be able to see you in a moment,’ she added, giving me a significant look.
‘June,’ I called as the two made their way out, ‘please tell Mr Lexden-Page that I am busy for the remainder of the day. Should he wish to see me at another date, please arrange a meeting.’
They went out and I stretched my legs with a feeling of exhilaration. Was that me? Had I really dismissed him that easily?
Five minutes later, I went to see June. I confess that a gloating smile played on my lips.
‘Well,’ I said. That takes care of that.’
June did not reply. She turned her back to me and busied herself with something. I was about to go back to my desk when I noticed that her shoulders were trembling.
‘What’s so funny,’ I said, grinning. ‘June, what’s so funny?’ She shook her head and stayed turned around. ‘June,’ I insisted. I touched her shoulder.
This is the Life Page 16
