The Pupil

by Ros Carne

  ‘Sorry, I wasn’t concentrating,’ said Mel when they reached the other side of the Strand.

  ‘Are you all right?’ asked Natasha.

  ‘Yes, fine.’

  Mel’s face appeared twisted, as if she was in pain and Natasha suspected she wasn’t fine at all. Then she told Natasha she needed to pop into Carphone Warehouse to pick up a new phone.

  ‘I’ll join you in chambers in half an hour. You might find a desk in the computer room.’

  A few minutes later Natasha was back in chambers, but she had no idea what she was supposed to do. Mel seemed to expect her to learn just by following her around. And now, when they should be talking through the afternoon’s hearing, she had disappeared to sort out a phone. It wasn’t exactly incompetent, but it was certainly disorganised.

  Her Civil supervisor, Gerald, had been a dominating man but at least he’d given her clear instructions. Unlike Mel, he’d always asked her for her comments at the end of a conference. She took out her laptop and looked over an Opinion she was preparing for him. Fifteen pages of closely reasoned legal advice for a solicitor whose client had suffered serious spinal damage after negligent surgery. She had spent most of the weekend researching the law. Luke brought her snacks and cups of tea, but she could tell he was pissed off when she told him she couldn’t go out. He needed to realise her work came first. Not that she’d be paid much. Gerald would get the full fee and give her half if she was lucky. Still it was work.

  When Mel turned up almost an hour later she simply nodded at Natasha and switched on one of the desktop computers that lined the wall below the window. Out of the corner of her eye Natasha could see she was going through emails.

  ‘Did you get your phone?’ asked Natasha.

  ‘Yep. Sorted,’ said Mel without glancing up from her screen.

  It was five o’clock. Natasha had finished work on the Opinion and wished she could go home but there were no set hours, pupils were expected to wait till their supervisor made it clear it was time to go.

  She looked about her. The room was just below ground level, the only view consisting of rectangles of light through the barred windows, occasionally crossed by passing legs in dark trousers, wheelie bags or trolleys loaded with Lever Arch files on their way to the Royal Courts of Justice. No pictures, no plants, not even law books to break up the monotony. Not what she had imagined when she’d been offered a pupillage in the Temple.

  Natasha liked books. She was one of the few students at Bar School who looked up paper law reports instead of googling. She had loved the quiet of the university library, the soft footfall on parquet, the occasional cough and rustle of paper, the scent of leather and wood polish. Law reports were puzzles and she was good at solving puzzles. One of the other tenants popped her head round the door and asked if they would both like a cup of tea. It was Jess, the woman who’d taken her to court on her first day. She was staring hard at Natasha who remembered that making tea was her job.

  ‘I’ll make it,’ she said, jumping up and going to the tiny galley kitchen. When she came back five minutes later, Jess was sitting next to Mel with her arm around her shoulders.

  ‘It’s nothing. I’m being stupid,’ Mel was saying.

  ‘No, you’re not.’

  ‘I’m a bit shaky. But basically, I’m fine. I mean, not hurt.’

  ‘You shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t be in court,’ said Jess.

  A man’s bulky frame filled the doorway. He was clutching a small laptop and a bundle of papers. His waistcoat was loose across his chest. His collarless shirt was unbuttoned round the neck and a mist of sweat wafted across the room.

  ‘Hi, Georgie,’ said Jess, ‘I thought you were in Birmingham.’

  ‘Case collapsed. I argued abuse of process and no case to answer.’

  ‘There goes your trial fee,’ laughed Jess.

  ‘Some of us have ethics, Jess. I am not prepared to prolong a case unnecessarily. Anyway, the guy deserved to get off. The police behaved like thugs.’ Then turning to Natasha with a big smile he said, ‘How do you do, I’m Georgie.’

  ‘Hi, Georgie, I’m Natasha.’ Mel should have introduced her, but she seemed totally out of it.

  ‘Mel’s pupil,’ explained Jess.

  Georgie turned to Mel. ‘So, what’s this about a mugging?’

  ‘I’m OK.’

  ‘You should take time off.’

  ‘You know that’s not possible. Anyway, I was fine this morning.’

  Fine? Mel had done a lot of running backwards and forwards, but the woman’s kids were still in care. Plus, she’d nearly killed herself and Natasha on the way back to chambers. Nobody had said anything to her about a mugging.

  ‘You’ve been looking stressed,’ said Jess. ‘I mean before the mugging thing.’

  ‘We’re all stressed. This is the Bar,’ said Mel.

  ‘Give yourself a break. I would,’ urged Georgie. ‘Hang out with Jacob. Binge on Netflix.’

  ‘I’ve got too much on.’

  Jess glanced at Natasha. ‘Natasha can do the easy stuff, can’t you Natasha?’ she said.

  ‘I’d be happy to.’

  ‘There is no easy stuff,’ said Mel.

  ‘OK. OK. The clerks can sort that out. They won’t let it go out of chambers,’ said Georgie.

  ‘It makes sense, Mel,’ added Jess. ‘You need a break. Drink your tea. I’ll walk to the tube with you.’

  * * *

  Natasha was alone. She was packing up to go when she noticed the Bridge Court logo lit up on the computer Mel had been using. She walked over and glanced along the icons at the bottom of the page. Word was still running and so was Chrome. Mel must have forgotten to log off. A helpful gesture would do no harm. She pulled out her phone. As she brought up Mel’s number, she tapped on the Chrome icon and Mel’s Inbox flashed across the screen. Her supervisor was even more careless than she had imagined. She skimmed the list of senders. Solicitors. Unfamiliar names. But one of the them jumped out.

  She knew the guy. Paul Freedman. He was a lecturer at North Bank. At least fifty, he’d seemed desperate to look younger with his tight leather jackets and jeans, cosying up to students in the pub on Friday nights. She’d taken his politics and law option in her final year. He’d come on to her, inviting her back to his office on some pretext of lending her a book she might find interesting. Then he’d kept her there, sounding off on politics for a good half hour before asking her out for a drink. She’d only taken one module in his department and he wasn’t marking her dissertation so there would have been no point in going. Saying no was easy enough. She told him she didn’t go out with married men. He grinned. Nice smile. She had almost changed her mind.

  Natasha typed Freedman’s address into the Sort box and pressed the Find icon. A string of communications popped up.

  Dates, times, places. Hotels. Restaurants. She carried on reading. What a fool. Didn’t he realise Googlemail was about as private as Facebook? She was surprised: she’d have expected Paul to go for a younger model. Though Mel was not unattractive, with good cheekbones, bright hazel eyes and a wide smile, on the rare occasions she chose to display it. Her dress sense was non-existent. Her court jackets didn’t fit and her handbags were cheap rubbish. But men were probably less interested in clothes than women liked to imagine, and no doubt they were drawn by Mel’s full breasts which she flaunted in clingy silk blouses. Her curly brown hair was always coming loose from whatever was pinning it back, giving her a rumpled, fresh from bed look. Natasha, whose own hair was dead straight, felt a stab of irritation as she pictured it.

  There was a printer in the corner of the room. Natasha printed off a couple of emails, then added Paul’s address to her own Google contacts. She rang Mel.

  ‘Mel, sorry to bother you. Can you speak?’

  ‘I’m about to get on the escalator. Reception’s not that good.’

  ‘Only it’s… just… I was using the computer to print my stuff and I noticed you hadn’t logged off.’
r />   ‘Oh shit. Right. Could you just…’

  ‘I thought there might be work you wanted to save or…’

  ‘Thank God you rang. Would you mind saving and printing my Attendance Note on Gonzalez, the Interim Care hearing? There’s an icon marked Care on the desktop. It should be there. Unless it’s still open. I don’t remember. Jess came in and I got… well, you know how it was. Just print it off and give it to Andy. Tell him I’ll sign it when I come in.’

  ‘No problem. Anything else?’

  ‘No… I’m losing you…’

  Natasha could hear the racket of the station announcements down the phone and then silence as Mel hung up. She tucked the printed emails into the pocket of her bag, closed Googlemail and opened the Attendance Note for the case of Gonzalez. There it was, setting out the time spent in negotiation and the final terms of the Interim Care Order. She glanced at the clock. It was six o’clock. Two of the clerks were still at their desks so she could hand over a hard copy immediately. Her right hand rested lightly over the mouse, guiding the cursor towards the print icon. But the cursor seemed to be moving of its accord, drifting across the words on the screen away from the print icon to the small x in the top right-hand corner of the page. Natasha watched with detached curiosity as the cursor continued to hover over the small x. Suddenly she realised she wanted to be at home, she needed to get out of this grim building. And with that thought her finger clicked on the mouse and the Attendance Note disappeared. She logged off and shut down the computer.

  Chapter Nine

  Mel

  Mel stepped onto the escalator. A gust of hot air swirled around her, the stink of soot and steel seared her lungs. It was hardly worth giving up smoking. She settled on the moving metal stair and the stink became a medley of aftershave, body odour and cheap perfume. Then she was back into the moving crowd, onto another escalator and finally the platform. She realised she had not told Natasha to log off. But the girl was no fool. That was why she had rung Mel in the first place.

  The following morning, Saturday, she picked up her car from East Finchley station, and spent the afternoon with her mother, leading her around the new boutiques which dotted Dulwich Village. Isabel might be seventy-eight but she still wanted to look good and regularly added to her wardrobe of floating, patterned tops and loose trousers. Her need for elegance provoked in Mel a paradox of admiration and disdain. Unlike her mother, Mel hated shopping.

  On Sunday Mel spring-cleaned the flat, scouring kitchen surfaces as if she were destroying an enemy. She fretted about Jacob who’d come back late again last night and left the house to see friends in the afternoon. She made him promise to take the long way around from the tube and avoid the walk under the railway bridge. Then there was Paul. She rarely spoke to him at weekends. She would wait for him to call. When he did she’d be careful about what she said. Part of her wanted to collapse on him and tell him everything as she’d told that sweet Palestinian dentist who’d picked her up off the pavement. But she never collapsed with Paul. He admired her strength and independence. She had no idea how he would react if he found her in pieces.

  On Monday she drove Jacob to school then treated herself to a visit to the local bookshop. After lunch she pottered in her tiny garden. By Tuesday she was desperate. She rang Andy.

  ‘Anything in the diary for tomorrow? I don’t want my work to go out of chambers.’

  ‘Don’t stress yourself, Mel. Natasha’s covering the family cases. She did well on your Financial Provision hearing this morning. There’s not much crime around just now.’

  ‘Right.’ It was not right. It was wrong in every way. Financial Provision hearings were complicated, difficult, well paid. It was unusual to let a pupil take them on. Why had she allowed herself to take time off? ‘How about the rest of the week?’ she asked.

  ‘I thought you were taking a week off.’

  ‘I never said that.’

  ‘Then you better chat to Jess.’

  ‘Why Jess?’

  ‘Mel, I’m only following instructions. Plus, I should tell you, there was a problem with Gonzalez, the Interim Care on Friday.’

  ‘What about Gonzalez?’

  ‘Your solicitor never got a call.’

  ‘I called him after the case. I always do. Anyway, I emailed the Attendance Note.’

  ‘He says not.’ She couldn’t answer him. Was it possible she had forgotten? Her memory of that day was confused.

  ‘It’s not like you to forget, Mel. Anyway, I asked Natasha what had happened and she gave me details so I called the solicitor myself. Plus, I never got the printed copy of the Attendance Note. I’ll need that for billing.’

  ‘There was definitely an Attendance Note. I asked Natasha to print it off and give it to you.’

  ‘Well, you’ll have to sort that with her. Like I say, I never got it, nor did the solicitor.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Andy. I guess I was a bit distracted with the mugging. I really can’t explain it. Listen I’ll come in tomorrow.’

  ‘Jess reckons it’s better if you take a week off. Give us a call on Friday. I’ll tell you what there is in the diary.’

  She sat down and stared at her coffee. The air in the flat was heavy with silence. This was not good. It wasn’t like her to make mistakes. Not this sort of mistake. There were always moments in a case when you could do better, when you came back afterwards rethinking your cross-examination, kicking yourself for asking one question too many. But not administrative mistakes. Those were the mistakes that made you unpopular with your clerk and your clerk was the key to everything. A chill ran through her.

  She waited till later in the day when Jess would be out of court and rang her on her mobile.

  ‘What’s this about me taking a week off?’

  ‘Hang on, Mel. I’m in the middle of something,’ Mel heard voices, movement, and then Jess was back on the line.

  ‘It’s fine now. I’m in the corridor. Didn’t want the others to overhear.’ Why not? What was going on that Jess needed to speak to her in private? ‘Shoot,’ said Jess.

  ‘You spoke to Andy. He wants me to take a week off.’

  ‘We all thought it would be best. You’ve been driving yourself, Mel. The mugging was traumatic. I don’t think you realise how that can affect you. You need to rest and learn to delegate. Listen, it’s nothing formal. But I had a word with Jeremy, and we decided it would be best if you left things to the rest of us for a couple of weeks.’

  ‘A couple of weeks? Andy said one week.’ Worse and worse. Jeremy was head of chambers. How had things got so bad that Jess felt she needed to speak to him? ‘What about Natasha?’

  ‘She seems to be picking up work. I’ve arranged for her to talk to Georgie or myself if there’s a problem. I don’t want to make you feel worse, Mel, but you’ve been a bit snappy with other members of chambers. It’s a clear sign of stress. There’ve been one or two comments from other barristers. You’ve not been your usual competent self. Is everything all right at home?’

  ‘Comments from who?’

  ‘I really can’t say. It’s hearsay and probably just gossip. You know what it can be like in chambers. Everyone worrying about losing work. I’m only telling you because I’m your friend and I’m concerned for you. I’m sure it’s nothing. But you don’t want to give people ammunition.’

  ‘Give me names. This isn’t fair.’

  ‘Just give yourself a break and come back refreshed. Is everything all right at home?’

  Mel thought of her worries about Jacob, her difficult mother, her distant lover. But barristers don’t show weakness. And many people’s domestic lives were far more troubled.

  ‘No one likes to be mugged,’ she said.

  ‘Exactly. Have you been to the police?’

  ‘I’ll go tomorrow.’

  ‘If they offer victim support, take it. These things can take their toll.’

  ‘Goodbye, Jess.’

  She didn’t want to hear any more.

  That afte
rnoon she went to the police station, but the only person known as GJ on their books was at least ten years older than the sweet-faced boy who had run his hand under her shirt. Photographs were produced. None of them fitted. The police didn’t seem concerned. There were no serious injuries. When the officer asked why she hadn’t come in earlier she explained she hadn’t felt strong enough. It sounded lame. She could imagine what he was thinking. The police had terrorism and stabbings to deal with. One more mugging wasn’t worth the expenditure of resources. She was offered victim support. She said she would think about it.

  Paul rang on Wednesday. He had a free afternoon. But there was an assumption in his announcement which grated and she felt herself biting her lip before offering him a much edited version of her mugging. He was sympathetic but there was a distant edge to his voice she had never noticed before. Then, for the first time, she lied to him, told him she was busy.

  On Friday she rang Andy to ask about the following week. She was wanted for a pre-trial hearing at Snaresbrook on Monday morning and he would email over the papers.

  ‘ABH,’ he explained. ‘It’s come in from a new solicitor. He asked for you. We said you might be stuck on a part-heard case. But we’d get back to them by lunchtime. Better not to say you were unwell.’

  ‘Thanks for that, Andy.’

  ‘Conference at nine thirty. Case of Stevens. He’s in custody. I’ll email the papers over. No worries. Natasha’s out of court, so she can come along.’

  ‘Fine.’ It wasn’t fine. Mel wished her pupil would simply disappear.

  Chapter Ten

  Mel

  Snaresbrook Crown Court is a Victorian Gothic pile situated at the end of the Central Line. Defendants arriving by van see nothing of its grey castellated splendour, fifteen acres of parkland and landscaped lake. From prison vans they would be led in handcuffs through the holding area to the cells, small windowless cubes, where stark white light displayed graffiti and ominous brown stains on cracked cream walls. Mel had never been in a Snaresbrook cell. But her clients were graphic in their descriptions.