by Rae Shaw
The exclusive party was held, naturally, at Fasleigh House, the vast mansion Jackson inhabited at the weekends, and which required a train journey and a chauffeur driven car to reach. The soiree involved formal black-tie attire, yet still managed to be bizarrely pedestrian and relaxed. Much of that was down to Hettie.
The food was exquisitely delicious, each dish orchestrated to lead to the next and served by choreographed caterers who swooped along the table when the clatter of cutlery subsided, signifying the end of a course.
‘Mark,’ Hettie said softly, leaning across the polished oak. ‘Missing your favourite client?’
‘Of course. How's my replacement doing?’ Mark said, awkwardly wishing he was still her personal accountant.
A baby's cry cut through the merriment. An unashamedly resplendent Hettie announced her apologies and swept out, her golden dress and sequins glittering under the lamplight.
She brought the restless child into the dining room and Mark, unable to look away, watched her breastfeed the baby. She didn’t bother to cover her breast and the small fingers thrashed, clawing tiny nails into her mother's flesh. Hettie's lack of embarrassment clashed with everyone else's discomfort. Except Mark felt none of it. He was in awe of her confidence; the display of maternal instinct riding roughshod over etiquette.
Hettie's eyelids drooped. The baby lay in her arms, satiated and placid. The group decamped for coffee in the sitting room and Jackson retrieved his sleeping daughter from the exhausted Hettie and returned her upstairs. The atmosphere changed when Jackson returned. She curled up with her head on his lap. The conversation then meandered around the room, never anchoring itself to one person or theme. From Jackson's personal accountant, Edmund, to the shrill-voiced art dealer, whose name Mark cared to forget, then back to the retired police inspector, Graham, who fiddled with his wedding ring and never mentioned his absent wife. Of the dozen people surrounding the Hayneses, only Mark worked for Haynes Financial.
The eclectic group had nothing in common, no obvious connections. Drawn together by one man, they possessed the wit to maintain polite discourse without ever touching on personal matters. Their words danced and weaved, never revealing why they were friends of Jackson. Hettie slept. If anyone found it rude, they all had the decency to keep quiet. Mark struggled to stay focused. From the outside looking in, he wanted to belong, but they weren't his crowd. He had no crowd.
Graham, the policeman, wasn’t comfortable either.
‘First time here?’ Mark asked him while the others chatted.
‘What? No, no.’ Graham drained his wine glass. ‘A few times now. I help out with Opportunitas; bit of liaising with my former colleagues. Missing persons stuff, mostly. Jackson has his circle of friends. I’m like you, just one of them; pop up now and again. He has excellent caterers.’ He patted his portly stomach.
Following the Fasleigh party, Mark slipped off Jackson’s radar; Mark wasn’t worthy after all. Consequently he hadn’t expected an invitation to the Winter Ball, especially one hand-delivered to his desk by Jackson's PA.
~ * ~
Handing the embossed invitation to the doorman of the grand hotel, Mark entered the function suite and, catching his reflection in a mirror, adjusted his bowtie. The air hummed with voices, laughter and distant music. Waiters drifted through the throng with champagne and canapés on platters. The buffet, which was laid out on a golden cloth, was a work of art: spirals of carrots, twirls of greenery impregnated with pink salmon, and beads of caviar. The centre piece, an ice sculpture of a swan, was melting under the lights. People were snapping selfies with their phones. Jackson had paid for the food out of his own pocket. Eating it seemed calamitous, an insult; nobody wanted to ruin the culinary backdrop. Mark popped a cherry tomato in his mouth.
Straightening himself up, he circulated, building repartee using executive style soundbites. The invitation was for two – but he hadn't brought Ellen along. Although they had rekindled a functional relationship, they were different creatures when it came to social occasions. Mark closed in on himself; Ellen unfolded. She also drank a lot.
During a meal out, she had consumed a whole bottle of red wine, quaffed it like cordial. He had picked up the bill. The next time he had picked a cheaper vintage. She didn't notice.
For four weeks, he had entertained her and as long as they steered away from the elephant in the room, they got on fine. The elephant stomped about in Mark's head most days, but Ellen was adamant it wasn't for discussion. Her glibness riled him. Ellen brushed her mother under the rug and, for good measure, threw her entire childhood under it too – not for discussion – and boyfriends, who needed them? She had talked about Nicky, work and digging and had a way of making frivolity seem important; a foil for his tendency to be sombre and serious.
Instead of bringing her to the ball, he had insisted she attended a wedding somewhere in Oxfordshire. A friend of a friend from work. She wasn't keen. He had coaxed her into going with a bribe: money for a dress.
‘You might meet somebody,’ he had said.
It had prompted the usual defence. ‘Why would I want to meet a somebody?’ Good point. It was the sort of thing he might say. Why tie your life to someone else?
Ellen had gone in the end with this friend. She would thank him afterwards.
His first tour of the ballroom confirmed that Jackson relied on an eclectic web of friends and contacts to support his charity. Mark shook hands with Jackson’s property developer, a lazy-eyed man who spoke at length about the cost of running women’s refuges in the heart of a major city. Then Jackson’s personal accountant, the elegant Edmund, whom Mark had met at Jackson’s dinner party sauntered over to greet Mark, who was smiling from the nose down. Thankfully, Edmund didn’t want to talk shop. The other party guest was the police inspector, Saddler, who had brought along his narrow-hipped wife. Her nose twitched like a playful rabbit and she giggled over an empty glass of bubbly. The sequin-festooned dress, which hung off her shoulders, was as limp as her nervous handshake. She opened her mouth to say something but the policeman scowled and reeled her off in a different direction.
After a second circuit, Mark spied a familiar face standing by the wall. She was dressed no differently to an invitee but she wasn't a guest; a coil of wire trailed down from behind one ear and she had no drink in her hand. She scanned the room, eyes roving, never dwelling on one person for more than a second, except for him. Whether she was doing it deliberately, Mark couldn't tell, but her pattern of observations definitely included looking at him. Curiosity got the better of him and he sauntered over to her to lean his shoulder against the wall. He folded his arms and cocked his head to one side.
‘Hi, Mark.’ Her attempt at nonchalance failed. She fidgeted with her earpiece.
‘Julianna. Haven’t seen you for a couple of weeks. What have you been up to?’
‘Oh, this and that. Keep doing weekend work for extra money. Tonight being an example.’
She was avoiding eye contact now, so overtly, he nearly laughed out loud. For an expert in blending into her environment, she wasn't trying very hard. He shouldn't mock. Julianna had a challenging job marking the Haynes family wherever they went. Hettie in particular wasn't keen on the extra layers of protection. She had griped to Mark when he queried the cost of CCTV cameras in the gallery. Not for the art, she had glowered, for me. Jackson prized his wife beyond any artwork.
‘Where is she?’ he asked.
‘Over there. Chris is back by the door.’
She gestured and he spotted her. Hettie Haynes had bounced back from pregnancy brilliantly. Her dress, a turquoise number with silver slithers, was moulded around her hourglass hips and bountiful breasts. She shook hands, moved, spoke and shook hands again. The perfect hostess.
‘She doesn’t look as tired as last time I saw her,’ he said absent-mindedly.
‘She weaned the kid on to solids and since then the kid’s been sleeping like a baby should. Sleeping.’
Mark raised an eyebro
w at Julianna’s knowledge of Hettie’s breast-feeding status.
‘Drove her last week and she made a point of saying how much better things were now that she has several successive hours sleep a night.’ She turned her face fractionally to Mark’s. ‘I don’t ask, she just spews this stuff out.’
‘You’re not keen on babies then.’ Mark couldn’t imagine Julianna spewing anything. Babies were different.
It wasn’t intended as a question, but Julianna pursed her lips, then smirked. ‘Not other people’s; I can’t help it.’
He tapped his nose a few times. ‘I’ll not tell her. Diplomacy suits you.’
‘Comes with the job. One mustn’t get too attached to the client.’
‘He wasn’t in the car then?’
She laughed. ‘Oh no. Definitely a different atmosphere when he’s in the car.’
Jackson would monopolise any conversation and make it his own. It explained her snark.
‘She’s on the move. I’ll have to change location. Wouldn’t do to lose her; that would be a serious black mark.’ Julianna toyed with the piece of wire around her neck.
‘String you up by the balls?’ Mark chortled, then abruptly cringed.
A smiley-faced Julianna rescued him. ‘Well, more likely my nipples, don't you think?’ she said slyly and with a pronounced wink. She walked, purposely and carefully, to the other side of the room.
Mark raked his fingers through his hair. What a tease she had become since their first meeting. Was it a genuine attempt at provoking him into action? He needed more evidence. He rolled back the conversation to what she had said about Hettie. Each time he met somebody familiar with Jackson and Hettie Haynes he wondered how well they knew the couple. Julianna undoubtedly had insider information and was bound to secrecy about it.
A familiar voice spoke by his ear. ‘Mark, enjoying the evening?’
Mark shifted from his position against the wall and turned to face Jackson. The man was imposing; it didn't matter whether he was seated or standing, he occupied space that couldn't be seen, only felt, and it wasn't due to his height, although he was taller than Mark, but simply through his demeanour and those piercing eyes. Jackson Haynes maintained the uncanny ability to present both a ruthless and charming smile at the same time. Mark had been caught lounging by a wall looking disinterested and Jackson would want to know why. Mark decided the best policy was honesty.
‘Yes, thank you. Resting my back and chatting to Julianna Baptiste. We’ve done some work together. However, she has to keep tabs on Hettie, so she’s vaporised, spy-like into the horde.’ He gestured with his empty wine glass towards the far end of the room.
‘My wife likes her.’ Jackson trained his eyes on Hettie before moving his focus back to Mark. ‘Come, there’s somebody I’d like you to meet.’
Mark followed Jackson through the bustling room towards the smaller antechamber with more chairs and a thinner crowd. There, Mark was introduced to a man who was the spitting image of Jackson.
‘Mark Clewer, my brother, Luke,’ Jackson said. Mark shook hands with the facsimile. ‘And this is the lovely Sophia, Luke’s partner.’
More handshakes and with introductions completed, Jackson wandered away.
There was an awkward pause. ‘I take it you work for Jackson?’ the Jackson clone asked, except Luke was shorter, and sparser about the shoulders and thighs.
‘Yes. Forensic accountancy team.’
Mark grabbed a fresh glass of wine off a passing waiter. The couple declined the top up.
‘So what do you two do?’ Mark asked, spinning out the conversation on a weak thread, one he immediately regretted.
‘I’m a barrister and Sophia is a solicitor. Ah, not a fan of our profession.’ Luke offered a half-hearted chuckle.
The flash of mild disgust was brief – milliseconds – but noted.
‘Christ, I’m sorry, I must appear very rude. You’d think I was used to it being an accountant. All we need is an estate agent and we could start a club for thieving bastards who shaft people.’ Given the hardening of Luke's face, he had failed with his injection of humour. If only people were like formulas. Numbers in, numbers out. No guarded words or dancing around issues that weren't up for discussion or might cause offence. He had been let down by lawyers; it wasn't a statement of disrespect, only the truth.
Sophia continued to smile. Mark knocked back a mouthful of alcohol. Women, why were they so persistent?
‘Don’t worry,’ said Sophia. ‘Since Luke is a prosecution barrister he’s used to being despised by the criminal underclass. I, on the other hand, do legal aid defence. Makes for some interesting end of day conversations.’
Mark chewed on his lip. If she wasn't put off by his ill-conceived remark, would she help him out with finding a solicitor? It was worth raking up the sordid family history to find out.
‘I, unfortunately, have been involved in many protracted legal battles on behalf of my father; none of them had any good outcomes. I’m in search of a new solicitor to help with his appeal. My mum won’t have anything to do with the last one.’ Mark had procrastinated for weeks about his father’s appeal status. The documentation, including statements and police reports, had been sent down to his flat, the boxes dumped in the corner of his guest room.
‘Sounds stressful,’ Sophia said sympathetically. Luke was staring over her head. He had vacated the conversation.
‘Luke, Sophia, you came after all.’ Hettie was hidden behind Luke and she greeted her brother-in-law and his partner with a swift kiss on each of their cheeks. Mark looked away, embarrassed. She hadn't touched him, or even acknowledged his presence.
‘Couldn’t stay away. Sophia’s pro-bono work for sex workers puts her at the top of Jackson’s guest list,’ Luke said.
Sophia blushed.
‘And so she should be,’ said Hettie. ‘Mark, how are you?’ She quickly ran her hand down his sleeve and touched the cheap cuff-link. He was uncomfortably warm and the bow-tie was strangling him. He wished they were alone like they used to be when he met her.
Was Julianna watching them? Had she seen the little gesture of familiarity? Would it bother her? It meant nothing, of course; Hettie was a tactile person. What if that was why Jackson had Hettie followed everywhere – the possessive husband seeking any excuse to find fault with his wife? All those meetings Mark had had in her gallery, going over her accounts. She was never alone.
‘Good.’ A lie – why had he come tonight? ‘I'm delighted to be here.’
‘No companion?’ Hettie asked.
‘At a wedding.’
‘Pity. You didn’t go with her?’
‘And miss this?’ Miss what? He had little money to offer Opportunitas and no connection to its charity work. All he had done was meet a few people, smile and shake hands. What exactly was Jackson expecting him to do? He didn’t want to discuss Ellen with Hettie, who sensibly directed the conversation back to the evening’s events.
Jackson’s shadow man, Chris Moran, appeared at her side and whispered in her ear.
‘Speech time, folks. I’ve been ordered, no rephrase that, requested to direct you to the main salon for the obligatory thank yous.’ Hettie nudged her brother-in-law. ‘I have to go corral the guests.’
Sophia offered to help. Hettie weaved between people, smiling and gesturing to the double doors.
‘At least Jackson is short and to the point,’ Luke said. Jackson's succinct style of speaking was known in the workplace, too.
Luke was right, Jackson’s salutations and gratitude was brief and delivered in a congenial tone. After a round of applause, many guests left. With no taxi ordered, Mark wondered if he should make his way home, or wait to see if things took a different tack now that the formal proceedings were over.
As if to read his mind, the familiar deep voice of his host spoke in his ear. ‘Don’t leave yet.’
Turning to look over his shoulder, Mark saw Jackson usher a departing couple toward the exit. Jackson ebbed and flowed amon
gst his guests in a tidal fashion, his voice, more than anything, carried through the crowd.
The diehard guests congregated near the buffet having midnight snacks – the swan had lost its fine neck and head. Mark helped himself to a vol-au-vent. Sophia appeared at his side, without Luke.
‘Look, I may not be the right person, but if you want to send me details of your father’s case, I’ll look it over. Maybe I can help or recommend somebody else,’ she said with a gentle southern drawl similar to Julianna’s Cornish one.
Her suggestion stunned Mark. ‘Why? You don’t know me.’
She touched his arm. He didn't flinch. ‘Because, Mark, kindred spirits need to stick together, don’t they?’ She retracted her hand.
‘Kindred?’
‘Helping the innocent or wrongly accused is something of a calling. Few lawyers are willing to stick at it.’
‘I'm not a lawyer. I mean, it's a family matter.’
She gave a small shrug. ‘And you’re a friend of Jackson’s. Need I say any more. Let me get a pen and paper and I'll write my email address down for you. Send me the judgement summary. Let me help you.’ She spoke with a sincerity that flummoxed Mark. First Jackson had taken Mark under his wing, now Sophia. He didn't want pity or sympathy. He wanted the whole damn business resolved once and for all.
‘If you have that calling, I’m not going to say no.’ Immediately, he regretted his insolence. ‘Thank you, is what I meant to say. You see, Dad’s case isn’t…. we’re talking a life sentence...’
Sophia loaded her plate with sprigs of salad leaves. ‘If he’s innocent, does it matter? I've defended those accused of murder. Rape. The law is fallible. It fucks up when it shouldn't. People like me, and you, we shouldn't be dissuaded by what others think. Okay?’
A crusader. A passionate believer in putting things right. Sophia didn't understand Mark's motives weren't so pure. He was the dutiful son, nothing more. He hoped for innocence, if only because it would justify the cost, and the years of dealing with an insufferable mother. Ellen, even if she didn't want to hear the truth, deserved it too.