A Fool for a Client (26 page)

She turned to face him at the entrance to the kitchen.

“What
’
s this?
A man who thinks he can cook?”

“I
’
m something of a gourmet,” he said in a crude imitation of a French accent.

“You think you can find your way around my kitchen?” she asked, blocking his entry with her arm, the hand resting on the door post.

“I grew up in
Harlem
,” he said slipping under her arm into the kitchen.
“I
’
m very self-reliant.”

“Quoth, Shirley Temple.”

“
She
never grew up in
Harlem
,” he said mockingly.

Minutes later Justine was in the shower, the stinging jets of warm water cascading down onto her body, producing a kind of pleasant tingling sensation in the aftermath of the outdoor cold as the perspiration that had been trapped beneath the track suit was finally washed away.

It was a strange feeling, having some one else in the apartment again. Since her mother
’
s death it had been a place of solitary confinement, a place to dwell on the past, to meditate on unjust suffering and misery.
She never liked to think of the world as a place of suffering.
Her philosophy of happiness railed against it.
But in the year since her mother
’
s death, this apartment had become a place of bitter memories.

Now for the first time she was with some one whom she could at least like if not love.
Some one intelligent and kind to whom she could talk... and listen.
A
friend
was the word that summed it up, a friend like the one she had lost when her mother died.

She let the water run on long after it had done its work, welcoming the feeling of being engulfed in warmth.
She could quite happily have stayed under the warm torrent water forever.
Only there was Rick, the human figure in the kitchen who held the other thing that she most wanted: human companionship.

She emerged from the bathroom in a medium-length yellow
towelling
bathrobe with a matching towel around her head.
The smell that hit her was of frying and grilling.
When she entered the kitchen she was rubbing the towel against her head, energetically drying her hair.
But Parker barely looked up from his unconsummated culinary efforts.
When she stood close he noticed only the ivory calves of her legs.

“So let
’
s see if Escoffier lives up to the test,” she said, pulling up a chair to the kitchen table.

He brought the last of the food to the table and they started eating a hearty breakfast of poached eggs on golden brown toast, potato pancakes and grilled kippers.
There were pots of tea and coffee on the table as well as fresh orange juice.

“Where did you learn all this?” asked Justine

“While I was studying I used to work in restaurants: busboy, waiter, short-order cook.
You name it, I did it.”

“Well you certainly do it well,” Justine said, as she took a bite of one of the hot potato pancakes.

“When you
’
re number two you try harder,” replied Parker smiling.

“With food like this you shouldn
’
t be number two.”

“Thanks.
I
’
m just waiting for you to compliment me on my legal skills.”

He said it with a smile, but it killed the conversation.
Somehow the trial and the histrionics of the courtroom seemed so far removed from this quiet Saturday morning that the mere mention of the proceedings brought them back to an unpleasant reality and shattered their idyllic calm.

After breakfast Justine cleared away the dishes and put them into the dishwasher while Rick took his turn in the shower.
While the machine went into action she wandered into the library.
She hadn
’
t entered the room since her mother died.
It held too many memories, far more than her mother
’
s bedroom.
It was the room where she and her mother sat in silence, each studying, both secure in each other
’
s presence.

It was
panelled
in rosewood and lined from floor to ceiling with books, many of them leather bound.
Justine remembered that she had been struck by that feeling of comforting warmth in the judge
’
s chambers.
Now she understood why.
The chambers were in some ways a replica of this library.
It was a feeling of homecoming, of returning to the security of the womb, of rediscovering the lost innocence of childhood.

Her life since childhood had been like a slow descent from the summit of a great mountain, periodically resting on the ledges on the way down.
The ledges were stable, but had always felt precarious and each one was lower than the one before.
Her earliest memory had been of her father coming home from the hospital.
Her mother had told her to be nice to him because he was very unhappy.
She had tried to be nice to him, but he always got angry whenever she made a noise.

Noises, it seemed were the thing than made him most unhappy.
But for all the fear she had felt in the face of his raging temper, when he died she had felt it as a great loss.
She gained a feeling of stability for a while, in adolescence, as she and her mother leaned on each other for support.
But then came the final blow when her mother was struck by cancer.

A long tortuous descent from the summit of a mountain. Cut and grazed by the jaggedly protruding rocks, finding brief respite on the ledges of transient stability before the next stage of the descent.
She had never really wanted to reach the foot of the mountain.
She had always hoped that she could climb back up to the top.
No one ever told her that once you leave the summit you can never go back up there.
And if they had told her she wouldn
’
t have believed them.

Through the open door of the library she could hear Rick leaving the bathroom.
He had used the same bathroom she had, the one in the master bedroom.
Now he was in the bedroom... her mother
’
s bedroom.
She couldn
’
t just throw him out.
But she felt too possessive about the room to leave him there alone.
She eased the door ajar and spoke quickly.

“Are you decent?”

“Define decent?” he chuckled.

“Typical lawyer,” she said marching in with mock defiance.

He was wearing nothing but a towel around his waist.

“So what shall we do today?” he asked, teasingly.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?” he asked quizzically.

“It
’
s Saturday,” she said coolly.
“My day of rest.”

“You don
’
t look Jewish,” he mocked.

“You don
’
t look Black,” she replied

“Touché.”

She walked up to him slowly.

“So, like... what did you have in mind?”

She had slid her arms around his neck and interlocked her fingers.
Her forearms rested on his shoulders. She was still wearing the bathrobe, but in his mind
’
s eye he could see beneath it.

“I thought maybe we could, go over your... defence.”

He was trying to hold back.
The whole thing was just so unexpected.
So unprofessional.
But he could feel his arms sliding round her waist, as if pulled there by a force that existed outside of his own volition.

“Maybe I
’
ll just...”

Her lips were moving towards his.

“...throw myself on the mercy of the court.”

Their lips met in a violent kiss.
Their tongues touched and their embrace tightened.

Rick
’
s hands rose up under her robe, exploring her silky thighs, caressing her buttocks.
She freed a hand to loosen the knot of his towel.
He heaved a deep breath and the towel fell to the ground.
He tugged on the
cord of the robe and untied the knot.
As Justine
’
s hands encircled him once again he pushed back the folds of
towelling
and reached out to cup one of her breasts in his hand, caressing it gently.
Again their lips and tongues met and their heavy breathing intensified.

Rick
’
s hands now encircled her waist and gripped behind her back, this time inside the robe.
As he smothered her face and breasts with kisses she disengaged her hands and wriggled and writhed to ease the robe off her arms.
When it reached her wrists she slipped her hands out of the sleeves and the robe slid to the floor.

He released her for a moment and they stood there facing each other smiling, she tauntingly, he eagerly.

Whenever you
’
re ready,
her arrogant face seemed to challenge him.

He pushed her gently back onto the bed and climbed on top of her, their hand meeting palm against palm, their fingers interlocking as he pinioned her to the bed like a helpless yet willing prisoner.
He entered her with a gentle thrust and she bit her lip as she suppressed a gasp at the back of her throat.
He worked slowly at first, building up the pace in tune with
the encouragement of Justine gasping breath.

They disengaged their fingers, and Justine
’
s nails bit hard into Rick
’
s back.
He raised himself on his hands, entering her more deeply now as her breathing grew ever more f
rantic.
She arched her back but suppressed the cry in her throat
.
He raised himself again
but didn
’
t thrust
, instead he held the position
.
Then he began moving his hips in an almost circular motion, stimulating her externally by movement
as well as the static pressure inside her.

She slid her legs out from under him to encompass his torso with her firm thighs.
Her feet crossed over and interlocked behind his back trapping him in a scissor lock as tight as that of any wrestler.

They were now almost gasping for breath as the pace of their efforts accelerated from the intense to the fr
e
n
e
tic.
She screamed several times, and each time he slowed down, delaying his own response
.

Later – much later – when they lay side by side, exhausted, she reached across and held his hand.

“Thank you,” she said softly.
It was a strange thing to say… and she could tell by his silence that Rick hadn
’
t understood.
“Thank you for letting me trust you.”

“Why did you join the Irish National Liberation Army?”

A shimmering glow emanated from the swimming pool.
It was lit from below the water-line by
shielded
lights at the side, and every time the water stirred in the evening breeze a glimmer of light rose from the rippling surface.

“Do you know anything about the history of
Ireland
?”

“A bit.
Not much.”

She had been reluctant to give away how much she knew about the subject, from many hours of reading and research, because she didn
’
t want their meeting to appear to have been anything other than a result of chance.
A middle-brow college co-ed out on the make, looking for an easy pick-up,
not an intelligent young woman with an interest in Murphy
’
s past or the political history of Ireland.

“Well I won
’
t bore you with a long history lesson. I
’
ll tell you about my personal tragedy.
The Unionists were going to hold one of their Orange Order marches through a nationalist area.
The British government decided to stop them for once, because of the sensitivity of the times.
They ordered the Royal Ulster Constabulary to stop the march.
That led to a stand-off for a few days between the marchers and the RUC.

“And what happened?”

“The RUC were ordered to disperse the Orangemen.
But they refused.
That
’
s because they supported with them.
 
So the British government just gave in and allowed the march to go ahead.