The Decision (101 page)

‘Emmie,’ said Eliza, ‘you know I told you you may get a chance to talk to the judge.’

‘I don’t suppose he’ll take any notice. You know what I want and you don’t.’ Her small face looked across at Mouse with an expression of great disdain. ‘Horses are much more sensible.’

‘I do agree,’ said Toby.

‘Emmie, Mr Gilmour and I have to go and have a chat. Granny’s in the kitchen and she wants you to help her shell some peas.’

‘I hate shelling peas.’

‘Never mind, they need doing. Now we won’t be long—’

‘And then can I show you walk, trot and not gallop?’ asked Emmie, looking up at Toby.

‘Nothing I’d like more. But I might have to take your mother somewhere first.’

‘OK.’ She shrugged and set off in the direction of the paddock.

‘Emmie, I said go and help Granny,’ Eliza said; Emmie turned to look at her and gave her a smile of great sweetness.

‘And I said I didn’t want to,’ she said and continued on her way.

Eliza looked at Toby with a slightly shamefaced expression.

‘She’s a bit – over-indulged at the moment.’

‘I’m not surprised. I see a great future for her in the law. Clear-thinking, and very good at marshalling her arguments.’

‘Oh, don’t. Come into the house, I’ve put coffee in the drawing room. It’s so kind of you to come all this way.’

‘Well – it was a bit of a complicated conversation. Best face to face. Besides, we might have to go on a journey together.’

‘Heather’s not a bit sure he’ll agree,’ said Eliza, as Toby’s BMW pulled into the council estate where Heather lived. ‘It’s down there, look – yes, just park here. Oh, there’s Coral,’ she said jumping out of the car. ‘Hello, Coral, why aren’t you at school?’

‘Hello,’ said Coral shyly, ‘I’ve got a cold. Where’s Emmie?’

‘With her granny. I should have brought her. Coral, this is Mr Gilmour, we’ve come to see Mummy. Is she inside?’

‘Yes, she said to look for you. Is Emmie all right, is it true she’s got a pony?’

‘Only a very little one. You must come and see her one day and ride the pony.’

Heather appeared, a baby on her hip.

‘Heather, it’s lovely to see you, how are you. This is Toby Gilmour, the barrister, working on the case. Toby, this is Heather Connell.’

‘Pleased to meet you,’ said Heather.

‘And I to meet you,’ said Toby. He bowed slightly; don’t overdo it, thought Eliza, she’s too clever for that.

‘Well – come through. I’ve made some tea, we could have it in the garden.’

The garden was a work of art: the small lawn mown in stripes, every inch of every bed a riot of roses, dahlias, and irises, and every bed edged painstakingly with pansies. At each corner of the lawn was a piece of box hedge, carved into a very neat triangle, and a bird table stood absolutely in the middle of the lawn. A tortoise sat underneath it.

‘A tortoise!’ exclaimed Toby. ‘I used to have one. Coral, I presume it is yours?’

‘Yes, he’s called Meths.’

‘Short for Methuselah,’ said Heather by way of explanation.

‘What was your tortoise called?’

‘Tort,’ said Toby, smiling at her, ‘which is a sort of law, so it seemed to suit him. My father was a judge.’

‘Are you a judge?’

‘No, I’m only a barrister. That’s a sort of judge in waiting. I hope,’ he added.

He was good with children, Eliza thought; she was surprised.

‘Now,’ said Heather, passing round the biscuits, ‘I’m afraid I’m not too hopeful about Alan. He’ll be home at five past five, so you can ask him then.’

‘If he does say yes, will you do it?’ asked Eliza.

‘Yes, I will. I won’t say I’m not scared, but I will—’

‘Well done,’ said Toby.

At five past five precisely a Ford Consul pulled up into the small drive. Alan Connell got out. He was dressed in a navy-blue suit with the jacket buttons all fastened in spite of the extremely warm weather, a white shirt and a perfectly knotted navy and grey striped tie. His shoes wore a high shine; his hair was combed very precisely from a side parting, even his moustache looked as if it had been combed. Heather went out to greet him and they had a rather intense conversation; Eliza, watching from the windows, was not encouraged. Alan shook his head twice and when he walked towards the house, his expression was extremely stubborn.

‘Good afternoon,’ he said, nodding at them. ‘So you’re Eliza.’

‘Yes. How do you do, Mr Connell, we meet at last. I’m sorry we’re here, intruding on your weekend.’

‘It’s not the weekend yet,’ said Alan Connell, ‘not until midnight.’

‘No, I suppose not.’

‘I’m going up to change. I like to get into casual clothes as soon as I get home. Helps me relax. Then, Heather, perhaps you could get us some tea.’

This time the tea was served in the breakfast room; Bobby was in his high chair, his face smeared with something unrecognisable, Coral at the table unwrapping Kraft cheese triangles. It didn’t look like a meeting which could result in a victory in the High Court.

Alan reappeared, wearing perfectly creased slacks, a short-sleeved shirt, pressed carefully open at the neck, and highly polished brown shoes instead of black. He sat down at the table and took the cup of tea Heather passed him, added two precisely level spoonfuls of sugar, stirred it three times and then sipped it.

‘Right,’ he said, ‘let’s get down to business. I don’t like this, I said Heather wasn’t to appear in court, and I haven’t heard anything yet to make me change my mind.’

‘Let me explain,’ said Toby. ‘The point is that the judge we’ve been – allotted – doesn’t like written statements. Indeed, he tends to dismiss them.’

‘Why? Not his place, I wouldn’t have thought,’ said Alan.

‘Well, unfortunately the court is his place – while he is presiding over it, at any rate. He can decide what to do, how to run his case.’

‘Well,’ said Alan, ‘I don’t hold with pandering to that sort of thing, very arrogant, I call it, but I can see there’s not a lot you can do and it is important.’

‘Yes, it really is. It could make all the difference to Eliza’s case. If Heather could come – if you could agree to her coming – of course, I know it’s a long way, but we could arrange to send a car—’

‘A car! From here to London?’

‘Yes. It would be extremely good of you, and we would want to show how much we appreciated it. There’s a lot at stake, you see—’

‘Well, no wonder you lawyers charge such high fees,’ said Alan. ‘I’ve never heard such rubbish, she can go on the train—’

‘Oh, but we’d want you to come too,’ said Toby, ‘of course. To keep her company. I imagine you wouldn’t want her to go through it all on her own, bit of an ordeal. And to make sure you were quite happy with everything.’

‘Oh. I see. Well – that might make a difference. That shows consideration, doesn’t it, Heather?’

‘Yes. It does.’

‘And you’d send a car here? To the house?’

‘Yes, of course. If you preferred to go on the train, then it would just take you to the station and meet you on your return, we’d pay your fares, but—’

‘No, no, a car could be very nice,’ said Alan, ‘I hadn’t realised you’d want me as well. It would certainly make me feel a lot happier. Of course I’d have to ask for the time off work, but I imagine it would be considered a bit like jury service. In that you couldn’t refuse?’

‘I’m sure. And in the unlikely event of your having to stay, we’d obviously put you both up in a very nice hotel …’

‘Very generous of you,’ said Alan and then, clearly anxious not to be seen as a pushover, ‘no more than I’d expect of course.’

‘And I would like to help, Alan,’ Heather said, ‘Eliza was such a good friend to me.’

‘Tell me, Heather, in what way was she such a good friend to you?’ asked Toby.

‘Eliza’s just the best friend I could ever imagine,’ said Heather simply. ‘She was so kind to us, Coral really loved her, she’s so good with children and she never complained about giving up that amazing job, although I know she missed it a lot. And later on she was always meeting Coral from school when I was pregnant and not feeling up to it, and doing the shopping, I never had to ask, she just offered, and she used to drive us out to the park for picnics in the holidays. She gave us a TV, she even lent me some money once when – well, when I lost my purse. And she took up our cause with the landlord, argued with the useless plumber and I know it all went wrong in the end, with the article in the paper, but it wasn’t her fault. And I was so sorry for her, when the baby died, and she was so brave, and so generous when I fell pregnant again, very soon after, she said she was so pleased for me, not many people could do that. And Coral just loved Emmie, said she was her best friend and she really missed her when we moved away. And I missed Eliza so much as well, it was like a huge hole in my life. She’s the sort of person who’d do anything you asked her, I can’t think of anything she’d refuse you—’

There was a silence; Eliza rummaged in her bag for a tissue and blew her nose very hard. Toby, who had been sitting looking at Heather as if he was bewitched by her, reached out and patted her hand and even Alan cleared his throat.

‘Well,’ said Toby finally, ‘do you think you could say all that in court? It could make all the difference to Eliza.’

‘Of course I could,’ said Heather.

‘That was brilliant,’ said Eliza, as they drove away, having done what Alan called a tour of the garden, and Toby had admired the box triangles, ‘you were so clever. So funny, apparently there was a lot of turf on that lawn, the grass seed kept dying and he kept putting down squares of turf in bits and pieces, but he said it didn’t count …’

‘Well, it was a triumph in any case, turf or no turf. Lot of work in the smallest garden, and those beds—’

‘Toby!’ said Eliza. ‘You’ll tell me you meant all that guff in a minute.’

‘I did,’ he said, ‘I’d love a garden, I admired yours, didn’t I?’

‘Yes, you did.’

‘Oh Christ, look at that traffic. We’re not going to get back for hours at this rate. Are you hungry?’

‘Bit. I feel a whole lot more hopeful too. I know one swallow doesn’t make a summer and all that—’

‘It’s a pretty good harbinger of one, even so. Let’s find a nice country inn, then, and have a meal.’

‘Haven’t you got to get back to London?’

‘No,’ he said shortly, ‘I haven’t. Nothing on at all, all weekend. OK, we’ll drive for an hour, say, and then stop, shall we? Should be somewhere like Buckinghamshire by then. Lovely restaurant at Cookham, I seem to remember, down by the river. How would that be?’

‘Lovely,’ said Eliza. ‘Thank you.’

Coincidence is a powerful force. It runs in its apparently untrammelled way, linking people across continents, events across time. Everyone has a particularly striking example of it: of the unplanned meeting at a point thousands of miles away of two people from the same street, of a book found in a second-hand bookstall that the purchaser had owned as a child, his name on the flyleaf, of a love letter sent from the battle line and lost in a mailbag for fifty years arriving at its destination and joining writer and addressee in twilight years of happiness.

And it was coincidence, and its close relative chance, at work that lovely summer evening, as everyone concerned with the case of Shaw vs Shaw became increasingly obsessed, as well they might, with its outcome.

‘I – um – I wondered if you’d like to have a drink this evening?’

‘What, with you?’

‘I wasn’t suggesting you went with anyone else.’

‘Well – why not. Yeah, OK, Matt. Would you like to try one of my hotels? The one near Hyde Park is very good.’

‘Yes, nice idea. Thanks, Louise. I’ve never been to one, and I should. Great.’

‘OK. Champagne bar, that’s what it is, six thirty?’

‘You’re on.’

‘Gina, doll, this is Freddy.’

‘Oh – hi, Freddy.’

Freddy was her business partner; or rather he’d put up most of the money for Dressing Up. He was flashily handsome, gay and extremely rich, the money made by a lucky dip into the oil market and now brilliantly invested; the shop was really a tax dodge.

‘I’m in town. Just for tonight. I was wondering if you’d like to have dinner? Maybe go on somewhere – I could do with a bit of nightlife.’

‘Well—’ She’d been about to refuse then thought it could be a good idea. Freddy was amusing and very good-looking, it would be no disgrace to be seen with him. Even if he did call her ‘doll’. And she was buggered if she was going to sit around waiting for Matt to call any longer. She really was beginning to feel she’d had it with him. But – she’d invested a lot of emotion in him, and she was actually extremely fond of him Or had been. And when this bloody divorce case was over, things should steady again.

And she was getting to an age when she would quite fancy a bit of security. You couldn’t go on being a good-time girl for ever.

‘Yes, that’d be nice,’ she said.

‘Excellent, I’m staying at that new hotel just below Hyde Park Corner, very nice, quite flashy, you’d like it. They’ve got a champagne bar, we can start there, and then go on somewhere to eat … you choose.’