At the Dark Hour

by John Wilson

  The following morning he was in early. He noted the times of the early morning service posted outside the church. In Chambers he resumed playing with the lease. At 8.45 a.m. he went to get a newspaper and read it until nine. At 9.15 he went back out to get some Woodbines and noticed the churchgoers dispersing, the chaplain at the door saying his farewells. He didn’t see Julia amongst the crowd. He opened the Woodbines and smoked one by Fountain Court. At 9.30 he went back towards Stirrup Court and then diverted at the last moment back into the round church. It was empty again. He saw his folded square of paper still there under the marble ankle and sat down heavily in the rear pew, pretending to pray.

  Looking down the chancel, he tried to think about his actions. What did he want? This was madness! She had wanted a private moment with him to explain her actions, and he was giving her a check-list of his dates. He was happily married. He had an eight-year-old daughter. He was making himself available to a married woman. Two weeks of his available dates and times. Asking for intimacy. Using the church as his go-between. Madness. He went to the effigy and removed the paper, crumpled it up without reading it, went back to his lease and got down to work.

  He thought no more of it until he was heading back to Temple tube. If Catherine found it in his pockets it would be difficult to explain. Passing a litter-bin he paused, removed it from his pocket and threw it in. Madness.

  He slept badly that night. “Why?” was the bell-beat of his dreams. He didn’t know why. He couldn’t even remember exactly what he had written.

  The note was still there when he passed by the following morning, gleaming white amongst the other rubbish. He took it out and unfolded it. What exactly had he written?

  – It works! Next Thursday, then. Green Park. 12.30.

  The same curved writing. Black ink. He read it and re-read it. Had she been following him, and replaced her note for his in the bin? He wanted to keep the note forever. To frame it. But instead he crumpled it up and put it, almost reverently, back in the bin. The morning service had already begun. Julia would be inside saying her prayers. He was too late to reply. But Thursday was a week away. In Chambers he wrote a series of notes and rejected them all, throwing them away. His pen paused over his fifth attempt. And then:

  – Yes!

  And so Adam returned to the Christian fold. Julia wrote a short note in reply which said simply, “Thursday, then,” and their correspondence began.

  Chapter Seven

  Arthur was particular about the Chambers’ Diary. A big red book with a black leather spine. Entries would be made in pencil at first, and then, when the booking was confirmed, he would painstakingly over-write in ink next to the initials of the barrister concerned. He was at this work when Adam returned from Westminster County Court. Seeing Adam, he put down his Parker:

  – Ah. Mr Falling. Mr Pemberton asked if you would go and see him about the McKechnie case when you returned from Court.

  He pulled out a large gold watch.

  – He said 3.30 would be a good sort of time.

  – Thank you, Arthur.

  Adam returned to his room and put down his papers. How could he explain the watermark? Why hadn’t he noticed it? Was it peculiar to Pemberton’s note paper or could he use a broad-based excuse? He needed to talk to Julia. He needed a cigarette. He pulled out the packet to shuck one out but fumbled so that they all fell to the floor. Scrabbling on the carpet to pick them up, he was unable to get them back into the packet. He broke two matches before he succeeded in getting a light, and then drew the smoke deep into his lungs.

  Twenty-five past three. Time for one more cigarette.

  Pemberton was reading a three-page typed document, holding it between his finger and thumb, when Adam entered. He put it down carefully, obscuring all but the signature with his blotter. Adam recognised Jackson’s spidery writing.

  – You’ve been smoking.

  – I like a cigarette after Court.

  – I can always tell, you know. The smell of Woodbines sticks to the clothing. I don’t suppose you even notice it after a while.

  Adam thought back to the party:

  She’s been looking forward to it. Had her dress dry-cleaned for the occasion. Had all her dresses cleaned actually. We must keep up appearances.

  And:

  There’s always something, Adam. We could never hide everything.

  – You wanted to discuss the McKechnie case with me?

  – Mrs McKechnie … Victoria, as I’m sure Bateman calls her … has gone to see Farquarson at 3, Paper, so it looks like we’ll be having a good punch-up. Can’t see how the two of you are going to get anywhere with it though.

  – You’ve brought Jackson in, no doubt?

  Pemberton allowed his finger to trace slowly across the spidery signature and took a sip from a glass of water.

  – Yes. Good man, Jackson. I can always count on him to dig up the dirt somehow. He’s remarkably … unobtrusive – for such a big man. You never know he’s there until it’s too late.

  – Well, Bateman will be denying adultery.

  – Yes. Of course he will. Don’t they always?

  – There’s absolutely no evidence and if there’s nothing to dig up, Jackson won’t be able to help you (Adam hoped that Bateman was being sensible).

  – It’s the little things that catch people out, Adam.

  – You can’t build a case on three letters written from time to time in a diary.

  – Bateman will have to explain where he was on each of the … the “ABC days”. People think they can get away with lying about the seemingly insignificant, but they soon get tangled up. Inconsistencies emerge. A big lie to hide a smaller lie … and so on. It’s one thing for a man to tell a lie in the comfort of these rooms but quite another in the Royal Courts of Justice … when … he’s under oath. Serious matter, perjury.

  Adam didn’t reply immediately. He needed time. In the silence, Pemberton slowly unscrewed the barrel of his Mont Blanc and held the pen over the glass of water. He pressed the pressure bar against the sac and a bubble of black ink emerged onto the nib, then dropped to the bottom of the glass. Wisps of black swirled upwards until the filigree dissolved and the ink infiltrated all of the water.

  – One lie, Adam. That’s all I’m going to need.

  – This is all about money, Jeremy. If poor old Bateman’s wife hadn’t died, none of this would be happening.

  – Ah, yes. The money. Poor old Bateman. All that money for the death of a woman he was being unfaithful to. Wonder what she would make of that. I expect she would be rather pleased to see it going into McKechnie’s pockets. And yours and mine, for that matter.

  – What do you say the letters “ABC” stand for?

  Pemberton gazed out of his window onto the ruins of Fig Tree Court.

  – Why do people do it, Adam? When they have so much to lose? Take Bateman. He sleeps with the wife of someone who is in a position of superiority to him at work. Forget about the insurance money for a moment. If I prove adultery against him, he could lose his job. Even if he doesn’t lose his job, things will be pretty uncomfortable for him at work.

  – That’s precisely why he wouldn’t be sleeping with McKechnie’s wife.

  – You’re right, I suppose. It would be uncommonly foolish to carry on an affair right under her husband’s nose. One small slip and McKechnie would be able to study the man at his leisure. Uncommonly foolish.

  – Mrs McKechnie will deny it. It’s not just Bateman. It will be their combined word against his.

  – She’ll be worrying about her children. Should have thought of that earlier. If I were McKechnie I’d make sure she saw as little of them as possible.

  Suddenly Adam felt very cold.

  – Anyway, with Arthur’s help I intend to get this matter into Court as quickly as possible. Petition in December, contested hearing in early April. All these wartime reconciliations are clearing out the Lists. I can move extremely quickly when I want to.

  Things
are going to move more quickly than you know. I can’t speak with you.

  – Anyway, Adam. I am sure you will protect your client’s interests. I expect a Request for Further and Better Particulars from you in the next few days. No doubt you’ll be seeking chapter and verse.

  He was relieved that he had managed to predict at least one thing.

  – It will be with you by tomorrow.

  – Good. Perkins will give you the dates when we say adultery took place by Friday. Poor Bateman. His dear wife is lying dead in the road and he’s in bed with Mrs McKechnie.

  Chapter Eight

  (Monday 16th December 1940)

  Julia wouldn’t be back until Tuesday. She wouldn’t make the morning service prior to Wednesday. There would be no note. No flash of white within the marble shield. Arthur would be suspicious if he didn’t go. And he didn’t trust Arthur. Every evening since late 1936, if at all possible, he had spent a quarter of an hour in the church at around four. “Praying”, he told his clerk. Irrational, the idea of prayer. But people wanted to believe you. Just as they wanted to believe in God. Irrational and harmless. They would no more question you about your habits of prayer than they would ask after a mad aunt. Catherine knew him too well to be taken in by talk of God. Too many earnest undergraduate conversations on the subject. But the aesthetics of the building – timelessness in the face of war – satisfied her.

  He was badly shaken. He had felt that Julia’s attitude to him had been cooling over the months since the declaration of war and that her note, the attitude on Friday, were her way of distancing herself from him. Pemberton had no evidence. But there was … there seemed to be … an edge to everything he said. Perhaps it was his imagination.

  The church was cold and empty. The knights lay still. He pulled out his Woodbines and then thought better of it. In his mind he attempted to count the number of notes he had left with them. Had picked up. Life had been so comfortable then. Julia would attend the morning service and leave him a letter. He would pop in during the afternoon and replace her note with his. It was quieter before the war and often he could write a reply there and then. Primarily, their notes set out their movements for the day or week ahead and they would plan their time together around their respective diaries. It was even possible to arrange times when it would be possible to speak by phone. As time went by a little more affection, and then love, crept into them. But they would all be destroyed before the day was out.

  He had gone to Green Park that Thursday. Not knowing the park; not knowing what to expect. Where in the park would she be? He’d looked at the A to Z and saw that it was not small. He needn’t have worried. She was waiting by the gates near the tube, a baby at her hip. She saw him coming and smiled broadly. His heart leapt. All the reserve he had witnessed over recent months was gone. She wore a nondescript blue dress: a mother, amongst other mothers, enjoying the afternoon with her baby. She kissed him openly on the lips:

  – Meet Agnes.

  – Hello, Agnes.

  She was very pretty. Like her mother. Big blue expressive eyes and a garrison of blonde curls.

  – I rarely come here. I’m not known, I don’t think. Let’s walk.

  And she headed off, past the deckchairs, towards the trees. The autumn sun was warm. He followed, pulling out a cigarette as he walked. And they disappeared into the innocent crowds. Deep into the park she leaned against an anonymous tree.

  – Have you met Agnes before?

  – She’s very beautiful.

  – The boys are very fond of her. I was worried they’d be jealous.

  She stroked the child’s face and rearranged her curls. Agnes smiled at them delightedly and made some incomprehensible affectionate noises.

  – Little dear. This is Uncle Adam.

  – Hello, Agnes.

  He gently squeezed her cheek between his finger and thumb.

  – Jeremy says that she resembles me as much as Jenny resembles her mother.

  – She must be fifteen now?

  – Just. I think she accepts me at last. Such an awful thing. She was very young when it happened, so she never really knew Joan. I think that probably helped.

  – I never knew her. She died before I joined Chambers. Jeremy was such a grump then. He must have loved her very much. He was so lucky to find you.

  – Oh, he loves … he loved her a lot. Every day Jenny grows more like her.

  – Beautiful little Agnes.

  Adam didn’t know what to say. This wasn’t what he had expected. He didn’t know what he expected. He leaned out across Julia and ruffled the baby’s curly head. Soft. Like gossamer. Julia was so close, the crowds so distant. The smell of fresh cut grass hovered in the air. Something else … intangible … was drawing him, like iron to a magnet. He felt her cool hand on his neck as she pulled him towards her, and the metallic cold of her wedding ring, and they were kissing. And Agnes looked at him with those big blue eyes and gurgled.

  – Don’t worry. She can’t talk yet. And she won’t remember. It will be more difficult when she gets older.

  A promise of years …

  In the weeks that followed, Adam found the time to go to Green Park once or twice a week. Usually Agnes was with them, and in a sense that made it easier: a happy married couple out with their baby. Julia told him all about her children. Stephen was five and Sebastian three. Hardly begun in life, but each day was chronicled to him. She talked about Agnes as well, but somehow he felt he knew the little girl anyway. She was beginning to talk and he knew that this time must now draw to a close. He was beyond explanation. Julia stopped calling him by name in her presence. And their letters flowed.

  She told him, too, about Jeremy. His successful campaign during the Great War. His medals. His wife Joan left behind. Armistice Day and the great reunion. The birth of Jenny. Then the influenza. Joan dying and Jeremy’s world falling apart. The drink, the collapse, the slow recovery, and then her arrival on the scene. A fresh-faced debutante as his angel of mercy.

  There was an Indian summer that year, and in early October they were lying on the grass. Julia gazed at the sky, a misty distance in her eyes:

  – What are you thinking?

  – Nothing much.

  – You can tell me.

  – I was wondering whether it was possible to love two people at once. It’s not that I don’t love Jeremy …

  – I’m very fond of you. What would Jeremy do if he found out?

  – He can’t find out.

  – But if he did?

  – He’d be very hurt … disappointed … I think he would be very angry.

  He felt a strange elation. They had talked about everything. But they had never talked about love. Never talked seriously even about affection or fondness. He had been spending secret happy hours in her company, but all they had done was talk. Love was the great taboo. But, by grandmother’s footsteps, they had been edging nearer to it. It didn’t seem real. Why should she be interested in him? He was, comparatively, a failure, albeit a happy failure. Thin and feeble with a weak chest. He lit another Woodbine:

  – Why do you see me? What can you possibly see in me? Why not someone like Preston?

  She shuddered.

  – I’ve never liked him. And I wouldn’t trust him. Those hands everywhere. He did try to start something. Suggested that he book a room in a hotel somewhere so we could meet during the afternoons. How grubby! I don’t trust him … I trust you.

  And so, talking and sitting in the sun, the smell of fresh cut grass around them, they edged nearer to the abyss.

  ****

  As well as talking about her children, and about Jeremy, Julia would talk about her aunt Beatrice. Beatrice was her father’s only sister and had never married. Rumour had it that the man she loved had died at the Somme. Other rumours suggested that she had established a home with another woman. Julia said she was never sure. Certainly she shared a small house with another woman outside Chippenham and ran a bookshop there. Beatrice had been ill sin
ce early summer and from the start of their correspondence Julia’s visits to her in the nursing home had punctuated her timetable of availability. She charted her aunt’s swift decline. And then, suddenly, she died. Julia was distraught. The funeral was to take place ten days after the death. The children were deemed too young to attend and Jeremy was defending a murder in Manchester. So she made arrangements to attend alone. It turned out that there was only one bedroom in her aunt’s home after all, and so she decided to stay the night before at the Feathers Hotel in Chippenham.

  Chapter Nine

  (Wednesday 18th December 1940)

  There was no note. On the Tuesday evening he’d left one inside the shield for her to collect after the Wednesday communion. He’d taken a sheaf of unacceptable drafts and scrunched them into the bin near Temple tube before taking the final version to the church.

  – Must talk to you. J recognised the watermark.

  And after the morning service it was gone. No answering note replaced it. He returned to the church on the hour, as though, by some alchemy, a note would appear later in the day. Perhaps it had blown away or been found by someone? But there was nothing. He checked the bins around the Temple in case she had written a note, thought better of it and then disposed of it. Nothing again.

  It was dark now. He returned slowly to Chambers and, climbing the stairs, he heard a commotion coming from the waiting room and the sound of Arthur shouting. An unusual thing: his clerk was usually able to get his own way quietly. There was another voice as well, unfamiliar and guttural but equally determined, though not as loud. Adam was too preoccupied to be other than mildly curious.