A Calculating Heart (13 page)

‘Yes. But you know how it is, Anthony. You and I – we know better than anyone. With Leo, the thing never finishes, does it?’

His eyes met hers, and he wondered how much she really knew. ‘No,’ he replied quietly, ‘it never finishes.’

‘I’m afraid I have to go,’ said Rachel. ‘Charles is in the States at the moment, and I’ve got to get back to relieve the poor old nanny. A fourteen-hour stretch with Oliver is enough for anyone.’

‘It’s been really good to talk to you,’ said Anthony. ‘And I don’t just mean about the case.’

Rachel smiled. ‘I know.’ She was glad that instructing him had given them both the excuse to repair the damage of a couple of years ago, when Leo had come along and completely put paid to whatever nascent relationship she and Anthony had had. She didn’t regret the way things had gone – Leo had thawed her out of that ghastly frigidity, taught her how to set her fears behind her, and made her able to love properly – but she had always felt some sort of guilt where Anthony was concerned. He’d loved her, and she had been very fond of him. She wondered how differently things might have turned out, if it hadn’t been for Leo.

‘Are you busy on Sunday?’ she asked suddenly.

‘Not especially. Why?’

‘Why don’t you come to lunch? It’s quite lonely with
Charles away, and I’d forgotten how much I enjoy your company. You can meet Oliver.’

‘All right – thanks very much. You’ll have to give me directions, though.’

Rachel smiled, and opened her bag to search for pen and paper.

Leo, only half paying attention to some long-winded story of Sir Mungo Stephenson’s, glanced over to where Rachel and Anthony were sitting on the far side of the lawn. They’d been together for the better part of three-quarters of an hour. He saw Rachel hand something to Anthony as she got up to leave, and the two of them exchanged decorous kisses.

Leo was mildly astonished. He had no idea that they ever spoke much to each other, not since the distant days when, for purposes of his own, he’d seduced Rachel away from Anthony’s inexpert clutches. For reasons he couldn’t quite fathom, their apparent friendliness irritated him. He waited until Rachel had disappeared, and was about to go over to speak to Anthony – possibly to fathom the mystery, though he hadn’t yet decided – when Sarah cruised up. Her face was inscrutable.

‘At last,’ she said, ‘someone decent to talk to. I’m going out of my mind exchanging meaningless small talk with these pinstriped morons.’

‘I take it we didn’t make much headway with young Mr Jacobs?’ Leo couldn’t resist asking.

‘Young Mr Jacobs is so far up his own backside that I’m
surprised he ever sees daylight,’ replied Sarah.

‘He does exude an air of somewhat remarkable arrogance,’ agreed Leo. ‘I’m tempted to wonder what particular vulnerability that conceals.’

‘Forget Marcus,’ she said. She glanced around to make sure no one could overhear. ‘Leo, I’m so bored I could kill. And I definitely don’t want to eat barbecued beefburgers. Why don’t we go and have dinner somewhere? Or better still, go back to yours?’ She gave him a glance of practiced sensuality, one with which he had long been familiar. Her natural tendencies had been considerably aroused by her brief encounter with Marcus, and if she couldn’t have him, Leo would do just as well. ‘We haven’t slept together in a long time. I’m sure you miss it as much as I do.’

Leo raised an eyebrow. ‘A delightful suggestion, but I happen to be somewhat involved with someone at the moment. As you well know.’

‘Leo,’ said Sarah softly, ‘she’s several thousand miles away.’

‘True, but I have the feeling that if I were to submit to your tempting proposal, it might get back to Camilla. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that you’d make it your business to see that it did. Or am I being wildly unfair?’

Sarah looked at him narrowly. ‘I can’t believe you’ve suddenly developed scruples, Leo.’

‘Let’s just call it a protective instinct. And it’s not new. I’ve actually had it for some time. Particularly where you’re concerned.’

She sighed. ‘Pity. It would have been fun. See you.’

Leo sipped his drink and watched as she sloped off. True, a few hours in bed with Sarah would have been fun, but of the dangerous variety. Maybe it was that middle-aged thing again, but at the moment Leo felt that he could dispense with danger and excitement in his life. It generally meant trouble, and he was weary of that for the present. He would leave in half an hour or so, and go home and have a blameless early night. He had resisted the advances of two women in the space of one evening, a rare achievement for him, and of this he felt unwontedly proud. Perhaps, beneath Camilla’s softening youthful influence, he was becoming a reformed character.

Leo came into chambers early on Monday morning to prepare for the first day of the
Persephone
hearing. After an hour’s work he went to make himself some coffee, and met Anthony coming upstairs.

‘Morning,’ said Leo. ‘By the way, didn’t you say you wanted to have a look at Bill France’s article on parametric rolling? I’ve got a copy of it in my room.’

Anthony made himself a cup of coffee and followed Leo to his room, where he sat down and flicked through the article while Leo finished his work. ‘Mind if I borrow this?’ he asked after a few minutes.

‘Keep it, if you like.’

‘Thanks.’ Anthony sipped his coffee. He glanced across at Leo’s desk, and noticed a framed photograph of Oliver, taken at Stanton. ‘You’ll have to update that picture pretty soon,’ he remarked, gesturing with his cup. ‘He’s much bigger now, isn’t he?’

Leo glanced at the picture, then at Anthony. ‘I didn’t know you’d seen Oliver recently.’

‘Rachel invited me over for lunch yesterday. Oliver was on great form. He’s a fantastic kid. You’re very lucky.’

Leo nodded. So, Anthony and Rachel’s friendship had rekindled to a greater extent than he had imagined. As he put on his jacket he asked, ‘How’s Charles? I haven’t seen him for a while.’

‘He wasn’t there. He’s in the States making some historical documentary.’

Leo began to put his papers together. Presumably nothing significant could be going on between Rachel and Anthony, or he wouldn’t have been so frank and forthcoming about spending Sunday with her. He glanced at his watch. ‘I’m off to court in a few minutes.’

Anthony stood up. ‘Is this the
Persephone
hearing? The first day shouldn’t be too much sweat.’

‘Normally that would be the case. But the redoubtable Miss Papaposilakis isn’t happy with the idea of me giving a quick two-hour outline and Mr Justice Sagewell going off to read the documents. Says she doesn’t trust him to read them thoroughly. So I’m going to be on my feet all day giving an exhaustive exposition of our case.’ He picked up his robing bag.

‘Ann Halliday was talking about the case at lunch last week. I get the impression she’s not wild about her prospects of success.’

‘Can’t blame her. I still don’t understand why the insurers won’t settle.’

‘Who knows? Bet you turn up in twenty minutes’ time and the whole thing settles outside the courtroom door.’

‘In that unlikely event, Anthony, I’ll buy you lunch.’

‘You’re on.’

‘Don’t hold your breath.’ Leo picked up his robing bag. ‘Assuming you lose this bet, what about a game of squash one night this week instead?’

‘Fine. Friday would probably be best for me.’

‘Right. See you later.’

Anthony went back to his room. He stood at the window, waiting. A few moments later, Leo emerged from below and hurried across Caper Court and through the archway to Middle Temple Lane. Long after the familiar figure had vanished, Anthony remained there, gazing down at the blank flagstones. Leo would never know how much effort it was presently costing him to behave as if everything were perfectly normal between them. As though nothing had ever happened. He dwelt often on that night he and Leo had spent together, without ever being able to share with anyone the profound effect it had had on him. There had been a moment yesterday, after lunch and a couple of glasses of wine, when he had thought he might tell Rachel. She had that peaceful, still way about her which made him feel he could talk to her about anything. But he had let the moment pass. He couldn’t trespass on what she clearly still regarded as her own emotional territory. She had talked about Leo far more than an ex-wife in a new relationship should have. Anthony found himself wondering whether she had invited him to lunch not just to while away a lonely
Sunday, but because he was someone to whom she could talk about Leo.

He turned away from the window and sat down at his desk. As far as he and Leo were concerned, it seemed to Anthony that he had no alternative but to accept the status quo. Either he allowed himself to blame Leo for the night they had spent together, and the subsequent confusion of feeling which had followed, and let it fester and poison their friendship, or else he put it all in the past and tried to behave with perfect equanimity and friendliness. The latter was clearly what Leo wanted; he himself managed it with perfect ease. But Leo was well practiced in matters of self-deception. Of every kind of deception. As he picked up his pen to carry on with his work, Anthony tried to thrust from his mind the third alternative which he knew existed, that frank offer which Leo had made to him – to be sexually available to Anthony on a casual, occasional basis, without any emotional strings, if Anthony so wished. It smacked of that easy promiscuity which Anthony so detested in Leo, and yet he found himself dwelling on it more often than he would have liked.

By the time Leo finished expounding the case of
Silakis Shipping SA v. Arrow Marine plc,
it was four-forty in the afternoon.

‘Thank you, Mr Davies,’ said Mr Justice Sagewell, a lean-faced, mournful man whose spirit seemed worn down by the cares of his office. ‘We shall resume at ten tomorrow morning.’

The court rose, and everyone began to put their papers together and murmur to one another. Adriana came up to Leo.

‘That was marvellous!’ She put her face up to his and kissed him lightly on the cheek, while Rachel looked on in mild surprise. ‘How can we can possibly lose? What is there that the other side can say? I could tell the judge was impressed!’

‘Well, let’s wait and see, shall we? One side of a case always sounds unarguable, until you hear the other side.’

‘No, no – you were wonderful! However—’ her manner took on a touch of gravitas ‘—there are a few things we need to discuss.’

Leo glanced at Rachel expressionlessly, and Rachel guessed what he was thinking. She shrugged. Both of them knew there wasn’t a client born who wouldn’t want to discuss their case well into the evening, every evening, if they could.

As they emerged from the courtroom into the corridor, Leo said to Adriana, ‘I have a few things I need to do in chambers first.’

‘That is not a problem.’ She laid a hand lightly on his lapel. ‘Why don’t we meet up in a couple of hours and discuss it over a drink at my hotel?’

Leo’s hesitation was momentary. He could hardly refuse a client. ‘Fine. Can you manage that, Rachel?’ Rachel met his eye and nodded.

If Adriana was at all piqued at this inclusion of Rachel, she didn’t show it. She merely smiled and said, ‘Fine. I’ll
see you both at half past six,’ then clacked off down the marble-flagged corridor in her high heels, Mr Defereras following with his burden of files.

‘Thanks,’ Leo murmured to Rachel. ‘I couldn’t face being trapped alone with her all evening, being told how to run this case. See you later.’ And he made his escape to the robing room, leaving Rachel more than a little pleased. It didn’t look as though Adriana Papaposilakis would be making the conquest she had anticipated after all.

Rachel arrived at Adriana’s hotel punctually at half past six, and they sat together in the almost deserted bar and spent fifteen minutes in surprisingly agreeable conversation concerning shoes. Clearly Adriana intended to wait for Leo before launching into the gruelling evidential discussion for which she had come prepared, judging by the sheaf of technical documents which she had brought with her. For this Rachel felt thankful. She was already somewhat worn down by the intensity of Adriana’s dedication to the minute details of this case. She seemed capable of discussing thermal boundary conditions and fracture stresses in pipe work with the same fluency with which she was now ranking the relative merits of Jimmy Choo and Manolo Blahnik. Small wonder, thought Rachel as she sipped her cocktail, that the woman was so well respected in the shipping world, and so wealthy.

When Leo arrived, making his apologies, Adriana’s focus switched instantly to work. For a grinding hour and a half they discussed every aspect of the evidence of their
witnesses of fact – the master and the engineer – who were due to be examined by Leo over the coming days. Rachel could detect nothing flirtatious in Adriana’s behaviour towards Leo, but she got the distinct impression, as the discussion wound itself to a close around half seven, that she was anxious to spend a little more time alone with him.

‘Im sorry to detain you for so long, Rachel,’ she said, glancing at her watch. ‘I forget you have a baby to go home to. Very thoughtless of me.’

After Leo’s earlier remark at the Law Courts, Rachel felt pretty confident that he had no interest in Adriana beyond her case. She began to put her papers together. ‘Don’t worry. I only hope the discussion was useful.’

‘Very.’ Adriana smiled her bewitching smile and watched as Rachel rose to go. She turned to Leo. ‘You will stay for another drink, yes?’

‘I can’t, I’m afraid,’ replied Leo. He, too, got up. ‘Not if you want me wide awake in court tomorrow morning.’

‘That is very true,’ said Adriana, and nodded. ‘You must be at your best. Well – thank you both for coming. I will see you in the morning.’

She bade them a charming goodnight, and swept off to the lift.

Rachel and Leo walked out into the evening air. They stood on the pavement outside the hotel, surveying the traffic.

‘Is it really true you haven’t got time for another drink?’ Rachel asked with a tentative smile. ‘I’d like to have a talk about Oliver and the nursery school I’ve found for him.’

‘I honestly can’t,’ said Leo. ‘I do want to talk about it, but Camilla’s coming back from Bermuda today, and I know she’ll be waiting for me.’ He caught the flicker of bleakness in Rachel’s eyes. ‘Any other night this week. Really.’

She nodded. ‘Fine. You have your priorities, of course.’

‘Let’s get a cab. You can drop me off on your way to the station.’ Leo scanned the traffic for the yellow light of a taxi. He hailed one and it drew up to the kerb.

In the taxi, Leo tried to mellow the atmosphere with a little conversation. ‘Anthony tells me that he lunched with you and Oliver on Sunday. I’m very jealous.’ As soon as he’d said it, Leo knew this was the wrong thing to say. As someone whose very substantial living depended on verbal dexterity, he sometimes marvelled at his own ineptitude.

‘If that were true, Leo, we wouldn’t all be where we are now.’ Her face remained in chilly profile, gazing out at the traffic.

‘I meant that Anthony was lucky, seeing Oliver.’ He sighed, wondering if conversation between them would ever become less tortured. ‘I didn’t realise you and Anthony had grown so chummy.’

‘We’ve always been friends,’ replied Rachel. ‘We were friends before I knew you. I suppose I should find your interest in my personal life touching, however—’

‘Okay. Enough.’ Leo craned forward in his seat and tapped on the glass to the driver. ‘Anywhere here will do.’ He turned to Rachel. ‘You can pay the fare. Stick it on the
Persephone
file.’ He got out of the cab, closed the door, and walked off.

Rachel leant back and closed her eyes, aching inwardly. Antagonism and resentment – the last things she wanted to express when she was with him, but they always came bobbing to the surface. She experienced a sudden sensation of profound loneliness.

Walking towards Belgravia, Leo’s flash of temper subsided and he let his pace slacken. He shouldn’t have got out of the cab in that abrupt way. But she really did have the most amazing capacity for confrontation, for aggression. And in the name of what? It had scarcely ever been like that when they were married, except on occasions. Was this what the residue of spent love amounted to? He felt a surge of grateful relief at the thought of Camilla waiting for him, unreproachful, easy in her affection, possessed only of the desire to please him. He must take care to do nothing to change that state of affairs.

When Felicity got home that night, she could hear the noise halfway up the stairs to the flat. Her heart sank. She put her key in the lock and went in. Sandy and four other young men were in the living room, curtains drawn, music centre on, necking vodka. The pungent reek of marijuana hung in the air. Sandy greeted her warily, drunkenly. She sighed and opened the curtains, then the window.

‘Come on, Sandy. Tell your mates to piss off back to wherever they came from.’ She hauled, at his collar and he got to his feet. ‘Come on!’ she yelled. ‘I want them out
now
.’

‘Sorry, guys,’ said Sandy to his friends. ‘My sister’s not very hospitable.’

‘No, she’s bloody not.’ Felicity stood, hands on hips, as the young men got up resentfully.

When they’d gone, Sandy closed the front door and came back through. Fliss was straightening furniture and picking up the litter they had left. He regarded her truculently.

‘Thanks very much. That was really great, talking to my mates like that.’

Felicity straightened up. She took a deep breath before replying. ‘Sandy, when I took you in, I felt sorry for you. Sorry you’d messed your life up yet again. I let you stay here so you could get yourself straightened out, not to give you free board and lodging till whenever. So far, you’ve done nothing but doss around and take advantage of me. You haven’t even tried to get a job. And now you think you can turn my flat into somewhere handy for you and your mates to hang out and get stoned. Well, it’s not on. It’s simply not going to happen. It’s getting to the point where I
don’t feel
sorry for you anymore. If you don’t sort yourself out soon, you can go back to kipping on the streets. I can’t prop you up forever. I have a life I want to get on with.’ She stopped, gazing at him. ‘Sandy, are you listening to anything I’m saying?’

Sandy just stood vacantly in the middle of the room for some seconds, his truculence shifting to self-pity. His eyes met hers. ‘Fliss, you won’t go to bed just yet, will you?’

‘What are you on about? It’s only seven o’clock. Of course I’m not going to bed.’

‘It’s just, being all day on my own, it’s doing my head in. I had to get some people round. I can’t stand it on my own.’
He touched his temples with lightly trembling fingers. ‘I keep hearing stuff in my head.’