Judicial Whispers

by Caro Fraser

Twice he hesitated, his hand hovering over the phone. Then he picked it up.

  Rachel and Felicity were on their knees in Rachel’s office, trying to do a clear-out of old files. Rachel glanced up and noticed that Roger Williams had just passed by for the third time, peering through the glass partition and smiling down at them.

  ‘Felicity,’ said Rachel, realising why this was happening, ‘I think you’re showing rather a lot of knicker, sitting like that.’

  Felicity, who was on all fours with her bottom in the air, put a self-conscious hand round to the back of her skirt and sat up. The phone rang and Rachel got to her feet.

  ‘Mr Davies for you, dear,’ sang Nora.

  ‘Hello, Leo,’ said Rachel flatly. Over the past few days the only tolerable intervals in her life seemed to be those in which she didn’t think about him. Morning sickness had become entangled in her mind with despair and rejection.

  ‘I’d like to see you this evening, if you’re not busy,’ said Leo. ‘I want to talk to you about a few things.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so,’ replied Rachel. She remembered vividly the time when he had first called her, asked her to dinner, and how her spirits had soared. Now the prospect of seeing him, although she longed to be with him, was coloured with apprehension. There was nothing light-hearted in their relationship any more, nothing to look forward to.

  ‘I’ll pick you up from the office. It’s – let’s see’ – he glanced at his watch; still early, but he hadn’t been able to get a damn thing done all day, anyway – ‘five-forty now. I’ll be with you in half an hour.’

  ‘All right.’ She put the phone down. Felicity, still sitting on the floor, glanced up at her.

  ‘Cheer up. Can’t be that bad.’

  ‘Can’t it?’ Rachel picked up a heap of the files which Felicity had sorted through and dumped them on her desk.

  ‘At least you’ve still got a job. What am I going to do in two weeks’ time?’

  ‘Haven’t you found anything yet?’

  Felicity shook her head. ‘I’m fed up typing. Fed up doing this sort of stuff.’ She chucked a pile of papers down on top of another. ‘I want to—God, do you know what I’d really like? I’d like to be one of those PA types – you know, the ones who just go around organising people’s lives for them. Tell them where they’re going, when they’re doing it, fixing up appointments for them, keeping people away from them, letting people in to see them. I’d be good at that.’ She sounded morose. ‘But I don’t know how you get those kind of jobs. Not by being me, I don’t suppose.’

  ‘Something will turn up,’ said Rachel, unconvincingly. ‘Come on, let’s get this cleared up. I’m going in half an hour.’

  They were putting the last of the files in order when Nora rang to say that Leo was in reception.

  ‘Ask him to come up, Nora. I’m just finishing here,’ said Rachel.

  ‘Fourth floor, Mr Davies,’ said Nora with her warm, stretching smile, etched in vivid fuchsia today. ‘Fifth door on your right.’ She watched as Leo got into the lift. Lovely type. Bit old for her taste, though. Looked like a Gemini, anyway.

  ‘Hello,’ said Rachel, glancing up as Leo came into her room. In spite of everything, she still felt a glow at the sight of him; his presence seemed to charge the atmosphere.

  ‘Whoops! Mind out!’ called Felicity, swooping to pick up a thick file from Leo’s path, revealing a hefty amount of cleavage and an expanse of black-stockinged rear thigh as she did so.

  ‘Felicity, this is Mr Davies. Felicity’s my secretary,’ said Rachel.

  ‘Not for long,’ said Felicity airily, flashing Leo a smile. This one was a looker, she thought. She remembered seeing him in reception once. She wouldn’t mind a little piece of that action, something on the mature side.

  Oh?’ said Leo, stepping aside to let her past with the file, rather taken by her pretty grin.

  ‘Felicity’s leaving us soon,’ said Rachel, glancing at Felicity with faint apprehension. ‘Unfortunately.’

  ‘I’m too much for this place,’ said Felicity, this time directing a distinctly flirtatious glance at Leo. ‘Don’t suppose you’d have a job for me, would you, Mr Davies?’

  ‘Right, thank you, Felicity,’ said Rachel quickly. ‘I think you can probably go off home now.’

  ‘OK, night!’ She fluttered her fingers at them and left.

  Leo found himself smiling, not something he had done much in the past few days. ‘She seems rather good fun,’ he remarked.

  Rachel sighed. ‘She is. It’s a bit of a rotten story, actually. Office intimidation, I suppose you could call it. Apparently our office manager was coming on to her, and her boyfriend found out and started a punch-up at the office Christmas party.’

  ‘Sounds like standard stuff for an office party,’ remarked Leo as he helped her into her coat. He was glad to be talking about something remote from his current preoccupations. They made their way to the lift.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Rachel, leaning against the wall of the lift as the doors closed, ‘she’s been asked to leave because of it. The partners can’t exactly give her a glowing reference after that incident – even though it wasn’t her fault, so far as I can see – and she’s not optimistic about finding another job. I feel rather guilty about it all.’

  ‘Why should you feel guilty?’ asked Leo.

  ‘Goodnight, Nora,’ called Rachel. They went out into the street; a light rain had begun to fall. ‘Oh, I don’t know … I just wish there was something I could do to help. She needs a job. She lives with her brother, and he’s unemployed – unemployable, by all accounts – and they rely on her earnings.’

  ‘We’re always in need of new typists,’ said Leo idly, hailing a cab and turning up the collar of his coat against the rain, which was growing heavier now, gusting against them, splashing on to the pavement. ‘Especially since we’ll be taking on two new tenants shortly.’

  They climbed into the cab and it set off down Bishopsgate. ‘I mean, if she’s badly in need of a job … On the other hand, it’s a bit of a comedown, being a lowly typist after working as a partner’s secretary.’

  Rachel turned to him. ‘If you seriously think there’d be a job for her, she would jump at it. I mean, she’s a bit dizzy, but at least she’s used to working for lawyers and wouldn’t have to learn the language from scratch.’ Rachel regarded Leo, who was staring absently at the rain coursing down the cab window, lost in his own thoughts.

  ‘What?’ He turned to her. ‘Yes – yes, as I said, we always need new people. If you think she’d be interested, tell her to give Henry a ring. I’ll tell him to expect her call.’ And he turned his gaze back to the wet, dark streets.

  Rachel sat back, reflecting upon this offer. It seemed to be just what Felicity needed. It crossed her mind, fleetingly, that perhaps it wasn’t quite fair to inflict Felicity upon the inmates of 5 Caper Court … but let them worry about that. How much of a hash could she make of typing up briefs, after all? Thrusting the obvious answer to this to the back of her mind, she said, ‘Yes, I’ll give her the number. I think she’ll be delighted at the chance.’

  Leo said nothing and, after a brief silence in which thoughts of Felicity and her problems evaporated entirely, Rachel asked, ‘Where are we going?’ Her stomach tightened with apprehension as she considered what might be said between them that evening. Until now, she had put the future of their relationship from her mind. Now it could not be put away. The future was upon them with force and immediacy, and she felt afraid.

  ‘Somewhere quiet for a drink and a talk,’ replied Leo. ‘We can have dinner later, if you like. You say where.’ Now that he had settled the matter in his mind, he felt almost celebratory.

  He was astonished to find that he was quite relieved at the prospect of a change in his condition. That which he had imagined would be a stricture, an oppression, now struck him as a release. He need not be his old self – the self which now rather disgusted him – any more.

  The wine bar in Holborn was
tucked away in a back alley, and there were few people in there. It had been converted from an old cellar, and there were a number of small brick alcoves with tables. Leo and Rachel sat in one of these.

  Leo bought a bottle of wine and poured her a glass without saying anything. Although alcohol rather nauseated her these days, she took a quick swallow to steady her nerves.

  ‘I’ve been thinking a good deal over the past few days,’ said Leo, unbuttoning his jacket, then leaning forward and turning his glass between the palms of his hands. The light from the candle in the bottle on their table cast saffron shadows on his hands and on the side of his face.

  ‘Oh?’ There was a decisive note in his voice which Rachel heard almost with dread. There was a long pause.

  ‘And I think that perhaps it would be best if we were to get married.’ He picked up his glass and drank, then set it down again and looked up at her. Her eyes looked large and luminous in the candlelight, her features perfectly still. ‘Well?’ he said, and smiled faintly. Christ, he thought, what have I done?

  ‘I don’t think so, Leo,’ said Rachel at last, her voice no more than a murmur.

  Leo had hardly expected this. He coughed lightly and looked down at his wine and back at her. ‘Why don’t you think so? Isn’t it the best solution?’ he asked quietly.

  She shook her head. ‘That’s all it would be. Just a solution.’ She looked up at him. ‘You don’t love me, Leo.’

  At that moment, gazing at her pale, lovely face, the dark, shining hair, listening to the familiar clearness of her voice, he almost felt he did.

  ‘Do you think I make a habit of proposing to people I don’t love?’ His voice as he spoke was a little grim.

  ‘You said you didn’t want a child,’ she reminded him, her gaze shifting to the flickering flame of the candle, the shadows that danced against the walls.

  ‘It’s not a matter of choice, though – is it?’ he said, then added quickly, ‘I don’t look at it in that way any more. I was speaking hypothetically. I accept that this is a reality.’

  She looked up at him, silent. Then she spoke.

  ‘You once told me not to invest too much in you, Leo. That you didn’t go the distance. I didn’t want to believe you then.’ She hesitated, twisting the stem of her wine glass. ‘But I do now. You’ve given me a lot,’ she went on. ‘You’ve freed me from fears I thought were with me for ever, taken away … the darkness. Some of it …’ There was another silence, one in which Leo, to his surprise, became aware that he felt faintly scared. Of what, he could hardly tell. ‘But you know,’ she went on, not smiling, merely looking at him with sad earnestness, ‘you’re not the marrying kind. There’s really no room in your world for anyone else besides Leo Davies, is there?’ There was not the slightest trace of bitterness or irony in her voice. Merely the frank question.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said, and she leant back. ‘I don’t know.’ God, they were dealing with issues which he hadn’t foreseen. He had simply thought that he would put it to her that they should marry, and that she would say yes. ‘No, look,’ he said, ‘I do know … I do know that I think that we should marry. The baby should have parents …’

  ‘The baby will have me, Leo. I’ll be more than enough, I promise.’

  Leo sat staring at the candle flame, feeling inert and a little old. The faint fear which had crept upon him suddenly resolved itself; it was that familiar fear of late, the fear of rejection, and of loneliness. He looked up at her. ‘Do you love me?’ he asked softly.

  The seconds slid away as they gazed at one another. Rachel knew that she had reached some critical juncture, and felt strangely alienated. What did she know about him after all? He had a past whose sordid details she could only conjecture, and he was offering her a future that must, inevitably, be bound up with that past. But then why should she expect anything but imperfection in her life? Nothing was ever clean and whole. Everything she touched became disfigured in some fashion. It was her own special curse. Not even Leo could change that. He was merely proof of it. But his question still hung in the air, and she must answer it. They both knew the answer. Dominating every other consideration was the sure and ineluctable knowledge that she loved him deeply, hopelessly. She realised that if she were to refuse him now, there would be nothing worthwhile left in life. Just a dark, gaping void of loneliness that not even Leo’s child could fill.

  ‘Yes,’ she said slowly. ‘Yes, I love you.’

  ‘Then marry me.’ He spoke with a determination and finality that surprised even him.

  Suddenly she felt weary, all resistance spent. ‘Are you sure that this is what you want?’

  Leo stared at her, trying to recall all the thoughts that had gone through his mind that afternoon. This was utter madness. Then he thought of the future, of the isolation of failure, of Easter and the difference this might make.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It’s what I want.’ And he waited.

  ‘Very well, then,’ replied Rachel at last, with the ghost of a smile. She glanced at him apprehensively.

  ‘Fine,’ said Leo, the reality of it sinking in. He picked up his glass, hesitated for a moment, and touched it against hers.

  Four days later, his phone rang in chambers.

  ‘You can stop buying The Sun, Leo,’ said Sarah’s lazy voice.

  A wave of relief swept him for a moment, then anxiety returned. ‘What’s been going on?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, I simply did what you couldn’t possibly do. I paid our mutual friend James a visit. He’s in some horrible remand place. I went to see him the day after you rang.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Well, I have to admit,’ she continued with a sigh, ‘that I did make a few promises on your behalf. I told him that if he didn’t take this business any further – simply kept his mouth shut and didn’t talk to anyone – you might be able to pull a few strings when his case comes up. And afterwards … well, I’m sure that with your money and connections, Leo, you’ll be able to help him a bit. He had come to something of a dead end.’ She paused. ‘For which you were somewhat to blame.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ sighed Leo.

  ‘And I think if he can stay off drugs and find work of some kind, he’ll be OK. If you can set him on his feet, give him a bit of money …’

  ‘And I’m meant to be doing all this for him?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Sarah’s voice was cool and bright. ‘After all, we’re both doing this for you, aren’t we? When you think what the alternative might be! Very unpleasant publicity. And don’t worry – James hasn’t mentioned my name to any journalists, so no one’s come near me.’

  ‘You’re doing this for yourself as much as for me,’ replied Leo curtly.

  ‘Possibly …’ Her tone was light and reflective. ‘But you really should be grateful to me. I’m sure that you’ll be able to return the favour when I’ve finished my Bar course and need a good pupillage.’ She laughed. ‘Won’t you?’

  He smiled grimly. ‘Sarah, I do not doubt that from this moment on I am eternally in your debt.’

  She laughed again. ‘Something like that. Now, you will back up these promises I made to James, won’t you? Otherwise, well – it’s a bit of a let-down for everybody, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’ll do what I can. Goodbye, Sarah.’

  He put the phone down. So that immediate threat was removed – he would worry about the cost of it later. James was easily dealt with from now on. The irony of it was that he had been panicked into committing himself irrevocably to Rachel. He rubbed his hand wearily across his eyes. It seemed that with every step which he took to free himself from his problems, he became further and further enmeshed in new ones of his own making.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t – not the fifteenth, Charles,’ said Sir Basil, sitting at his desk with the telephone in one hand and his fountain pen in the other. ‘No, we are having a small celebration in chambers that evening. Leo Davies is to be married, you know. Perhaps you could
have a word with the Lord Chancellor and arrange another evening? Excellent. Goodbye.’

  Loyalty to chambers first, thought Sir Basil as he put down the phone. He was hardly likely to lose his appointment to the Bench through having to inconvenience the Judicial Appointments Group. He particularly did not wish to miss Leo’s drinks party. He felt a vague but unmistakeable relief that Leo was at last getting married.

  Still with his fountain pen in his hand, Sir Basil stood up, gazing at the little list which he held. He must arrange an afternoon with Henry to go through his cases, working out which he could safely continue with and which would have to be wound down. He would go and arrange that with him now.

  Henry was in a little room off the clerks’ room initiating Felicity in the mysteries of the photocopier. Felicity, whose first day it was at 5 Caper Court, stood with her hands clasped attentively behind her back, wearing an expression of concerned intelligence. The hem of her skirt was three inches lower than normal, but she had been unable to resist wearing her favourite low-cut blouse. Otherwise what was the point of having a Wonderbra?

  ‘… and so you press this button and it collates and stacks everything. Right?’

  Felicity nodded and fingered the button thoughtfully. She’d never been very good at getting things into bundles. She remembered that time when the machine at Nichols & Co had started shooting sheaves of paper all over the floor like a demented thing. It hadn’t been her fault, but everyone had blamed her. She hoped she was going to be OK with this one.

  ‘May I have a word, Henry?’ asked Sir Basil as he put his head round the door. He glanced at Felicity and gave her a faint, courteous smile, trying hard to keep his gaze above her chin. Felicity felt as if she ought to curtsey, and smiled back. Pretty girl, thought Sir Basil, if a little more exotic in her attire than the kind of girl they usually employed.

  ‘Here,’ said Henry to Felicity, ‘you can photocopy these bundles for Mr Davies for tomorrow’s hearing. Four of each, then go through and mark off the pages, just like the original.’