A Hallowed Place

by Caro Fraser

  Well, he would have to make an effort. He was badly out of condition. He would start by having a game of squash this evening, possibly with Anthony, if he wasn’t busy. They hadn’t spoken much for several weeks. Leo had been too bound up in Joshua to make room for anyone else. That was what love did to you.

  Going into chambers he met Jeremy Vine coming out of the clerks’ room in his shirtsleeves.

  ‘I suppose you heard about the New Square place falling through, did you?’ said Jeremy. He was cross, and when Jeremy was cross, he spoke even more loudly and moved even more aggressively than usual.

  ‘I did, as a matter of fact,’ said Leo. ‘What a pity.’

  ‘Hm. Don’t pretend you’re not pleased.’

  ‘I can’t say I really relished the thought of Lincoln’s Inn, Jeremy. What have you got lined up for us next? Grey’s Inn? I hear the rents are nice and low.’

  ‘Don’t tempt me,’ said Jeremy. ‘I might just think about it.’ He gave Leo a searching look. ‘Am I right in thinking you’re growing your hair long, Leo? Must be something to do with middle-aged insecurity. Doesn’t suit you.’ Smirking, he turned and bounded heavily upstairs.

  ‘Mr Davies?’ Felicity called over to him.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’ve got a call for you. Miss Draper.’

  Leo glanced across to the waiting room and saw that it was empty. ‘I’ll take it down here,’ he said.

  Leo closed the door of the waiting room and picked up the phone. ‘Alison?’

  ‘Hello, Leo. Just to let you know that the court welfare officers have confirmed the Friday appointment. Is that still convenient? They’ll come round about half two - it should only take an hour or so.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Leo. Well, he thought as he put down the phone, now that Joshua was gone there was nothing to indicate to the welfare officers that he did not lead the most blameless of lives. Joshua’s room remained just as it had been on the night he had walked out, a token of Leo’s faint hope that he might still come back, but the few possessions he had left behind could easily be tidied away.

  Leo sighed, then went upstairs to Anthony’s room, knocked, and put his head round the door. ‘Wondered if you were free for a game of squash this evening?’

  ‘Can’t, I’m afraid. I’m seeing Camilla.’ Anthony was genuinely sorry to have to say no. He was worried about Leo and would have welcomed the chance to have a talk with him. ‘Maybe tomorrow night?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ll have to see. Maybe.’ Leo closed the door and went to his room. With an effort of will, he sank himself into some work. He sat there, combing through books, writing up notes for an opinion, while dusk and eventually evening fell over Caper Court. At last he looked up from the pool of light on his desk, gazing into the shadows at the far side of the room, and realised that he had been working for several hours in a kind of oblivion, free from pain or emotion. The building was silent. Everyone had long since gone. Leo stood up and stretched, feeling the anaesthetic of drudgery wear off, and the familiar misery settle once more on his mind and heart. He walked to the window and looked out over Caper Court. All the windows in the buildings were in darkness, except for his own, and a faint light which glowed behind Desmond Broadhurst’s curtains. Poor old boy. He was due another visit. But Leo had not the heart for company. He had nothing to say to the world. Perhaps it was a good thing that Anthony was seeing Camilla this evening.

  He could get on with his life without having to share Leo’s troubles. It seemed as though the closeness which had once existed between them had vanished like so much mist. Another ache crept into Leo’s heart at this thought.

  Glancing at his watch, Leo saw that it was past nine. He collected his papers, put on his jacket, switched off the light and left the building. He was so tired that he drove home almost mindlessly, hardly hearing the music which he had put on, not even thinking, consciously, of Joshua.

  He parked his car and walked round from the mews, slowing his footsteps as the windows of his flat came into view. He glanced up, letting his heart tighten in wild and faint anticipation. Not really anticipation at all. Just a kind of hopeless fantasy. One in which the long windows stood not in uncurtained darkness, but were lit from within, the curtains drawn. In this fantasy it was only five days ago, and he still had time and the chance to make everything right with Joshua. The fantasy died before it had even begun.

  The flat was silent. Leo put on a few lights and poured himself a drink, careful to make it a small one. Then he went into the kitchen and stared listlessly at the contents of the fridge. He made himself a ham sandwich and took it, with his drink, into his study. There he switched on his computer, and took off his jacket and loosened his tie as he waited for the computer to boot into life. Without sitting down, still chewing his sandwich, he went into his email. Five new messages, more than usual. He clicked on the first one and watched as it filled the screen. He read the first words listlessly, without really comprehending them. Then the content of what he was reading dawned on him. He swallowed, put down his sandwich and read it again from the beginning. It was invective, as obscene and puerile as might possibly be imagined. It went on, an outpouring of filth, for several sentences. Shock made his flesh tingle, his heart begin to hammer. Jesus. He had never received anything like this in his life before. It brought with it a sense of violation that was almost physical.

  Without pausing to consider, he leant down and clicked on the ‘delete’ button. When the screen asked him if he was really sure he wanted to delete this item, it came across to Leo as a kind of sneering innuendo, as though the machine itself were looking slyly up at him. Angrily he clicked ‘yes’ and the words vanished from the screen. He felt an instant sense of relief, although the shock of what he had read had not left him. Messages two, three, four and five still waited. He hesitated for several long seconds before clicking on the second. Its contents were similar to the first, but worse. Mechanically he deleted it and went to the third, fully expecting the screen to fill with obscenities and abuse once more. It was a message from a friend, a female lawyer in New York, telling him that she was coming to London on business at the end of November and to keep the twenty-seventh free. It was cheery and brisk, and ended snappily with the word ‘Bye!’, but because of the vile force of the last two emails, it read at first to Leo like a coded message, in which obscenity and insult surely lay buried. He had to read it several times before it gradually took on the form of an innocuous, friendly transmission.

  He sat down now, picked up his glass and swallowed its contents. He felt better after a few seconds, as the whisky did its work. He was reluctant to click on to the last two messages. He sat for a long while, thinking it all over. He had no idea who could have done such a thing. Who would want to? What enemies did he have? His mind moved reluctantly, inevitably, to Joshua. No. If Joshua had thought of him since he left, it had been negligently, unregretfully. He didn’t care enough. Leo half smiled as he remembered trying to show Joshua, largely unsuccessfully, how to perform basic tasks on the computer. The memory had a sweet pain attached. To do this kind of thing was beyond Joshua in every sense.

  In an instant Leo regretted deleting the earlier messages. If the two remaining ones were mere mundane correspondence, then he had lost the possibility of identifying the sender. He had been too shocked to look for clues, to references which might point to an individual. After a few moments Leo put out his hand, hesitated, then went into the fourth of the messages. More filth, this time of a threatening, sickeningly sexual kind. Trying with difficulty to ignore the content, Leo read it through three times, but could find nothing to tie it in to anyone he knew. Perhaps it was just random. One heard of such things. Unsolicited material turned up on screens every day, all over the world. But Leo wasn’t on the Internet. This had come from someone who knew his email address. Knew his name. He clicked on to the fifth message and what he read there made his gorge rise. As soon as he saw Oliver’s name, and read what was written, he got u
p, went to the bathroom, and was briefly and violently sick. With trembling hands he went to the basin and splashed water over his face, then dried it. He stood for a while, hands on the side of the basin, waiting for the trembling to go away, the taste to leave his mouth. He tried to erase what he had read from his mind, but that was the worst of words. Once they were in there, they could not easily be dislodged. Whoever had written these messages knew that. They had found a way into his mind. From now on, he would be unable to switch on his computer and look at his email, for fear of finding more messages like those of this evening.

  After a while he went through to his study and, not looking at the screen, managed to delete the message and close down the system. Then he went through to the drawing room and poured himself another drink, this time a large one, which he swiftly followed with another. The whisky had the desired effect of dulling his senses, putting everything which he had just experienced at a kind of remove. And inevitably, it brought back thoughts of Joshua. Leo got up and went through to Joshua’s room. He had done this every evening since Joshua had left. He gazed around. The cleaning lady had made the bed and tidily arranged what was left of Joshua’s belongings. The easel still stood in the corner by the window. Leo went over to the bed and pulled back the cover, picked up a pillow and held it to his face, breathing in what was left of the scent of his lover. Then with a groan he chucked it down and went back through to the drawing room. Tears stung the backs of his eyes. You maudlin, bloody drunk, he told himself. No more whisky. Then again …

  As he poured out an unsteady measure the phone began to ring. Leo picked it up and said hello. He listened to the silence. Then he clicked the phone off and put it back on the handset. He stood, nursing his drink, staring at the phone. When it rang again, he picked it up and this time said nothing. And listened to nothing. He curbed his urge to shout and swear at whoever was at the other end, at whoever had come into his mind and his life with such violent stealth that evening, and put the phone down once more. He switched on the answer phone, finished his whisky and went to bed. There he fell into a sweating and unpleasant sleep, one from which he half woke several times in the night, to hear the insistent beep beep of the phone, before the machine clicked on to record the black silence at the other end.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Leo left chambers just before lunch time on Friday. ‘I’ll be at home for the next few hours,’ he told Felicity. ‘If it’s anything urgent you can reach me there.’

  ‘All right, Mr Davies. By the way, I had Bernard Pannick’s clerk on a few minutes ago, wanting to know about your skeleton argument in that ship finance case. I said I hadn’t seen it being typed up.’ Felicity’s manner was tentative. She didn’t like having to chase Leo up on cases. He was usually on top of everything, but recently she’d had to do it more and more. ‘The hearing’s on Monday.’

  Leo let out a sigh of exasperation. ‘Yes, Felicity, I know when the bloody—’ He stopped. No point in taking it out on Felicity. He could only blame himself for forgetting to do the damn thing. He’d meant to do it two weeks ago, but had kept putting it off. Still, he could put something together later in the afternoon and still get it in on time. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said pacifically. ‘I’ll get it sorted out.’

  ‘Okay.’ Felicity lowered her voice slightly. ‘By the way, I was wondering if I could have a word with you, when you’ve got a free moment. It’s something personal.’ A nervous lump rose in her throat. She’d been letting the days go by, saying nothing to the members of chambers about her pregnancy, but she would have to do it soon. Leo seemed to be the most approachable; she knew him best, even if his manner with her did blow hot and cold at times.

  Leo was not so bound up in his own affairs that he couldn’t see, from the expression in Felicity’s eyes, that this ‘something’, whatever it was, was important to her. He glanced at his watch. It was only ten to one. Plenty of time to get home and tidy the place up. ‘What about now? We can go into the waiting room.’

  They went in and Leo closed the door. Felicity sat down on the edge of one of the armchairs, while he leant against a bookcase and folded his arms, waiting for her to begin.

  ‘The thing is, Mr Davies, I’m going to have to leave chambers in a few months. Probably for good. I’m going to have a baby.’

  There was a pause, then Leo smiled and said, ‘Congratulations.’ Seeing her face, he added, ‘No need to look so glum about it. It has its up sides.’

  Felicity looked up at Leo. He could be a right bastard sometimes, when things weren’t going right, and lately he’d been a complete misery, but when he smiled that smile of his and looked at you with those eyes - a hard blue sometimes, but not at the moment - she liked him best out of the whole bunch. She felt tears brimming up.

  ‘I know. I mean—’ She sniffed and, to Leo’s astonishment and amusement, plucked a tissue from the depths of her cleavage. ‘Don’t think I’m not happy about it. I am, I suppose. It’s just that Vince and I hadn’t exactly planned it …’ She wiped her eyes, dabbing carefully to stop her mascara running. ‘It’s not really come at the best of times. I was just beginning to feel I was getting good at my job and things …’

  ‘You are. You’re very good,’ said Leo. ‘But look, it’s not the end of the world. We’ll keep your job open for you. Henry can muddle through. He’s done it in the past. You’ll be back before you know it.’

  Felicity shrugged. ‘Maybe, but I doubt it. Vince doesn’t hold much with working mothers. The trouble is, he doesn’t know how much this job means to me.’ She looked up at Leo confidingly. ‘I even thought about - you know, not having it. Just so that I could stay on here.’

  Leo felt a sudden chill as he recalled trying to persuade Rachel to have an abortion when she was pregnant with Oliver. ‘Don’t. You mustn’t think about that.’ Felicity was taken aback by the abruptness of his tone. Then he smiled again. ‘You’ll be fine. As I said, it isn’t the end of the world. I’ll speak to the other members of chambers. Your job will still be here if you want to come back. And knowing you, Felicity, I think that if you want it badly enough, you will.’ Felicity nodded. She looked sad and unconvinced. ‘When’s the baby due?’ added Leo, as he turned to open the door.

  Felicity got up. ‘May next year. May the fifteenth.’

  ‘Plenty of time for you to talk Vince round. Lots of mothers work these days, you know. Rachel does.’

  Yeah, thought Felicity, but she’s not living with someone whose best hope of a job is still two years away. She smiled and said, ‘Thanks for listening.’

  ‘Any time.’

  Leo left chambers and Felicity went back to her work, trying to think of new arguments to persuade Vince out of his steadfastly reactionary position.

  Leo found that he was strangely nervous at the prospect of the imminent visit of the welfare officers. He put away the few odds and ends of Joshua’s that might indicate ownership of his room, dismantled the easel, and stacked away the canvases and paints. He went through to the room which, ever since he had taken the flat, had been earmarked for Oliver. It was bright and airy, facing the south of the building, with a cot in one corner, a chest of drawers, a cupboard full of toys and some picture books on a shelf. Leo had even put up two large posters, one of Postman Pat and Jess, and another of Thomas The Tank Engine. He remembered the day he had. put them up, balanced on a chair, Joshua laughing as he handed the adhesive up to him. Joshua, Joshua …

  As he went back through to the drawing room to wait, Leo found himself reflecting upon the occasion when Rachel had rung the flat and Joshua had answered. What had she made of that? He had never asked her, too fearful of the idea that she might have said something prejudicial when the welfare people had visited her. That was madness. If she had said something, then he ought to know, ought to be prepared for anything they might say today.

  Hastily he rang Nichols & Co. and asked to speak to her. ‘Rachel, look, I’ve got these welfare people coming round shortly. I need to know what y
ou said to them when they came to visit you.’

  ‘Said to them?’

  ‘About me.’

  ‘What about you?’ Rachel felt edgy and faintly guilty. The tone in which Leo spoke brought home to her just how much this business of regular access to Oliver meant to him. It was something to which she managed to harden her mind most of the time.

  ‘Don’t prevaricate, Rachel. You know what I’m talking about. I know that you spoke to Joshua last time you called the flat.’

  ‘Oh - Joshua, is it? So you like their names to be pretty as well as their faces.’ She spoke from a sense of bitterness which had never left her, not since the day when she had found out that Leo had never really loved her, not as she had loved him, burning with a need for him that persisted even now, despite Charles, despite everything. She despised herself for speaking as she did, but couldn’t help it.

  There was a pause, then Leo said in a tired voice, ‘He doesn’t live here, if that’s what you’d been thinking. Not anymore.’

  ‘Well, that’s something you’ll have to explain to the welfare officers. As far as I was concerned, Leo, when I talked to them, I felt they needed to know what kind of person you are, the sort of life to which Oliver might be exposed.’

  ‘So you did say something?’

  ‘What did you expect, Leo? It’s the truth, isn’t it? You’ve had young men fritting in and out of your life and your bed ever since I’ve known you. Even when we were married,’ she added bitterly. ‘Why should anyone think you’re likely to change now? I don’t want Oliver seeing all that, knowing what you do.’