The Pupil

by Caro Fraser

  ‘Good grief, this is like the Spanish Inquisition. So what if I did? I probably just said that because I thought you might be hurt that Piers didn’t invite you.’

  ‘Hurt? You wouldn’t expect Piers to invite me, would you? Not when he’s been sniffing after you for the last God knows how long. He’ll jump at any opportunity to get me out of the way, and you’ll jump right back, so far as I can see.’

  Julia banged her coffee cup down on the table and stalked past him to the window, where she folded her arms and stood looking down at the street. Anthony went on, goaded by her silence.

  ‘That’s about right, isn’t it? Look at the way you were behaving with him at your party, when you knew I wouldn’t be there – God knows what would have happened if I hadn’t shown up!’

  ‘Thank you, Anthony,’ she said in a low, hard voice, ‘for showing such complete trust in me.’ Still she did not turn round.

  ‘What do you expect me to think? And where did you go after the drinks party last night? Or did you stay at Upper Brook Street?’

  ‘Since you insist on cross-examining me, we went to dinner – six of us, if that will set your mind at rest.’

  Anthony stood sullenly, not knowing what to say. He felt again that sense of exclusion that seemed to dog him in all his doings.

  ‘I’d rather you didn’t see so much of Piers,’ he said at last. It sounded pompous and unnatural, but he could think of no other way of saying it, particularly when he was talking to her nightshirt-clad back.

  ‘Piers is one of my oldest friends,’ she replied tightly, and then turned round. He could see tears glinting in her eyes. Allowing for her natural tendency to emotional exaggeration, Julia felt persecuted. ‘I’ve known him since school. He’s funny and sweet, I like being with him …’

  ‘And he’s got plenty of money, hasn’t he? Which is one thing you certainly like,’ pursued Anthony.

  ‘I can’t help it if you never have any money!’ she exclaimed. ‘I like going out to nice restaurants, I like being with people who don’t have to keep counting their small change to see if they can afford the tube fare home—’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Anthony shortly. He chose his moment, knowing that tears were a sign that her defences were slipping. ‘You won’t have much further use for me, then.’ And he put his coffee mug gently on the windowsill and turned to go.

  ‘Oh, Anthony,’ she said with a sob, pulling at his hand, ‘I’m sorry. That was a rotten thing to say.’ He turned round. ‘It’s just that … he is my friend, and he does care for me.’ She put her face against his shoulder. ‘I would hate not to see him. But I do love you,’ she added softly.

  Anthony found her irresistible when she wept, and now he put his arms round her and hushed her.

  ‘Just don’t go out with him on your own, if he asks you,’ he said, kissing her hair. ‘Please?’

  ‘Oh, I won’t. I don’t want to! I couldn’t help it if he didn’t ask you to his stupid party last—’ He stopped her mouth with a kiss, then led her back to her bedroom and the unmade bed, and drew the curtains.

  On Monday morning, Anthony arrived breathlessly at Roderick’s room, where Roderick was busily sorting out papers with the help of his junior counsel, Lawrence Ross. Anthony was not particularly fond of Lawrence, who was a bright-eyed Scot with a rasping voice and eager manner. The kind, Anthony guessed, whose hand had always shot up first at school when a teacher asked a question.

  ‘Anthony, you’re late. Lawrence, this is Michael Gibbon’s pupil. He’s been working with me for the past week and will be following the case. Anthony, bring that red folder – no, the blue – and you’d better ask the boy to bring these. There’s too much for you to carry.’ He heaped books and documents into Anthony’s arms and slung the red velvet bag containing his robes over his shoulder.

  They met the instructing solicitors in the waiting room downstairs, and Anthony was given his security pass for the House of Lords. The five of them were rather cramped in the taxi on their way from the Temple to Westminster. Anthony tried to follow the cursory conversation between Roderick and the solicitors, while Lawrence interjected what he hoped were serious-sounding, coherent remarks. When they arrived, Roderick set off at a tremendous pace, Anthony and Lawrence scuttling behind him through the long archway, past the security men, up the winding stone stairs and along the carpeted corridors to the robing room. The postboy had somehow mysteriously manifested himself and was handing books to an usher as they sped past.

  Anthony found that he was unaccountably nervous as he put on his robes; he had trouble fastening his collar. He could do no more than briefly admire himself in the small, square mirror – the sight of himself in his snowy wig never failed to arouse in him a faint thrill of self-admiration.

  Although he spoke very little, Roderick seemed to do everything at double-quick speed, largely to suppress his habitual nervousness, and Anthony was almost forced to run after him as he whisked out of the robing room. Anthony tried to take in his surroundings as he trotted along. They proceeded down a long corridor, on one side of which arched windows were set into the stone wall, with hard stone benches below; on the other was high wooden panelling punctuated by various portraits of long-dead peers, with doors to the various chambers. As they rounded a corner, Anthony was startled to see a small television screen jutting out above his head from the wall. It bore some sort of message in green letters, but they were walking too fast for him to read it.

  Roderick slowed down as they approached a mob of people milling in small knots in the corridor. There were barristers, solicitors and clients, and among them, stately and to all appearances oblivious of the hum around him, stalked the usher, grey-haired, beautifully attired, watchful and majestic.

  Roderick and Lawrence were studying the court list on the wall, and the solicitors went to sit on one of the benches under the high window. Anthony looked around uncertainly, then joined Lawrence and Roderick as they moved away from the list.

  ‘That couldn’t be worse,’ Roderick was saying. Anthony looked enquiringly at Lawrence.

  ‘Lord Allen is sitting in the Barker-Bentley case, so we won’t have him,’ he explained. Roderick bit his nails and said nothing. Anthony was aware that the composition of the court and the inclinations of the various Law Lords would affect the case radically. Roderick Hayter had been counting heavily on the influence of Lord Allen, who had often given judgment in cases of a similar nature and whose thinking was in line with Roderick’s own argument in this case, to sway the rest of the court.

  At a signal from the usher, the knot of people outside the chamber fell silent and stood back as an untidy little procession of old men trooped along the corridor and filed into the room. Anthony went in behind Roderick and Lawrence. He had no idea of what to expect. Perhaps the chamber of the House of Lords itself, with the rows of benches and the Woolsack at one end. Instead, he found himself in a large room, high ceilinged and panelled in dark wood, with high arched windows looking out over the sluggish grey waters of the Thames. The old men had seated themselves behind a large horseshoe-shaped table, on which were arranged bundles of paper and neat stacks of books, an identical stack and bundle for each Law Lord. Lawrence and Roderick sat down at a long table arranged on the left of the room, facing their Lordships, and opposing counsel sat at a similar table on the right-hand side of the room. There was a central lectern from which counsel would address the court. The solicitors sat at a table behind Roderick and his retinue, and at the back of the room was a row of chairs for the various assistants and hangers-on.

  Anthony examined the Law Lords curiously, as everyone sat coughing and shuffling and waiting for the proceedings to begin. They looked remarkably unimpressive in their everyday suits, without wigs and robes, and a couple even looked a little frail. At the extreme left, Anthony recognised Lord Buckhurst, one of the better-liked and well-seasoned commercial judges, on whom Roderick was now pinning his hopes. Next to him sat Lord Seaton, who was fidgeting and glanc
ing around in apparent annoyance, although after watching him for a few minutes, Anthony deduced that this was a nervous tic, a sort of angry blink. It gave him the appearance, together with his distracted habit of looking all about him, of being about to rise impatiently and leave. In the middle, fat and smiling and genial, was Lord Fenton. Anthony knew from Roderick’s previous observations that, since he had little commercial experience, Lord Fenton’s views would carry almost no weight, although his cheerful appearance lightened the atmosphere somewhat. Of the other two, Lords Cole and Ennersdale, Anthony could not tell which was which, and it took Lawrence’s impatiently whispered assistance to identify Lord Ennersdale as the one with the grey face and thick white hair, who looked gloomily out at the court through gold-rimmed glasses. It was generally understood that Lord Ennersdale was the least likely to be sympathetic to their case and Roderick, glancing at him that day, mistrusted the determined, malevolent look in his eye. On the far right sat Lord Cole, a very frail little man, almost completely bald, hunched over the table like a sad monkey.

  Roderick rose to open the case for the appellants, standing square onto the lectern, twitching at the sides of his robe with thin, nervous fingers as he addressed their Lordships. The morning did not go well for him. He got no further than ten minutes into his carefully prepared exposition of their first ground of appeal, when Lord Ennersdale interrupted him.

  ‘Do I take it, Mr Hayter, that we are dealing first with that point with which Lord Justice Greenwood dealt in the final part of his judgment?’

  ‘That was my intention, my Lord.’

  ‘Well, I find this—’ There was a long pause, and then an irascible sigh. ‘Please go on, Mr Hayter.’

  Roderick continued. Five minutes later, Lord Ennersdale interrupted him to take issue with him on his argument. A brief exchange took place, Roderick was about to resume, when Lord Fenton interposed an observation of no relevance whatsoever. Lord Fenton, however, made his remarks so genially and with such evident satisfaction that Roderick dealt with the interruption quite politely, and then endeavoured to carry on. But they were all bitten by the bug now. Lord Buckhurst came in with some questions that indicated that his views might not be running in quite the same direction as Roderick’s, and then Lord Ennersdale picked up the ball and ran with it, rather tetchily, for several minutes. Roderick, Anthony could see, was becoming impatient and vexed. He managed, however, to deal with the next two grounds of appeal without interruption, except for one sad enquiry from Lord Cole, and things settled down again for a while. The mood was not good.

  Anthony watched the court, wondering what was in their minds. Lord Ennersdale was taking in every word, Anthony knew, though he rarely raised his eyes to Roderick, but sat staring at the papers on the table before him, running one leathery hand over and over his long jaw. Lord Seaton had sat from the outset with both elbows on the table and his hands shading his eyes. Anthony wondered if he was asleep. Lord Fenton seemed to be doing his best to appear imposing and benign, but he looked rather bored and probably wished he were somewhere else. Lord Buckhurst looked singularly grave, and interrupted Roderick with a deadening regularity. His interruptions always prompted Lord Fenton to throw in a word or two, just to show that he counted. As for Lord Cole, he seemed to have given up after his first intervention and was dozing quietly on the sidelines – or apparently so, for his eyes were closed.

  Lunchtime came, and Roderick expressed himself not well pleased with the morning’s proceedings.

  ‘I can’t understand Buckhurst. I cannot think why he is taking this line. Greenwood must have been speaking to him. Or else,’ he sighed, ‘we are doomed to be sacrificed to policy.’

  In the afternoon Roderick resumed his argument. He droned on for some ten minutes or so, and though Anthony tried to concentrate, he found himself gazing through the far windows at the river cruisers on the Thames, plodding along under the leaden spring sky. Then he became aware that Roderick’s voice had stopped. The pause became uncomfortable as Roderick thumbed through his papers.

  ‘If your Lordships will bear with me for one moment …’ Roderick leant down and muttered something to Lawrence, who riffled hurriedly through the documents in front of him, then shook his head. Lawrence in turn hissed to Anthony:

  ‘The red folder! Where’s the red folder?’ Anthony was startled. Their Lordships were attentively and politely pretending to look with interest through their documents. Lord Seaton began to blink and look round. Counsel on the other side tried to look preoccupied and nonchalant.

  ‘I – he said the blue folder. He’s got the blue folder,’ said Anthony in a low voice.

  ‘I know he’s got the blue folder. It’s the red folder he wants. Didn’t you bring it?’ Anthony felt his hands beginning to sweat.

  ‘No!’ he muttered, frantic. ‘He said to bring the blue one!’

  Lawrence rose in a half-crouch and gave Roderick the news in an undertone. Oh, Christ, oh, Christ, thought Anthony. He stared down at the table; the documents swam before him in a white blur. He felt the blood begin to pound beneath his wig, which became unbearably hot. He breathed steadily, trying to recollect. Then he fished hopelessly in his briefcase and among the documents. Roderick was straightening up.

  ‘If it please your Lordships, I intend to proceed to that other matter—’

  ‘But Mr Hayter,’ said Lord Ennersdale snappishly, ‘have you completed your remarks in this regard?’

  ‘My Lord, no – but I think it appropriate to return to them at another … juncture. If your Lordships will be so good as to turn to—’

  ‘But Mr Hayter,’ persisted his Lordship, ‘wishing no discourtesy, I believe we may find it rather inconvenient to have to pursue the argument in this circuitous fashion. If perhaps …’

  Anthony was barely listening. His fingernails were pressed tight into the palms of his hands, and he was aware only that some awful blunder had been made. He had left some vital document behind. The whole case would founder because of it. He was living his worst nightmare.

  In fact, the lack of the folder, while an inconvenience to Roderick, merely forced him to abandon his carefully prepared dissertation and take up another tack. It was clumsy and did not assist the smooth exposition of the argument but, in substance, it was of a minor nature. He was far too experienced to be unduly thrown by the mishap, but Anthony was sure, with the self-centred certainty of the young, that he had somehow upset the case. He did not know what was in the red folder – in fact, it contained merely a few sheets of paper setting out ancillary points which Roderick had intended to bring in should things not be going their way, and which he was now making in any event – but he was sure that it must be something vital.

  Lawrence managed to compound Anthony’s certainty by his very manner, as they packed up their belongings at the end of the afternoon. Anthony’s morale sank lower and lower. Roderick, in fact, had forgotten the matter entirely, until Lawrence mentioned it as they walked back through Caper Court, Anthony trailing in their wake in the miserable silence which he had maintained all afternoon.

  ‘The red folder? Oh, that wasn’t in the least important – probably my fault that we left it behind, anyway.’

  But Anthony was walking too far behind to hear.

  The following day, Roderick’s grim silence merely served to convince Anthony that the matter of the red folder had not been forgotten, and that it was at the forefront of Roderick’s mind. But Roderick was habitually grim and silent during an important case, and what Anthony mistook for wordless wrath was purely concentration. Suffering under his own conceit, Anthony robed and took his place next to Lawrence. Their Lordships sat as before, giving the impression that they might have been sitting there all through the dark night and the slow break of day, like so many morose grey dolls.

  Lawrence rose and spent twenty minutes dealing with subsidiary points, and then counsel for the respondents rose. Earnest Slattery was an imposing man of sixty or so, tall, of a rather rubbery thinness,
whose naturally laconic self-confidence was improved by the indications given by the court the previous day that they might not be wholly sympathetic to the appellants’ case. Slattery started off in an upright posture, but as his discourse gathered momentum and his eloquence rose to ever more satisfactory heights – to his own ear, at least – he began to lean on the lectern and gradually to drape himself over it, only now and then drawing his body back slowly so that he could glance down at his notes, then leaning forward again. He gave the impression, after a while, of a swaying eel. Slattery always smiled slightly as he spoke, which enhanced his air of confidence and imparted a sense of it to his audience.

  Their Lordships reacted benevolently to Mr Slattery. From time to time, Lord Ennersdale would nod swiftly and approvingly at the polished surface of the table, and even Lord Buckhurst was seen to give a wry nod once or twice in the direction of his fountain pen. This became infectious, in that Lawrence took to giving occasional, furious little shakes of his head, as though appalled at the audacity of their opponents in putting forward such spurious and manifestly wrong-headed arguments. Roderick merely sat gazing at the table before him, occasionally glancing up at Slattery.

  Eloquent though he was, Mr Slattery failed to rivet Anthony’s attention. His glance wandered to the back of the room, where he saw, sitting amongst the clerks and assistants, a middle-aged woman, wearing a dress and a cardigan and rather good shoes, and knitting. She, like Earnest Slattery, was smiling faintly to herself. When she came to the end of a row she would look up, still smiling, turn her needles around, and continue knitting at a furious pace. When they rose for lunch, Roderick noticed her, too.

  ‘Ah, is she here? That bodes ill for us. That’s Earnest Slattery’s wife. Whenever he’s speaking in the House of Lords, if he thinks the case is going well for their side she comes along to listen to him. I think she’s very proud of him. She can’t understand a word of what’s going on, mind you. It seems they share a mutual enjoyment of the sound of his voice.’ It was perhaps the only time that Anthony saw him smile that day.