by Cherie Blair
Over that Christmas I tried to tell David how I felt, coming out with things like “There’s no future in this.” Basically I was a coward, and I didn’t have the heart to do what I had to do. It didn’t help that he and my mother had become so close. She’d met somebody in Canada on one of her trips abroad and had begun to think about the future — even talked about emigration — and David was helping her get a divorce based on more than five years’ separation.
Then one evening, sometime that spring, out of the blue David turned up on my doorstep at Abercorn Place. When he knocked on the door, John answered with a shoe in his hand — mine. (He was one of those men who enjoy cleaning shoes.) At that point David realized that was it. He was very upset and left immediately.
My mum could barely bring herself to talk to me. David had gone back and poured out his heart to her. Not surprisingly, she was really angry, and was probably right to be. There is no doubt that I behaved very badly. I don’t regret many things in my life, but I do regret how I treated David. I had known for some time that we weren’t going to walk off into the sunset together, yet I couldn’t find the courage to tell him. I know that he found it hard to forgive me, and I don’t blame him. Fortunately young people are resilient, and two years later David met and fell in love with a friend of my sister’s. They married and had two daughters. I am happy to say that a few years ago, David and his wife came to see us in Downing Street. So at some level, anyway, I hope that I’ve been forgiven.
After this incident, of course, John thought he was in the ascendant. Once again cowardice got the better of me. The more time I spent with Tony, the less I wanted to be with John. The situation was complicated by the fact that Tony and I were still professional rivals and would be until the question of tenancy was settled.
Sometime that spring Derry asked me and Tony to dinner at his house. He didn’t often ask his pupils to dinner, but I think someone else had dropped out.
Among the other guests was a painter called Euan Uglow. He was about the same age as my father. A small, wiry man with a neat mustache and a very eclectic dress sense — whatever the weather, he always wore sandals, for example — Euan was charming, intense, and quietly spoken, with the manners of somebody from a previous age. He told me that he was always on the lookout for models and asked if I would like to sit for him. He knew enough about the Bar to know that pupils were usually in need of extra cash. The standard fee, he said, was £3 an hour. Why not? I thought. It wouldn’t take very long, I surmised, and I was always one for new experiences. I said okay, and he said he would give me a call.
So one afternoon, when nothing very much was happening at chambers, I went along to his studio in Battersea. I had no idea when I went there that he was one of the most important figurative painters of the second half of the century. The pictures in his studio were mostly of women.
“I’m currently doing two paintings of a standing nude,” he explained. “One is of a blond girl, and you’re going to be the dark girl. Here’s the one I’ve already started.”
The blond girl was looking left, and she was wearing practically nothing.
I was going to be facing the other way, he said, then handed me what he called “a blue dress” that he wanted me to wear. The blue dress turned out to be just a piece of material he had stitched together, almost like a hip-length waistcoat. It was completely open down the middle. The pose he wanted was very straightforward. I had to have one leg out in front and the other behind, as if I had been caught in the middle of a stride. It had never occurred to me that I would be expected to pose naked, or as good as. What could I say?
“Fine.”
During the first few sessions, as I stood desperately trying to hold the pose, I thought, What on earth am I doing this for? But at the same time it went through my head that one day I might want my children to know that I wasn’t such a dull-o, bluestocking Goody Two-shoes after all.
To keep me still and engaged, he put pictures of paintings he admired in front of me on another easel, then talked about them. The minuscule amount I know about art was taught to me by Euan Uglow.
A barrister’s work, particularly in the first few years, is very hit-and-miss, so when I didn’t have anything on, I’d ring up Euan and say, “Can you fit me in?” Then I’d go round to his studio. Or I might be at the magistrates court just down the road in the morning and when I was finished, pop over to the studio. He’d give me lunch and talk about what he was doing and why, about the system of plumb lines he used, how the light changed and its effect on my skin and my stomach, and how he saw the different colors. Over the many months I posed for him, we became very fond of each other. Neither of us had much money, so we agreed to make each other Christmas presents. I gave him two tea cozies, which I religiously knitted in two very different patterns. He made me a miniature lectern with a marble base. It was too heavy to take to court, but I still have it.
I really loved him. He was such a gentle, intelligent man, with a lovely smile. After about eighteen months, or even two years, I realized that I just didn’t have the time to continue. Also, Tony had begun to query why I was spending quite so much time with this man.
Not surprisingly, I found it really hard to tell Euan that I had to stop, but in the end I said that I didn’t feel it was fair to him. I was thinking, He makes his living like this, and he’s wasting time on me, when actually he could be doing a painting of somebody else. He told me not to worry and that he’d get another dark model to take my place. He had never got round to doing my face, though you could still see it was me. I think he did try to get a replacement, but it didn’t work out, so he decided to leave my painting unfinished. It still exists somewhere, but where I don’t know. I would love to have it, of course, but his paintings are very valuable, even more so now that he’s no longer alive. He died in 2000, and I was very proud to go to his memorial service.
In all the time I was going to Battersea to model for Euan, Tony never knew that I was posing nude. There came a point when I think Derry hinted at it. Possibly Derry had seen it as a work in progress. I don’t know. Either way, Tony, when he eventually learned the truth, was very uncomfortable with it. He still is.
Meanwhile the business of what was to happen when my pupilage came to an end was like a nagging headache that, no matter how many aspirin you take, won’t go away. A set of chambers is a bit like a family. Different members have different roles and contribute in different ways. On the one hand, the tenants doing commercial work were earning huge amounts of money, a percentage of which they would pay as “rent.” Given that their financial contribution was higher than anyone else’s, they wanted more of a say about who came in. On the other hand, those doing crime and family law were saying, “We’re providing a good service. You commercial boys are forever insisting we take on your pupils, and yet we also need people to do our work, and the people who come via you don’t want to do our work.”
So that spring of 1977 there was an internal power struggle going on in 2 Crown Office Row. The last four or five pupils who’d been taken on had all been Derry’s, and Michael Burton, who had a highly paid commercial practice, was saying that it was his turn now. Like Derry, he was an up-and-coming junior who would shortly become a Queen’s Counsel — the most senior level of barrister, known colloquially as a “silk.” Some of it, I suspect, was simply him flexing his muscles.
One evening in late spring Derry took me out for a drink and said that in his view, he couldn’t get both Tony and me taken on and that obviously, since one of us was a girl, it would be easier to get the boy taken on. Not that he could guarantee Tony would get it either, because Michael Burton was pushing hard for his pupil, but at least Tony would stand a better chance. He proposed to find me somewhere else to land.
Of course I was hurt. It was the first time I had ever been discriminated against because of my gender, and it was hard to accept that I was being pushed out simply because I wore a skirt. But at the time I thought, That’s life. I wasn’
t on a crusade.
Derry put me in touch with Freddie Reynold, whose chambers were in 5 Essex Court. As luck would have it, Freddie and I got on instantly. He came from a family of immigrant German Jews and was about the same age as Derry, whom he had got to know through doing work for the same trade union solicitors. Freddie himself did a lot of trade union work, which was another reason Derry probably thought the arrangement might work — he had me down as a committed leftie. Of course Freddie himself could not offer me tenancy — that right belonged to the head of chambers. But as the senior figure was based in the north of England, Freddie basically said yes.
When Chris Carr heard what had happened, he couldn’t believe it. “Listen, Cherie. You are much better qualified than Tony. You are mad even to think about moving. You must stay on and fight for your place, because you deserve a place.”
Maybe. But then there was the whole romantic complication, which neither Chris nor anybody else in chambers knew about. Although I wasn’t about to admit it even to myself, the truth was that I was in love with my witty, charming rival, and the last thing I wanted was to jeopardize that, even subconsciously. As for the battle of 2 Crown Office Row, in the end Michael Burton didn’t get his pupil taken on. Instead Derry, the more senior, got his: Tony.
I probably should have stayed and fought. But I could easily have not got tenancy. Then what would I have done? Hung around like the other squatters for another six months, and then another, living on whatever crumbs Derry and the others decided to throw my way? Put Tony into the equation, and it was a real mess. A tenancy in those days meant you were there for life. In the end, of course, I didn’t stay in 5 Essex Court for life, but thanks to Freddie, I was in.
Chapter 8
Romance
Moving from 2 Crown Office Row into 5 Essex Court was like going back in time. The lower floors had generous-size rooms, but the upper floors were pure servants’ quarters, all creaking floors and ill-fitting windows. In other words, nothing much had changed since it was first built. The wards in Jarndyce would certainly have recognized it, and Mr. Tulkinghorn would have felt quite at home. We even had gas lamps outside, which were lit every night by the Inn’s porters. I had a room in the annex, which I shared with Malcolm Knott, a former solicitor who had come to the Bar after having his own firm in north London. He was meticulously tidy and I was not, but he put up with me, even selling me his own small Victorian writing desk and buying himself another, larger version.
So there I was, twenty-two years old, a tenant in my own right, able to take my own cases and give opinions under my own name. I may not have been the lowest of the low (a pupil), but I was at the bottom of the chambers’ ladder. In those days the head of chambers was not elected — he was simply the most senior silk. Judges have to leave once they are appointed to the Bench, which is how room is made lower down the ladder for new tenants.
Like any young barrister, my work came primarily through the clerk, who operated much like an agent, taking 10 percent of each fee, which he would negotiate. Solicitors would go to a particular set of chambers because they offered the particular expertise they sought for a particular case. At the English Bar, the “cab-rank” system applies: if the requested barrister can’t do the job, it’s passed on to somebody who can (usually lower in the hierarchy) within the same set of chambers. This system also dictates that you can’t turn down a case because you don’t like the looks of it — that is, whether it offends your politics or your sensibilities. You can turn down a case only if you are otherwise engaged, no exceptions.
In this way a young barrister builds up a practice by taking on cases that somebody else can’t do, broadening his or her experience in the process. I was very lucky. The most junior tenant until I came along was a talented advocate called Charles Howard, who was already building up a good practice among the burgeoning group of left-inclined legal-aid solicitors. Charles and I became firm friends, and when he was not available, he would recommend me. In that way my practice, too, began to develop.
Five Essex Court was unusual in that the majority of its silks were based in Manchester and Liverpool and hardly ever came down to London. As the other juniors were mainly doing general common law, Freddie felt he needed help with his trade union clients, which is to say employment law, so I suited him perfectly. By the time I joined, there were about twelve juniors of different calls and five or six northern silks. I was the only woman.
In the main I did very lowly stuff. My first case was a bail application at Bow Street Magistrates Court. I was ill prepared; there were no papers. I was simply instructed to appear and ask for bail. (“Counsel will do their best” was the basic instruction in those days.)
So I turned up, got there at ten o’clock, and was standing outside the court. Everyone was milling about, as they do. There are dozens of cases listed every day. There are defendants, witnesses, barristers, solicitors, and everyone in between. They all look much the same — solicitors in suits, barristers in gowns, defendants and witnesses in their Sunday best. And there I was, calling out my client’s name: Mr. Bloggs? Then it suddenly occurred to me: Mr. Bloggs was not going to be standing outside the court because he was getting a bail application, which meant he was locked up in the cells below the court.
I can’t remember whether Mr. Bloggs ever got bail, but I well recall that the morning was nearly a complete disaster.
On another occasion early in my career, I handled a guilty plea. Despite my impassioned argument that the accused be given a second chance, he was sentenced to imprisonment. On his being sent down into the cells, I went down with him, because that’s what you do. The sentence was lenient, so I tried to tell him it wasn’t too bad. After saying good-bye, I went into what I thought was the elevator. I pressed the button to go up, and when it stopped, I got out, looked round, and realized that I wasn’t where I had expected to be. I was in a room with two doors on either side and nothing else. The elevator door closed behind me, and I heard it rumble back down again. At the same moment everything went black.
I had no idea where I was and could see nothing. First I groped round the sides of the lift, looking for a button. Nothing. I groped round the room, looking for a light switch, anything. Then I started banging on the walls, on the lift door, and shouting. I remember thinking, I’m going to die! They are going to find my body, and my mum will be so upset. I imagined them hiding this skeleton in the corner, identifiable only by her briefcase, a promising career tragically ended.
Suddenly I heard the elevator rumbling up again. The doors opened, and I practically fell into the arms of two court officials.
“Now then,” said one, “you’re all right, miss. Got yourself trapped between court one and court two, that’s all. You were making such a racket up here, they had to suspend the sitting in court two!” I’d taken the prisoners’ elevator and ended up in a holding room.
As 5 Essex Court was in the Middle Temple, we would generally eat in Middle Temple Hall and use the Middle Temple library. In Crown Office Row they tended to go to Inner Temple and use the library there. Yet Tony kept coming to the Middle Temple library, and I started avoiding the Inner Temple library, where John would often be found. Also, because I was still deviling for Derry, I would regularly find myself going back to Crown Office Row.
As far as Essex Court was concerned, John was my boyfriend. John, meanwhile, was aware that Tony was around. He knew that we sometimes went out, but he didn’t know how far the going out went, and he was very keen that it stop.
One Saturday afternoon John was round at Veena’s flat. It must have been sometime in October. I don’t remember what I was doing. I just remember the knock on the door and a voice saying, “It’s me.” Tony.
I remember watching as John walked over and looked through the spy hole. Next I heard the click of the lock as he turned the key — not to open it; to lock it. I remember staring at him aghast. John leaned on the door with his head in his hands. It was terrible.
The knoc
king continued. John shouted at him to get lost, but Tony wasn’t budging. If he hadn’t known it before, he knew now that John was there. He knew that I would never have turned a lock against him.
“Cherie? What’s going on? Just let me in. I promise you that whatever else happens, I will never keep you against your will.”
This was my home. It may not have been my flat, but it was my home.
So I got up and walked to the door, turned the key, and opened it. Tony, eyes blazing, came in.
“Right,” said John immediately. “You’ve made your choice. I’m off.” And he picked up his bag and left.
There was no showdown. No saying you must choose one or the other of us. John had never been one for the melodramatic. He was always calm. In fact, they both were.
But he was right. I had made my choice.
John should have been the more comfortable choice for me, because he hadn’t gone to a posh public school, just the regular local one, and he was clever and kind and all those sorts of things. But I was probably the dominant one in the relationship. This was not the case with Tony. There was no way that Tony was going to be dominated by me, nor was I necessarily going to be dominated by him. It was much more of an equal thing, so much more challenging.