A Hallowed Place

by Caro Fraser

  ‘You’ve missed your stop,’ said Sarah.

  Anthony said nothing. Sarah turned her head away, still smiling.

  Later, in Sarah’s bed, he lay back with his eyes closed, luxuriating in the sensation of her mouth caressing his stomach, her hands upon him. He lifted his head, put out a hand and wound it into her hair, pulling her up gently so that she turned and looked at him. ‘This is just about sex. Nothing else. In two weeks’ time—’

  ‘In two weeks’ time you’ll have rediscovered your conscience, I know.’ Sarah drew his fingers from her hair, then moved up to lie in the crook of his arm. ‘But in the meantime, there’s no reason why we can’t do this every night.’ She kissed him, softly at first, then moving her tongue against his.

  For the briefest of moments Anthony wondered how it was that every good resolution formed in his mind could be eclipsed in an instant by physical instincts so overwhelming that they left his mental processes standing. Then Sarah began to move her hands downwards over his body and he wondered no more.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Joshua came back at ten the following morning. When he saw Leo, who was up and dressed but looking haggard from the night before, he felt instant remorse. Although he was a careless, selfish young man, he was fond of Leo. Without having any proper understanding of the depth of Leo’s feelings and the torment which he put him through, Joshua knew he’d been behaving badly recently and he resolved to be kinder. The implementation of this resolution was made easier by the fact that Leo wanted to take him out that afternoon and buy him a car. This raised spirits on both sides and by the end of the day Joshua was the owner of a red Golf convertible.

  As the days went by, Joshua seemed to become a little more settled. Despite the fact of his new car, he now seemed to spend much of his days painting and was always there in the evenings when Leo got home, always in a good mood, and there seemed to be no threat of tantrums or moodiness.

  One evening after dinner, Joshua went to his room and brought three canvases into the drawing room to show Leo. As he studied them, Leo was aware of Joshua’s anxious eyes on his face. He was both delighted and touched that the boy should care so much what he thought of his work.

  ‘They’re good,’ said Leo at last. ‘A little derivative, but then - what isn’t?’ He glanced up and caught Joshua’s disgruntled expression. ‘Don’t worry. It’s because you’re so young. You still have to find your own voice.’ He looked back at the canvases. ‘But you are definitely good. You could sell these. I could help you.’

  ‘I’d like that,’ said Joshua slowly. ‘But it seems … I don’t know. It just seems like if they’re good enough to sell, I shouldn’t need any help, should I?’

  Leo laughed. ‘You’ve yet to become wise in the ways of the world, Joshua. Take help where you can. I just meant that I might be able to get these hung in the right kind of place. If you keep working and produce a few more, we might be able to get you an exhibition of your own.’

  Joshua’s face seemed illuminated by the possibilities he saw for himself. ‘You reckon?’

  ‘I don’t see why not. Just keep working.’

  Despite the apparent harmony of the atmosphere, however, the knowledge of Joshua’s volatility, and of his own dependence, were always at the back of Leo’s mind. Alcohol helped to blanket his anxieties, and he found himself drinking more. Every day he promised himself that he would cut down soon, but his new sense of insecurity where Joshua was concerned had subtly altered his personality to a state of general dependence.

  Some days later, Chay rang Leo in chambers. ‘Are you busy tomorrow night?’ he asked. ‘I’ve arranged for us to have a look at Anthea Cole’s collection - you, me, Derek and Melissa. It’s in a secure warehouse in Whitechapel.’

  Leo pulled his diary across his desk and glanced at it. ‘Fine,’ he said. The diary checking was purely force of habit. He rarely arranged to do anything in the evenings these days. Time with Joshua was too precious. He hadn’t played squash in well over a month. ‘Would you mind if I brought someone along with me?’ asked Leo. ‘A young friend of mine. He’s an artist presently in need of useful employment. I thought perhaps you could find some work for him at the museum.’

  ‘I’m sure there’s something he could do,’ said Chay. ‘It’s getting to the point where we’ll have to start drawing up lists of people to invite to the opening, get the media primed. He could probably be useful there.’

  When he had finished talking to Chay, Leo looked down at the pages of his diary. He had intended to call Rachel last week and arrange to see Oliver, but hadn’t done so. Keeping steady the delicate equilibrium between himself and Joshua had occupied all his attention. But he must arrange something for this weekend. He picked up the phone, about to call Rachel at work, then remembered his earlier intention of calling Charles about the custody business. Damn. He should have done it the day that Alison had called him. The welfare people might already have been to interview Rachel, and God alone knew what she’d said. He would ring him now and hope Charles might agree to help him.

  Charles was not surprised to hear from Leo. He had imagined that Leo might try to enlist his support in the matter of Oliver, that he might see their past friendship as a way through.

  Leo came straight to the point. ‘I want to try and compromise this thing, Charles. I don’t want it to go as far as a hearing. I hoped that you might be able to persuade Rachel to see the sense of it - always assuming that you’re sympathetic to my position.’

  Charles picked up his mug of tea and wandered across the room with it. ‘Well, yes, I am, as a matter of fact.’ From the window where he stood he could see Oliver staggering around beneath the horse chestnut tree at the end of the garden, picking up conkers and handing them to Margaret, the nanny, whose coat pockets bulged with them. ‘But it’s not as though we haven’t discussed it, you know, Leo. I’ve tried to make her see the advantages, I’ve said that I think it would be in Oliver’s best interests to live with you for a few days every fortnight, but Rachel’s not exactly open to persuasion where Oliver’s concerned, I’m afraid. She’s something of a possessive mother.’ Was he being disloyal to Rachel in saying that? Perhaps this conversation was itself a form of disloyalty.

  Leo sighed. ‘Don’t I know it. It’s just that there’s no point in my trying to persuade her any further. I hoped you might be able to make her see sense.’

  ‘I’ll do what I can, of course, but I don’t think there’s a lot of room for manoeuvre.’

  ‘No, probably not. Has she mentioned anything about the welfare officers coming to visit?’

  ‘Funny you should say that - they’re coming round tomorrow morning. Rachel’s taking the morning off work and I intend to make myself extremely scarce. People like that terrify me.’

  ‘I’m just worried—’ Leo stopped, faintly embarrassed.

  There was a pause, then Charles spoke. ‘What? That Rachel’s going to make reference to your sexual proclivities and put you in a bad light?’

  ‘I’m grateful to you for putting it so succinctly and with such candour, Charles,’ murmured Leo. ‘Yes, that does worry me.’

  ‘Well, frankly, I take the view that that’s simply not cricket. I’ll do my best to see that she doesn’t do anything like that. I’ll say something beforehand. But I don’t intend to be there when she talks to them. This is her affair - and yours.’

  ‘All right. Thanks. By the way – I wondered if I might take Oliver out on Sunday?’

  ‘Sunday’s not a good day. My sister and her husband are coming round to Sunday lunch. They’ve got a three-year-old daughter and Oliver is meant to be her date, as it were. Why not Saturday? You could have him for the whole day, he could stay the night with you, and you could bring him back in time for lunch on Sunday.’ This seemed to Charles a perfectly inspirational idea. It gave Leo more time on his own with the kid, and he and Rachel could have a whole Saturday - including Saturday evening - all to themselves.

  Leo considered
this. What about Joshua? The idea of taking Oliver back to the Belgravia flat was not a happy one. Then it occurred to him that he could take him to Stanton instead. Joshua hadn’t shown any particular signs of restlessness recently, but it might do them both good if Joshua spent Saturday night in London with his friends. And Leo could concentrate on Oliver without having to worry about keeping Joshua entertained and happy. He seemed to have to do a lot of that, and he wasn’t sure that he was always entirely successful.

  ‘That’s an excellent idea. I haven’t had him to stay the night yet. I’m sure he’d be all right. What about Rachel?’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll square it with her. Consider it settled. What time will you pick him up on Saturday?’ Charles was already considering booking lunch for two in Bath, at a restaurant where they didn’t have high chairs.

  ‘I’ll be down first thing,’ said Leo. ‘Around ten.’

  No sooner had he put the phone down than it rang. It was Felicity. ‘I’ve had Ross Barclay from Sinclair’s on the phone. He wanted to speak to you but you were engaged.’

  ‘What did he want?’

  ‘He was chasing up an advice he’d been expecting from you at the beginning of last week. His clients are getting pretty shirty, apparently.’

  Oh, God - it suddenly came back to him. The shredded steel scrap contract. Barclay’s clients had wanted an early advice. How could he have forgotten it? He turned and rummaged on the shelf where he kept those briefs still awaiting attention, the receiver held to his ear. He could see no sign of it. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said to Felicity. ‘I’m on to it. I’ll ring Barclay back.’

  He put down the phone and stood up to begin an exhaustive search of the room, aware of his heart beating hard with apprehension. Not because of the brief - he could do it in an afternoon once he found it - but because this was not the kind of thing he had ever done before. Ever. He was exact in his habits, scrupulous in delivering work punctually and so organised as to be incapable of losing track of any piece of work. Or so he had thought. When he had exhausted all the possibilities, he stood behind his desk, hands on hips, staring round the ordered room. Unlike the rooms of the other members of chambers, Leo’s was immaculately tidy, everything in its place. There were no heaps of files or bundles of paper, nowhere for a brief to get lost, to slip down behind something else. He thought back. The last few weeks seemed a muddle, work had taken secondary importance to Joshua. Where once his days had been landmarked by hearings, conferences and trial dates, now they were lit by the thought and fact of Joshua, the evenings possessing luminosity, the workday a grey jumble of routine events. When had that brief come in? He fought to regain his grip of events, his former clarity of thought. He had once prided himself on being able to keep mental stock of every piece of work, without recourse to his diary. It had come in on a Friday, he remembered, and he’d taken it home with the rest of his papers, intending to look at it over the weekend. Then when he got home he would have put it - where? He had no idea. He had no recollection of taking it out of the car and putting it anywhere in the flat. He would just have to search for it when he got home. But for the moment, he would have to ring Ross Barclay and stall him. It was going to be a demeaning and embarrassing exercise, one he had never performed in his life before. Until the advent of Joshua, Leo had not been a man to make excuses or apologies. Things had changed.

  When Rachel came home, she was pleased to find Oliver still up, dressed in his Postman Pat sleepsuit and sweet-smelling from his bath. He was sitting on the rug in front of the television, a bottle of juice in his mouth, watching a Thomas The Tank Engine video. Charles was lying on the sofa, his glasses on the end of his nose, leafing through The Guardian. Rachel picked Oliver up and kissed him, detaching the bottle from his mouth.

  ‘Charles, you know I don’t like him to have bottles of juice. It’s bad for his teeth.’

  Charles looked up. ‘Sorry. Margaret must have given it to him after his bath.’

  ‘Well, would you speak to her about it, please?’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘You see more of her than I do. And I hope he hasn’t just been watching videos all evening. I’d rather he was played with. He needs stimulation.’

  ‘He’s not the only one,’ said Charles, putting down the paper and holding out his arms. ‘Come here. You come in grumbling after a long day, and it’s not good for you. Or me.’

  Rachel put Oliver back on the floor and sank on to the sofa into Charles’s arms, grateful for his tolerance, his good humour. She did go on at the poor man. He kissed her, stroking her dark hair, slipping his hands inside the coat she was still wearing.

  ‘Oh, my wheels and coupling rods,’ murmured Charles, as he caressed her.

  ‘What?’ laughed Rachel.

  ‘It’s what Henry says. At least, I think it’s Henry. Possibly Gordon. Which is the big green one? Oliver would know. Anyway, it’s what one of the engines says when he gets excited. Rather a good expression, don’t you think?’

  Rachel smiled, combing her hair with her fingers. ‘Actually, I think Thomas The Tank Engine is sexist. Annie and Clarabel as the stupid, put-upon female trucks, all that stuff.’

  ‘In art as in life. Or possibly not.’ Charles stood up. ‘I must check my casserole, like a good house husband, while you, career woman, can spend some quality time with your offspring.’ He was halfway across the room when he remembered. ‘By the way, Leo rang today.’

  Rachel, who had gone to kneel next to Oliver, looked up quickly. She should be able to receive this news casually, she knew, but it never quite worked that way.

  ‘What did he want?’

  ‘Mainly to arrange to see Oliver at the weekend. I told him Sunday was out, so he’s going to take him out on Saturday. I suggested he should keep him overnight.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You know, spend some more time with his dad, give us a break. We can have all Saturday to ourselves. Leo will bring him back in time for lunch on Sunday.’

  Rachel rose. ‘Charles, you really have no right to arrange these things behind my back. And why did Leo call you? He should have spoken to me about it.’

  Charles shrugged, beginning to get a sinking feeling. He might have known that Rachel, wouldn’t be happy about this. ‘I don’t know.’ He paused. ‘Well, I do actually. The reason he called me was to see if I couldn’t try to persuade you to settle this custody thing. It seems daft to—’

  Rachel dismissed this with a wave of her hand. ‘I’m not interested in that. You know how I feel about it and I’m not prepared to budge. Leo’s the one who’s being unreasonable.’

  Charles sighed. ‘Well, anyway, that’s why he rang, and then he mentioned the weekend.’

  ‘He should speak to me. I’m Oliver’s mother. I’m really cross with him.’

  ‘Why? What difference does it make which one of us he arranges it with?’

  ‘The difference is that I wouldn’t have suggested that Oliver stay the night with him. I know Leo, I know the kind of company he’s probably keeping and it’s one of the reasons why I’m not prepared to let him have custody of Oliver on the terms he wants.’

  Charles began to feel annoyed. ‘Look, I know Leo, too. Not in the same way as you do, but he’s a decent bloke. Whatever his private life is like, I don’t think he’s going to expose Oliver to anything - anything—’ He hesitated, searching for the appropriate word.

  ‘Oh, don’t you? Well, it’s not a chance that I’m prepared to take.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Rachel, be fair. For all you know, Leo could be leading the life of a monk. And anyway, he has Oliver’s best interests at heart. He loves him. You know that. You only have to see the way he behaves when he’s with him. I don’t know why you hold it against him, all this stuff in his past. What’s it got to do with the amount of time he’s allowed to see his son?’

  ‘Everything, Charles. It has everything to do with it.’

  ‘Well, I think you’re being unfair. And by the way, if you mention
any of it to the welfare people when they come round, I think it’ll be a pretty poor show.’

  At this, Rachel said nothing. Charles had hit a raw nerve. She was still in two minds about what she would say to the welfare officers about Leo. Part of her knew that everything Charles said was probably right, but another small, fearful part told her that she must take every advantage she could, unfair or otherwise, when it came to fighting Leo’s custody application. She was still undecided.

  Charles tried to read the expression on her face. ‘You’re not going to do that, are you? Not when you don’t even know how things are with him these days?’

  ‘I’m not sure. But one thing I am sure about is that Leo’s not going to have Oliver on Saturday night. It’s the thin end of the wedge.’ She crossed the room and picked up the telephone.

  When the phone rang in the Belgravia flat, Joshua was sitting idly on the sofa, flicking through the TV channels with the remote, wondering whether he hadn’t been a good boy for long enough and whether he might not go out that evening with Damien. He stretched out a hand for the phone, turning the sound on the TV to mute. ‘Hello?’ He flicked the remote. The MTV channel came up and Joshua watched as Bjork sang and pranced soundlessly. ‘No, sorry. He’s not in yet. He’s usually back around seven. Can I take a message?’

  Bjork faded out and gave way to Prefab Sprout. ‘Yeah, okay. I’ll tell him when he comes in.’ Joshua put down the phone and pressed the mute button to bring the volume back up.

  Leo came into the flat and set down his briefcase. He picked up the mail from the hall table then went into the drawing room.

  Joshua glanced up. ‘Someone rang for you just a moment ago. Rachel. Said could you call her back when you got in.’

  Leo said nothing for a moment, wondering what Rachel had made of Joshua answering the phone. Damn, if only he’d been just five minutes earlier. He chucked his coat on a chair and went to pour himself a drink. Then he noticed the brief from Sinclair’s sticking out from a pile of magazines. They were mainly Joshua’s. Why couldn’t the boy ever tidy up? Still, at least he had the brief. He’d look at it first thing in the morning. Leo pulled it out and went to put it in his briefcase.