A Good Woman

by Lisa Appignanesi

  ‘It’s all a little morbid, isn’t it?’ Robinson says with a slight air of distaste.

  For a second, I don’t know what he is talking about.

  ‘My murderesses, you mean?’ I suddenly feel proprietary about them.

  He nods.

  ‘You think I was better off with what you used to call my ‘murderers of the mind’, all those vile image-creators and media types,’ I bait him.

  He doesn’t rise to it. Instead he methodically cuts his lamb chops into small, tidy pieces, just as he used to do as a boy. Then, without warning, he grips my wrist, pinions it to the table, so that I am aware of his fraught urgency before he puts words to it.

  ‘Mare, are you upset that I’ve had a child? Is that what it’s all about?’

  I stare at him.

  ‘I wrote to you in New York to tell you. You didn’t respond. Not a peep. Nothing. I couldn’t believe it. I wrote again. Still nothing. I even rang. Unsuccessfully. And now…’

  My brain feels like a tangled oak, thick with too many branches, interlopers, parasites. I cannot make my way amidst them to find what I have lost or lopped off. Did I receive a letter from Robinson with this startling announcement? Did I hide it seen or unseen under some forgotten bough?

  The pressure of Robinson’s hand is still on my arm. I cover it with my own.

  ‘I never had a letter from you, Robinson. Any letters. I moved. A harried time. Perhaps they were never forwarded. Or… But how terrific for you! How absolutely wonderful.’

  The wonderful doesn’t quite carry the emphasis I want to give it and I squeeze Robinson’s hand.

  ‘He is wonderful. Jamie. He’s almost a year old now, a tough little chap.’ Robinson releases my wrist and looks me in the eyes for the first time. There is a warm pride in his face, and something else, a gratitude. It is as if he had given me a present and my lack of acknowledgement had filled him with unease. He had wanted to please me, to have me share in the pleasure of his present, and now at last I am. Or at least he thinks I am.

  For my part, I am suddenly uncertain, even annoyed. And I feel oddly shocked, as if the notion of Robinson as a father disturbs the natural order of things. It is ridiculous. After all, since that abortive first marriage, there have been a number of women in his life. And Robinson must be thirty-six now, ripe for fatherhood.

  While Robinson sings the praises of little Jamie, I niggle over my disquiet. Is it that I have secretly harboured a sense that after all else was lived and loved, Robinson and I would somehow settle into comfortable old age together, surrounded by fields and flowers? Like his parents - the only real couple I had ever known closely in childhood.

  ‘And Jamie’s mother?’ I ask

  Robinson flushes. It is rare with him, so I know he is embarrassed.

  ‘Nina? Haven’t I told you?’ He fiddles with his fork. ‘She works in the lab. Used to anyhow, until Jamie. She’s from Chile.’ Robinson glows as he talks about Nina. In his face, rather more than in what he says, I read his admiration. He is in love with her motherhood, with her, too, perhaps, but it is all one package.

  This note of cynicism in my thoughts appals me. ‘She sounds great,’ I rush to say. ‘And you live together?’

  Robinson is astonished at my question. ‘Of course. In the house. Ever since, well ever since, Jamie manifested himself.’

  The oldest trick in the world, I catch myself thinking and wish I weren’t.

  ‘You must come up and meet them both. For the weekend. Or on Sunday. Please come, Mare.’

  I swallow hard. ‘Yes, I’d like that,’ I say to make up for my thoughts. ‘I’d like that very much.’

  Robinson beams and the gladness in his face makes me realise that I do want to see him in his new life. And suddenly, he in turn is all ease and alacrity, rushing me out of the hotel to somewhere friendlier, he says, a pub perhaps, or just a stroll across Waterloo Bridge.

  Outside, in the darkness, he puts his arm over my shoulder and holds me close. We walk silently, step in step. Half-way across the bridge, we pause to look at St Pauls.

  ‘I’m so pleased, Mare,’ Robinson says softly. ‘I thought you were angry with me. Angry that I hadn’t told you sooner. About Jamie and Nina, I mean. That’s why you hadn’t written, or rung. And then I was angry at you. For being so hard. Callous. We go back such a long way, after all. Longer than anyone.’ He brushes my forehead with his lips. ‘And it means a lot to me. You do.’

  This is the longest speech about our sentimental life that I have ever heard Robinson make and it brings a catch to my throat. I squeeze his arm.

  ‘It means a lot to me too, Robinson.’

  We stand in silence, letting proximity and memory wash over us. Then Robinson surprises me again.

  ‘I know something has happened to you, Mare. You’ve changed. Quite a lot I suspect. And I want to know about it. I’d like to stay with you tonight, but you know I can’t.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘On the weekend, we can have a stroll together. You can tell me.’

  ‘I don’t know that I’m able to Robinson. Not yet.’

  We walk slowly back to the hotel. At the door, Robinson kisses me lightly on the lips and hands me a train schedule.

  ‘Just ring to say when you’re coming.’

  I nod.

  ‘And perhaps we can arrange a visit with the parents. Haven’t had a chance to tell you, but they’ve abandoned Scotland to move closer to us. I know they’d love to see you again.’

  I think of Stephanie and Chris and a pleasurable warmth steals over me.

  ‘Sounds good.’

  It does. I look at Robinson’s receding back and think that together this Nina and Jamie must be quite a pair. They have taught Robinson a whole new range of sensibilities. Or at least the ability to express them.

  As I walk towards reception, I also sense that I have done well to take my courage in hand and see Robinson. Life is gradually seeping into me, filling up the holes. A life with a difference. Robinson has felt the shifts. I too am aware of them.

  At the desk, along with my key, the attendant hands me a sheet of folded paper. I look at it in perplexity. Who could possibly be addressing me here? The note is in French, I realise, and quickly look down to the bottom of the page. Paul Arnault. He’s here. My nerves jangle. He doesn’t trust me to cover the trial on my own, it seems. Should I happen to be available before 11.30, the note tells me, I can find him in the bar. Otherwise, we can breakfast together.

  I glance at my watch, make a quick visit to the powder room to adjust my mind more than my face and go in search of Paul. I spot him, or rather the copy of Le Monde, which hides his face, almost instantly in the softly-lit bar. I pause to survey him. There is that odd combination in him of an easy, almost sprawling grace, and an intentness, as if he is absorbing the paper in front of him rather than simply reading. I take a deep breath.

  ‘Hello. Checking up on me?’

  He is startled and springs so hastily out of the deep chair that the people at the small tables on either side of him gaze up at us.

  ‘Maria. I’d given you up.’

  ‘But here I am.’

  ‘So I see.’ He looks at me in that way he sometimes has which seems to take in every part of me and then bends to kiss me on both cheeks.

  The people on either side of us turn away. I can almost hear them mentally muttering, ‘The French again.’

  ‘Can I get you something? A cognac? A whiskey?’ He holds up his glass to the light. ‘It’s a fine one.’

  I shake my head. ‘Coffee, I think.’

  ‘Coffee, it is.’ A peculiar expression crosses his face, but he calls over the waiter with alacrity and despatches the order in impeccable Franglais. It makes me smile.

  ‘You enjoy my English?’ Paul is never slow.

  ‘Very much.’

  ‘But you aren’t altogether pleased to see me?’

  I don’t answer for a moment and he adds, ‘I’ve intruded on your evening, your p
lans?’

  In a way he has. I would have liked to have been alone to think over my meeting with Robinson, but it comes to me that this isn’t the emphasis of his question. Before I can say anything, he runs on.

  ‘I’m sorry if I have. I just thought that since the only meeting I had scheduled for tomorrow was cancelled, I’d fly over and watch a bit of the trial, catch Jennifer Walters if I could.’

  ‘And check-up on the progress of my research.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ he glares at me for a moment. Then his face softens. ‘I just didn’t want to miss our Friday round-up.’

  I can think of nothing to say.

  ‘Is the food in the Grill Room good?’

  ‘Fine.’ I look at him in astonishment as I say it, suddenly aware that he must have seen me with Robinson. He admits it as soon as it pops into my mind.

  ‘I spotted you in there. I didn’t like to intrude. Pleasant evening?’

  ‘Don’t worry. It isn’t on my expenses list.’

  ‘Why are you being so prickly, Maria?’ He lowers his voice a notch and forces me to meet his eyes. ‘If you want to go back to your friend, feel free to go. These aren’t working hours. We’ll meet tomorrow.’

  Laughter takes me over. From the midst of it, I burble a ‘Sorry,’ and ‘Maybe I need that drink after all.’

  When it comes, I collect myself and tell him a little about the things I’ve managed to get through so far this week and then in more detail about the first day of the trial. He interrupts me at every turn, inciting me to understand better what it is that I have witnessed and by the time I have drained my whiskey I am not only excited but oddly grateful that he has come. I tell him so and he flashes me a melting smile.

  ‘I’m glad,’ he says. ‘Very glad. But now we’d better get you off to bed. Or Madame Duval, who looks after my interests with an eagle eye, will start questioning the overtime.’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’

  ‘I’m being silly.’

  He squeezes my hand briefly as we leave the bar, sees me up to my room. At my door, he murmurs, ‘I’d hoped…’ He skims my hair with his hand and I look into those blue-dark eyes.

  ‘Oh never mind what I’d hoped. Sleep well.’

  From the sense of his fingers in my hair, I think I know what he’d hoped. But I’m glad he hasn’t said it. Not tonight.

  For the first time it occurs to me that Maître Paul Arnault is an expert at signs. He reads them well. He is a man of great tact.

  -21-

  We are sitting cramped round a small table in the corner of a crowded wine bar not far from the Old Bailey. Jennifer Walters, Paul and I. Somehow Paul has managed to catch Jennifer and arrange this fleeting lunchtime encounter. Maybe he set it up from Paris.

  We are munching ham and cheese sandwiches on that soft brown bread I used to love and the wine is passable. But I feel sad at having had to abandon Lorna Stott to a solitary meat pie in order to serve as an interpreter when Jennifer and Paul’s language skills break down. That’s not the only reason I’m here, of course, but it feels like it. There are so many words flying between them at such rapidity that even though I can translate each solitary unit, the sense of what is being said eludes me. They are arguing some technical point that came up towards the end of the morning session. The jury was asked to leave while prosecutor and defence hammered out something inaudible before the judge.

  I glaze over and translate what Jennifer has just said. She bursts into raucous laughter. ‘Can’t be that dreadful, can it?’

  I smile, shake my head in embarrassment. ‘I just don’t understand a word I’m saying,’ I confide in her.

  She gives me a wicked wink, ‘We hope no one else does either.’

  ‘She doesn’t mean that,’ Paul breaks into his best Franglais. ‘I’m sorry we’re exhausting you, Maria.’

  ‘I’ve told you before, Maître. You’ll just have to do something about your English.’

  Looking at them, I wonder again where professional camaraderie ends and something else begins - though I should know well enough from my own long experience that there are no clear demarcation lines.

  ‘And you about your French.’

  ‘Which is even worse, now, I know. By the next time I come to Paris again, it’ll be better. Promise.’ She grins at us both.

  I leave them for a moment to find a loo and when I come back they are intent in conversation. As she sees me, Jennifer picks up her bag. ‘I’m afraid I have to dash. Got to see my solicitor. The prosecution may have dug up one of their recalcitrant witnesses.’ She glances at her watch. ‘You probably have another thirty minutes or so. Though I don’t know how interesting this afternoon will be. You should come back for my defence, Paul.’

  ‘I wish I could.’

  There is a great flurry of hugs and kisses between them and after she has gone, Paul says, ‘Wonderful advocate, Jennifer.’

  ‘Wonderful woman.’

  ‘That too.’

  My curiosity gets the better of me and I spill it out. Perhaps the wine has got to my head. ‘Are you, were you, in love with her?’

  He laughs a big laugh, ‘Utterly. Totally. For a whole week.’

  ‘I would have thought she deserved more,’ I say as lightly as I can, since my throat has suddenly grown constricted.

  ‘Oh she does, she does, but not, alas, from me.’ There is a little tug of irony at his lips. ‘What Jennifer and I have is what I think is called an amorous friendship. One of those delicious affairs of the heart for which the time is never quite right. And because it’s so delicious as it is, we go on never quite allowing the time to be right. So we’ve never been to bed together, if that’s what you’re asking.’

  ‘I guess I was.’

  I don’t like the way he’s studying me, so I ask, blatant in my indiscretion, ‘Because of your wife? Or her husband?’

  He doesn’t flinch, but he pauses, as if he is thinking about it. Then he says, the smile quite gone from his face, ‘No, I don’t believe so. I suppose neither of us wanted that from the other. Enough. We’re friends primarily. We love arguing over legal questions.’

  There must be doubt written all over me for he rushes on, ‘And don’t let Jennifer fool you. Her French is better than she pretends when she’s in England. I met her at a conference in Paris. Years ago. My father was alive then. He was a judge in the court of appeal and he was giving the opening address. You should have heard Jennifer hammer away at him over lunch.’ He laughs, ‘I sometimes suspect he was the one she was really in love with.’

  ‘Amorous friendship,’ I repeat inanely.

  ‘You must know what I mean.’

  ‘Yes,’ I waver as I think over my history. ‘And no. Perhaps not altogether.’

  ‘No, I can see why not,’ he murmurs. His eyes linger on my face.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Tell you over dinner. You are having dinner with me tonight, aren’t you?’

  ‘Aren’t you flying back?’

  ‘Not if you’re having dinner with me.’

  As we rush back to the Bailey, there is a new note of openness between us. We have crossed a line. The line of intimacy. Strangely, it makes me feel buoyant.

  Nora Stott has kept seats for us, but there is time for no more than a brief hello before the judge comes into the court. Something about the way he peers at his notes and then down at us makes me think he is feeling bad-tempered this afternoon. Perhaps his lunch doesn’t agree with him. Can lunch affect the workings of justice? The irreverent notion pops into my mind and I remember how in my New York notebooks I had worked out which editors should be called at which points in the day for optimal effect. One in particular was notoriously disagreeable just after lunch, as his Lordship seems to be now. The baleful look he gives the prosecutor who has just put an inaudible question to him would have me quivering in my heels. Happily the jury’s faces still display the same eager interest. Justice will not rest on a single man’s digestive tract.

  ‘This is the
witness Jennifer was worrying about,’ Paul whispers to me as a ruddy-cheeked man in a brightly-chequered jacket ambles towards the witness box.

  Mr Daniel Carter’s voice has a high-pitched whine to it and gold flashes from his mouth as he speaks. He seems as creditable to me as a latter day Mephistopheles, but I try to control my dislike as an impartial observer or good juror must. Mr Carter, it seems, was a close friend of the victim’s. Over the last years they would meet two or three times a week. In the course of those years, Mr Carter tells us, his friend - ‘the best bloke in the world’ - had occasion to mention that his wife made his life a right misery. Every penny he earned went on her, the house, and the children, so that Tom was lucky if he had a pound left a week to put a little bet on the horses. And she was a complainer, was Mrs Roberts. Never stopped from the sound of it. On top of that there was a suggestion that last year or perhaps it was the year before last, she’d had herself a little fling. Not an easy woman, no, and with a tendency to fly off the handle. Why he knew that himself. When he’d gone to inquire after Tom, after he’d vanished, she wouldn’t even open the door to him. Just shouted at him through the door that Tom had gone off on a trip. He hadn’t believed her of course. Tom would have told him if he was planning a little holiday. And yes, Tom was a gentle man. Wouldn’t hurt a fly; never in all the years he had known him had he seen him get mixed up in a brawl of any kind.

  ‘Any questions, Mrs Walters?’ the judge asks Jennifer.

  She leaps up with alacrity, ‘Am I right in assuming Mr Carter, that your and Mr. Roberts’ meetings usually took place at the Horse and Groom?