by Ruth Mancini
‘Oh my God, Alex,’ I breathe. ‘You’ve taught him to... to surf the Internet! Look! He’s happy! He’s doing it all by himself!’
Alex says, ‘There’s more to that lad than meets the eye.’
I nod, fighting back tears for the second time.
Alex frowns. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asks. ‘There’s something. I can tell.’
I wipe my eyes and sigh. ‘I’m in trouble at work,’ I say.
‘What kind of trouble?’
I bite my lower lip. ‘This case I’m working on. Something I did.’
‘Do you want to talk about it?’
I take off my shoes and hang my jacket on the back of a chair. I walk over to the sofa and Alex comes and sits down beside me. ‘I was supposed to go back to the office this afternoon,’ I tell him. ‘Gareth – my boss – wanted a meeting. I called and told him about Ben, that I had to get home, so we’re meeting tomorrow morning. But he told me there’s been a complaint. A real one, this time.’
‘From who?’
I lean back into the sofa cushions. ‘I went to the hospital. I had a bit of a run-in with a senior administrator there. I thought everything was OK, but now I suspect she’s taken it to her director and they’ve decided to report me to the Solicitors’ Regulation Authority.’
Alex frowns. ‘Why? What happened?’
I look up at him. ‘I sneaked onto a children’s ward after they’d told me I couldn’t go there. I lied to members of staff. I told them I was visiting somebody, when I wasn’t.’
‘But why?’
I look up at him and sigh. ‘I wanted to try and find some witnesses. Nurses. Staff members who might have been on the ward in July, the evening that the baby nearly died.’
‘And did you?’
‘No.’ I shake my head. ‘But that’s not the point. I shouldn’t have been there, and I lied my way in. They might say that it’s conduct unbefitting a solicitor. I could... I could get struck off.’
Alex takes my hand. ‘I’m sure it won’t come to that. You’ll probably just get a telling-off.’
‘I hope you’re right.’
‘You must have had good reason,’ Alex adds.
I shrug. ‘Well, I think I did. The administrator wouldn’t let me onto the ward. She wouldn’t tell me anything, she wouldn’t give me names.’ I look up at him. ‘I was trying to find witnesses to an attempted murder. It makes me so angry. If I were a police officer, I wouldn’t have needed to lie.’
Alex nods. ‘Well, then you need to tell them that. You were trying to do your job. Surely your boss will support you?’
I shake my head. ‘On the contrary. He thinks I’ve overstepped the mark. He thinks I’ve got too involved. He wants to take me off the case.’
Alex’s eyes widen. ‘Can he do that?’
I shrug. ‘Well, of course he can. He’s my boss. He can do what he wants.’
‘But who will take over?’
I roll my eyes. ‘Golden boy. Matt. Matt, who never puts a foot wrong.’
‘But what about your client? Won’t she mind?’
I stop and think about that for a moment. ‘Maybe. I hope so.’ I smile.
Alex smiles back. ‘I know I would,’ he says. ‘If I was in trouble, I’d definitely want you.’
*
As soon as dinner is over and Ben is in bed, Alex takes my hand.
‘Come on,’ he says. ‘Let me take your mind off things. We’ll play a game. You be Tallulah Louisiana and I’ll be Peter Rabbit.’
I laugh as he pulls me up and steers me towards the bedroom. We both undress and then I feel the soft warmth of the bed against my back as he pushes me gently down, the weight of his body on mine. He gazes intently at me for a moment, his fingers trailing over my eyes, my hair, my cheek. ‘I don’t want to lose you,’ he whispers suddenly, urgently, shaking his head.
I reach up and cup his face in my hands. ‘Alex! Why on earth would you say that? That’s not going to happen.’
He gazes silently back into my eyes for a moment. A second later, his mouth, his hands, his hips are on mine and I’ve lost all sense of time.
Afterwards, as we lie in the darkness, I turn to face him. ‘I want to know more about you,’ I say.
‘What do you want to know?’
‘Well, about your family. Your parents. You never talk about them.’
Alex hesitates a moment before saying, ‘My parents are dead.’
‘Alex! I’m so sorry. How come you never told me?’
‘Didn’t I?’
‘No.’
‘Oh. Well. It’s not really something that you just come out and say.’
I know what he means. I feel that way about my mother. You don’t want to embarrass people, because they won’t know what to say next.
‘So, how did they die?’
‘Car crash.’ Alex squeezes my hand, to let me know that it’s OK.
‘Do you have brothers and sisters?’
‘No.’
‘So you have no one? You were an only child?
‘I was a twin,’ he says, after a moment. ‘My brother died when we were kids.’
‘Oh, Alex. Oh God. How awful. I’m so sorry. How did he die?’
‘He drowned. He fell into a lake. I was there. I wasn’t able to save him.’
I squeeze his hand back. ‘How old was he... were you? When he died?’
‘Five.’
I glance at him in the darkness, examining the outline of his features. I stroke his hair back from his brow. ‘You were only five. What an awful thing to have witnessed.’
Alex hesitates. ‘Well, the strange thing is, I don’t actually remember it. I must have blocked out the memory. And my parents wouldn’t tell me anything, either. It was just like... one day he wasn’t there any more. When I asked where he was, they fobbed me off, changed the subject. I remember being really upset, feeling isolated. But then, eventually, when I confronted them, demanded to know where he was, they told me I was imagining things, that I’d never had a brother.’
I turn over and lean onto one elbow, facing him. ‘Are you serious? They really told you that?’
He nods. ‘Crazy, I know.’
‘So what happened?’
‘Well at first, I believed them. Sort of. I had no choice other than to believe them, although, deep down, I knew he was real. And then, one day, when I was around fifteen, I was searching through the attic for an old pair of rugby boots, and I found a photo of the two of us, together, me and my brother, aged around three or four, my father holding us both on his knee. And so I confronted them.’
‘What did they say?’
‘Well, my mother continued trying to deny it at first. She started making up some ridiculous story about him being a playmate. But he looked just like me – and just like my father, too. We weren’t identical twins, but you could see we were all related. My father stepped in and told her to be quiet. He said that they hadn’t wanted me to suffer, so they’d tried to shield me.’
‘By pretending that he’d never existed?’ I say, aghast.
‘They knew I’d blame myself.’
‘But how could you...’
Alex’s chest stops moving underneath my head. I can tell that he’s holding his breath. He says, ‘I was there, wasn’t I? He died, I survived.’
Suddenly, Alex’s interest in helping Ben makes perfect sense. Now, I can see what’s happening. No matter how ridiculous or unwarranted, he blames himself for his brother’s death; and he has some deep-rooted need to find redemption for being the twin who didn’t drown.
I lay my head against his shoulder and we lie still, saying nothing for several minutes as I feel his chest rise and fall beneath me. I hope that Alex isn’t expecting too much from Ben. What he’s learned to do on the computer feels like some kind of miracle, but I’m under no illusion that tomorrow is going to herald another leap forward in his development. Ben’s problems are significant. They will always be significant. He’s never going to develop into a
normal child.
I roll over and kiss him. His arm circles my waist and he pulls me towards him.
‘I’m sorry about your family,’ I whisper into his ear. ‘But you’ve got me. Me and Ben. If you want us, that is.’
Alex runs his hand down the length of my spine. I feel his chest rise and fall underneath me as he lets out an unmistakable, deep sigh. After a moment he cups my face in his hands and looks into my eyes. He opens his mouth as if he’s about to say something, but then changes his mind and draws my head onto his shoulder.
‘Of course I want you,’ he says into my hair. ‘I want you very much.’
*
In the morning, we wake late. Alex makes coffee and gives Ben his breakfast while I hurriedly take a shower and get dressed.
‘Alex, have you seen my papers?’ I call out to him, as I open and shut the doors to my wardrobe. I could have sworn I’d brought home the paper copies of the statements in Ellie’s case after I’d scanned them the day before yesterday. I thought I’d left the file in a bag on the wardrobe floor.
‘What papers?’ Alex calls from the bathroom, where he’s now shaving.
‘You know,’ I call back. ‘The attempted murder case. Those papers you helped me scan to my iPad.’
‘Oh. Those.’ Alex walks out of the bathroom. He’s bare-chested and he has shaving foam round his chin and a razor in his hand. ‘Do you still need them? You’ve got it all on your iPad, haven’t you?’
‘Yes. But my boss has asked for them. I’m guessing he wants to give them to Matt.’ I pull a face.
Alex frowns for a moment and then looks up. ‘Ah. Hang on a minute, I remember now.’ He strides off into the kitchen, opens a cabinet above the cooker, removes the lever-arch folder of papers I’d been looking for and hands them to me. ‘I moved them into this cupboard. I’d completely forgotten.’ He grins. ‘Ben got hold of them.’
‘Oh God. Thank you,’ I say, taking the file from him and kissing him. ‘I’m sorry. He’s a nightmare.’
Alex ruffles the top of Ben’s head. ‘He’s just keeping us on our toes,’ he says. ‘Give him a few years and he’ll be running rings around us.’
I smile, and raise my eyebrows, inwardly elated that Alex is talking as if we have a future together. I’m not stupid; I know that this is how it is at the start of a relationship, how easy it is when you’re all loved-up and optimistic to drop idle hints about the next steps together, to make promises and plans. I also know how it is once the bubble bursts and reality seeps in; I know about the competing demands of work, love and children, about the degree of compromise a relationship requires, especially when you have a child like Ben. But today, more than ever before, I understand what’s in it for Alex. I believe, at last, that he might actually need me and Ben as much as we need him.
I walk over, stand on tiptoes and put my arms round his shoulders, pulling him to me and kissing him slowly. Alex wraps his arms round me and draws me close. His mouth is warm and tastes of coffee. His newly shaved skin is smooth, his aftershave delicious.
‘I’ve got to go,’ I tell him, reluctantly. ‘I’m going to be late. Bloody Gareth.’
Alex lifts Ben out of his chair. ‘Come on. Let me give you a lift down to the office and then I can drop Ben off afterwards.’
‘You don’t mind?’
He shakes his head. ‘No. I’ve got a late-morning meeting. It’s fine. You don’t want to give Gareth anything else to be upset about.’
I give him a grateful smile. ‘Thank you, Alex. I really appreciate this.’
As we sit in traffic on the Holloway Road, heading towards Highbury, I flick through the papers on my lap. I can’t bear the thought of giving the case to Matt, of stepping aside and watching from the sidelines while he takes the case through to trial. But it looks as though I’m going to have no choice.
‘So what’s your meeting about?’ I ask Alex.
Alex indicates and switches lanes. ‘It’s with one of my fund managers,’ he says. ‘See how the old stocks are doing.’
‘It’s been a turbulent year,’ I say.
Alex gives me a sideways look and starts laughing.
‘OK,’ I confess. ‘I have absolutely nothing else I can add to that conversation.’
‘That’s OK,’ he smiles. ‘As it happens, neither do I.’
‘Alex,’ I venture, after a moment. ‘You know what we were talking about last night. About your family. Can I ask you a question?’
He hesitates for a moment. ‘Sure.’
‘How long ago did the car crash happen, the one that killed your parents?’
Alex looks over his shoulder and switches lanes again. He furrows his brow in concentration and then slows right down. ‘I can’t stop here. It’s a red route. Can I turn here?’ He points to the road on the right.
‘Yes. You can go down this one. The office is just over there.’
He turns right into the road just ahead of the court building. As he slows down, shifts out of gear and pulls on the handbrake, I place my hand on his.
He turns to me and smiles. ‘Sarah, actually, do you mind if we don’t talk about that any more?’
‘Of course,’ I agree. ‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.’
He leans over and gives me a peck on the cheek, but he doesn’t say, ‘You weren’t prying.’ Instead, he says, ‘Good luck. Really. I’ll be thinking of you. I hope it goes OK.’
‘Thank you.’ I get out of the car and open the back door. I give Ben a kiss on the nose. I wave as Alex drives away then walk round the corner and cross the road to the office.
*
Matt is behind the reception desk talking to Lucy when I walk in. They both immediately stop talking as I enter; neither says ‘hello’. I walk on past them up to Gareth’s room and knock on the door.
He waves me into a seat. ‘I’ve forwarded you the response form,’ he says. ‘From the SRA. It’s your opportunity to put your side of things.’
‘So, you do acknowledge that there’s another side to all this?’ I ask him.
Gareth sighs and leans back in his chair. ‘I’m struggling to see one, Sarah, I have to say. But you’re the advocate. So, you tell me. How do you justify breaching the hospital’s rules, their security, in the way that you did? A children’s hospital, of all places. A children’s ward. Christ, you know all about child protection, the issues involved...’
‘I was trying to find witnesses,’ I say. ‘That’s all. The hospital administration manager was being obstructive. Someone at the hospital may well be hiding something. That might be what this is all about.’
Gareth sighs again and shakes his head, quickly, impatiently. ‘Or it may just be a conspiracy theory on your part.’
I shrug. ‘Maybe. I may be wrong. But that doesn’t alter the fact that I have a duty to Ellie to try and find out.’
Gareth shakes his head. ‘I disagree. You take your client’s instructions and you prepare her defence based on those instructions. Poking around for witnesses that may not even exist is not what we’re being paid for.’
‘But that’s the problem. Her instructions don’t amount to anything.’
‘Then maybe she’s guilty.’
‘But maybe she’s not. She’s told me she didn’t do it, and it’s my job to follow that through, test the evidence. If it’s all going to come down to money every time, then we may as well give up now, bring back the death penalty, let them all hang.’
Gareth taps his pen on the table and looks at me for a moment. I can see that he’s fuming. ‘I’m told that you were found at the bedside of the baby, the victim in the case. That you were playing with the baby.’
I nod. I have no defence to this one. ‘Yes. I... I came across him by accident. I was really only... sometimes it helps at trial, to set the scene.’
Gareth looks me in the eye. ‘Not by breaking someone else’s rules, it doesn’t.’
I stare at the floor and bite my lip. ‘Please don’t give the case to Matt. It’s not fai
r on Ellie, asking her to change solicitors a matter of weeks before her trial.’
Gareth sniffs. ‘She’s not changing law firms,’ he says. ‘You’ll be on hand to help him if anything is unclear.’
I nod. I suppose I should be grateful that he’s not sacking me.
‘So, other than being on hand to help Matt if he needs it, what do you want me to do?’
‘Trial preparation,’ he says. ‘In the office. At least until you’ve filed your response and we’ve heard back from the SRA.’
When I walk out of Gareth’s room, Matt is in the hallway. I can tell that he’s been hovering near the door, listening in. ‘All right?’ He smiles at me. ‘Ready for the handover?’
I push the case file into his arms and follow him into our room. I pull my chair over to his desk and sit down next to him.
My phone rings. I pull it out of my handbag; it’s the school. I glance up at Matt. ‘I need to get this,’ I say. Matt rolls his eyes towards the ceiling and purses his lips.
‘Hi, Sarah,’ says Ben’s teacher, Jennie. ‘I was just wondering... is Ben ill?’
My heart leaps. ‘Why do you say that? What’s happened?’
Jennie hesitates. ‘Well, that’s why I’m phoning you,’ she says, sounding confused. ‘I wondered whether he was coming in today.’
‘What? You mean he’s not there yet?’
‘No. Should he have been?’
I move the phone away from my ear and peer at the time. It’s gone ten o’clock. Alex left with Ben over an hour ago. What on earth can have happened to them? ‘My partner was bringing him,’ I say, weakly. ‘I’ll have to call him, find out where they are. I’ll... I’ll call you back as soon as I know.’
‘Of course. Don’t worry. I’m sure there’s a logical explanation,’ Jennie says. ‘But let me know if there’s anything I can do.’
‘Thanks, Jennie.’
I end the call and quickly scroll to Alex’s number. It goes straight to voicemail. My phone beeps as I hang up.
‘Ready?’ says Matt.
I glance up at him, my heart hammering against my chest. Have they had a car accident? Have they crashed? What other explanation could there be? ‘No. You’ll have to... read the papers and...’ I tail off. ‘My son’s missing. I have to find him.’