by P. D. James
Ashe was wearing a white shirt which looked newly starched, blue jeans and a denim jacket. Venetia could see that the jacket had not been cheap; somehow he had got hold of money. Beside his stylish self-confidence, Octavia looked very young and rather pathetic. The long cotton shift which she habitually wore over a T-shirt was cleaner than usual, but still made her look like a Victorian orphan newly released from a children’s home. Over the T-shirt she was wearing the jacket of a tweed suit. The cumbersome trainers on her feet looked too heavy for her narrow ankles and thin legs, adding to the impression of a vulnerable child. The thin knowing face, which could so easily assume a look of fatuous slyness or mutinous resentment, now looked peaceful, almost happy, and for the first time in years she looked steadily at her mother with the rich deep-brown eyes which were the only feature they shared in common.
Ashe was the first to speak. Holding out his hand, he said: “Good afternoon, Miss Aldridge, and congratulations. We were in the gallery. We were impressed, weren’t we, Octavia?”
Venetia ignored his hand but knew that this was both what he expected and what he wanted. Without looking at him, keeping her eyes on her mother, Octavia nodded.
Venetia said: “I should have thought you’d had enough of the Bailey to last a lifetime. I take it that you know each other.”
Octavia said simply: “We’re in love. We’re thinking of getting engaged.”
The words came out in a rush in her high childish voice but Venetia didn’t miss the unmistakable note of triumph.
She said calmly: “Indeed? Then I suggest you unthink it. You may not be particularly intelligent, but presumably you have some sense of self-preservation. Ashe is totally unsuitable to be your husband.”
There was no outburst of protest from Ashe, but, then, she hadn’t expected one. He stood regarding her with the same half-smile, ironic, challenging, tinged with contempt.
He said: “That’s for Octavia to decide. She’s of age.”
Venetia ignored him and spoke directly to her daughter. “I’m walking back to Chambers. I want you to come with me. Obviously we have to talk.”
She wondered what she would do if Octavia refused, but Octavia looked at Ashe.
He nodded and said: “Shall I see you tonight? What time would you like me to come round?”
“Yes please. Come as soon as you can. Six-thirty. I’ll cook something for supper.”
Venetia recognized the invitation for what it was, a declaration of defiance. Ashe took her hand and raised it to his lips. Venetia knew that the mock formality of the exchange, the play-acting, was for her benefit, as was the kiss. She was seized with an anger and revulsion so strong that she had to clasp her hands to prevent herself slapping his face. People were passing, barristers she knew and was acknowledging with a brief smile. They had to get out of the Bailey.
Venetia said, “Right. Shall we go?” and without looking again at Ashe, led the way.
Outside, the street was almost empty. Either the protesters had grown tired of waiting for her or had been content to heckle Brian Cartwright. Still without speaking, she and Octavia crossed the road.
It was Venetia’s habit to walk back to Chambers when she had finished a case at the Bailey. Occasionally she would vary the route. More often she would turn off Fleet Street at Bouverie Street, then down Temple Lane to enter the Inner Temple by the Tudor Street entrance. She would then walk down Crown Office Row and across Middle Temple Lane to Pawlet Court. This afternoon, as always, Fleet Street was busy and noisy, the pavement so crowded that it was difficult for her and Octavia to walk abreast and impossible to hear comfortably above the grind and rumble of the traffic. This wasn’t the time to begin a serious talk.
Even when they were in the comparative peace of Bouverie Street she waited. But once in Inner Temple she said, without turning to Octavia: “I’ve got thirty minutes to spare. We’ll walk in the Temple Gardens. All right, tell me about this. When did you meet him?”
“About three weeks ago. I met him on 17th September.”
“He picked you up, I suppose. Where? Some pub? A club? You’re not going to tell me that you were formally introduced at a meeting of the Young Conservatives?”
She realized as soon as the words were out of her mouth that they were a mistake. In her confrontations with Octavia she had never been able to resist the cheap gibe, the easy sarcasm. Already she realized with the familiar sinking of the heart that their conversation—if you could call it that—was doomed to acrimonious failure.
Octavia didn’t reply. Venetia said, keeping her voice calm: “I’m asking where you met him.”
“He crashed his bicycle at the end of our road and asked me if he could leave it in the basement area. He couldn’t get it on a bus and he hadn’t enough money for a taxi.”
“So you lent him ten pounds and—surprise, surprise!—he came back next day to repay it. And what happened to the bicycle?”
“He threw it away. He doesn’t need it. He’s got a motorbike.”
“The cycle had served its purpose, I suppose? Something of a coincidence, wasn’t it, crashing it outside my house?”
My house, not our house. Another mistake. Again Octavia was silent. Had it been a coincidence? Stranger ones had happened. You couldn’t be a criminal lawyer without encountering almost weekly the capricious phenomenon of chance.
Octavia said sulkily: “Yes, he came back. And after that he came back again because I invited him.”
“So you met him less than a month ago, you know nothing about him, and you’re telling me that you’re engaged. You’re not stupid enough to believe he loves you. Even you couldn’t be that deluded.”
Octavia’s voice was like a cry of pain. “He does love me. Just because you don’t, doesn’t mean no one else ever will. Ashe loves me. And I do know about him. He’s told me. I know more about him than you do.”
“I doubt that. How much has he told you about his past, his childhood, what he’s been doing for the last seven years?”
“I know that he hasn’t a father and that his mother chucked him out when he was seven and made the local authority look after him. She’s dead now. He was in care until he was sixteen. They call it being taken into care. He said it was being taken into hell.”
“His mother chucked him out because he was unmanageable. She told the local authority that she was frightened of him. Frightened of a seven-year-old. Doesn’t that tell you something? His life has been a series of unsuccessful fostering and children’s homes which moved him on as soon as they could persuade someone else to take him. None of it is his fault, of course.”
Octavia’s head was bent; her words were hardly audible. “I expect you would have liked to do the same with me, put me in care. Only you couldn’t because people would have talked, so you sent me to boarding school instead.”
Venetia willed herself to stay calm. “You two must have had an enjoyable three weeks together, sitting in the flat provided for you by me, eating my food, spending money I have earned and exchanging horror stories about your suffering. Has he told you about the murder? You do know, I suppose, that he was accused of slashing his aunt to death and that I defended him? You do realize that the murder happened only nine months ago?”
“He told me he didn’t do it. She was a horrible woman who was always having men in the house. One of them killed her. He wasn’t near the place when it happened.”
“I’m aware of the defence. I conducted it.”
“He’s innocent. You know he’s innocent. You told the court that he didn’t do it.”
“I didn’t tell the court that he didn’t do it. I’ve explained all this to you before, only you’ve never been interested enough to listen. The court isn’t concerned with what I think. I’m not there to give them my opinion. I’m there to test the prosecution’s case. The jury had to be convinced of his guilt beyond reasonable doubt. I was able to show that there was a reasonable doubt. He was entitled to be acquitted and he was acquitted. You’re perfect
ly right, he’s not guilty, at least of that crime. Not guilty in law. That doesn’t mean that he’s a suitable husband for you—or for any woman. His aunt wasn’t a pleasant woman but something held them together. Almost certainly they were lovers. He was one of many, but in his case, no doubt, it came free.”
Octavia cried: “It isn’t true. It isn’t true. And you can’t stop us marrying. I’m over eighteen.”
“I know I can’t stop you. What I can do, and have a duty to do as your mother, is to point out the dangers. I know this young man. I make it my job to find out as much as I can about my clients. Garry Ashe is dangerous. He may even be evil, whatever that word means.”
“So why did you get him off?”
“You haven’t understood a word I’ve said, have you? So let’s be practical. When do you propose to marry?”
“Soon, in a week maybe. Perhaps two, perhaps three. We haven’t decided.”
“Are you having sex? But of course you are.”
“You haven’t any right to ask that.”
“No, I’m sorry. You’re quite right. You’re of age. I haven’t any right to ask that.”
Octavia said sulkily, “Anyway, we’re not. Not yet. Ashe thinks we ought to wait.”
“How very clever of him. And how does he propose to support you? As he’s to be my son-in-law I suppose I do have a right to ask that question.”
“He’ll work. I’ve got my allowance. You’ve settled that on me. You can’t take it away. And we may sell our story to the papers. Ashe thinks they would be interested.”
“Oh, they’ll be interested all right. You won’t get a fortune but you’ll get something. I can imagine the line he’ll take. ‘Disadvantaged young man unjustly accused of heinous crime. Brilliant defence lawyer. Triumphant acquittal. The dawn of young love.’ Yes, it could make you a pound or two. Of course, if Ashe is prepared to confess to his aunt’s murder you might even ask for six figures. And why not? He can’t be tried again.”
They paced together through the gathering dusk, heads bent close yet distanced. Venetia found herself physically shaking with emotions which she was powerless to make sense of or control. He would sell the story if a paper made it worth his while. He felt no loyalty to her, any more than she had felt liking for him. He had needed her; perhaps they had needed each other. And afterwards, in that brief interview, she had seen the contempt in his eyes, his conceit, and had sensed that he felt for her not gratitude but resentment. Oh yes, he would gladly humiliate her if he had the power. And he did have the power. But why was it worse to contemplate the sentimentality and the vulgarity of that press exposure, the pity and amusement of her colleagues, than it was to face the thought of his marriage to Octavia? Did she really with part of her mind—that mind in which she took such pride—care more for her reputation than for her daughter’s safety?
She had to make one more effort. They were turning out of the garden now.
After a moment she said: “There’s something he did, not perhaps the worst thing, but one which for me is crucial. It explains why I think of him as evil, which isn’t a word I normally care to use. When he was fifteen he was in a children’s home outside Ipswich. There was a residential social worker there—his name is Michael Cole—who really cared for Ashe. He spent a great deal of time with him, believed he could help him, perhaps loved him. Ashe tried to blackmail him. He said that if Coley, as he called him, didn’t hand over a proportion of his weekly wage he’d accuse him of assaulting him sexually. Cole refused and was denounced. There was an official inquiry. Nothing was proved, but the authorities thought it prudent to move Cole into another post not working with children. He’ll be under suspicion for the rest of his professional life—if he still has a professional life. Think of Coley before you commit yourself to marriage. Ashe has broken the heart of everyone who has tried to help him.”
“I don’t believe it. And he won’t break my heart. Perhaps I’m like you. Perhaps I haven’t got one.”
Suddenly she had turned away and was running through the gardens towards the Embankment gate, moving clumsily like a distraught child, the legs thin as sticks above the heavy trainers, the jacket flying open. Turning to watch her, Venetia felt a momentary spasm of an emotion which had some of the tenderness of pity. But it passed, and was replaced with a burning anger and a sense of injustice as physical as a hard knot of pain under the heart. It seemed to her that Octavia had never given her a moment of unalloyed satisfaction, let alone joy. What, she wondered, had gone wrong? When and how? Even as a baby she had resisted her mother’s attempts to cuddle and caress her. The sharp-featured little face, always an adult face, twisting into a bawling purple mask of hatred, the baby legs, surprisingly strong, clamped against her stomach thrusting her away, the body arched and rigid. And then at school it had seemed that every emotional crisis had been deliberately timed to make Venetia’s professional life more difficult. Every speech day, every school play had been arranged on a day when it was impossible for her to get away, increasing Octavia’s resentment, her own nagging guilt.
She remembered now the time when she had been engaged in one of the most complicated cases of fraud she had ever defended, and had been called immediately after the court rose on a Friday to cope with Octavia’s expulsion from her second boarding school. She could remember clearly every word of the conversation with Miss Egerton, the headmistress.
“We haven’t been able to make her happy.”
“I didn’t send her to you to be made happy. I sent her to be educated.”
“The two aren’t incompatible, Miss Aldridge.”
“No, but it’s as well to know which has priority in your scheme of things. So the convent takes your failures?”
“There is no formal arrangement but we do recommend it to parents from time to time. I don’t want you to gain the wrong impression. It isn’t a school for problem children, quite the reverse. And the examination results at A level are respectable. Pupils do go on to university. But it caters for girls who need a more pastoral, less academic education than we are able to provide.”
“Or are willing to provide.”
“This is a highly academic school, Miss Aldridge. We educate the whole girl, not only the mind, but the girl who does best here is usually highly intelligent.”
“Spare me the school prospectus, I’ve read it. Did she tell you why she did it?”
“Yes. To get expelled.”
“She admitted that?”
“Not in those words.”
“In what words, Miss Egerton?”
“She said, ‘I did it to get away from this fucking school.’” Venetia had thought: So at last I’ve got an honest answer out of her.
Miss Egerton had said: “The convent is run by Anglo-Catholic nuns but I don’t think you need fear religious indoctrination. The Mother Superior is scrupulous about respecting parental wishes.”
“Octavia can genuflect before the blessed sacrament day and night if it gives her any satisfaction and gets her a couple of decent A levels.”
But the interview had given her hope. A girl who could use that word to Miss Egerton at least had spirit. Perhaps on some bleak unwatered scrubland of the mind she and Octavia might yet find a common meeting-place. Perhaps there could be respect, even liking, even if there couldn’t be love. But it had only taken the drive home to show that nothing had changed. Octavia’s eyes still met hers with that same blank stare of obstinate antagonism.
The convent had coped in the sense that Octavia had stayed there until she was seventeen, achieved four modest passes in her O levels. But Venetia had always been ill at ease on her few visits to the convent, particularly with the Reverend Mother. She remembered that first interview.
“We have to accept, Miss Aldridge, that Octavia, as the child of divorced parents, will be disadvantaged all her life.”
“Since that is a disadvantage she shares with thousands of other children, she’d better learn to cope.”
“That is what we s
hall try to help her to do.”
Venetia had curbed an outward show of irritation with difficulty. Was this sponge-faced woman with the small implacable eyes behind steel-rimmed spectacles daring to take upon herself the role of prosecuting counsel? Then she realized that no criticism was intended, no defence awaited and no mitigation invited. It was simply that the Reverend Mother lived her life by rules, and one of them was that actions had consequences.
Now, obsessed with this latest emergency, angry with Octavia and herself, faced with a calamity to which she could find no answer, she hardly remembered the short walk through Pawlet Court to Chambers. Valerie Caldwell was at her desk in the reception booth and looked up stony-faced as Venetia entered.
Venetia asked: “Is Mr. Costello in his room, do you know?”
“Yes I think so, Miss Aldridge. He came in after lunch and I don’t think he’s left. And Mr. Langton asked me to let him know when you came in.”
So Langton wanted to see her. She might as well go to his room now. Simon Costello could wait.
When she entered Hubert’s room she found Drysdale Laud with him. That didn’t surprise her; the archbishops usually acted together.
Laud said, “It’s about the Chambers meeting on the thirty-first. You are coming, Venetia?”
“Don’t I usually attend? I don’t think I’ve missed more than one Chambers meeting since you made them twice yearly.”
Langton said: “There are a couple of matters on which we thought it might be helpful to know your mind.”
“You mean, to indulge in a little preliminary lobbying in the interests of getting through the meeting with the minimum of dissension? I shouldn’t be too optimistic.”