by Jane Corry
When Ed comes back, I am in bed. Pretending to be asleep.
In the morning, I wake before my husband and leave a note.
Talk tonight. Promise. Sorry.
It is a relief to get back to the office the next day, where I can attempt to block out the confused look on Carla’s face which is preying on my mind. The phones are ringing like an orchestra. People are rushing everywhere. The place is going mad.
PRISONER’S RELEASE OPENS GATE FOR MORE BOILER LAWSUITS, screams the headline on the corner news-stand.
‘Well done,’ says one of the partners, who’s never bothered to give me the time of day before.
‘You did a good job,’ nods my boss gruffly.
There are balloons on my desk. A bottle of champagne. And a stack of messages. None from Tony. How will I ever face him again? Yet he is the one who should be ashamed.
‘We’ve had a flood of calls from potential clients who want you to take them on,’ adds my boss. Then he pats me on the back: a laddish pat. ‘But we’ll talk about that later. Why don’t you have the rest of the day off to make up for all those extra hours you put in?’
Coming home from the office at lunchtime is virtually unknown in law unless you’ve been ‘let go’. But my heart is heavy. There’ll be no getting out of the talk with Ed this evening. Everything, I think as I turn the key, is such a muddle.
‘Ed?’ He’s in his jeans instead of the usual office suit. A half-eaten bowl of mushy cereal is on the table, surrounded by charcoal sticks and sketches. His feet are bare. ‘Have you come home early from work?’
‘No.’
There’s a slur to his speech, a smell to his breath. At the same time I notice the half-full bottle of Jack Daniel’s on the side.
‘I’ve been sacked.’
Sacked?
For a minute, all kinds of possibilities flash through my head. Upsetting a client? Having an argument with his boss?
‘They found me working on this when I should have been doing proper work.’
He says the word ‘proper’ with finger gestures, making sarcastic inverted commas in the air.
I glance down at the drawing in front of him. Little Carla smiles up at me. It’s always little Carla smiling. Or dancing. Or riding her bike. He’s lost in a world of make-believe.
‘For God’s sake,’ I explode. ‘How on earth are we going to manage without your pay? Do you have any idea what you’ve done?’
‘I need to know what our future is,’ Ed continues as if I haven’t spoken.
‘I don’t know.’ I want to scream. ‘I can’t think after what you’ve just told me.’
‘You said you’d talk about it when the case was over. We could have thrashed it out last night, but you were more interested in trying to redeem our neighbour’s love life before our own.’
What can I say? It’s true. I brush past him, making straight for the bathroom. You’ll get a low after the case, Tony had warned me. It’s like coming off a drug. Winning is an addiction. ‘I need some me-time,’ I say, locking the door behind me. Then I sit on the edge of the bath while I run the taps. Hot. Cold. Hot.
After Sarah Evans, I’m never going to look at a bath in the same way again.
Just as I can never look at Ed in the same way.
Or myself.
Desperately, I force myself to consider the options.
If I leave Ed now, I will be alone. Scared. With an uncertain future.
But if I stay, we might be able to start again. Providing Ed really means it about not caring for Davina any more. But can I trust him? And can I trust myself?
A decision has to be made. One way or the other.
A coin. Daniel used to toss a coin when he didn’t know what to do. I pick up a magazine that I’ve left by the side of the bath. If I open on a page with an odd number, I’ll leave.
If it’s even, I’ll stay.
I open the magazine at a feature on how to make Sunday family suppers. There’s a picture of a happy family sitting round the table. The picture and the print swim before my eyes. Sunday suppers. Normal life. The kind we could have had if Daniel hadn’t come into our lives.
I glance at the page number.
Then I walk out of the bathroom door. Ed’s not sketching any more. He’s simply staring into space with blank empty eyes.
‘Do you want to start again?’ I ask.
He nods. There’s hope in his eyes. Fear too.
I feel exactly the same.
Then I take my husband’s hand and lead him into our bedroom.
During the next month, I try to get back into normal life but it’s not easy. My workload seems dull after the thrill of getting Joe Thomas released, even though everyone in the office, including my boss, regards me with a new level of respect. And still the work comes pouring in.
‘They want Lily to do it,’ says the secretary when my boss allocates himself one of the meatier cases, involving a newly married young man whose father-in-law (an eminent CEO) allegedly hit him on the head with a bottle of Merlot. Fifty stitches.
Yet instead of being jealous, as I feared, my boss nods. ‘You’d better have a room of your own if you’re going to be so popular.’
People ring to ask if I can represent them. A woman whose elderly father was burned by a boiler wants me to take on her case. Solicitors I’ve never heard of ring to congratulate me. A woman’s magazine wants to interview me as ‘a rising lawyer’. Questions about health and safety are being asked in the House of Commons.
But inside my head, it’s hell. Ed and I may have agreed to start again but it was never going to be as simple as that. I have to force myself to believe him when he says he’s ‘having a quick drink with Ross’. Supposing he’s really seeing Davina? For his part, Ed resents me getting back late, laden with files. But then, out of the blue, he will bring me a cup of tea when I’m working into the small hours and kindly tell me not to ‘overdo it’. And now he’s at home during the day, he’s started doing the housework while searching for a new job – something I’m sure his traditional parents would be shocked at. He doesn’t do it as well as I would, but I appreciate the gesture.
The guilt over Carla is getting worse. I’ve been hoping to go round and apologize, but there’s no answer to my knocks. One of our other neighbours said she heard ‘some kind of commotion’ on the evening of the night I last saw them. Is this my fault? Have they moved away because of what I said? The worry actually makes me feel sick.
‘Forget it,’ says Ed. ‘You’ve meddled enough.’
‘Aren’t you concerned about little Carla?’ I say.
He shrugs. ‘You can’t help everyone, Lily. She’s not our child.’
It’s amazing how an artist can take such care and compassion over a piece of work, while ignoring his subject’s well-being.
Yet isn’t that the same as the relationship between lawyer and client ? You’re together for hours, talking endlessly about a case. But when it’s over, your relationship is finished. Just like that. Or at least that’s how it’s supposed to be.
To be honest, I can’t help wondering where Joe Thomas is. What he’s doing. Whether he’s made it to Italy.
And then, one evening, he’s there. Hovering by the entrance to the office as I emerge after a long day’s work. How incredible that someone can change so much in a few weeks! Gone is the beard. Gone are the prison scrubs. Gone too are the brogues and shirt. This clean-shaven man in a moss-green tweed jacket (light-brown suede collar turned up) looks more like an estate manager than an insurance salesman.
‘I came to say goodbye.’
We fall into step beside each other, just as we did after the drink when we won the case. Even steps.
I don’t know where we’re going and I don’t care. In some ways, this man is more real to me than Ed. Haven’t I spent over half a year of my life trying to save him?
‘You’ve got a job?’
‘Yes.’ He speaks briskly. ‘I took your advice. Remember you talked about worki
ng in Italy? Well, I’ve gone for France instead.’
His arm brushes mine as we cross the road together.
‘A friend in Corsica wants me to help out with a renovation.’ He looks down at his hands. ‘I’m quite good with these. And it’ll be a change.’
‘Will there be a problem with the language?’
There’s a grin. ‘No, thanks to the prison library. I taught myself to speak French and Spanish.’
It doesn’t surprise me.
We’re going into a restaurant now. A smart one. ‘This is a thank you.’ He speaks as though this has all been arranged beforehand. Doesn’t he realize that I’m expected home? The presumption both irritates and thrills me. Yet I go along with it, allowing the waiter to take my coat.
‘You did a lot for me,’ he adds, handing me the menu. I use it to hide my blush.
‘I did my job.’ Then my questions pour out as though he is an old friend I haven’t seen for years. ‘How are you? What are you doing? Where are you living?’
‘The same friend in France has a place in Richmond. It’s rather nice.’
Richmond? I compare it in my mind with Clapham. The tiny kitchen where Ed is still drawing, unpaid, with job application forms around him.
‘What about you?’ His voice is direct. ‘How is married life?’
‘OK.’
I’m tempted to tell him about Ed and Davina, but I said too much the last time we met. I’m no longer drunk on too much G&T and that excited flush of having won the case. I have to remind myself that I have a position of responsibility here. Confidences are not appropriate.
‘Only OK?’
I manage a smile. ‘It’s great. We might be moving actually.’ I made that last bit up, but perhaps we will.
‘Sounds lovely.’ Joe Thomas sits forward in enthusiasm. ‘I can see it now, Lily. A country cottage. A horse like Merlin …’
‘Merlin?’ I say slowly. ‘I never told you the name of Daniel’s horse.’
‘Didn’t you?’
His smile is less certain now.
I go cold.
‘You had something to do with it, didn’t you?’
I expect him to deny it. Despite my question, I don’t believe it. There has to be some kind of plausible reason.
‘I had to.’ He rearranges his cutlery neatly around him. ‘I needed to keep you onside. If a lawyer doesn’t believe the client, he or she won’t try hard enough.’
Bile is flooding my mouth. ‘You poisoned Daniel’s old horse to get me “onside”? How?’
There’s a shrug. I’ve never seen him like this before – not with me. ‘I arranged for someone to slip something into his feed when your parents were out. I wanted to make you angry enough to believe my story.’
I stagger to my feet. His cunning is unbelievable. His honesty is breathtaking. Sickening.
‘And my bag? The one that was taken on Westminster Bridge?’ I am beginning to see it now. How stupid I’ve been! ‘You got someone to do that too so everyone in court thought someone in the boiler industry was trying to bully us?’
He shrugs. ‘It was the courts that messed up. The water was too hot. If they’re going to play dirty tricks, they have to expect the same.’
Tony Gordon, I suspect, might just agree. But not me. One wrong does not justify another.
Another thought strikes me. ‘Who helped you?’
A smug grin. ‘When I was in prison, I advised a lot of people on their financial affairs. Gave them advice on insurance and other stuff. I didn’t take any money. But they knew I’d call in favours.’
‘But if they were inside, how could they help you?’
‘Some have been released. Others have contacts on the outside to do things for them. Prison life is like that. Not that I’d recommend it, mind you.’
This is unbelievable. Yet at the same time my mind goes back to the time when Joe agreed to meet a man for ‘table football’ in the prison. ‘Three p.m. on the dot,’ he said. ‘In the community lounge.’ At the time I thought it friendly, albeit a bit out of character. Was this really a business appointment?
‘I could report you.’
‘Really? If you do, I’ll have to say what happened the last time we met.’
‘What do you mean?’ I stammer.
‘Come on, Lily. Don’t play games. Not with me. Those sticker books you gave me in prison are nothing compared with the last present.’
His voice might sound firm but his hands are shaking.
A sickening thought hits me like a sledgehammer. ‘You did it, didn’t you? You did kill Sarah. You murdered your girlfriend.’
An older woman with large emerald-green drop earrings is looking at us now from the neighbouring table. Joe’s eyes grow hard. ‘Be careful what you say.’
‘But you did.’ My instinct is certain.
Joe is now talking in a low voice. ‘Why do you think I arranged to bump into you this evening? To tell you what happened. But remember. When you’ve been cleared of something, you can’t be re-tried for the same crime. I felt you deserved the truth, Lily.’
My heart starts to beat really fast. He seems tense as well. Beating his fists against his knees as though playing a drum.
‘She came in pissed, like I said. Late, too. Then she was sick, but she didn’t want me in the bathroom. I knew she was trying to hide something. When she was shutting the door, I noticed a mark on her neck.’
I have a flash of that mark on Tony’s neck from earlier. ‘A love bite?’
‘Love?’ He seems to weigh this up. ‘That depends on how you define love, doesn’t it? A bite can also be made in anger.’
I’m losing patience at Joe’s constant questioning of non-literal language. ‘How did she get this mark?’
‘Now that’s more relevant.’ He nods as though I’m a child in class who has finally asked the right question. ‘When I accused her, she said the mark was mine. But she was lying. I don’t do that sort of thing.’ More drumming of the knees. ‘I said we’d talk when she was clean, but she wouldn’t let me run her bath like I usually did. Kept calling me a weirdo. So I went and turned the boiler up. Thought I’d teach her a lesson. But she was still screaming at me. Said she’d found someone else, someone normal. That’s when I lost it. How could I let Sarah leave me for someone else? I pushed her. She was so drunk that I hardly needed to touch her. So simple, really. She just fell into the water.’
There’s a shocked silence. On my part. He doesn’t seem fazed at all.
‘You didn’t try to get her out?’
A shrug. ‘She hurt me. She was leaving me. So no, I didn’t try to get her out. I walked out. Then I made a cup of tea. Cleaned the floor because it was sticky from her vomit. I told myself I’d give her thirty minutes to pull herself together. I didn’t mean to kill her. Just teach her a lesson. When I went back in, I found her staring up at me. Purple and red. I’ve never cared for those colours. That’s when I rang 999 and told them the story I originally gave you. If it hadn’t been for that bastard of a neighbour, and Sarah’s stupid made-up stories, I would have been all right.’
I can’t quite believe the way he’s talking. He’s so unemotional – just like the police said.
Joe continues. ‘But then I found out about the boiler problem – real stroke of luck – and realized that if I hired the right person, I might have a chance on appeal. Wasn’t sure about you at the beginning, to be honest. So I set you a test and, I have to say it, Lily, you proved your worth.’
I’m stunned by his lack of repentance. ‘But the mole who sent you those figures? Who was that? And why didn’t you use the evidence sooner?’
Joe snorted. ‘You’re not getting it, are you, Lily? The mole didn’t exist. Or the figures. Great bit of luck, that was. I saw the newspaper stories that had just started to come out, and made them up. No one could prove my boiler hadn’t been faulty.’ A smug look flits over his face. ‘There’s some very useful textbooks in the prison library, you know. Plumbing and all sorts.’
There is a long silence. I am too shocked to talk. Joe, by his own admission, is after all a murderer. When he ‘tested’ me at the beginning to see if I understood the meaning of those figures, it wasn’t to see if I was up to the job. It was to see if I was gullible enough to believe him. Not only that, but he played on his idiosyncrasies to me. Did he already know then about Daniel? It wouldn’t surprise me.
No wonder he told the court that he didn’t want compensation but only ‘justice’. It was just another way to fool the jury into believing his innocence. Just as he fooled me.
‘Come to France with me,’ he says suddenly. ‘I know you’re not happy. We’d make a good team. You’re bright. You earn a living by arguing people out of a hole. That’s a great skill.’
No. It isn’t. The truth is that I allowed the facts to twist me, because I saw Daniel in Joe. I then moved my mind to accept the facts, insubstantial as they were, to make them true.
‘You understand me.’ Joe takes my hand. Part of me wants to snatch it away. Part of me wants to stay in this position for ever. His grip is tight. Is it threatening or reassuring? I’m no longer sure. With a sinking heart, I wonder whether everything I thought I knew about this man is false.
‘Lily …’
And now I’m running out of the restaurant. Down the street. Back home. Past Carla’s silent front door. Retching as soon as I reach the bathroom. Oblivious to Ed’s knocking on the bathroom door to ask if I’m ‘all right’.
Four weeks later, I am still being sick. And just in case there is any doubt, the evidence is now in front of me, courtesy of the long, thin packet I bought from the chemist.
I am pregnant.
Part Two
* * *
TWELVE YEARS LATER
My head is still throbbing.
When I put up my left hand – the one that’s not hurting – to touch it, it feels sticky.
