A Hallowed Place

by Caro Fraser

  ‘That was once something of a mystery to me, until I paid a visit to the Saatchi gallery. Now I realise that if you tell enough people that something is art, eventually they’ll believe it.’

  ‘That’s a bit hard,’ replied Leo. ‘I really think your father’s work is excellent. I’d buy some, if only it weren’t so highly priced. It’s also rather - well … big. It calls for greater space than I could afford to be properly appreciated.’

  Anthony shook his head. ‘I must be missing something. Anyway, I’m glad you want to come along. I’ve just got to collect some papers, then we can leave. Give me ten minutes.’

  Anthony went out, and Leo picked up the newspaper, turned to the article and began to read. When he had finished it he stood up and walked to the window, looking down on the courtyard. Why should he care what a trivial newspaper article said of him? No doubt it had all been designed to be largely flattering. Whoever wrote it had clearly enjoyed developing that picture of him as brilliant, but cold and aloof. Yet Leo felt faintly troubled. Cold? He had never thought of himself as a cold person. In fact, he sometimes thought that his capacity to love was excessive, that he unduly craved intimacy and affection. But this inner truth was at odds with the image he presented to the world, so the world, as represented by the pages of the Evening Standard, was perhaps entitled to regard him as chilly and remote. His loves, his passions, were all concealed, clandestine. Times might be changing, the things one did in one’s personal life might be regarded with greater tolerance, even in a tight-knit, censorious community such as the Bar, but from the very first he had always sought to hide his sexual ambivalence, to keep his life away from work as private as possible. His marriage, which had lasted scarcely a year, had been his only public demonstration of affection and that had been largely a sham, designed to allay rumours about his dubious past at a time when he was anxious to take silk. Nothing good had come of it, except for his son, Oliver, and even he was presently the subject of an acrimonious custody dispute. So why should he be surprised if the world chose to regard him as remote and lonely? God knows, that was certainly the way he felt these days.

  ‘Okay,’ said Anthony, reappearing in the doorway. ‘Shall we go?’

  Leo slipped on his jacket and tidied his papers away, and together they walked out into Caper Court in the late August sunshine. In Fleet Street they hailed a taxi.

  ‘So,’ said Anthony, ‘tell me why you’ve been such a reclusive figure these past few months. I’ve hardly had so much as a game of squash out of you.’ Leo said nothing, merely glanced out of the cab window. ‘I haven’t done anything, have I?’ added Anthony.

  Leo shrugged. ‘All the enforced intimacy of the Lloyd’s Names case must have got to me. Besides, we’ve both been away over the long vacation. And since I came back, I’ve been caught up in this fraud case.’

  There was a brief silence.

  ‘Has it anything to do with Camilla?’

  ‘In what sense?’

  ‘Oh, come on, Leo. I think you know what I mean. I know you dislike her.’

  ‘You’re wrong. I don’t dislike her. She’s an extremely able lawyer. She’s a credit to chambers. I only wish we had more female tenants. It does no good to be as weighted as we are in the other direction. In fact, it’s a point I particularly wish to raise at the next chambers meeting.’

  Anthony gave a short laugh. ‘There’s always Sarah.’

  ‘God, Sarah.’ Leo sighed, then added sardonically, ‘She’s quite another thing altogether.’

  ‘We’re getting off the point,’ said Anthony.

  Leo took out and lit a small cigar, then tugged down the window of the cab. ‘Anthony, there is no point. Camilla doesn’t come into it.’ He turned to look at the younger man. ‘It’s been a difficult few months. I’ve been finding the divorce thing harder than I expected. Not so much to do with Rachel, but being away from Oliver.’

  There was a pause. ‘You miss him,’ said Anthony.

  ‘Jesus, yes,’ said Leo. He smoked for a few seconds in silence, then added dryly, ‘There are even times when I wonder whether I shouldn’t try patching things up with Rachel, just to have him back.’

  Anthony hesitated. ‘I thought she was living with Charles Beecham?’

  Leo shrugged. ‘I suspect she turned to him because she wanted someone to comfort her. I have the feeling that if I really wanted her to, she’d come back.’ Leo’s tone was matter-of-fact.

  ‘Why don’t you ask her, then?’ retorted Anthony sharply. He knew Rachel well, was fond of her, and the arrogance of Leo’s attitude angered him more than a little.

  Leo drew on his cigar. ‘Because I have no wish to behave dishonestly. And that’s what it would take.’

  ‘But it’s still something you think about?’

  Leo’s inscrutable blue eyes met Anthony’s. ‘I still think about many things. It doesn’t mean I’m going to do anything about them.’

  ‘Here we are,’ said Anthony, as the taxi drew up outside a chic, but unobtrusive galleria-cum-wine bar, where trendy salads, wine and coffee, were served at steel-topped tables, among photographs, paintings and sculptures by aspiring young artists.

  They found Chay sitting at a table with a drink and a newspaper. Anthony introduced Leo and the two men shook hands. Chay Cross was a lean, tall man with pebble glasses, whose scalp was shaved to steely stubble against the ravages of incipient baldness. He was dressed in fashionable Comme des Garcons trousers, a Paul Smith shirt and jacket, and tennis shoes, and a Gauloise dangled from his thin fingers. He and Anthony, in his dark, pinstripe suit and sober tie, struck a curious contrast. Perhaps, mused Leo, as Chay ordered drinks, Anthony’s dogged and ambitious pursuit of a career at the Bar, in the face of considerable financial odds, had been a form of rebellion against his father’s bohemian image. These father-son relationships could hold strange dynamics. He wondered how he and Oliver would regard one another in twenty years or so.

  Drinks were bought, and after a few minutes of small talk Anthony brought up the subject of Chay’s latest project. ‘I’ve told Leo about the museum, but only in outline. You can fill him in on the details.’

  Chay shoved his glasses enthusiastically a little higher up the bridge of his nose. ‘It’s a project I’ve been thinking about for some time. What London needs is a proper museum of modern art and I intend to establish one. I’ve bought an old brewery in Shoreditch and we’re in the process of renovating it, turning the space into galleries, that kind of thing. Anthony’s dealing with the legal side of the trust, and we’re hoping to get some lottery money to help with finance. Of course, that means satisfying all kinds of criteria, but that’s in hand. I have a vision of something really dynamic, exhibiting everything from sculpture to video art, installation pieces … Are you a fan of video installations?’ He looked questioningly at Leo.

  Leo hesitated fractionally before replying, ‘To be honest, it’s not a medium I’ve encountered very often. I’ve seen the kind of thing you mean, but my taste is rather more for sculpture and paintings.’

  Chay nodded. ‘Just wait until you see some of the things that are being produced. I attended a completely groundbreaking exhibition in Helsinki three months ago, called Monumenta. There were some fantastic ideas on display. Matthew Barney was exhibiting. You’ve heard of Matthew Barney - no? He’s American, the absolute king of video installations.’ Chay’s eyes gleamed with enthusiasm as he leant forward to expound. ‘In one room there were tapes playing which showed him cramponing naked across the gallery’s walls and ceilings, with an ice pick inserted in his rectum. Fantastic. All to do with social neurosis and the artist’s responses to the confines of his environment.’

  Anthony took a quick swallow of his drink and glanced at Leo, whose expression was totally impassive.

  ‘Then you moved on to another room,’ continued Chay, ‘which was filled with great piles of fetishistic rubber items, and there were screens showing Barney being pursued across the car park of the gallery by membe
rs of the Royal Highland Fusiliers, then climbing naked up the car park’s lift shaft. That piece was to do with the homoerotic appeal of men in kilts, underlining the fundamental dichotomy between the freedom of the individual and the threat of social-group force.’ Chay picked the olive out of his drink and munched it.

  After a pause, Leo said politely, ‘It sounds - interesting. So your museum is going to be devoted to that sort of thing?’

  ‘No.’ Chay waved a thin, dismissive hand. ‘No, those would be specialist, satellite exhibits. To get funding, we need a collection policy. I want to put together a core collection of the very best modern art - Koons, Kiefer, Boltanski. That’s where we’ll need the help of government funding, though one of our trustees, Lord Stockeld, has already given us very generous support. And we’re doing quite a bit of private fundraising. Then with that kind of solid foundation, we can give exhibition space to really promising new talent, using all kinds of media. So far we have six trustees and now we need one more. It heeds an odd number, you see.’

  Anthony’s glance met Leo’s and he smiled faintly. ‘Which is where you come in.’

  ‘Why don’t you become a trustee?’ Leo asked Anthony.

  ‘In the first place, I don’t know anything about modern art. And in the second, nobody knows me from Adam. They don’t write profiles about me in the Evening Standard. Chay needs people of prominence to give the project the right image. You’re a QC, you’re the great Leo Davies. That’s why Chay wants you.’

  ‘He’s right,’ agreed Chay. ‘Anthony’s talked quite a lot about you, that you’re interested in modern art, and it seemed to me you’d be just the kind of person we need. Someone from the legal world would be a great help.’

  ‘Who are the other trustees?’ asked Leo.

  ‘Well, let’s see. There’s Tony Gear, the MP for Shad Thames, Melissa Angelicos, Derek Harvey—’

  ‘The art critic?’

  Chay nodded. ‘We thought of asking Brian Sewell, but …’

  ‘No,’ said Leo, smiling. ‘I think the ice pick might have finished him off.’ He frowned. ‘Who’s Melissa Angelicos? The name sounds familiar.’

  ‘She’s the presenter of the late night arts forum on Channel Four,’ said Anthony. ‘Something Space.’

  ‘Open Space. I know the one,’ said Leo. ‘Leggy blonde with a nervous manner. Who else?’

  ‘Then there’s Lord Stockeld, the publisher, whom I mentioned before, Graham Amery—’

  ‘The chairman of Barrett’s Bank?’

  ‘That’s the one. And then there’s myself, of course.’ Chay studied Leo’s face. ‘So - what do you think?’

  Leo hesitated for a few seconds as he pondered the offer. Why not? Helping to get a new museum of modern art off the ground was an attractive idea, given his own enthusiasm for the subject, and from what Chay had said the role of trustee wouldn’t be too demanding. He needed a new interest, something that took him socially beyond the cloistered confines of the Temple. His world seemed to have grown narrow of late. Time to change that.

  Leo smiled. ‘All right. Fine. I’d be happy to do it.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Chay. ‘Let’s have another drink.’

  An hour later Leo left Anthony and Chay, and took a taxi back to his flat in Belgravia. It was a good address, and the place was smart and well appointed, but Leo didn’t regard it as a proper home. It had simply been the first decent place that he had seen after the hasty sale of the Hampstead house in which he, Rachel and Oliver had lived all too briefly. The place had none of the character of the little mews house in Knightsbridge in which he had lived as a bachelor. He had been happy there. Just over two years ago, but it seemed a lifetime away. True, there was still the safe haven of the house in Oxfordshire, but even the weekends there seemed lonely, in a way which they had never done in the days of his bachelorhood. He didn’t go down there often.

  Leo slipped off his jacket, loosened his tie, wandered into the bedroom and lay down on the bed. It was only half past nine, but already his mind and body felt tired. Since the break up with Rachel, a strange lassitude seemed to have settled upon his spirit, like a mild depression. He couldn’t understand it. When she had left him he had thought - apart from the issue of Oliver - that it hardly mattered, that he would simply revert to his former hedonistic, self-indulgent lifestyle. But months had passed and still Leo felt as though he were in some kind of limbo. It was as if the person he had once been now no longer existed. The invitations, the social life of the days before his marriage, had almost dried up. Things had changed and moved on in just a short space of time, leaving him behind. I’m middle aged, thought Leo, rubbing his hands over his face. There wasn’t even the consolation of Anthony. He was too bound up with Camilla now.

  Leo lay for a long time gazing at the ceiling, reflecting. Perhaps the Evening Standard was right. Perhaps his life was cold and lonely. Perhaps it was going to be that way for ever.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Sarah Colman woke and turned to look at the clock by her bed. Twenty past eight. Maybe she should have set the alarm. Today was her first day as David Liphook’s pupil and technically she should show up at 5 Caper Court for nine o’clock. Still … She yawned and stretched like a cat. David wouldn’t mind if she was a little late. A ‘Tim Nice-But-Dim’ sort if ever she had seen one. Maybe not so dim, of course, but probably fairly easy to handle. She smiled to herself. The money wasn’t bad, either. On top of Daddy’s allowance, it made life even more comfortable. She only hoped David wouldn’t work her too hard. That was the trouble with being a pupil at a place like 5 Caper Court. It was such a shit-hot set that everybody supposed you must be brimming with ambition and zeal. Sarah wasn’t sure about any of that.

  She swung herself out of bed and slipped on the robe lying on the end of her bed. Pulling back the curtains, she gazed out at the blue sky. It was going to be another warm day. She picked up a hairbrush from her dressing table and sauntered through to the kitchen, where her flat mate, Lou, was already dressed and making coffee.

  She glanced up at Sarah. ‘Morning. Cup of coffee?’

  ‘If there’s one going,’ said Sarah, and sat down at the kitchen table, yawning again.

  Lou poured out the coffee, paused to tie back her dark hair, then brought the mugs over to the table. ‘Aren’t you going to be rather late, if you don’t get going? It is your first day.’

  Sarah flicked idly through the pages of the Guardian. ‘Yes, I will be, I suppose. I’m sure nobody’s much going to mind.’

  ‘I don’t know how you get away with it,’ murmured Lou, and sat down opposite Sarah.

  Sarah smiled up at her. ‘Practice. Instinct. Charm. Anyway, you can talk. I thought you had a presentation this morning?’

  ‘It’s not till ten. I’ve ordered a cab for half nine.’

  ‘Good. I’ll share it with you.’

  ‘That means you won’t get to chambers till nearly ten! That’s pushing it a bit, Sarah, even for you.’

  ‘Lou, the Bar is a more relaxed place than the world of corporate finance. You lot may have to grind away from seven till seven most days, but we barristers don’t. At least, I don’t intend to. I’m starting as I mean to go on.’ Sarah took a sip of her coffee, picked up her hairbrush, then sat back and began brushing her blonde hair with lazy, even strokes, ‘Besides, it’s not as though I’m some trembling novice who hasn’t any idea of what she’s doing. I know half the people there. Some quite intimately, I might add.’ She smiled.

  ‘Really, what does that mean?’ enquired Lou, avid for any kind of confidence or piece of gossip.

  ‘Well, let’s see … there’s Anthony, for one. Anthony Cross. He and I had a bit of a thing for a while. But that was when I was living on my own. I don’t think you met him.’ Sarah brushed a fine curtain of hair across her eyes and fingered it. ‘Very much your type, though. Tall, dark, very sexy. A bit buttoned-up. You go for the anally retentive City type, don’t you?’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Lou.
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  ‘Well, you know - a bit of pinstripe really turns you on, doesn’t it?’ Sarah laughed.

  ‘Does nothing for me.’

  ‘Why did you go out with him, then?’

  ‘Oh, I thought there might be more to him. But he turned out to be just another boring barrister.’

  ‘So you dumped him?’

  Sarah paused in her brushing and her eyes darkened momentarily. She didn’t like to recall the humiliation she had received at Anthony’s hands. Nor the fact that he had then taken up with that drip Camilla shortly thereafter. ‘It was more a mutual thing. We agreed to call it a day.’

  Lou sipped her coffee. ‘So – who else?’

  ‘Well, my pupilmaster, obviously. David Liphook. And there’s a man called William something - I’ve met him a few times socially, and he was on the pupillage committee. Bit of a cold fish. Oh, and there’s a girl there that I was at Oxford with. Camilla Lawrence. Very brainy. Boringly so. She used to be quite pink-faced and eager when she was at LMH, but she seems to have calmed down a bit since then. And then—’ Sarah parted her lips and gave a little sigh ‘and then there’s Leo Davies.’ She looked away, musing, flicking her hair back over her shoulder with one hand.