Judicial Whispers

by Caro Fraser

  She stared at him, stunned. There was a metallic taste in her mouth, one she had come to recognise in the past few days. She stumbled to her feet. ‘I’m going to be sick,’ she said. ‘Excuse me.’ And she disappeared into the Ladies.

  Leo took several swallows of his drink, and then let out a groaning sigh of exasperation and anger. It occurred to him immediately that he could attempt to sway her, tell her that if she kept the baby she would lose him, but that if she had an abortion, then all could go on as before. But he could not bring himself to tell that last lie. The thing was not going to carry on. He knew how much she loved him, and he could not rob her of her child on the strength of such a falsehood, and then rob her of himself.

  She came back, her face white, her expression cold. She did not sit down. ‘I think I want to go back, Leo. I don’t think there’s any point in talking any more.’

  He reached up and took her hand. ‘Sit down,’ he said. ‘Come on. I’m sorry. This isn’t getting us anywhere. I’m sorry for – for getting angry.’ The warmth of his hand and the kinder note in his voice compelled her, and she sat down.

  He stared at the table for a moment, collecting his thoughts before speaking.

  ‘Listen,’ he said, his tone placatory, ‘we have to accept that something has happened to us which wasn’t planned.’ Not by me, at any rate, he thought. ‘It’s not in the scheme of things, Rachel. I have my life. I like it the way it is. You are a part of that life – but just you. On your own. No other ties or commitments. If you have this baby, all that alters. I think – I know, that everything would be destroyed. And I don’t want that.’ Another lie, added to the heap of others. He waited for her reaction, pulling open the packet of peanuts for something to do.

  Rachel had been watching his face as he talked. She felt cold inside at the knowledge that he spoke with utter conviction. He was entirely self-centred. Well, he had never made any secret of that. But it was one thing to hear it idly expressed, and another to see it so clearly demonstrated. He didn’t want this child. Why should he? She had known all along that this could happen. She had simply willed the possibility away. Or had she? Was this pregnancy the result of some suppressed, subconscious desire? In that case, she was guilty of a double betrayal. Either way, what he had said before was true. She had been irresponsible. Why should she ask Leo to pay the price for that?

  But even as she admitted all this to herself, she knew that she could not destroy their child. Amid the confusion of doubts and hopes and recriminations, that was the truth most clearly evident. She could not get rid of this baby. Not even to keep Leo. And here, as she acknowledged this unshakeable fact, crept in the beginnings of hope, little tentacles of illusion spreading out. Maybe when it was born he would change his mind. Maybe before then. He was reacting to news she had given him not twenty minutes ago. How could he have come to a proper decision about this? Surely, given his own feelings for her, their feelings for one another, the issue was more complex than he made it appear? The next words she spoke were prompted by these immediate thoughts.

  ‘Would it be so dreadful, if I were to have our baby?’ she asked, her voice filled with genuine, hesitant wonder.

  For a second Leo said nothing. He suddenly thought of his mother. Deliberately, he picked up a handful of peanuts and sifted them in the palm of his hand. Then he looked up at her. ‘I think,’ he replied, ‘that it’s as much a matter of the timing as anything else.’ Immediately he wondered why it was that everything he said sounded cold and calculating. But, of course, he knew why. ‘I mean,’ he went on, ‘you’ve just joined a new partnership. You’ve only been there a few months. Another year or so and you’ll be an equity partner. Isn’t that what you want? Wasn’t that the plan?’ He felt he had touched a fine nerve here, for her gaze dropped abruptly and she picked up her drink. ‘If you stop now,’ he went on, pursuing the thread, ‘you’ll be out of the race. We know what it’s like in our profession, Rachel. You can be away for just four months, and bang! Your clients have gone, your practice has shrunk to a fifth of its size … That’s an awful lot of ground to recover. You should think about it. Think what a baby would do to your career. Not to mention other things.’

  She watched him swallow the handful of peanuts. Everything he said was true, but none of it seemed particularly important any more. It was just a job. Didn’t he realise that? And then it occurred to her that he had only said all of this as a means to dissuade her from having the baby. He didn’t care about her career.

  ‘None of that is important,’ she replied. She said nothing more, merely gazing at him, her lovely face calm as the waters of a still pool.

  If Leo could have ground his teeth, he would have. He felt like taking her by the shoulders and shaking her. But he merely ate a few more peanuts, one by one, as he considered his position.

  ‘What about us?’ he asked at last. ‘Don’t you care about us?’ It was the card he had told himself he would not play, but he played it.

  Instantly her expression changed to one of ineffable sadness; he was touched by the sight, and almost ashamed of himself.

  ‘Of course I do,’ she replied. ‘You are the most important thing in my life. But just because this baby is a mistake, just because it may spoil what we have together – well, I don’t see that that’s any reason to kill it.’

  They talked on and on for another half-hour, until Leo realised he was getting nowhere. Rachel was determined there should be no abortion. Nothing he could say would dissuade her. Leo sighed. Perhaps he should just accept this as a good excuse for their relationship to end. There would be complications, of course. There would be the child, sticky emotional questions, matters of money … But if she was so determined to keep it, perhaps this was the best way of utilising the situation, to finish this affair.

  Christ, I’m a bastard, he thought, as he weighed the various considerations. He had heard of men who simply cut and ran when this kind of thing happened. He supposed he would be doing that, in a sense. Not physically, but he would use the opportunity to detach himself emotionally from Rachel. In the end, there would only be a distant, practical relationship.

  He picked up his drink and swallowed what was left. ‘Well, it seems I’m going to have to reserve my position for the moment,’ he said grimly. He glanced up at her, wondering what was going through her mind, and said, ‘Shall we go? I need some food.’ His voice sounded rough and impatient and she suddenly realised that she might be about to lose him for ever. It was as though a small, cold weight had settled on her heart.

  Getting into the house hadn’t been difficult. Just a matter of busting one of the panes of glass in the window above the sink and groping for the catch. Swinging the window open, James pulled himself up onto the sill and vaulted clumsily over the sink. He crossed the dark kitchen into the hall, then hesitated. Although he knew the house well, he had no idea where Leo might keep any money. When he had lived there last summer, pilfering from Leo had not been part of the game. Leo was too sharp for that. Anyway, he had liked Leo then – it had sometimes felt like more than that. And he had been happy lazing his days away in the house, eating his food, drinking his booze, sharing his bed. Now he couldn’t care less about stealing from him, or from anyone, come to that. He’d managed to beg a bit of stuff from friends in Oxford last night, but he needed real money now. Something to keep him going for a couple of weeks.

  He bit nervously at the stubs of his fingernails as he considered the options. Then he made his way into the living room, reaching with a familiar hand for the switch of one of the lamps. It was taking a chance, but he couldn’t see a bloody thing otherwise. He saw Leo’s briefcase lying beside the desk and went over to it. He opened it and rummaged through the contents feverishly. Nothing. Just papers, bloody papers. He thrust the opened briefcase aside, the papers spilling onto the polished floor. He looked round the room at the ornaments and pictures. He had no idea if anything was valuable. Then he saw a small silver box on the mantelpiece. That would do for
a kick-off. He pocketed it, and decided to make a swift tour upstairs.

  He switched off the lamp and made his way up to Leo’s bedroom. That brought back a few memories. Then he realised that he was beginning to sweat uncomfortably, a horrible, flaky feeling coming over his body. This had to be done fast. He went through the pockets of Leo’s overcoat, hanging in the wardrobe, then yanked open the drawers of his dressing table, scattering the contents on the floor as he searched. A wallet. He opened it, hands shaking, and pulled out a wad of notes. Brilliant. With a little snickering laugh, James thrust the notes into the back pocket of his jeans and switched off the light. If he hadn’t found any money, he’d been ready to trash the place. But he had what he needed. Just as well Leo was down that weekend. Just as well for both of them.

  Because Leo’s bedroom was at the back of the house neither Leo nor Rachel saw the light go off, and James did not hear the car come to a soft, crunching halt on the gravel outside. He was already downstairs, his hand on the front doorknob, ready to open it and leave, when he heard a footstep and the sound of Leo’s voice on the other side of the door. As he opened the front door and switched on the hall light, Leo caught sight of James’s figure disappearing into the kitchen. He dropped the bag of groceries he was holding and hurled himself across the hallway after him.

  James was already pulling himself up onto the sink when Leo came into the kitchen, without any time to turn on the light. He hauled at James’s ankle and James swore at him, kicking backwards with his free foot, which Leo tried to grab as well. He groped upwards for the windowsill, but Leo was dragging him backwards. As his stomach slid downwards over the edge of the sink, James’s hands hit the draining board. He felt something beneath his right palm and his hand closed on it instinctively. Leo had pulled him heavily down onto the floor and was bending over him when James lifted the knife to stab at him, raking the blade across the palm of Leo’s hand.

  It was a sensation, rather than a pain at first. Leo clasped his left wrist with his right hand and felt the wetness, and realised what had happened. He took a step backwards, just as James began to pull himself to his feet, getting ready to lunge at Leo again as soon as he was upright. He didn’t care if he killed the bastard. He was getting out of here, that was for sure.

  At that moment Rachel, who had heard the voices and the scuffling, hurried across the hallway and switched on the kitchen light. She screamed over and over again, standing slightly bent over, simply staring at them, at the blood running from Leo’s hand, and screaming. James was leaning back against the sink, breathing heavily, the knife at the ready, a smear of blood running neatly along its edge. Leo still held his cut hand; the pain was beginning to seep into his consciousness, but he was concentrating entirely on the identity of his attacker and the knife he wielded.

  This was James, someone he knew, and that gave him an advantage, an immediate handle. But before he could open his mouth to commence the flow of well-reasoned dissuasion, James went for him again. Rachel screamed even louder. Why didn’t the silly bitch go and phone the police? The question flashed through Leo’s head as he tried to grab James’s wrist with both hands. The pain in the gash on his own hand was mind-numbing as he tried to tighten his grip. He felt feeble against the younger man’s strength and fury. He did the only thing he could think of, and brought his right knee up as hard as he could into James’s groin. He almost felt for James as he watched him double up, clutching at himself, the knife falling with a clatter to the floor. Leo lunged for the knife with his good hand and picked it up.

  ‘Call the bloody police, can’t you?’ he called over his shoulder to Rachel, who still stood, stricken, in the doorway. She fled into the living room. Leo stood over James, uncertain as to what he would do if, when he recovered, James got up and went for him again.

  But it was not in James’s character to continue the fight. He lay curled up on the kitchen floor, the waves of nausea gradually receding, listening to Leo’s voice talking to him. By sheer force of personality, Leo reduced James to tears, and by the time Rachel came back into the kitchen he was hunched up against the sink, wiping at his dirt-streaked face with shaking hands.

  He was still there when the police car arrived. Rachel was standing in the kitchen doorway apprehensively, her face white, watching James. But Leo stood casually next to him, holding his hand under running water from the cold tap.

  As he was lifted from the floor into a standing position, James was looking grey and trembling.

  ‘Do you know if anything’s been taken, sir?’ asked the policewoman, a businesslike-looking blonde.

  Leo glanced over his shoulder, then turned off the tap. ‘I don’t know,’ he replied, pulling open a drawer and taking out a clean tea towel, which he wrapped round his wounded hand. ‘I haven’t exactly had a chance to look.’ The policewoman went quickly through James’s pockets and produced the silver box and the rolls of notes, and handed them to her male colleague.

  Leo sat down heavily on a chair, suddenly feeling rather weak. ‘I presume the money is mine,’ he said. ‘The box certainly is. Rachel, would you mind checking if there’s anything missing from my wallet in the dressing table upstairs? Top left-hand drawer.’

  While Rachel was gone, Leo sat watching the policeman and woman. He really felt he’d seen enough of the police recently to last him for the rest of the year. He glanced at James, who seemed to be in something of a bad way, astonished at the change in the boy in just a few months. He’d been a good-looking youth, clean and rather effete. Now he had the look of the streets. Not the faintest notion that he might in some way have contributed to James’s altered fortunes flickered across Leo’s mind. He believed everyone was responsible for their own destiny. It did not occur to him that he had used or harmed the boy. He did not feel remotely sorry for him.

  ‘Looks like you’ve got a bit of a problem, son,’ remarked the policeman, observing James’s eyes and the trembling of his limbs.

  James said nothing, but kept his eyes fastened on the wall, his lank blonde hair hiding him from Leo’s gaze.

  Rachel returned with the empty wallet.

  ‘You take the money from this, son?’ asked the policeman, holding it up. James said nothing for a moment, then nodded. The money was handed back to Leo. ‘Come on,’ said the policeman to James, as he and his colleague wheeled him out of the kitchen and towards their waiting car. ‘We’ll be in touch, sir,’ he added to Leo.

  As they reached the car, James suddenly wrenched himself round in their grasp and shouted in pent-up, frustrated misery, ‘That bastard owed me something, didn’t he? I used to live here! I used to live with him! And he just kicked me out, without anywhere to go! He owes me something! You ask him! He paid me to sleep with him! And he owes me!’

  Leo stood in the doorway. He had sudden visions of local papers, of this story making its way elsewhere, and he said without hesitation, ‘I have never seen this man in my life.’

  Still swearing and struggling, James was bundled into the back of the car.

  Leo came back inside and closed the door. Rachel was sitting in the kitchen. Maybe I was right, thought Leo, coming into the kitchen and standing over her. Maybe she attracts disaster. It follows her around. She reached up and touched the cloth bound round his hand, blood seeping through it.

  ‘Let’s have a look,’ she said. He unwound the cloth and disclosed the gash. She winced. ‘That needs stitches,’ she said. ‘Come on. Tell me where the nearest casualty is and I’ll drive you there.’ She seemed to have recovered her self-possession, taking some strength from the fact of Leo’s injury.

  They talked little during the wait at the hospital, or on the way back. It was nearly ten o’clock when they got home, but Rachel insisted on cooking two steaks and opening the bottle of wine. ‘We both need it,’ she said.

  As they sat in the kitchen over their late supper, Rachel looked up at Leo and asked, ‘Why did you lie to them – to the police? That was the boy who was living here last summer, was
n’t it?’

  Leo considered this question with weary disbelief. ‘Did you expect me to confirm that to them?’

  ‘You could have said nothing at all.’

  Leo put down his wine glass. ‘Rachel, I have applied to take silk this year. Things aren’t looking good for me, apparently. The last thing I need is a story getting about that I had a happy little ménage à trois here last summer and that one of its members is now a junkie who tried to burgle my house and pulled a knife on me.’ She met his uncompromising gaze. ‘I’m prepared to tell any lie necessary to prevent that getting out.’

  She said nothing. She was beginning to realise how many sides there were to Leo, how much of him she did not know.

  She washed up as Leo went upstairs to get ready for bed. The square of brown paper which she had taped over the window puckered and puffed with the cold night air. When she went upstairs she found Leo sitting on the edge of the bed, his shirt off, staring at the neat, firm bandage encircling his hand. He looked oddly boyish, vulnerable.

  ‘You should take some of the painkillers they gave you,’ she said, wanting to sit on the bed next to him, stroke his bare skin, hold him. But something held her back.

  ‘I have,’ he replied, then glanced up. ‘Are you coming to bed?’ he asked. He suddenly badly wanted some animal warmth, the comfort of someone next to him. The shock of the knife attack was only now beginning to hit him.

  Rachel hesitated. ‘Not in that bed, Leo,’ she said, her voice soft and apologetic. She regretted the words as soon as they were spoken.

  Leo smiled and nodded. Of course not. She and the baby wanted to be on their self-righteous own. God, he was tired of it all.

  ‘And I’ve decided,’ she went on, ‘that I’ll go and stay with friends in London next week. Until the flat’s in some sort of shape. I should get back to work. I don’t need time off – it just gives me too much space to think. And please – I can see to getting the flat straight again. I can afford to. I’ll get the insurance money eventually.’