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‘I only called them fifteen minutes ago. They usually take ages.’
I handed him a twenty-pound note and an extra fiver, and stepped inside our neglected hallway, picking up my post and putting it in my bag.
‘Tuesday night is a bit decadent for takeaway,’ smiled Pete folding his arms awkwardly.
‘It’s my birthday,’ I replied without even thinking.
‘I wondered what the brightly coloured envelopes were doing scattered among the junk mail.’
‘So you’re not going out?’
‘It’s mid-week. I’ve got work to do.’
‘Killjoy.’
‘I’ve got to prepare for court tomorrow.’
‘You boring sod. I’m going to march you down to the pub.’
‘Pete, no. I’m really busy. Work with a pork dumpling chaser,’ I said holding up the bag of Chinese. ‘I know that might seem an odd way to celebrate your birthday, but that’s what happens when you’re almost forty.’
‘I’m not taking no for an answer,’ he said, with a zeal that told me he meant it.
‘I suppose I’ve bought too much Chinese. I’ll supply the chow mein if you’ve got any drinks. But I’ve got to be at my desk in an hour.’
‘I’ll be up in a minute,’ he grinned.
Pete disappeared into his ground-floor flat and I walked up the stairs to mine.
Leaving the door slightly ajar, I hung my coat on the rack and set my bag down in the hall. I slipped off my shoes, enjoying the soft feel of carpet under my feet, and undid the top button of my blouse.
My flat was my sanctuary. A cool, calm, Farrow-and-Ball-painted haven for one, and I instantly regretted having invited someone in to share it.
Resigning myself to a visitor, I pulled two plates out of the kitchen cupboard, just as Pete appeared in the hall with a four-pack of lager.
‘Pass me a glass. I assume you’re not a straight-out-of-the-tin girl.’
He poured me a frothy glass of lager, then opened another can for himself as I carried the Chinese into the living room.
‘So, you’re almost forty,’ he said, perching on the sofa next to me. ‘You don’t look it.’
‘I’m thirty-seven,’ I said, realizing how little Pete and I knew about each other. We spoke more than most London neighbours: we saw each other at the bus stop, he was a willing fixer of laptops and fuse boxes. On one occasion last summer, I’d been walking past the local pub and he’d been having a beer outside. He invited me to join him, which I did because it was hot and sunny and I was thirsty from the gym, but I did not consider him a friend.
‘By the way, I got a letter from my landlord, yesterday,’ said Pete, peeling the foil top off the chow mein box. ‘He’s putting my rent up. The freeholder says the roof needs doing. Reckons both leaseholders have got to put fifteen grand into the sinking fund.’
‘Shit, I’ve not heard about that.’
‘But fifteen grand is just a day’s work for a distinguished lady of the Bar,’ he smiled.
‘I wish.’
‘Come on, you’re loaded.’
‘I’m not, I promise,’ I replied, shaking my head. ‘I am a jobbing barrister, in debt, thanks to thousands of pounds’ worth of unpaid invoices.’
‘You’ll get paid. The banks know you’re good for it. And then you’ll be rich.’
Rich, I scoffed quietly. My family thought I was rich, but everything was relative, and in London, mixing with lawyers and businessmen like Martin Joy, it was easier to view my financial situation through another prism. Perhaps if I made silk, things would change. I would land big, juicy cases, my hourly rate would double, so that one day I might even be able to afford one of those Georgian houses in Canonbury – the ones that had drawn me to the N1 postcode in the first place, the ones I still liked to walk past and dream about.
I thought about the £15,000 I would need to find from somewhere and took a commiseratory slug of beer, though I knew I shouldn’t.
‘You know, today, I was dealing with someone who spends £24,000 a year on lunch,’ I said, dipping a dumpling into some soy.
Pete shook his head. ‘And you’re missing a birthday night out on account of these people.’
He laughed and I knew he had a point.
‘I’m acting for the husband in that particular divorce. But you’ll be glad to know that tomorrow’s case, the case I should be preparing for, is a more deserving cause.’
‘Another poor rich husband about to get screwed,’ he smiled.
‘Actually, no. My client’s a man who is about to lose access to his kids. Just a regular guy who found his wife in bed with another man.’
‘People,’ said Pete quietly.
I nodded. ‘I bet you’re glad you only have to deal with computers all day. Things that don’t have feelings.’
‘Yet.’
‘Yet?’
‘If you subscribe to one model of how our brains create consciousness, you’ll believe that sentient computers will never exist. Other schools of Artificial Intelligence thought believe that the day is coming when computers will be able to imitate humans.’
‘That’s a scary idea. They’re going to make us all redundant, aren’t they.’
‘Some jobs are more future-proof than others.’
‘Like divorce lawyers?’
‘Machines are logical. Love and relationships are anything but. I’d say you’ll be all right for the foreseeable future.’
‘Glad to hear it, with a new roof to pay for.’
There was a long silence. We had eaten our food and run out of conversation.
‘I should get on with some work.’
Scooping up the leftovers, I took the plates into the kitchen. When I turned round, Pete was in the doorway. He took a step towards me and cupped his hand on my jaw. Gasping in surprise, I didn’t have time to think whether he had misinterpreted this as a sign of my desire, because his lips were already on mine. I could taste the ginger and yellow bean on his breath. His saliva smeared across my cheek.
‘Pete, you’re my friend. And you’re drunk,’ I replied, pulling away.
‘Sometimes you need to get drunk,’ he said.
I took a step away from him. I couldn’t say his approach had been a complete surprise. The way he had loitered outside with the takeaway should have alerted me.
‘It’s the age difference, isn’t it?’ I registered the pique in his voice. Men and their self-confidence. ‘If I was a thirty-seven-year-old man and you were my age, no one would even bat an eyelid.’
I felt guilty, cruel. I don’t suppose he had any reason to think I would turn him down. After all, I had invited him up to my flat, for dinner, on my birthday.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said quietly. ‘I know I’m a miserable old spinster, but I like it this way.’
‘Do you?’ he said, challenging me.
‘I work eleven hours a day, Pete, I come home, and I work some more. There’s no room for anything else.’
‘Stop blaming your job.’
There was a time when I wouldn’t have cared that Pete was not my type, when we’d have ended up in the bedroom, but tonight, I just wanted him to go.
‘I should leave,’ he said flatly.
I nodded and he exited the flat without another word. And as I closed the door behind him, I leant forward, pressed my head against the door and puffed out my cheeks.
‘Happy birthday’, I whispered, desperate for the day to be over.
Chapter 4 (#u6c233fb2-285b-5114-9e41-849662fb051d)
There was no getting away from the fact that I needed a new bag. Over the past week, the rip in the seam of my trusty Samsonite case had been getting longer and longer. Work had never been busier, with new instructions and cases springing to life after weeks of dormancy, and the numerous files that needed transporting between court, home and chambers, meant that my bag was one vigorous pull of the zip away from fatal damage.
I was brought up to be thrifty and part of me thought that I just needed to fix it. But I had no idea who repaired bags these days – cobblers? Tailors? In our consumerist society it seemed our only option was to buy a new one.
Glancing at my watch, I noted that it was not yet seven o’clock. Burgess Court was well placed for pubs but less convenient for retail therapy. But I calculated that if I took a taxi, I could be on Oxford Street by quarter past, out of there by seven thirty, and home in time for a ScandiCrime drama that was starting that week on cable.
‘You off home?’
Paul was standing at the door to my office with a bundle of files.
‘In a minute,’ I replied, fishing around in my desk drawer.
‘I’ve got something for you tomorrow, if you fancy it.’
I knew I should have turned it down but saying no to work had never been one of my strong points.
‘What is it?’
‘Freezing application tomorrow. Listed for nine thirty.’
I hesitated; the only reason I had earmarked a night in front of the TV was because my workload for the following day was relatively quiet.
‘I can get it biked round to Marie or Tim,’ he offered.
‘Give it here,’ I sighed. ‘It’ll save you hanging around for the courier.’
Paul looked at me, a smile playing on his lips. ‘You know, it’s fine to have the night off sometimes.’
‘I’ll sleep when I’m dead,’ I replied. Not finding what I was searching for in my desk drawer, I glanced up at him. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got a spare carrier bag? My case is fit to burst and I’m worried it’s not going to make it home.’
‘I’m sure we can do better than a carrier bag for a sophisticate like yourself,’ he laughed, disappearing downstairs. He returned a couple of minutes later with a cloth tote bag branded with the Burgess Court insignia.
‘What’s this?’
‘Marketing. By the way, I popped the QC application forms in there for you.’
‘A master of subtlety, as usual.’
I left the office and hurried across Middle Temple, past our grand Elizabethan hall and the fountain firing a silver flume of water into the night sky. It was eerie after sunset, when the gas lamps had flickered on; the cloisters threw shadows around the square and the sound of your shoes against the cobbles tricked you into thinking you were not alone. Increasing my pace, I threaded my way down the thin, dark alley of Devereux Court, one of the artery routes on to the Strand, just as the rain began to fall. A cab responded to my outstretched hand and I jumped in before it really began to pour. The driver asked me where I wanted to go and I said the first department store name that came into my head: Selfridges.
I am not a great shopper. That gene escaped me and I don’t think it’s because I was once on free school dinners. I remember one client, a Russian model, who in one breath told me how she used to pick up rotten fruit from the markets to take home to feed her family, and in the next breath told me that she needed at least a million pounds in maintenance per anum from the property magnate husband she was divorcing. Growing up poor sent you one way or the other.
The taxi dropped me off on Cumberland Street. The rain was pelting down now and the pavements looked black and oily. Cursing the weather, I ran into the store.
I knew within minutes that I was in the wrong place. I hardly ever came to Selfridges and I had forgotten how expensive it was. Boutiques lined the outer perimeter wall: Chanel, Gucci, Dior, each one like a jewellery box, glitzy and polished. I preferred the shops in the City, where everything seemed more ordered and less dazzling for time-pressed people like me. But in the West End, in Knightsbridge, shops were caves of temptation for tourists and trophy wives, retail labyrinths designed to make you get lost and spend, whereas I just wanted to find a bag and go home.
Taking a breath, I told myself that it wouldn’t hurt to look, that my bag, my image, was my calling card. I browsed the central handbag area and a beautiful bag displayed on a plinth caught my eye. It was smaller than the pilot bag I had been carrying around the past five years, its black leather soft and buttery to the touch. It was a QC’s bag, I realized, as I picked it up and hunted around for the price tag.
‘I thought it was you,’ said a voice behind me.
I turned round and for a second I didn’t recognize him. His hair was damp from the rain, and he was wearing glasses with smart, tortoiseshell frames.
‘Mr Joy.’
‘Martin,’ he smiled.
‘Sorry, Martin,’ I replied.
‘Retail therapy?’
I started to laugh. ‘You make it sound pleasurable. I’m actually on a mercy mission to replace my briefcase.’
‘A woman who doesn’t like shopping,’ he said, his eyes playing with mine.
‘There are some of us.’
‘Nice bag.’ He nodded towards my hands and I shrugged.
‘Well, I can’t find the price tag, which is never a good sign. If you have to ask, you can’t afford it and all that,’ I said, feeling suddenly self-conscious to be talking about money with a client.
‘You’ve just had a birthday. Treat yourself.’
