by Lesley Lokko
‘I know. But you didn’t have to attack her like that, you know. After all, what do you care?’
‘I didn’t! I only asked her if she ever intended to get a job, that’s all.’
‘Jules—’
‘All right, all right,’ she said sulkily. ‘I know. Me and my big mouth.’
‘Just take it easy. We can’t all be geniuses like you.’
The comment hit home; Julia flushed. Ever since she’d been made a partner at work, there’d been an undercurrent of tension in almost everything Aaron did or said. She knew what was wrong: that terrible, gnawing combination of envy and fear. Fear that he wasn’t good enough, or worse, that his wife was better. She saw it in his eyes and read it in his voice, but this time she didn’t know how to help him. It wasn’t her fault the family unit under Harriet had gone from strength to strength. Or that her refusal to join the corporate division of the firm would pay such dividends, and so soon. She’d done it out of principle, nothing else. Corporate law bored her to death. She certainly wasn’t doing what she did for the glory; that wasn’t why she’d chosen to work for three years in the basement, lugging Harriet’s files around, taking on cases that no one else would. It was just luck that they’d had one or two high-profile suits where Julia had been caught on camera with a comment that had made people sit up and notice her. She was young, articulate, dedicated … a working-class girl made good. She wasn’t stupid; for the first time in her professional life, her profile had become something worth showing. She was in the right place at the right time, that was all. Aaron’s chance would come. In the meantime, she wished he would just carry on with whatever aspect of tax law it was he’d chosen to specialise in and leave her the hell alone.
The following day, sitting at her desk, the comment still rankled. She looked with irritation at the enormous stack of papers that had been placed there since Friday. She’d spent the whole of Friday afternoon clearing out stuff – what the hell was this? She tossed her briefcase to one side and picked up the memo that was on top of the pile. Please give this your undivided attention. See me when you’re done. Rgds, Harriet. She frowned. In a week that was already full to the brim with meetings, client briefings, court appearances and research requirements, why on earth had Harriet chosen to drop this on her? She pulled the stack towards her, exasperated.
An hour and a half later, she was no clearer as to why Harriet had sent it to her. It was interesting, certainly – the transcripts of the enormous conference on women’s rights that had taken place in Beijing a few years earlier. Julia had heard of it – who hadn’t? But what did it have to do with her?
A few minutes later, she stared at Harriet as if she couldn’t quite believe her ears. ‘Me?’ she asked incredulously. ‘You want me to go?’
‘Why not?’
Julia struggled for a reply. ‘Because I’ve never done anything like this before,’ she said eventually.
‘And since when has that ever stopped you? Question is, do you want to go? No point in discussing this any further if you’ve no interest.’
‘No, no … I am interested. Very interested … it’s just a bit of a surprise, that’s all. Wh-what would I be expected to do?’
‘Deliver a paper, of course. But that’s the easy bit. This conference is supposed to be the follow-up to Beijing. From our perspective, what we’re most interested in is getting our name out there as a practice that doesn’t only deal in corporate law and taxation issues, but tackles the other stuff – the stuff that you and I do. The family unit’s young, granted, but we’ve done some really interesting work. It’s a fantastic PR opportunity, in a nutshell. And you’re good at it.’
‘But why don’t you want to go?’ Julia couldn’t help herself. ‘The family unit’s yours, really. Not mine.’
‘I don’t like flying,’ Harriet said briskly. There was a short pause. ‘Look, I happen to think you’re better suited to the policy side of things, Julia. I’m not saying for a moment that you’re not a good barrister. But leave that sort of mundane stuff to people like your husband. Policy’s your natural home. Just don’t waste the opportunity.’
Julia stared at her. Harriet had already bent her head back to her work. It was clear that the short interlude was over. She got to her feet. ‘Thanks, Harriet,’ she said as she headed to the door. ‘I won’t let you down.’
‘I should hope not.’ Harriet looked up briefly as Julia closed the door.
She was an odd person, Julia thought to herself as she walked back down the corridor to her office. Beneath the prickly, professional exterior, there was someone actually very kind. Not that she went out of her way to show it – but still … asking Julia to go to the conference in her place was a touching measure of her faith in her. It had been a while since anyone had done anything like that, Julia realised suddenly.
‘What did the old battleaxe want?’ One of the other barristers with whom she shared an office looked up as she walked in.
‘Oh, just some conference she wanted to talk about.’
‘Conference?’ Martin, the third barrister in the office, looked up too.
Julia felt herself blush. ‘Yes, there’s a UN conference on women’s rights next month. She just wondered if I wanted to go, that’s all.’ She was aware the conference literature had been lying on her desk whilst she’d been out.
‘So how come you get to go?’ George asked, a trifle sharply.
Martin snorted. ‘Oh, easy enough. She’s a Keeler now, remember?’
Julia flushed deeper. ‘What d’you mean?’ she asked, turning to face them both. ‘This has nothing to do with Aaron.’
‘Yeah, right,’ Martin muttered.
‘Have you got something you want to say to me?’ Julia demanded angrily. She could feel her temper rising. She’d never particularly cared for either George Forrester or Martin Griffiths but she’d managed to maintain a reasonable enough working relationship with them both. Not any more.
‘No,’ George muttered, throwing Martin a sideways look.
‘Good. Because if you do, at least have the guts to say it to my face.’ There was an uncomfortable silence. Then George mumbled something about having to go to the library and walked out. A few minutes later, Martin followed suit.
Julia sat alone in the office, contemplating their screen savers, trying not to give vent to her anger. How dare they? Was that what everyone else thought? That she was given special treatment because of whom she’d married? She swallowed, aware of the need to keep a fierce grip on her emotions. Nothing upset her as much as an injustice – she was only just beginning to discover how much more upsetting it was when it was aimed at her.
If she’d expected sympathy from Aaron that evening, she was sorely mistaken. ‘So what?’ was his response.
Julia stood in the kitchen and gaped, open-mouthed, at him. ‘So what?’ she repeated, her voice rising of its own accord.
‘Who gives a shit what George Forrester thinks? He’s a little turd.’
‘I do.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s not true!’ she protested. ‘I’d never use your … my … our contacts to get ahead,’ she stammered. ‘Besides, what contacts do we have?’
‘Oh, come on, Julia.’ Aaron rolled his eyes at her. ‘Diana spoke at the Beijing conference. She was one of the keynote speakers. It’s not a coincidence, you know.’
‘This has nothing to do with Diana,’ Julia said angrily, unable to keep the sharpness from her voice. ‘Not everything’s about you and your bloody family—’ She stopped herself just in time. They glared at each other. Then she turned round and quickly left the room. Aaron in pompous mode could be – and was frequently – unbearable. And she didn’t feel like having an argument. Not tonight. Lately, she and Aaron had been having a few too many arguments. Small things, minor disagreements; nothing that resulted in anything other than a slight cooling towards each other for the day or so it took to regain equilibrium. Aaron wasn’t the type to shout or have things out
. Withdrawal was his preferred method of conflict resolution; something which, much as it infuriated Julia, seemed impossible to change. For someone who had spent most of her working life seeking to improve conflicts, Julia thought to herself grimly, Diana had done a spectacularly bad job with her own sons.
She walked into the bedroom and sat down on the edge of the bed. She kicked off her shoes and lay back, tracing the pattern of the embroidered duvet cover with her hand. There was an angry tightness in her chest that refused to quit. And yet underneath it, below the surface of her irritation with Aaron and her colleagues, was a bubbling sense of excitement, of something new and potentially life-changing coming into play. It had been a while since she’d felt so alive, she suddenly thought to herself. The Fifth International World Conference on Women. Just saying the name out loud brought on a rush of pleasurable anticipation of the kind she hadn’t felt in a while. She lay there in the slowly darkening room, listening with half an ear to the muted sound of the television coming through the walls and the faint, stuttering sounds of traffic along the main road, thinking about the challenges that had suddenly presented themselves, seemingly out of the blue.
70
DIANA
London, May 2000
Diana put down the phone and had to bite down hard on the temptation to scream. She looked at her face in the mirror. There was an angry vertical line between her eyebrows; the result of the five-minute phone call she’d just had. She reached up a finger and tried to smooth it away. She felt the beginnings of a headache coming on. She gave a short, mirthless laugh. It was absurd! Aaron had phoned looking for a bit of sympathy, but she’d given him short shrift and had wound up with a pain between her own ears instead. Julia was going to Maputo, to the Fifth International World Conference on Women … and she, Diana Pryce, QC, founder of Libertas, board member of half a dozen prestigious charities whose names she couldn’t always remember, keynote speaker at Beijing, the Fourth International World Conference on Women … was not? She was ‘too expensive, unfortunately’, the young woman from UNIFEM had told her earlier in the week. Too expensive? She’d waived her speaker fee, naturally. But if they thought she was about to fly to Mozambique in economy class and stay in some crappy little hotel next to the airport … they ought to think again. Well, clearly, they had – and as a result, Julia Burrows, her daughter-in-law, was going … and she was not. She couldn’t believe it.
‘Is … is she actually speaking?’ she had forced herself to ask.
‘Yeah … one of the plenary sessions. Some report on what they’ve been doing in the family unit. Why aren’t you going?’
‘I … I’m too busy. I’ve got so much on at the moment … I just can’t take that sort of time off.’
‘It’s only five days. She leaves on Monday morning and she’s back by Saturday.’
‘Well, I’ve got far too much on at the moment,’ Diana snapped. ‘These conferences are a complete waste of time—’
‘That’s not what you said about Beijing,’ Aaron interrupted her. ‘You said—’
‘I’m well aware of what I said,’ Diana said shortly. ‘That was then. Look, I’ve got to go. Someone’s waiting to see me.’
‘But I wanted to talk to you about—’
‘Some other time, I’m afraid.’ And she’d put the phone down without another word. She turned away from the mirror and walked upstairs to her study. She closed the door and leaned against it, breathing deeply. A niggling worry had lodged itself somewhere in her gut. Was she … ? She hesitated, afraid to even think it to herself. No, she had to. Was she past it? Was she out of touch? Seen as too old, not current enough? She was fifty-four, for crying out loud, not sixty-four. At the peak of her faculties and her career. She’d done so much, but there was still so much more to do. She was one of the youngest Queen’s Counsels in chambers. Christ, Douglas Haller-Lane was in his eighties and still going strong. She was one of the very few women in her position in the UK – a force to be reckoned with, respected and often feared. How dare UNIFEM write her out of the script? She crossed the carpeted room to her desk and sat down. She ran her hands across its gleaming, polished surface. How many hours had she spent at this very desk penning the arguments and judgements that had catapulted her to such early fame? She looked around the study at the rows of books, the paintings, the beautiful objets that she’d brought back from the places she’d been … everything carefully, tastefully arranged. She brought her hands up to her cheeks and was shocked to find them wet. She wiped them hurriedly, furtively. Harvey was downstairs in the kitchen; the last thing she wanted was for him to come upon her crying. She opened one of the drawers and pulled out a notebook. It was Harvey’s sixtieth birthday party in a few weeks. She paused for a second to look down on the garden. Spring had been late in arriving; the trees had only just lost their bare, unfettered air and the garden was thrumming with new life. In Mougins, where they would have the party, summer would already be there. Mougins in June. She swallowed suddenly. It would be the first time she’d been back there in June for over thirty years.
She turned her attention quickly back to the birthday party. Would Josh come? It would be his birthday in a few weeks’ time, too. She desperately hoped so. It had been years since they’d all been together down there. Eight members of their immediate family; a nice round number. She put her pen down again and stared at the names. There was one person missing. When was the last time she’d seen him? At Rafe’s wedding, of course. He’d shown up, unannounced. Just as he always did. And the time before that? She put a hand to her cheek again – burning hot, as always, when she thought about him. She struggled to turn her mind elsewhere, but it was no use. Mougins in June. In that way that only memory can move back and forth in time and place, she was there again, the summer she turned sixteen, reliving it as if for the first time.
He was the first man she’d ever seen naked, and the thought of him even after all these years was enough to make her catch her breath. Back then, as now, there was something splendidly indolent about Rufus, the way his body was so carelessly and beautifully put together. She lay beside him that first morning when everyone had disappeared and traced her name across his chest with her fingertips. She wasn’t afraid; on the contrary. Rufus was leading her in the way he’d always done: carefully, intently. He slipped her clothing off, piece by piece, until she was lying beside him in only her thin cotton panties. He teased the waistband a little, producing sweet rills of feeling, her whole body being turned over and over like the light, empty shells in the clear water down on the beaches at Cannes and Juan-les-Pins. He took them off and his hand moved down to stroke her, softly at first, preparing her for something that she knew about but had never experienced. The feeling inside her intensified until she thought she might just pass out with the sheer pleasure of it all. Her breath quickened to keep pace with his and then he moved on top of her. She was amazed at the way her whole body arched to meet his, as if it belonged to someone else. She kept her eyes open the whole time, as if she didn’t want to miss a single second of it; all she could remember of the extraordinary pain when he pushed his way inside her was the frown of utter concentration on his face and the depthless black of his eyes, now half-closed, only half-seeing. The Rufus who hung supported by his arms above her bore no resemblance to the Rufus she knew. Something inside her turned, dissolved. She belonged to him now. Now and always.
71
NIELA
London, May 2000
There was a pile of unopened letters lying on the floor. Niela dragged her small suitcase in behind her, kicked them out of the way and shut the door. She leaned against it for a moment. It was just after eight in the morning; she’d landed at dawn and already the day felt as though it should be over. She’d just spent three weeks in Amman on assignment and was glad to be home. Home. She gave a small, rueful smile. In the past year, she and Josh had spent a total of two months in the tiny flat off Goldhawk Road. At this very moment, Josh was somewhere in southern Africa
, finishing up construction of a camp that should have been completed three months ago but for the rains. What was it he’d said when he managed to get through to her on the phone the other night? He couldn’t remember what it felt like to be dry. She left her case in the hallway and walked through into the living room. It was exactly as she’d left it almost a month ago. Everything was neat and tidy; chairs pushed in to the table, all the surfaces wiped clean. There was a thin film of dust on the dining table. She brushed a finger lightly across it as she walked past. In an hour’s time she would unpack, but for now, a coffee and a shower, though not in that order.
By noon she’d squared away the last of her belongings, sorted out the laundry and dry-cleaning and made herself a small salad for lunch. She carried her plate over to the couch and sat down, idly sorting through the mail as she ate. There was an invitation card amongst the bills and circulars. She slid a finger underneath the flap – it was from Diana. It was Harvey’s birthday in a few weeks’ time. She and Josh were cordially invited to celebrate it with them at 11, Chemin du Fassum, Mougins, on 14th June. She raised her eyebrows. Mougins. She’d never been. She turned the thick, heavy card over in her hand. She wondered whether Josh would go. It would be his birthday shortly afterwards – would he want to spend it with them? As much as she understood his aversion to the place, there was a part of her that was curious to see it. And although she’d never much cared for Diana, on the few occasions she’d met Harvey, she liked him very much indeed. It was his birthday; it was only right and proper that they should all attend. She made a mental note to tell Josh so. It would take time to bring him round, she knew. She finished the rest of her salad and switched on the news. It always took her a few hours to unwind from the cycle of arrival and departure that had once been Josh’s terrain, and was now, for better or for worse, hers as well.
