Perfect on Paper

by Gillian Harvey

  ‘OK,’ she said, sliding the contract she was reading back into its cardboard sleeve. ‘Why not?’

  Her first instinct had been to say no – but something had stopped her. After all, Dan had given her and the boys a night off rehearsals. ‘We’ll have to get back into it though?’ he’d warned. ‘Can’t let timings slip now.’

  As they left the office building, Clare paused outside The Duck and Dive, a gastro pub she’d been to a couple of times with Ann. ‘How about here?’ she said.

  ‘Do you mind if we don’t?’ Will said now. ‘Not sure I like the atmosphere in there. Full of old people.’

  ‘So, where?’ she said, feeling a little impatient … and old.

  ‘I know a great place.’

  She followed him, having to take a little skip every three steps to keep up with his enormous, confident strides and almost losing him when he suddenly cut down an alleyway that led to a bar she’d never seen before. Through the window she could hear the sound of music beating away, and the signage was all glass and chrome.

  He held the door open and nodded her through, grinning.

  Inside, the place was heaving with young men and women in sharp suits, sporting slick haircuts. A few sat on bar stools, drinking shots. Others clustered together at tables talking shop.

  She felt a shiver of recognition. She had literally walked onto the set of Legal Minds. On the show, the best lawyers all seemed to flock to the bar to drink tequila shots and have innuendo-soaked conversations with renegade FBI agents. Toto, we’re not in Hatfield any more, she thought.

  ‘What are you having?’ Will asked. ‘Vodka martini? Whisky sour? Glass of wine?’

  Before Clare could answer, a ridiculously attractive-looking woman, her silky hair tumbling around her face, her make-up immaculate, came up to Will.

  ‘Hey, well done in court today,’ she said, in an American accent. ‘Good job.’

  Will raised his glass. ‘Better luck next time, Tabitha.’

  ‘So, will I see you later?’ she pouted.

  ‘Not tonight,’ he replied and turned rather abruptly back to his drink. Clare met the woman’s eye for a second and was rewarded with a scowl. Whisky sour indeed.

  ‘Defendant’s counsel,’ Will said to her in lowered tones. ‘Had quite a whipping in court today in the case of Smith vs. Hastings.’

  ‘Remind me?’

  ‘Ingrowing toenail op. Removed the wrong nail. Quite a nasty suit.’ Will sipped his drink and looked darkly into thin air. Thinking. Remembering. ‘Took three months to grow back, and even then it was bruised.’

  ‘Goodness.’

  He looked over his shoulder and scowled briefly before turning back to Clare and furtively whispering. ‘Here’s trouble.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘See that chap over there,’ he continued. ‘Police. Better watch our units tonight.’

  ‘Right.’ She glanced over and took in a muscular man, hair slicked back with wax, leaning on the bar. Catching her eye, he winked and she looked away, hastily.

  She was about to ask Will about the Camberwaddle litigation, when another man wearing a cap, his face peppered with stubble, sidled up to the bar. He placed an envelope next to Will’s glass. ‘Phone records,’ he hissed out of the corner of his mouth. ‘But they didn’t come from me, right?’

  ‘Isn’t that the guy from the chip shop?’ she said, incredulously, when he’d disappeared.

  ‘Best not to discuss it in here,’ Will replied, glancing around. ‘This could break the whole case.’

  ‘The toenail case?’

  ‘I’ve already said too much.’

  ‘Tequila?’ asked the man behind the bar, lining up a couple of shot glasses in front of them.

  Will glanced at Clare.

  ‘I’d better not,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a cottage pie in the freezer. I’ll just have, um, a small white wine please.’

  ‘I get ya,’ Will said, winking as if cottage pie was code for something far more glamorous or important.

  When she emerged into the early evening air half an hour later, leaving Will to live his life as a sexy lawyer in the parallel universe that clearly existed in his favourite bar, she stumbled slightly. It wasn’t the wine, or at least she didn’t think so. But the strangeness of it all. First Friday night. Now this.

  She hadn’t intended to drink anything at all – but the white wine meant that now she had to leave Claudia in the work car park. Waiting for her cab at the side of the road, she suddenly felt close to tears. When had life got so complicated? All the lies, the exhausting rehearsals. All the frickin’ taxis.

  Then, just as she felt herself begin to get slightly teary, she noticed a limousine with blacked-out windows purring towards her. It pulled up to the kerb in front of her and the window descended to reveal Toby’s rather flushed face.

  ‘Can I give you a lift m’lady?’ he said, with a wink.

  ‘Toby!’ she said, although part of her was still struggling to register that this was in fact her husband. ‘What are you … why are you …?’

  ‘Studio hired it for a celeb who didn’t show,’ he grinned. ‘Shame to waste it. Anyway, was just going home and suddenly there you were.’

  Sure, she was a feminist. But at that moment, galloping up on his steed, Toby had become her knight in shining armoured car.

  And she didn’t mind one bit.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  ‘Morning!’ Will stepped confidently into her office the next day – hair even more coiffed than usual – and smiled.

  ‘Hi,’ Clare replied. ‘Good night?’

  ‘Not bad,’ he replied, with a wink that was clearly meant to suggest that there may have been a bit of action from the ladies. ‘You know how it goes!’

  ‘Great,’ she said. ‘Have a good day.’

  ‘You too!’ He turned on his highly polished heel and clipped off down the corridor towards Nigel’s room.

  She thought about Camberwaddle, whose surgery had apparently gone well, but who would be off the radar for a few days – that’s if his doctors managed to wrestle the mobile from his hand. Unless his desire to sue half the food industry through Will had been some sort of illness-induced madness (and it was possible), she’d now be sharing her biggest client with her newly qualified colleague.

  It sounded mean, she knew it did. Will had won the business; he had every right to take on a new client, especially if a lucrative offer landed in his lap. But she was pretty sure that the next time Nigel decided to make someone partner it wasn’t going to be her.

  Was she fundamentally unlikeable? she thought. Or was it her work – a steady stream of healthy income, sure, but not the most interesting area of law. Form filling, paper-pushing, and aside from the odd argument over boundaries, pretty much the same transaction over and over.

  It just wasn’t sexy enough.

  But why was she so intent on getting made partner in Nigel’s firm anyway? Sure, she’d earned her stripes here, had gained valuable knowledge. And Nigel had been the one who’d taken her on when she only had limited experience. But why was she still trying to get his attention when his passion for law clearly lay in another direction? She was like a schoolgirl with an inappropriate crush on a popstar. No matter how much she tried, she was going to be overlooked.

  ‘Bailey & Partners’ she wrote idly on her legal pad, doodling flowers around the edge of the lettering until they were almost invisible. Dare she start her own firm? Conveyancing specialists, and not a trip and fall in sight? No more seeking favour from a boss who was quite happy to add her wins to his profit margin but had no interest in the work that went into getting the money in the first place.

  The phone rang. ‘The funds are in for the Smithson purchase,’ Ann said.

  ‘Great,’ she replied, making a note on her pad. Completion could happen tomorrow –
they’d be over the moon.

  ‘Can I nip off early today?’ Ann asked. ‘Doctor’s appointment.’

  ‘Of course!’ Clare replied. ‘Everything OK, I hope?’

  ‘Oh, nothing serious,’ Ann replied. ‘Just a check-up.’

  ‘Glad to hear it.’

  Once Ann had left, Clare marked the competition date in her diary and wrote a quick email to Mr Smithson. It felt good to be the bearer of good news to a client; her job might be boring, but she’d never tired of that.

  Then, in the diary, she saw another scribbled appointment on tomorrow’s date that made her blood run cold. ‘Toby meeting Martha B.?’ she read. She’d meant to do something about this before, but had pushed it to the back of her mind. She’d hoped at first to be able to go – boost his status maybe. Help him. But the idea of more subterfuge felt suddenly too exhausting. He’d be OK, wouldn’t he, without her help. Things would die down.

  She typed 141 into her phone to disguise her number and rang a familiar mobile.

  ‘Toby Bailey?’ he said, with an inflection at the end that made it sound as if he wasn’t quite sure who he was.

  ‘Hello, em, Toby … it’s, well, it’s Martha B.,’ she said, feeling her cheeks get hot.

  ‘Martha!’ he said, using the same tone, she noticed, as he did when speaking to her mother on the phone. ‘How wonderful to hear from you!’

  ‘Thank you. But I’m afraid I have some bad news.’

  ‘Bad news?’

  ‘Yes, I’m not going to be able to meet up for that interview after all; rehearsals are overrunning.’

  ‘Oh.’ His voice was flat. In the distance on the line she could hear the faint sound of chanting.

  ‘What’s that in the background?’

  ‘Oh, you know,’ he said, ‘just a few protesters.’ He laughed nervously. ‘They seem to come every day now. I’m not really sure what I’m meant to do about it,’ his voice sounded suddenly boyish. ‘To be honest, Martha, I think I’m out of my depth.’ He seemed to remember himself then. ‘I mean, of course I know what to do about it! It’s just … I mean, it’s not ideal.’

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘Look,’ he said, his voice lowering, ‘are you sure you won’t be able to make this interview? It’s just well … I didn’t want to say anything, but my wife and daughter – they’re absolutely huge fans of yours. And I’m afraid I might have promised them your autograph. It would be so appreciated if you could help me.’

  ‘They’re fans?’

  ‘Yes. At home, it’s all they talk about.’

  ‘Really.’

  ‘Besides,’ he added, ‘you’d like my wife. She’s … she’s an incredibly successful lawyer. Really, well, the embodiment of an empowered woman.’

  ‘Oh really?’

  ‘I’m sure if you need any legal advice she’d be more than willing to help you.’

  ‘That’s very kind of her.’

  Part of her was angry at Toby, but part of her felt sorry for him too. Holed up in his dressing room, forced to pass rather vehement protesters outside, pretending not to hear their shouted comments as he scuttled away to his car, her husband was drowning.

  And while he might not have spoken to her directly about it, clips she’d seen on the news, the odd comment, and now his defeated confession to ‘Martha B.’, were about as close to a cry for help as she’d ever heard.

  ‘Look,’ she said, ‘let me see what I can do.’

  ‘Really?’ his tone went up an octave and he coughed it back into place. ‘I mean really?’

  ‘Yes. Look, I’m not sure I’ll be able to meet your wife and daughter …’ she added, because if she was going to engage in this lie she might as well get herself out of trouble at the same time, ‘but perhaps we can meet for a pre-recorded interview?’

  ‘That would be … Oh! Martha! I mean Miss B. I mean Mrs. I mean Ms … Mrs … Ms … Miss?’

  ‘Martha is fine.’

  On the way home, running early for once, she pulled into a layby outside an estate agent and nervously went in. The man on the front desk beamed at her as she entered. He looked to be about eighteen – half man, half boy, with the downy moustache to prove it.

  ‘Hello, madam,’ he said. ‘I’m Ben.’ He held out his hand for a shake and she duly obliged. His hand was small and hung limply in her grasp. ‘Agent Ben, at your service,’ he said, with a mock salute and a grin that made her warm to him.

  ‘Hi, Ben,’ she said. ‘I’m interested in finding out about any commercial property you might have for rent. Just a small office space, really, at this stage.’

  ‘Sure, I’m afraid there isn’t much at present.’ He turned his back on her and rifled in a filing cabinet, pulling out a sheaf of stapled papers. ‘The ones in red are gone,’ he said, ‘but there are a few others left.’

  ‘I’m thinking of starting my own business,’ she said, needing to hear how it sounded out loud.

  ‘Ah, you’re one of them,’ he said, knowingly, nodding his head as if identifying her as a member of a secret society or special cult.

  ‘One of them?’

  ‘Yeah, one of them MehToo women, right?’

  ‘Well, sort of, I suppose.’

  ‘Do you know, since that thing started, I think we’ve let more offices to women than we had in the year beforehand?’

  ‘Oh, wow, really?’

  ‘Yeah, I mean it’s great,’ he said, then seemed to check himself. ‘I didn’t mean great for the agency – well it is great for us, too, but that’s not what I meant. My mum, she runs her own business and she says it’s about time more women took the plunge,’ he said, reddening slightly.

  ‘Your mum sounds like a wise woman.’

  ‘Don’t tell her that!’ he grinned. ‘I’ll never hear the last of it!’

  Clare thanked Ben and took the papers back to her car, flinging them on the passenger seat. ‘Fasten seat belt,’ Claudia instructed. ‘Fasten seat belt.’

  She duly buckled up.

  ‘Fasten passenger seat belt!’ continued the car hysterically. ‘Fasten passenger seat belt!’

  Really? Usually this was only activated when someone was in the seat. Did the car really think this wodge of papers was a human arse? She moved them slightly with her hand and started the engine.

  ‘Passenger is unsecured! Passenger is unsecured!’ cried the car. For the first time, Clare realised how much like a Dalek the automatic voice was. Exterminate!

  Rather than push the papers onto the floor Clare duly leaned over and fastened the passenger seat belt.

  ‘Happy now?’ she asked the car as she drove off.

  But even the car seemed to be oblivious to her presence.

  She reached home, switched off the engine and sat in the car for a minute looking at the house. Since their frantic cleaning spree before Hatty and Bill had popped in, it had started to look dishevelled again. Plates had begun to pile up near the sink and next to Alfie’s bed.

  She’d left before the kids this morning – goodness only knew what would be waiting for her inside.

  But as she opened the door, the overwhelming stench was not of mildew and festering food, but lemons.

  ‘Kids?’ she called, feeling oddly nervous.

  ‘Yeah?’ Katie called from upstairs.

  ‘Have you tidied up?’ she asked, noticing all the coats hung on pegs and shoes placed in pairs by the door.

  ‘Well, a bit.’

  ‘Oh, thanks Katie!’

  ‘No, I mean. It was already pretty much like this when I came home,’ came the reply. ‘Mum, it was Alfie.’

  ‘Alfie!’

  ‘Yep. He’s gone to Sam’s house now. But when I got in he was hoovering.’

  So it was true. Everyday miracles could sometimes happen.

  Leafing through the estate agen
t’s papers over a coffee, waiting for the baked potatoes to crisp up, Clare couldn’t help but feel a little frisson of pride whenever she saw a listing marked as ‘Let’. Of course, it wasn’t really likely that the whole Martha B. thing had woken up a generation of would-be entrepreneurial women – but if what Clare had done had influenced even one woman to take a risk then that was pretty good.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  ‘I want to talk to you about something in a bit,’ Clare said to Toby as he hacked determinedly into his baked potato later, his face grim.

  ‘Yes?’ he said, looking up. ‘What about?’

  ‘Not now,’ she said, nodding at the kids. Alfie, who had devoured his first baked spud and was covering the second with cheese, and Katie, who was diligently scraping all of the soft white contents onto a plate and discarding the skin on the tablecloth in disgust.

  ‘Go on, Mum,’ Katie said. ‘We all want to hear what you have to say!’

  ‘Katie! Will you stop with that MehToo thing?’ Alfie said, mouth full of cheese and chewed potato.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s all “listen to Mum” and “women this, that and the other”,’ he moaned.

  ‘So, I think it’s important!’ said Katie, primly.

  ‘Come on you two, leave each other alone,’ Clare said, feeling simultaneously proud of Katie and protective of Alfie. Her boy had cleaned today. He had turned an almost unimaginable corner.

  ‘But …’ Katie continued.

  ‘Yeah, well … you know. If she doesn’t want to say it in front of us,’ Alfie said, nodding meaningfully at his parents, ‘it’s like … well, it could be a sex thing.’

  ‘Alfie!’ Clare said, not knowing whether to be angry or burst into laughter.

  ‘Well,’ he said reddening. ‘You know. It might.’

  Katie continued to scrape potato from its skin, her ears red. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Maybe tell him later, Mum.’

  ‘Kids!’ Clare continued, ‘it’s not about … Look, I was just going to tell your father that I’m thinking about opening my own firm.’

  ‘Your own firm?’ Toby said, with a bit more incredulity than she’d prefer. ‘Are you sure?’