Alchemy

by Maureen Duffy

  So I was off the case as Chandler would say. S and F didn’t stand for Settle and Fixit as Drew and I had always joked, but rather Subtle and Floggit, two unsavoury characters from a comedy of bad manners.

  ‘You’ve blown it, Jade,’ Helen said when at last we met in the corridor. ‘Why did you have to disagree with counsel’s opinion? You know men don’t like to be crossed, especially senior partners.’

  I’d forgotten that QCs, counsel, were like old-style hospital consultants for us, the ones matron had to follow, from ward to ward with: ‘Yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir.’ But if they got it wrong it was the nursing staff who somehow took the blame or at least the patient’s disappointment and pain.

  Then I had to wonder whether my judgement had been infected by my own predisposition to be on the side of the underdog. Carefully I went through the whole brief again, looking for flaws in my argument. Well, maybe I’d overstated the case. Maybe there was room for doubt. But if there was then the law itself was an ass, braying in favour of the letter rather than what was fair and right. OK, Sir Galahad, get back in the kitchen.

  Drew’s replacement turned up the following week I’d caught sight of him sitting nervously in reception when I went down to collect some documents and wondered if he was a client. He’d been waiting to be interviewed: short, lank fair hair and built like a rugby fullback even in his dark pinstripe.

  “This is Sebastian, Jade, who’s taking over Drew’s job. Be nice to him. He rowed for his college.’

  ‘Only in the second boat.’

  ‘I’ll see you later, no doubt.’ Helen smiled up at him and was gone.

  She had let me know, quite deliberately, that whatever there had been was over. Thinking I might throw up I shut myself in the loo, raging and weeping by turns. I had been her little experiment that hadn’t delivered the expected result. And it was my own fault. ‘You blew it, Jade.’ Or would it have happened anyway? In traditional style that evening I fell to pieces playing Der Rosenkavalier over and over; the last scene, but now the roles were reversed. The countess was going off with Sophie and it was Octavian who got to sing her heart out alone on stage.

  The next day I called in sick but it was only postponing the moment when I had to go back. Suddenly it was clear to me not only that I had no future with Helen, never had except in my dreams, but that I had none with S & F either. And what the firm was doing seemed increasingly unrelated to why I had switched my degree to law in what now seemed a lifetime ago. I’d seen myself as a kind of Robin Hood, defending the defenceless, the poor and the underdog against the powerful whether that was political or corporate power. Now I seemed increasingly asked to use my talent such as it was to support the strong and knock down the weak who couldn’t afford the superior advice of a Settle and Fixit. Our old name was seemingly embedded in my brain now and I couldn’t think of them in any other way.

  I would play it cool when I went into chambers, let no one see my hurt. Be bright and efficient. Above all Helen should never know although in that hiccuping cry of Sir Thomas Wyatt, the last word on changed love:

  …all is turned through my gentleness,

  Into a strange, fashion of forsaking;

  And I have leave to go, of her goodness;

  And she also to use new-fangleness;

  But since that I so unkindly am served

  I fain would know what she hath deserved.

  When we lost the case in spite of counsel’s opinion, or perhaps even because of it making us too sure of ourselves, I hid my glee and murmured words of sympathy to James Chalmers when we met beside the water-cooler. Stony-faced he merely ducked his head in acknowledgement and walked stiffly away. I had committed the unforgivable sin of being right as I realised as soon as I read the full judgement.

  Helen was still just as distant. I wondered if she had tried out the new boy, Sebastian, but what could he bring that was fresh for her to experience unless, I thought bitterly, a touch of SM? Obviously my own days at S & F were numbered. I began to study the alternatives. I could try for some teaching. Media departments and studies were burgeoning in the universities. I signed up to a society of lawyers, experts in the field who met once a month to discuss the legislation and theory underpinning what we did from day to day at S & F. A lot of the members combined practice with academia. I sensed there was an integrity to their discussions though they would have seemed unbearably dry to an outsider. I began to get back a sense of what it was all meant to be about. I found myself speaking out and was asked to contribute to a study of recent cases. It gave me something to do in the evenings, now that I no longer expected to spend time with Helen. But it was also my little hand grenade. Publication would pull out the pin and I would lob it into the glossy offices of S 8c F. The explosive was my analysis of the Whirly-gon case and why we had lost it.

  ‘Great stuff,’ Jack Silver, the distinguished editor, said after I had delivered my chapter. ‘You’ll probably be blackballed.’

  By now I’d decided I wanted to be on my own anyway, where I didn’t have to be patronised or watch my back all the time. If I could hang on at S & F for a few more months I’d have clocked up enough experience for the wide world. So I ran around as a smiling dogsbody who was never asked to comment on a case any more, but spent my time on witness statements and organising the stacks of files that would accompany the real movers and shakers into court. Then my time bomb went off. The doorstop of a book on media law dropped on to James Chalmers’ desk.

  It was the latest thing and everyone in our field had to have a copy as I’d known they would. When he summoned me to his office I was ready. The volume sat fatly in front of him.

  ‘I imagine you know why I asked you to come in. I regard your analysis of the Whirly-gon case as a serious breach of confidence.’

  ‘I was careful to use only the accounts in the public domain; the very full report of the judgement and the transcript of the proceedings. I don’t think I can be said to have breached confidence.’

  ‘You’ve made us look complete idiots. And as for counsel…He’s livid. I saw him at the Groucho yesterday evening. He’d had an advance copy. We won’t be able to use him again.’

  ‘I’m sorry he’s taking it like that. It wasn’t meant to be a personal criticism.’

  ‘Of course it’s personal. Everything is.’

  ‘If you’d like me to resign…’

  ‘In the circumstances I think that would be for the best.’

  ‘I have been here for quite some time…’

  ‘How much do you want?’

  ‘Perhaps we should discuss it another day. I imagine you’d like to consult first.’

  I knew exactly how much the law entitled me to as severance pay, of course. It was a calculated part of my set-up costs if I was to have a hope of going it on my own. I didn’t rush to clear my desk but I stayed out of James Chalmers’ way while the negotiations about my settlement dragged on. Then suddenly it seemed one Monday morning my days with S&F were nearly over. I was leaving on Friday.

  That evening I was settling down to fill in the required forms that would give me the Law Society’s go-ahead for putting on my own show, when the phone rang. It was Helen.

  ‘Can I come and see you before you leave, Jay?’

  ‘When were you thinking of?’

  ‘James is at a dinner tomorrow. He’ll be late back.’

  The rest of the evening and the next day was spent in the old ferment as I ran through the different scenarios of how our last meeting, for I sensed that’s what it was, would play. My flat had declined into bachelor squalor in the last few weeks so I had to get up early to clean it and change the sheets. On my way back from the office I bought a decent bottle of wine and the cheese that Helen liked. I was just in time. She was buzzing the entry phone ten minutes early.

  ‘I left just after James. I must be back before he is.’

  ‘Did you bring your car?’

  ‘I thought I might be offered a drink so I came by cab.�
��

  ‘G and T or wine?’

  ‘G and T, then wine.’

  I mixed her drink, poured myself a glass of Gamay and brought them over.

  ‘James doesn’t know I’m here. He’s more or less forbidden me to see you. Not in so many words but the meaning is quite clear. It’s not just everything else. The book is the last straw because he’s never been asked to contribute to anything like that. He says your analysis is very good and lie can’t bear it. He thinks you’ll go to a rival firm and be in competition with S & F.’

  ‘Settle and Fixit.’

  ‘Is that what you call us?’

  ‘Drew and I used to have a joke about it.’ I was playing it cool just as I’d rehearsed to myself. Helen put her glass down and came towards me.

  ‘Aren’t you even going to kiss me? Are you so angry?’ The scent and warmth of her so close were too much.

  ‘Make love to me, Jay,’ she said as she had all those months ago. And it was Thomas Wyatt again but this time:

  Thanked be fortune; it hath been otherwise,

  Twenty times better, hut once in special,

  In thin array, after a pleasant guise,

  When her loose gown from her shoulders did fall,

  And she caught me in her arms long and small,

  Therewith all sweetly did me kiss,

  And softly said, ‘Dear heart how like you this?’

  After, when we were lying finishing off the bottle of wine, she sat up and looked at her watch.

  ‘I must go soon.’

  ‘How’s Sebastian?’

  ‘Plodding. No imagination. I call him Bash. He doesn’t know why. You’re much better. The best, in fact.’

  ‘Then why can’t we go on?’

  ‘Because you’re a romantic, Jay. You want too much; more than I can give. I realised that very soon. You’re dangerous or you could be if I let you and I like my comforts. I’m not brave. “All for love and the world well lost.” That sort of thing. Being a senior partner is important to me. Not many women make it. I took a short cut by marrying James. After all those years of exams and slog I wanted some fun, to be at the top without having to struggle for it. I like a lot about my life and the rest I take care of in my own way.’

  ‘James needn’t worry that I’ll go to a competitor of S 8c F. I’ve decided to try and go it alone. Set up by myself. If that doesn’t work then we’ll have to see. Meanwhile let’s say I’m having a sort of gap year though I won’t be going round the world. I’ll be holed up in a dingy office touting for the briefs nobody else wants.’

  My lady was right that there was too little time to prepare for the young earl’s wedding that was to be of an unsurpassed splendour though some wondered why the bride had it not at her father’s house as the custom was. Once again we made ready to entertain their majesties. Whole trees were felled for firing, bushels of wheat were taken to the mill to be ground for making of bread, vats steamed with the brewing of gallons of beer. The forests were hunted of game of every kind of bird and beast until nothing more stirred and the river was emptied of fish which now swam round and round in the ponds until called for. Maids churned butter and made cheese. The royal beds where their majesties were used to lie at Wilton were aired, sprinkled with herbs and rose petals and made up with silken sheets.

  Meanwhile I pounded, distilled and mixed against a possible multitude of distempers and broken heads. As the day approached the house filled until it seemed its walls would burst. Not only the barns but many houses in the town, the Pembroke Arms and other inns as far as Salisbury were all taken up until there was nowhere for any to lie in that country. At the last came the court, together with the bride her family, which my lady greeted as if no shadow of doubt for her own future troubled her.

  On the day, the bride was led to the church by Prince Henry and his majesty himself gave her away. The queen followed in her train as the whole party returned to the house for the bride cake and the usual sops in wine. Rich gifts of gloves and garters were exchanged, his majesty making a gift of plate, and other nobles too to the tune of three thousand pounds. Then it was time for feasting and drinking of wine until bedtime when the young earl and his bride were carried to bed and with much laughter she was stripped of her clothes, her lace hose thrown for who should catch them and, as I heard, twenty other like pretty games before they were left together with the sheets sewn up.

  In the morning came his majesty and lay in or upon the bed in his shirt and nightgown to quiz them on the night’s sport and how they found each other, and to inspect the sheets for her blood. Many came to me for potions to ease their aching heads and queasy stomachs. Only my lady seemed calm and unmoved. She had asked me for a draught to render her quiet and cheerful for, said she, ‘The name and title of Mary, Countess of Pembroke will now belong to another from this day and I must submit to God’s will.’

  The time of the tilt approached and all made their way over the bridge to a meadow bounded on one side by the river Nadder. Banks of seats had been set up for royalty and the nobility, especially the ladies, to watch in comfort and safety. When I saw the countess seated with the duenna and her steward to attend her I slipped away before she could call for me. I had determined that I would have a hand in these sports as Zelmane in the guise of an Amazon had done in the Arcadia and fight on my lady’s behalf as I had practised in Sir Henry Stilman his garden.

  To this end I retired to the stillroom and exchanged my satin doublet for a peasant’s rough tunic and over it put on my cuirass which I had hidden in a closet there, together with the helmet for my head which helmet I had graced with three plumes. Then I girded my sword and went down to seek out a lance, taking up my shield with its impresa of my own devising which showed a double A, one inverted within the other, with two arrows piercing it in imitation of my lady’s Sidney pheon and cupid’s dart.

  I went out to the stables and got upon my horse who knew me in spite of my disguise, and rode around by the backside of the house for the Salisbury road as if I might be coming from the city, and so to the field where the heralds were commanding knights to draw near and prove their valour in defence of their mistresses’ beauty. As I looked out through the visor of my helmet I heard a buzz of voices for none knew me except that my mistress leant forward and whispered in the duennas ear. But I kept on to where the shield hung that the knights must strike to be admitted to the tourney.

  ‘What is your name, Sir Knight?’ the herald demanded. ‘And what lady do you serve?’

  ‘My name is Anonimous and I serve the most beautiful lady Anonima.’ I dared not say my lady’s name for fear I might disgrace it. At this there was a new buzz of voices.

  The other knights had pasteboard shields like mine but prettily painted with ingenious designs as a sinking ship or a house on fire to wittily signify marriage and I heard after that many had been made by the king’s servants for the players’ company was well skilled in the painting of scenes, shields and such toys. for the stage.

  First we were to run at the ring, which pleased me as a trial I was much practised in. And indeed when my turn came I easily bore it away to the cheers of the crowd. I rode up to where the countess sat and placed it at her feet with the tip of my lance. Then I bowed to her from the saddle and returned to the contest.

  Now we were to fight in earnest. At first I was lucky for I was paired with a knight who bore a shield with a she bear on it and he being stout and wearing a heavy breastplate I was able to run under his guard, prick him and then away before he could bring down his sword. At which the people laughed mightily and he cried out that he was stung by a gnat and would have his revenge but the judge who was his majesty’s chamberlain would not permit it.

  So I had borne myself well and luckily in two of thtrials but this time was to be with staves. I was drawn against a tall strong knight upon a big roan horse, his impresa showing a tower under siege. We took our choice of weapons and rode apart to the ends of the field. A trumpet sounded. The herald raised h
is staff and let it fall. I spurred towards the knight of the tower but his horse being stronger than mine he met me three-quarters of the way and from his greater height struck hard down upon my head. Even so I believe in pity of what he esteemed my youth he did not strike with that force he might have. Yet the strength of it, as well as thrusting my helmet down upon my collarbone, broke the girths of my saddle, which tumbled from the horse with me still upon it, my foot caught in the stirrup on one side. Luckily I was able to cry for my horse to stand, which he was accustomed to do on command or else he had bolted dragging me along with my head thumping on the ground to crack my skull and addle my brains.

  Even so as I fell I put out a hand to save myself and felt my wrist bone break and my dagger ride up in its hanger to pierce my body where the cuirass ended. So I hung upside down and bleeding. The knight of the tower being nearest to me got down from his horse to come to my aid. Untangling my foot from the stirrup he lowered me gently to the ground and began to unfasten my helmet.

  By this time the duenna came panting up, as I learned, sent by the countess. The knight took off my helmet.

  ‘Why, it is but a boy.’

  ‘Yes, sir, a foolish boy, page to my lady who has sent me to see him safely bestowed.’ And indeed two were coming with a hurdle to carry me off the field.

  ‘Should we not remove the cuirass and search his wound to staunch the bleeding?’

  ‘It is better for me to take him back to the house to his pallet and as he is something of a physician he will no doubt tend himself when he wakes.’ For from my wounds and the pain and the fear of discovery bringing shame on my lady and her wrath upon me, I had swooned away.

  When I awoke it was on my pallet in the laboratory where I had been forced to lie because of the press of people. I found the duenna’s ancient face peering down at me.