And Is There Honey Still For Tea?

by Peter Murphy

  ‘As it is,’ Ginny observed, ‘we will probably be hearing about his new life in Moscow after a decent interval.’

  ‘You can count on it,’ Hollander said. ‘They will be running pictures of his press conference in the Daily Mirror in a few months from now.’

  They stood in silence together for some time, and then shook hands again. Miles Overton and Ginny Castle turned to leave for the robing room. But Miles suddenly turned back.

  ‘What are your future plans, Professor Hollander?’ he asked. ‘Do you intend to continue in academia, or have you set your sights on something more in the public eye, now that you have had a taste of the limelight? Your passion for the truth is unusual in this day and age. The American public would benefit from it.’

  Hollander laughed.

  ‘Now that you mention it, Mr Overton,’ he replied, ‘I have given some thought to politics. I have a few contacts in the Democratic Party. It has occurred to me that I might have a shot at running for Congress in a year or two. And I really think I would enjoy being Governor of my State somewhere down the road. I’m not sure whether I could make it, but …’

  ‘I wouldn’t bet against you,’ Ginny said.

  59

  When Ben arrived back in chambers, he dutifully reported to the clerks’ room.

  ‘Thank you for coming back, Mr Schroeder,’ Merlin said cheerfully. ‘But if I were you, sir, I would have yourself a nice long weekend, starting now. You have worked hard on this case, and I am sure the outcome has been a bit of a shock. You have earned it.’

  ‘Are you sure you don’t need me?’

  ‘No, sir. If anything urgent comes up, I’ve got Mr Weston available. You can take that set of papers in your pigeon-hole with you in case you get bored. It’s for next Monday morning, Inner London Sessions, three counts of burglary. Hopeless case by the look of it, but the solicitors say he is determined to fight it. Oh, and there’s a letter for you in the pigeon-hole too, from Middle Temple. Enjoy your weekend, sir. I will see you next week.’

  Ben gratefully accepted his senior clerk’s advice. He collected his letter and brief and walked to the door.

  ‘Thank you, Merlin,’ he said, turning to leave. On opening the door of the clerks’ room, he almost collided with two men wearing uniforms bearing the Middle Temple coat of arms, one carrying a tall ladder. They were walking quickly towards the main door to chambers. One of them muttered an apology, but did not slow down at all. Ben turned back towards Merlin.

  ‘Who are they?’ he asked.

  Merlin shrugged. ‘They’re from the Inn, sir, a Mr Whitehead, and I forget the other fellow’s name. Something to do with pest control. Apparently they left some equipment here before when there was an infestation, and they just called to take it away.’

  * * *

  Ben made his way back to his flat in Canonbury. He opened the door and went into the living room, where Jess sat at the dining table. To her right were two glasses and a bottle of Chablis in an ice bucket. She leapt to her feet to hug and kiss him.

  He smiled.

  ‘You seem to have been expecting me,’ he said. ‘Obviously the news got through.’

  ‘Barratt called me to tell me what happened,’ she replied. ‘He didn’t have any plans for me, and I didn’t think you would be doing any more work today, so I thought I would pick up a bottle of something nice and be here to welcome you. In the circumstances, it’s not exactly a celebration, I suppose, but …’

  He kissed her.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. He poured a glass for each of them, and they toasted each other.

  He put his glass down on the table.

  ‘Actually, we do have something to celebrate.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘It’s official.’

  He had put his briefcase down by the door when he came in. He walked over to retrieve it, sat down at the table balancing it on his knee, opened it, and removed a letter with an envelope which had already been torn open. He handed it to Jess without a word. She sat next to him and read the letter. It was dated two days earlier and bore the distinctive crest of the Middle Temple, the Agnus Dei.

  Dear Schroeder,

  The Committee appointed to consider the circumstances of your relationship with Miss Jess Farrar has concluded that there is no evidence to suggest that any conduct is involved which would in any way constitute a breach of the Code of Conduct for the Bar. Nor does the Committee consider that any criticism can be made either of you or Miss Farrar. Accordingly, you may consider this matter closed.

  Yours sincerely,

  Master George Kenney

  Committee Chairman

  She shook her head. ‘Those arrogant …’ she allowed her voice to trail away. ‘I don’t want to consider the matter closed. I want to …’

  He took her hand.

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘But we need to let it go.’

  She nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘I am sure Ginny has the same letter,’ Ben said.

  ‘I’m glad for her, and for Michael,’ Jess said.

  She released his hand and looked down at the table.

  ‘Ben, I need to apologise to you,’ she said quietly.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For the way I’ve been treating you while this whole thing has been going on. I’ve been treating you as if this were all your fault. It’s not, and it never has been. It’s the fault of all those stupid old men who are still living in the eighteenth century. I made you feel bad because I tried to put you on the spot about what you would do if it went the wrong way. I shouldn’t have done that. I’m really sorry.’

  He took her hand again and leaned across to kiss her on the cheek.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he replied. ‘If anyone is to blame, I am. I know it sounded as if I expected you to give up your job with Barratt, and there is no reason why you should.’

  ‘There was every reason,’ she replied. ‘The job with Bourne & Davis was never meant to be more than a break while I decided what to do with my life. I was wrong to compare it with your career at the Bar.’

  ‘But you took to it. You are even thinking of becoming a solicitor,’ Ben pointed out.

  She shook her head.

  ‘Not any more,’ she said.

  ‘Oh?’

  She refilled their glasses.

  ‘Yes, I’ve realised that’s not what I want to do with my life. If this business with the Middle Temple had gone the wrong way, I would have left Bourne & Davis. Actually, I’m going to, anyway; not immediately, so don’t say anything to Barratt, but it won’t be too long.’

  ‘Really? Does that mean you have decided on a career?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘I’m going to read for the Bar.’

  She watched Ben’s utterly blank face for several seconds before clapping her hands together and laughing uproariously.

  ‘You should see your face,’ she said affectionately. ‘It’s a real picture.’

  He was staring at her, expecting her to protest that she had been joking. She did not.

  ‘Are you serious?’ he asked eventually.

  ‘Perfectly,’ she replied. ‘I’ve spent quite a while following Barratt Davis around now and watching barristers in action, and I have concluded that, present company honourably excepted, I could do the job at least as well.’

  She laughed again.

  ‘What’s the matter? Afraid of the competition?’

  ‘No …,’ he protested, joining in her laughter.

  ‘Well, you needn’t worry. I wouldn’t want to do crime. I want to do family law, or perhaps personal injury – something that allows me to help people in a crisis.’

  He raised his glass.

  ‘I’ll drink to that,’ he said.

  Her laughter suddenly drained away.

 
‘Ben, do you think I’m mad?’ she asked. ‘Am I getting ideas above my station?’

  ‘No,’ he replied firmly. He kissed her. ‘I think it’s a wonderful idea. You must join Middle Temple, of course, even if it is populated by stupid old men from the eighteenth century.’

  ‘It will give us an excuse for having dinner together,’ she pointed out.

  They drank their wine companionably for some time.

  ‘Jess, there’s something else I wanted to talk to you about,’ he said.

  She looked up inquiringly.

  ‘All this going to and fro from my place to yours, you going to and fro from yours to mine – it’s starting to get a bit much.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ she replied.

  ‘So, what I was thinking was …’ he hesitated, ‘if you are ready, we should look for a place together, somewhere bigger, where we will be comfortable. We could avoid all the travelling, we could spend more time together, and …’

  She kissed him.

  ‘I am ready,’ she replied simply.

  They held each other without speaking for a long time.

  ‘Then, of course, we will have to face our next challenge,’ she said.

  He nodded.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Your family.’

  ‘Yes.’ He paused. ‘Jess, I am sure they like you.’

  ‘They have met me twice,’ she replied, ‘the first time during an emergency situation, when your grandfather had his heart attack and I drove you home from Huntingdon; the second time when I came home with you for a party. On those two occasions, it didn’t matter that I’m not Jewish. But it will from now on.’

  He kissed her again.

  ‘I promise you, Jess, I will not allow that to come between us.’

  ‘I know,’ she replied. ‘But I don’t want to be the cause of strife in your family, and I don’t want to live on bad terms with them.’

  ‘You won’t,’ he promised. ‘I really don’t think it will come to that.’

  He paused and smiled.

  ‘We’ve dealt with the eighteenth-century old men at Middle Temple,’ he replied. ‘We will deal with my family if we need to.’

  60

  Moscow

  11 December, 1965

  Bernard Wesley Esq, QC

  2 Wessex Buildings

  Temple

  London EC4

  My dear Bernard,

  I won’t apologise for not turning up for the trial. I am sure you didn’t expect me. Perhaps I should have stayed and faced the music. Perhaps that would have been the right thing to do. But I couldn’t see that any useful purpose would be served by allowing myself to be locked up for the rest of my life. That is what would have happened, isn’t it? They would have prosecuted me and I would have rotted away in prison, watching from behind bars as Britain’s privileged élite continue to ignore the inevitable march of history, and carry on as they always have. I am not naïve enough to think that I can do much about that from where I am now, but I certainly couldn’t from some cell in Wandsworth.

  Please don’t think that I am ungrateful to you or Herbert, or to Ben and Barratt. On the contrary, I appreciate the candour with which you all dealt with me, which was not always comfortable at the time, but was in the end the only thing that saved me. Of course, I particularly appreciate Barratt’s subtle Nunc Dimittis, which confirmed me in a course of action I already knew was inevitable. I regret that I could not thank you all in person. That, obviously, was out of the question. Once the decision had been taken to extract me, I was not allowed to see anyone, even Bridget. I was whisked away very efficiently, if in a somewhat roundabout manner. I can’t talk about the details, of course, but there was no doubt about my ultimate destination.

  They say I can get back in touch with Bridget soon. They may even bring her over to join me in a year or so, when the fuss has died down a bit and it can be done quietly. I don’t know whether she will come. I have betrayed her greatly. I have left her with the care of our London house and the estate, without enough money to manage; and we have no child, no heir, to hold us together. She has ties to England which do not involve me; her parents are growing old. In truth, I can think of little reason why she would give up England to come to live with me in these circumstances in Moscow. But I have always loved her, and so I hope against hope that she will.

  They have made good on the promises they made when I first agreed to work with them. They are giving me a teaching role in the Chess Academy, teaching not only chess theory, but also English and German; at last, knowledge of foreign languages is beginning to be seen as a valuable skill, rather than evidence of sedition or disaffection. I have picked up a fair amount of Russian over the years, and I have been studying the language intensely since I arrived, so I am confident that I can manage for teaching purposes. Chess, in any case, is an international language by means of which teacher and student can communicate with few words. I will be allowed to play in a number of domestic chess tournaments each year; and so, for the first time, I can properly class myself as a professional chess player. It is too late for me now, I think, to aspire to the title of grandmaster, especially as no foreign travel will be allowed, certainly for many years. In any case, judging by the youngsters I see at the Academy, you have to start young these days if you are to scale the heights, and my liberation has not come in time for that.

  When I first came into contact with organised socialism, at Cambridge in the early 1930s, there were many men who proudly told everyone who would listen that they would gladly leave England behind to live in Moscow. They regarded Moscow as their spiritual home. But almost all of the men who were loudest in their fervour had never seen Moscow. Their enthusiasm was based on some idealised image of a proletarian paradise, where Marxist principles governed daily life and from which capitalism and class structure had been forever banished. Hardly anyone had seen the reality, which was that Moscow was by then a second-rate European capital, impoverished more than enriched by the Revolution, its capacity to flourish stunted and curtailed by the elementary flaws inherent in Marxist economics. Hardly anyone pictured a city of shortages and poverty; the grey drudge of everyday Muscovite living; the endless queues for bread; the power outages; the phones without lines; the endless cajoling and bribing of self-important bureaucrats; for which a nominal freedom from class oppression is poor compensation. Those who did visit the city found themselves closely guarded, shepherded everywhere from one approved site to the next, visiting and seeing only what was permitted; lest they see too much, and lest the image of the proletarian paradise be sullied.

  I myself visited Moscow many times before I came here to live. But visiting the city, however often, cannot prepare you for living in it, for being part of it, for having your fortune inextricably linked to it. As a visitor, you can overlook a great deal, forgive a great deal. When you know that you are to return to the familiar comforts of England within a few days, you can harbour the illusion that the hardships you see are simply the growing pains of a new socialist society seeking to adapt itself to the complex challenges of twentieth-century life. But as a resident, you see the hardships too often and in too many places. As a resident you notice the faces of the people, you hear their voices; and you begin to see that Marxism is just as powerless to create happiness and contentment in the midst of such surroundings as the religions it has sought to replace. In the face of the reality of Moscow in 1965, illusions vanish into thin air almost as soon as they are born. To many of the people, communism is only serfdom under another name, only another chapter in an endless saga of exploitation and misery, and the course of history moves on indifferently without sweeping those things away, despite Marx’s promise that it must and would. The Czar has been reborn as the Communist Party, and his henchmen as its henchmen. And so life goes on.

  But despite this, Bernard, I have no complaint about being here. I am qu
ite content to be here in my tenth floor flat in a tower block uncomfortably distant from the city centre: the block with its unkempt, smelly corridors, its flaking paint and its soulless graffiti; the flat with its single small bedroom; its small living room; its kitchen in which the power is not always on; its bathroom in which the hot water does not always flow; the view from its windows looking out on a sea of endless grey which seems to suffocate any thought of individualism or originality. I am content, not because I can ignore the reality of life here; but because I prefer, if you will, communist oppression to capitalist oppression, communist misery to capitalist misery; because I believe that here, it can and will get better.

  But I was never one of those who couldn’t wait to leave England behind to live in the brave new world of Moscow. I never fell prey to the illusion that I would be leaving misery behind and entering paradise. You see, Bernard, I was brought up to love England and, despite my socialist ideals, I have never ceased to love her. My goal in everything I did was not to harm England, not to bring her under a Soviet yoke; but to sweep away those old relics of the past – the social prejudices, the class system, the economic oppression – which hold England back and deprive her people of the freedom to realise their true potential. That is what I wanted to achieve, or help to achieve. I have never wanted to change England’s true essence. I hoped to bring about change from within. I never looked for a life anywhere else. England is my home. So for me, my exile is a painful one, one which I did not willingly seek, and one I embrace only because I must. There are days when the thought of never seeing England again drives me to despair. I will miss her every day for the rest of my life.

  What do I miss? I miss the estate, where I played so happily with Roger when we were children on those hot summer days. I miss my house in Chelsea, where I lived with Bridget, and which was the chief source of our happiness together. I miss Lincoln’s Inn and my chambers, where I found such an enjoyable way of making enough money to live comfortably. I miss the Reform Club, where I last saw Roger alive, and where I have so often enjoyed the company of many good friends. Most of all, I miss Cambridge.