‘Give our regards to Len,’ said Leo quickly, and motioned Anthony to the stairs. ‘Go on, upstairs!’ he hissed at him. Anthony moved off uncertainly, glancing over his shoulder with relief at Paul’s figure as he made his way out of the building.
He went weakly into Michael’s room, and heard Leo come in behind him and close the door.
‘Thank you,’ said Anthony with difficulty, turning round to look at him. ‘If he’d carried on as he started, Sir Basil and Cameron would have heard him bawling the building down. Christ.’ He put his hands over his eyes. ‘That would have finished me for good.’
‘I agree,’ said Leo evenly. ‘That wouldn’t have been too clever. He sounded like he knew an awful lot of very nasty words.’ He sat down in Michael’s chair and looked at Anthony. There was nothing in his face. ‘Why the hell didn’t you get a bank loan? I told you to the other night.’ There. It had been mentioned, and he had intended never to refer to it again. The other night. Each looked away from the other. Anthony said nothing. Leo sighed and looked out of the window at the crisp blue of the April sky. He felt tired, even a little old. Sick of love and its pointlessness. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I told you, remember? There’s something a little crippled inside all of us. Put that whole damned evening out of your head. Forget it.’
‘I don’t think you’re crippled,’ replied Anthony. His voice was unbearably gentle. Please don’t make me hope, thought Leo, turning his eyes slowly to Anthony.
At that moment the door opened and Michael entered. Anthony was startled, but Leo merely looked up and smiled mildly.
‘The wanderer returns,’ he said pleasantly. ‘I thought I’d come and ask you where our very valuable copy of Russell on Arbitration has got to. I’ve been all over chambers looking for the thing.’
‘Sorry. Can’t help you,’ replied Michael. ‘Go and ask Jeremy. He seems to like books.’
As Leo reached the door, Anthony said, ‘I’ll get that back to you as soon as I can.’ Leo paused, smiled, and nodded, then left without a word.
Nowhere is the overly ornate dignity and splendour with which the Victorians in their era invested the institution of law more faithfully reflected than in the Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand, London. The very building’s labyrinthine qualities evoke the tortuous, meandering dimness of the complexities of the law itself. No mere layman could hope to find his way through this maze of grim splendour. Cross the road through the bustling traffic in the hopeful light of day, and your eye will be struck by the arcane over-turreted, over-buttressed, over-built grandeur of its facade. Once inside the unassuming wooden entrance doors, through which solicitors and barristers hurry with the rapid nonchalance that scarcely conceals their conceit in the mysteries of their profession, you find yourself in an enormous, vaulted hallway, with mullioned windows, high, high as a cathedral, a very monument to the holiness of the law. On the walls are vast oil paintings
of long-dead, long-forgotten judges, chancellors and masters. They look down with all their pomp and coldness at the small workings of the world below. Beneath their grey gaze the heart shrivels and the real world recedes in the face of the law’s mighty importance. Pass through one of the low stone archways that lead from this cathedral, pass up the worn, winding stone steps that lead into a deeper mystery, and find yourself in a long corridor, one of many long corridors. The traffic and the Strand and the bright light of day are already far away. Off this corridor – or any one of the identical corridors – are set the courtrooms. They have not changed, in essence, in over a hundred years. Peep in through the door – you may, this is a public place – creep into one of the creaking wooden pews, and you may watch the murmurous proceedings. Voices rise and fall with the figures of counsel, solicitors lean and whisper, judges write and nod, witnesses sigh and shift, papers rustle, clerks fold their hands and settle their gowns – every day, in and out, through the seasons of a hundred years, the workings of the law have ground on in this way, in this place.
Leave the courtroom – for you don’t, and never could, understand what is going on – and follow the maze of passageways and galleries in circle after circle. Lawyers pass like ghosts, the spectres of all the other lawyers, long dead, who have come and gone about their business here down the years. They do not see you. They are in their temple and busy at their devotions. Walk as long and as far as you like, until your eyes are weary with the interminable splendour of these corridors, and you will never learn your way. Only
lawyers are privileged to understand the mysteries of this place.
One day in May, Anthony came across the Strand through the traffic, passed through the swing doors, across the echoing flags of the great hallway and, heedless of the tourists and with the unthinking confidence of the initiate, doubled back through another doorway, ran up some stairs, back again through another doorway, up another flight of stairs, through a door, and emerged into a cheerful, ornate antechamber, full of the hum of lawyers’ voices, a sudden contrast to the austere quiet of the court corridors. Nicknamed the Bear Garden, this was where lawyers and litigants congregated daily to do urgent business, to make last-minute applications, seek hasty injunctions, and to wait around for nail-biting half-hours for audiences with the Masters and judges whose chambers led off from the Bear Garden itself. Although an altogether brighter place than the rest of the Law Courts, faster and livelier, reflecting the day-to-day, businesslike face of the law, it was still grand. The ceilings were high, and the long, dark wooden tables at which lawyers sat to scribble their last-minute amendments and check the correctness of their applications were burnished with the polishings of thousands of elbows over many years.
Anthony leant against one of the stone pillars, waiting for his solicitor to come hurrying up with the papers for their hearing before the Master. Late, he supposed. Idly he watched the anxious litigants fidget and stare around at their unfamiliar surroundings with curious eyes, wondering how they were ever to find their way out again. He nodded
and smiled at a few acquaintances, exchanged a few words with another. Then he leant back and waited. Suddenly, coming through the door, he saw the unmistakeable figure of Julia, her blonde head bent in conversation with a male companion, hugging some papers to her chest. It had been over six weeks since he had last seen her. He felt as though his stomach had caved in. He did not move, and as she passed him she suddenly looked up and saw him. She stopped, then smiled her wonderful smile at him, and turned to her companion.
‘You go on. I’ll be with you in a minute.’
The man nodded and moved off. Julia stood looking up at Anthony, who smiled back feebly. She was the most wonderful sight he had seen in weeks. How could he have let her go? How could he have been such a fool?
‘Hello,’ she said. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Oh,’ he replied, pushing himself off the pillar in what he hoped was a casual way and running his fingers through his hair in unmistakeable agitation, ‘just a quick interlocutory. You?’
‘Assessment of damages.’ There was a long pause. They looked at each other, discomfort fading as they absorbed one another’s features. Anthony wondered what would happen if you suddenly grabbed a lady counsel in the middle of the Bear Garden and kissed her until she couldn’t breathe.
‘Have you been busy?’ he asked instead. She smiled and shrugged. She was wearing, underneath her black suit jacket, a white cotton shirt with a high, ruffled collar fastened with a little gold pin; her face, framed by its short blonde hair,
looked to him like some tender flower. He wanted to stroke her cheek, unfasten the little gold pin, unbutton her collar and kiss her white throat. Then he thought of all the other things he wanted to do, had done, and wanted to do again. Longing overwhelmed him.
‘Can I see you?’ he said faintly.
‘Why?’ Her voice sounded sad and a little cold.
‘Because.’ He could think of nothing else. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Malcolm, his solicitor, hurrying through the doorway. ‘Can I?’ he asked again.
‘All right,’ she said at last, reluctantly.
‘Right,’ he said quickly, as Malcolm headed towards him. ‘Friday. Friday at six. In the bar.’ She nodded, and walked off. Anthony watched as she went; he wondered if she would show up. She had every reason not to. He let out a deep breath as Malcolm greeted him, and they began to discuss the business of the day.
It had seemed to him as though Friday would never come. And now it was here, it was a quarter past six, and there was no sign of Julia. Anthony sat in the bar near to the open French windows. Down on the lawn below the rose garden, people sat scattered on the grass in the May sunshine. Anthony stared at the chess game that his friend, Simon, was playing with someone else, trying to fasten his mind on the moves. But his thoughts kept darting anxiously to Julia, and whether or not she would come. How long should he wait? All evening, he supposed, if necessary. Bored with the chess game, he turned his gaze idly to the figure of the large man who sat, slumped asleep, in one of the high-backed
chairs at the end of the room. He had a silver foil pie dish on his head, and in his arms he cradled a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label whisky. His enormous head nodded drunkenly. No one paid him the slightest heed; he was a familiar sight, another one of the Bar’s freaks. No doubt one of the porters would throw him out soon. Gazing at him, Anthony thought of what Leo had said about the eccentric inhabitants of the tiny world of the Bar. He was right. Nowhere else, not even in a Northern Line Tube station, would such a thing be tolerated, let alone mildly accepted.
He looked at his watch. Twenty-five past, and he couldn’t even afford to buy himself another drink. He only had enough money left to buy Julia one – if she showed up, that was. He picked up a copy of
The Sun
and read abstractedly. If she’s not here by half past, he was thinking—But when he looked up again, she was coming through the doorway, trying to look collected and unconcerned. She saw him, gave a little wave and, out of habit, turned to the bar to get herself a drink. He stood up quickly and went over to her.
‘Here, I’ll get that,’ he said.
‘That’s all right,’ she replied, and was already scooping up her change and tucking her bag under her arm as she reached for her drink. She took a sip and walked back with him to the table by the window.
She smiled at him in a kind, cool fashion as they sat down. Anthony did not know that she had spent ten anxious minutes in the ladies’ cloakroom, fiddling with her skirt and scrutinising her make-up, trying to suppress her faint nervousness. Several weeks of not seeing
Anthony – Anthony, the only man who had ever unnerved her by giving her up – had had the cumulative effect of making the prospect of spending an evening with him quite daunting. She was determined, after their last parting, to remain impassive, nonchalant. But she could not ignore the fact that her stomach tightened as she caught sight of him sitting by the window lost in his newspaper, and that she felt distinctly nervous when he looked at her.
He took a sip at what remained of his drink. ‘Good day?’ he asked.
‘Not bad,’ she replied, glancing down at the tabletop. ‘We’ve just finished three weeks of the most almighty Treasury case. When I wasn’t half asleep, I hadn’t a clue what was going on.’
‘The judge probably hadn’t, either,’ said Anthony. She smiled, and there was a pause. Anthony felt awkward. He wasn’t at all sure what he had wanted to happen this evening, or even why he had suggested meeting at all. Nothing had changed; he still hadn’t a bean, and the debt was still there, just shifted from one creditor to another. He looked up at Julia, and she glanced away. They said nothing for a moment or two.
‘Look,’ said Anthony with a sigh, ‘this is bloody silly. I don’t know why we’re doing this. I can’t take you out, I
still
don’t have any money. It was a stupid idea. We can just finish our drinks and you go off, if you want to.’
A little wave of panic rose in her. ‘No,’ she said quickly, and then tried to adjust her voice to a level of nonchalance. ‘I don’t mind sitting and talking, really.’
Anthony leant back in his chair and looked at her
speculatively. He longed to ask her if she had been seeing Piers, but knew this was probably not a clever idea. He remembered all the reasons why he had stopped seeing her, but, as he looked at her, they seemed quite inconsequential now.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Let’s go outside.’ He picked up her drink and they both rose and went down the curving stone steps to the garden below. They walked in silence along one of the gravel paths and sat on an empty bench against the wall. The light evening breeze lifted tendrils of her blonde hair as she looked out across the lawn and past the railings to where people were hurrying towards Temple station.
‘I’ve had the most bloody six weeks without you,’ he said, gazing at her profile. The faintest of summer scents drifted from the rose garden.
‘Seven,’ she replied, without looking at him. She leant back against the bench, closing her eyes, the sun on her face, as though exhausted in spirit. He looked at her, then kissed her. She did not move. He kissed her again, turning her body towards his own, until at last she responded, her arms around his neck. He suddenly realised, through their kiss, that her face was wet with tears. She pulled away and tried to laugh, a little laugh of embarrassment, through her crying.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, wiping at her eyes with her sleeve, inwardly cursing herself for her weakness. It was the culmination of weeks of loneliness. Piers had been nowhere; Anthony had thrown her over; she had felt entirely abandoned. Added to which, this Treasury case had been intensely demanding, and she now felt weary in mind and spirit. Everything overflowed suddenly in tears. Anthony
stroked her hair and muttered some soothing nonsense. She looked at him. She had lost whatever resolve she might have had to remain aloof and self-possessed. She needed too badly to be loved.
‘Please,’ she said, ‘can we go home?’ She kissed him, a quick, urgent kiss, damp with tears. ‘I want you so badly,’ she whispered, twisting her fingers in the lapels of his jacket.
‘Oh, God,’ he murmured, feeling as though he were falling into some deep blue void of longing. ‘So do I.’
And so it begins again, thought Anthony. He was sitting slumped on the underground, groggy with love and lack of sleep, his unfocused eyes staring at a traffic warden recruitment advertisement. He knew that he should feel happier than he did, but he didn’t. Last night had been as blissful as any such reconciliation possibly could be. It had been as good as the first time they had made love. Better. He had felt ardent, powerful, wanting to overwhelm her entirely with love. That was what seven weeks of abstention did to you, he supposed. He rubbed his eyes with the flats of his hands. He wished he’d bought a newspaper. Anything not to have to think. Already the problem of tonight was looming. Well, maybe it wouldn’t be
that
much of a problem. The novelty wouldn’t quite have worn off, and Julia would probably be content with home-made spaghetti bolognese, a bottle of wine, and more and more love. Then what? Then there was next weekend, and the weekend after that, and all the odd, spur-of-the-moment decisions to go to Mario and Franco’s, or to some wine bar, in the middle of the week.
He yawned and discreetly examined the couple who sat opposite him, swaying together like unconscious reeds as the train racketed towards Embankment, their eyes glazed as they stared up at the advertisements. They had blonde hair, and rucksacks, and looked tired. Swedes, thought Anthony. Or maybe Norwegians. The woman’s hand clasped that of the man. They gave the impression, with their identically expressionless faces and linked hands, of two beings travelling dumbly towards eternity, unified, silent. Anthony wondered what it would be like to be married, to be sealed to someone in that fateful way. He stopped looking at them. They depressed him. When he had money, he wouldn’t take the love of his life hitch-hiking through Europe. Or maybe that was what you did when you had no money.