by Caro Fraser
‘It’s like not having a flatmate at all,’ grumbled Jane. ‘You’re hardly ever here.’ Camilla and Jane were having a rare supper together. Jane, who was a few years older than Camilla, was a criminal barrister with a rag-bag of a practice, chasing from one far-flung court to another in defence of petty thieves, small-time drug dealers and assorted no-hopers. She felt overworked, stressed from having to nag her clerk constantly about fees she was owed, and from the day that Camilla had moved in with her a year before, Jane had felt a growing resentment towards her younger flatmate. Last June, Camilla had been fresh out of pupillage, with hardly any experience, and Jane had been able to feel patronising and generous towards her. But in those twelve months she had watched as Camilla’s practice took off, her earnings far outstripping those of Jane, to the point where Jane almost felt moved to suggest that Camilla should pay more rent. And now, to cap it all, she had a man. Not just any man, not just the kind of common-or-garden hack whom Jane was used to dating, but the very desirable, glamorous, if slightly on the old side, Leo Davies.
What genuinely irked Jane was that for the past two weeks Camilla had rarely been there. Jane’s own social life was fairly dull, and she had been quite content when Camilla’s had not been much livelier than her own. This new love affair meant that there was no one to moan to in the evenings about her caseload, and she always had to make her own supper and had no one to watch television with.
‘Sorry,’ murmured Camilla, which she wasn’t in the least. She was far too happy to care whether Jane missed her company or not, and she certainly had no intention of feeling guilty about it. Jane was old enough to sort out her own social life.
‘Why aren’t you seeing him tonight?’
‘He’s playing cricket.’ Camilla pushed her plate away and stretched her arms above her head. She really didn’t feel hungry. ‘I’ve never seen him play, but he must be very good. He was a cricket blue at Cambridge and he’s a playing member of the MCC …’
Jane, who had heard quite enough of the wonderful Leo to last her a lifetime, didn’t listen to the rest of Camilla’s eulogy, which lasted at least two minutes. She waited until Camilla appeared to have finished and then observed, ‘Don’t you think he’s a bit old for you?’
‘You’ve said that before. I don’t notice it. I think we like the same things, we have the same sense of humour, it’s ….’ Camilla thought about being made love to by Leo, and went a little pink. ‘It’s quite amazing.’
‘I know all that, but he can’t have got to his age without having had loads of relationships. His marriage didn’t last more than a few months. What makes you think he’s serious about you?’
‘I never said he was.’
‘Well, the way you go on about him, it sounds as though you think you’re both going to live happily ever after.’
‘I do not.’ Camilla was beginning to feel cross. ‘I take it day by day. I don’t expect anything.’
‘Well, there’s a difference between expecting and wanting. I hate to be blunt about it, but men of his age tend to get bored with younger women after a while. I just wouldn’t invest too much in this relationship, if I were you.’
‘I’m not investing anything. Now, let’s leave the subject alone, please.’ Camilla picked up their plates and took them to the sink. ‘It’s your turn to wash up, by the way.’
‘I’ve done nothing but wash up every evening, as you’re out all the time.’
Camilla gave a groan of exasperation and left the kitchen. OK, Jane was jealous, but she didn’t have to take every opportunity to remind Camilla that this relationship with Leo was bound to end sooner rather than later. She went to her room and lay on her bed and thought about what Jane had said. All of it was true, all of it was common sense. The way things were at the moment, the special way Leo made her feel, the pleasure he took in lying around just talking to her in the evenings, taking her to see things, enjoying making her laugh, making her want him, reducing her to helpless longing with just a few words and touches … all of that was simply because the affair was fresh and new. She’d only been seeing him for a couple of weeks, and the novelty hadn’t yet worn off for him. But it would. Jane was right. She needn’t think she was anything special. Oh, but the idea of Leo becoming indifferent towards her, his manner growing impatient and withering … that chilled her to the core. She had seen and heard that side of him in court with obtuse and exasperating witnesses, and in exchanges with incompetent solicitors. She couldn’t bear the thought of him being like that to her, ever. She wanted everything to stay new and wonderful, to be safe and happy. Stupid, stupid … of course she was investing too much in this. She couldn’t help it. Maybe she should back off a bit, spend less time with him, not make Leo the focus of her emotional life. The trouble was she didn’t know how to begin. She was deeply in love, and totally helpless.
For the first time in a long time, Leo felt that life was beginning to achieve some stability and harmony. The Lloyd’s litigation was running down, he had been granted his injunction against Melissa – who, either because of that or because of the little word Leo had dropped in her ear, appeared to have abandoned her harassment of him for the time being – and Rachel had agreed to let Oliver resume staying with him every other weekend. Added to which, he was very much enjoying possession of Camilla’s unstinted affection and delightfully voluptuous young body. He found her gentle and amusing, ardent, and companionable, if occasionally somewhat naive. For the time being, however, she was the perfect antidote to the world weariness which he had been experiencing ever since his evening with Gideon two weeks before.
One morning, just before Leo was leaving for court, the phone rang, and the voice of Caspar H. Delaney III came on the line.
‘Hey, Leo, I’ve just about finished all I came to do. How about that dinner we talked about?’
‘Absolutely,’ said Leo, reaching for his diary and leafing through it. ‘When did you have in mind?’
‘Well, hell, I’m catching a flight back tomorrow at noon, so that narrows it down a bit. How are you fixed for tonight?’
Leo had planned to spend the evening initiating Camilla into some rather more adventurous sexual practices, having spent a fortnight chipping away at her youthful inhibitions, but that could keep. She was a most obliging and understanding girl. ‘No problem,’ said Leo. ‘In fact, before we have dinner, I’d like to take you on a quick visit to a new museum of modern art which I’ve been involved in for a year or so. I think it might interest you.’
‘Sounds great. Want me to come to you?’
‘Why don’t you? Say around half-six.’
Leo rang Chay and told him about the projected visit. ‘I know it’s short notice and out of hours, but I think my friend would very much like to see the museum. He’s a patron of a similar project in California, so he may be quite a useful contact.’
Chay promised to be there personally to take Leo and his American friend on a tour. ‘I think you’ll like some of our new acquisitions,’ Chay told Leo.
Caspar was most impressed by the Shoreditch museum, and wandered admiringly through the galleries. Chay recited to Leo the favourable notices which the gallery had received since its opening. ‘Waldemar Januszczak in the Sunday Times was the best, in my opinion, because he went to such wonderful lengths to praise us and damn the Tate Modern at the same time. How did he put it? It was so brilliant I actually memorised it … “The sense of purpose, cohesion of the themes and scrupulous dedication to sensible chronology puts to shame the imprecise, inchoate and thoroughly muddled articulation of the mess that is the Tate Modern.” God bless the man.’ He and Leo were making their way through the long rear gallery while Caspar was making a personal, close-up inspection of the massive Beckman installation. ‘Come and see what we’ve done in the small end gallery,’ said Chay.
Leo followed him through, and stopped in the doorway. He found himself gazing at a beautifully hung series of paintings by Germano Lehrman, the same pictures which had gr
aced his own walls only a matter of months ago. He paced the room in thoughtful silence, which Chay took to be indicative of his admiration, trying to work out Gideon’s role in this. The whole thing gave him a horribly uneasy feeling.
‘Aren’t they fantastic?’ said Chay at last, keen for some sort of response. ‘That delicate sense of abandonment, everything pared down to its essence …’
Leo nodded, saying nothing for the moment, while Chay wittered on. Eventually he turned and asked, ‘How did you come by these?’
‘That friend of yours, Gideon Smallwood – he happened to know the owner of the gallery which had recently acquired them. I’d already told him at the museum opening that we were interested in acquiring more, and – well, it was a piece of good fortune that you introduced me to him.’
Leo managed a smile. ‘Yes … wasn’t it? Can I ask how much the museum paid?’
Chay told him, and Leo nodded and glanced round at the pictures once more before they left.
If Chay was disappointed by Leo’s lukewarm response to the new acquisitions, he tried not show it. They made their way back to the central hall, where Caspar was inspecting a Richard Long sculpture, and Chay invited them into the office for a drink. While Caspar and Chay chatted, Leo pondered what Gideon had done behind his back. He came to the conclusion that Gideon had worked a very tidy little scam here. Although he personally had made a decent profit on the sale of the Lehrmans through Gideon, it didn’t take a genius to work out that Gideon himself was probably better off to the tune of several grand. Leo didn’t much care about the money, but he disliked intensely the feeling that Gideon had deceived and manipulated him.
The more he thought about it, the angrier Leo became. While waiting for Caspar to emerge from the cloakroom at the restaurant where they were to dine, Leo rang Gideon’s mobile, and left a voicemail message asking Gideon to call him in chambers in the morning.
The matter of Gideon’s sleight of hand, however, was totally eclipsed from Leo’s mind by a chance remark of Caspar’s over dinner later that evening. They were discussing, in a desultory fashion, the Lloyd’s litigation and the diehard motivation of the present group of Names, some of whom were American and known to Caspar.
‘So what was behind this action? Why didn’t they just settle like the other Names, instead of adopting this high-risk strategy?’ asked Caspar.
Leo shrugged. ‘Principle. The utter conviction that they are right. You know yourself how people deeply immersed in litigation can gradually cease to focus objectively. Lloyd’s weren’t fraudulent, just grossly incompetent, but they won’t believe that.’
‘And the guys that settled?’
‘Their overall losses are marginal compared to what this lot stands to pay out by way of costs if they lose. Which, despite my polished advocacy, I suspect they will. Anyone with any sense would have settled after the previous action.’
‘You acted for that Charles Beecham guy, right? Wasn’t he one of the Names?’
‘Yes,’ replied Leo, surprised at the mention of Charles’ name. ‘Why do you ask?’ So far as Leo was aware, Caspar knew nothing about the significance of Charles Beecham in Leo’s personal life. He had never met Rachel, had probably hardly registered the fact of Leo’s brief marriage, and Leo, while he might have talked about Oliver to Caspar, had certainly never told him that his ex-wife was living with Beecham.
‘I’ve seen him around our office a few times in the past couple of months. I didn’t recognise him, but someone told me who he was. I remembered you mentioned his name a while back, said he was one of the people that got hit hard by Lloyd’s. One of my colleagues, Dan Wiseman, is representing him in some deal for a big documentary series for NBC. Said Beecham’s moving out to the West Coast, joining all the rest of the ex-pat talent. I guess they like the money and the climate …’
Leo hardly heard the rest of what Caspar was saying. He felt cold with shock. If Charles was moving to the States, Rachel must be going as well. And Oliver. How could it be that he had known nothing of this? Had Rachel been meaning to tell him and just not got round to it? He stared blankly at the tablecloth. They couldn’t just take Oliver to the other side of the world, away from him. The thought of being unable to see Oliver for weeks, months on end, cut into his heart, acutely and unbearably.
He looked across at Caspar, who had ceased talking and was contentedly finishing his meal.
‘Are you quite sure about that? That Beecham’s leaving England, I mean.’
‘Oh, yeah,’ Caspar nodded. ‘Dan’s just about finalised the deal. He’s gonna start work on the documentary series later this year.’
Leo tried to fight down his immediate sense of anger at Rachel. Now was not the time to think about this. It wasn’t something he could burden Caspar with. He would just have to carry on normally for the rest of dinner and deal with it later, think the thing through. He had already decided, however, whatever the cost, that his son was not going to be arbitrarily taken away from him in the cause of enhancing Charles Beecham’s worldwide celebrity.
After Caspar had gone back to his hotel, Leo went home, poured himself a drink, and sat brooding for a long time on what Caspar had told him. He felt a hollow sense of fear at the prospect of Oliver being taken away from him. He couldn’t bear it. The boy was the most important thing in his life. If Rachel took him away, and he was to see him only every few months, what chance would there be of the kind of bond which Leo had always hoped for between them, which he knew was already developing?
He must find a way of preventing this, at any cost. Getting emotional about losing Oliver wasn’t going to help. He must view the whole thing from a detached, logical perspective. If, as Caspar had said, the deal for Charles’ documentary series was done, then Rachel must have known for some time about the impending move. Yet she had said nothing. Nothing. Perhaps, knowing how he would feel about the whole idea, she had been too afraid to tell him – was that it? No, whatever Rachel’s feelings were, she wasn’t a coward. She would have faced this from the earliest possible moment, tried to resolve things neatly and tidily. That was her way. She didn’t like last-minute disputes and emotional trauma. Why, then, had she said nothing? The only possible answer, Leo reasoned, was that she herself had not yet made up her mind to go.
Leo rarely, if ever, dwelt on the dynamics of his relationship with his ex-wife. To the outward eye everything was amicable enough. They managed to work together, as they had on the Lloyd’s case, and the arrangement they had reached regarding Oliver was, under normal circumstances, flexible and friendly. But Leo knew, too, that beneath her apparently platonic demeanour, Rachel still felt deeply about him. Perhaps not always kindly, but that was another matter. When they had married, she had been in love with him, not he with her, and if he had betrayed and hurt her, even if he had given her every reason to detest him, he suspected that it had only served to strengthen her feelings for him. Perhaps it was not a surprising response in someone as damaged as Rachel.
He recalled how, last year, when his disastrous affair with Joshua had brought him to the edge of a breakdown, he and Rachel had had a critical conversation. She had offered to help, even suggested that she might leave Charles and come back to him, if he wanted. Leo had turned her down flat, though he had put it in such terms as to suggest that he only did so to protect her from further pain. The poignancy of that recollected conversation, the look in her eyes and the tone of her voice, was something he did not normally care to contemplate. He contemplated it now.
He considered carefully from every angle the decision that Rachel was being asked to make. It was not just a question of going away with Charles, or even of taking Oliver away from his father. For Rachel, he suspected, there was the complex emotional problem of being asked by Charles, of whom she was very fond, but probably no more, to leave someone she deeply loved. And that someone was himself.
The solution to the problem, like the answer to some complicated legal question, came with rapid clarity. If Rachel di
dn’t go, it followed that Oliver didn’t go either. It was something which lay within Leo’s power to ensure. He could always take the risk that Rachel would decide of her own volition to stay, to let Charles go off to the States alone. On the other hand, he could help to persuade her to make that decision. He lit a cigar and blew out the smoke. If last year he had said to Rachel, yes, leave Charles, she would have. Not that it had been what Leo wanted. He didn’t love Rachel, and he certainly didn’t want to spend his life with her. But the fact remained, she had been prepared to try again. Where did that leave poor old Charles? Loved, but not in quite the right way. Not enough.
Leo rose from his chair, crossed the room, and poured himself another drink. All he had to do was make her believe that he wanted her to stay, for himself. Simple enough. The hard part came afterwards when, having persuaded Rachel that he wanted to try again, she would have to be made to see that it simply wasn’t working out … All right, she would be hurt, possibly badly, but hadn’t she herself been prepared to take that risk when she offered to come back last year? He was simply taking her up on that offer, albeit a little late. As for her and Charles – well, that would be Rachel’s decision. He might tilt the balance, of course, but it was still down to her. The point, above all, was that his son would not be taken away from him. Beyond that, he didn’t care much about everyone else’s feelings. They were all grown-ups.
It would mean, of course, that everything else in his life would have to be put on hold. Camilla would have to be sidelined, if he were to make this strategy work. Poor kid. He thought about her briefly, and a little sadly. He had no idea what he would do there. In many ways, he didn’t want to lose her. In the meantime, though, he had to concentrate on Rachel. The thing would have to be handled with as much delicacy as he could muster.