Harry Read online

  ‘Look, I’ve got a short hearing in court this morning. Let’s grab some lunch together later.’

  ‘Good one. See you later. And thanks.’ He is such a nice guy.

  Seb and I had just settled down for lunch at a table in the wine bar near the office. I wanted to see how he was after the news I had given him that morning.

  ‘Oh no. Don’t look but guess who’s just come in.’ Seb gave a sideways glance.

  ‘Grendel’s mother.’ Seb knew the patois as well as I did.

  Clarissa zoned in on us, gave an imperious smile and then crossed over to our table.

  ‘Mind if I join you boys?’ Yes, I did mind. Big time. But I could hardly tell the senior partner to take a leap, could I? So we were stuck with her. She waved at the barman, tipped her hand in front of her mouth to signal that she wanted her usual glass of chilled Chardonnay, and then made damn sure that she dominated the conversation by droning on about how well the firm was doing.

  ‘I’ll pay,’ she said when we had all eaten. Seb thanked her and then excused himself from the table, saying he had to get back to draft some documents arising from the hearing he had done that morning.

  She stared across the table at me. ‘We have to look after our youngsters, don’t we...and what goes on at home stays at home, eh?’ In other words, remember I’ve gagged you about what was said at the partners’ meeting.

  ‘Let’s go splits,’ I replied but she insisted on paying. No doubt she would put it down to expenses.

  The afternoon was busy and, every time I tried to catch up with Seb, there were other people around. He had to shoot off as soon as possible at the end of the day to get back home for his family. But just before he left he finally caught up with me.

  ‘If you bump into Freja by any chance, please don’t tell her. She’s pretty down at the moment.’ That was all he had time for; his life revolved around work and family. I never heard of him going out with the friends or playing sport. Much of the time he looked knackered and his conversation was often about broken nights.

  When I got home that evening, Susan and I sat down at the kitchen table with each other once the two younger kids were in bed and I told her what had been going on. It was Friday and our ritual was to have a bottle of sparkling wine together to mark the end of the week: we called it Fizzy Friday. The older two kids were out with mates overnight.

  ‘The partners are so stupid. And so short-sighted.’ That was her response to my account of the partnership meeting. As a GP who works long hours in a community-based practice, she despised the big money-seekers and had no interest at all in the legal luvvies. She even told Clarissa to stop talking shop once – in precisely those terms – at a partners’ dinner when Clarissa was boring everyone to tears by going on and on about her work.

  ‘They just want as much money as they can get. It’s all about that. They don’t give a shit about clients that don’t have money. Or the likes of Seb.’ It was so helpful to be able to offload how I felt with someone I trusted.

  ‘Strange form of client care. Can you imagine if my patients were treated like that?’

  ‘Quite. But then legal rights aren’t visible, are they?’

  ‘Well, Jon. See how it goes. But you know that if ever you want to get out of the rat race, I would never stand in your way. We don’t need lots of money. We can get by on my pay.’ See why I love my wife so much now?

  ‘You are very good to me, you know.’

  ‘I only want you for your body, though. Good job, too. Your mind’s a cesspit.’

  ‘We’re well matched, then.’ After that it was time for the rest of the Friday night Susan and Jon ritual.

  Chapter Six

  Seb did not come into work the following Monday. He had been due to represent a child through her guardian in court that morning on an application for what is called an interim care order; social services wanted to remove a young girl from home because her parents were drinking, taking drugs, hitting each other and neglecting the child. So frequent is that type of thing that, when I do work like that now, I abbreviate it in my notes to D, D, DV (domestic violence) and N. Both parents had learning disabilities. … LD x 2 in my notes. Oh, and MH, too – mental health issues.

  ‘You’d better cancel my appointments this morning,’ I had to say to Jane, my secretary. ‘I have to cover for Mr Pedersen in court.’ There was no one else available to do the case and you can’t drop a court case.

  ‘Boadicea will love this.’ I like Jane. She’d been with me for about eleven years by then. Susan always calls her the other woman in my life, but there has never been anything like that between us – she has a wonderful partner called Ella, anyway, so a middle-aged married man doesn’t hold out much attraction to her.

  ‘Well, you know what Boadicea can do, then, don’t you?’

  Jane shuffled in her chair, smiled and said, ‘Ouch.’

  On my way to court, I had a text message from Seb: ‘Sorry, Jon, Freja is all over the place. I just can’t leave her.’

  The hearing happened and the inevitable interim care order was made. It was a typical care case. The mother had been in care herself, came out of care with inadequate support, got pregnant when still a teenager and couldn’t cope with a baby. So the system operated to separate her from her child, declaring that to be in the paramount interests of the child, rather than helping her parent her own baby.

  The only other detail I remember is that the barrister for the local authority described the hearing as being like shooting fish in a barrel. ‘Poor fish,’ I had said.

  As soon as I got back, I rang Seb.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘I am. But Freja isn’t. She’s reached an all-time low.’

  ‘Is it alright to talk?’

  ‘Fine. I’m out walking with the kids.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘She worked out that I had things on my mind on Friday and kept asking me what was wrong. So, in the end I told her.’

  ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘Then she kept asking how we were going to manage and getting herself into a complete state. She’s now saying that we should go and live with her family in Denmark.’ Freja is Danish, too, and comes from Aarhus, but she had come to university in England, where she had met Seb who was brought up here.

  ‘Just take it a step at a time. We don’t actually know what is going to happen here yet.’

  ‘Maybe not. But we’ve got a pretty good idea.’

  ‘Are you coping?’

  ‘Just about. I feel bombed out, really.’

  ‘Well, I’ll cover for you here, don’t worry. You need to sort things out at your end so just forget about work for a bit.’ I didn’t have any big hearings that week and could shift those that I did have to barristers.

  ‘Thanks, Jon. Best go. Theo has run ahead.’ Theo was his very active three-year-old.

  It took Jane about an hour and a half to rearrange my diary. The next thing that happened that day was that Boadicea came storming into my room as if in a chariot.

  ‘Can I have a word please?’ she asked, putting her head round the door as if my room was too demeaning to enter.

  ‘Of course, take a seat.’

  ‘Do you mind if we do it in my room upstairs, please?’ It wasn’t a question. It was time for me to take a caning in the headmistress’s study.

  ‘Sit down. Care for some sparkling water?’ she asked me, smiling. I knew I was really in the shit then. She only smiled at me before she bit.

  ‘No thanks, Clarissa. How can I help?’

  ‘To cut a long story short, I was a bit worried about the way that you spoke at the meeting on Thursday and I know the other equity partners were as well.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that. But, speaking even more succinctly, you know how I feel. I really don’t think that we should give up the legally aided work.’

  ‘But look. Here’s a printout of the profits. I’ve been discussing them this afternoon with some of the others. It’s only jus
t cutting even.’ In other words, some of the other partners had nobbled her since lunchtime.

  ‘I know. I helped produce them, remember? But it is still important work.’

  ‘Depends on how you define important. It’s not going to get more profitable, you know.’

  We played verbal bat and ball for a bit more until I got pissed off with the game.

  ‘Clarissa, this is pointless. As I’ve said, you know how I feel. I’m not going to change my view, I’m afraid.’

  ‘That’s very disappointing.’

  ‘And I’m not a child, thank you.’ The red mist came swirling in again.

  Clarissa went into the attack on another front.

  ‘What’s happened to Pedersen?’

  ‘You mean Sebastian. His wife is seriously depressed so I’m having to cover for him for a bit.’

  ‘We’re really not very happy about that, either.’ It was plain she had not meant to put it in quite that way.

  ‘Clarissa, I don’t understand. Are you policing my diary now?’ I knew Jane would not have said a word.

  ‘Not at all. We’ve had a complaint from a client about you shifting his work around.’

  ‘Oh yeah. Which client?’ I knew damn well. The one who wanted me to prostitute myself to his lying ways.

  ‘I’m not at liberty to tell you that.’ Of course not, it wouldn’t go down well when the partners had their next session of gossipmongering.

  ‘Look, Clarissa. I’m really sorry that we are doing so little to promote your happiness profile. But we need to look after people. You can’t always walk on the other side of the street from the man in the ditch.’

  ‘What are you saying? What about your clients?’

  ‘I’ve rearranged them.’

  ‘But they’re fee-paying clients. You’ve rearranged them to do legal aid work?’ She knew the answer to that already, but I wasn’t going to take it lying down.

  ‘No. I’ve rearranged them to do court work to which this firm is committed.’

  ‘Farm it out to counsel please and keep your own work.’

  ‘Too late. I’ve already done it.’ She plainly knew that, too. The whole conversation was like playing bridge, a game I loathe.

  ‘You should have asked me first. This really is not good enough. I’ll discuss this with the others and write to you. But it is not to happen again, please. From now on you do your own work, please.’

  ‘Finished?’ I asked, getting up from my chair.

  ‘For now.’

  Chapter Seven

  ‘I’ll make you a cup of tea.’ Thank God for Jane. I’m not sure that secretaries are supposed to be on-hand therapists but Jane is. I trusted Jane – I still do – and she trusts me. I was best man at the wedding when she and Ella got married.

  ‘OK. What did she say?’

  ‘Jane, I can’t tell you. If I did, we would both get crapped on. But you know what happened to the criminal department.’ That’s all it took again. Everyone knew that the legal aid work was under threat.

  ‘I knew that this was going to happen. Dump legal aid to fill the coffers, and bugger the consequences.’ Jane has a way with words. ‘But it’s not what this firm is about. Until recently, we all looked after each other and cared for our clients. She just wants to turn this into a factory.’

  ‘Yeah, and she may well be about to succeed.’

  ‘I’m not staying if that’s what happens. How about all the kids and their poor bloody parents? Who represents them?’

  ‘Who knows? Anyway, it may all come to nothing. And for God’s sake, don’t leave, Jane. That really would be the final straw. I’d follow you, I can tell you.’

  ‘Have you ever thought about setting up on your own, Jon? You wouldn’t treat people in the way that she does.’

  ‘You’re beginning to sound like Susan. She keeps telling me we don’t need the money.’

  ‘Great minds…’

  ‘I’ll think about it, but not now. Nose to the grindstone. Do you think you could find the papers for Seb’s court case tomorrow, please? Do you know, I think it will feel quite good to be back on my feet in front of the magistrates.’

  Jane smiled at me and then got on with her typing. I tried to carry on reading the papers once she’d found them, but each time I started I found myself drifting away from them and thinking about what I would like to say to Clarissa. When it was time to leave the office, I had to stuff the lever arch file and my laptop into my backpack and run to where I parked the car, lugging what felt like a lead weight on my back. In those days, I always used to dump the car on the outskirts of the city every morning at the point where the rush hour traffic starts to pile up.

  ‘Jesus, Jon. You look like a packhorse.’ That was Harry when I jogged up to him that evening. ‘Have you just robbed a bank?’

  ‘Of course. Two, actually… and I mugged a few old ladies on the way.’

  ‘What have you got in there?’ He lifted the backpack up with one hand. ‘You’ve got the weight of the world on your back.’

  ‘Feels like it. No, it’s only a load of legal nonsense. Papers and that.’

  ‘You ought to travel light, like me, Jon.’ He laughed. ‘We could show him what the world is really about, couldn’t we, Jenny?’ He gave her a stroke and then kissed her on the top of her head.

  ‘I might just take you up on that, one day, Harry.’ I sat with him on the pavement for a few minutes more and then did my usual ‘I’m late’ routine.

  Monday nights are always busy in our home. Swimming club, music lessons, homework…the usual runabout. Two kids in their early teens with all that involves, and two under ten from our second round of making babies. I remember once exploding when they were all squabbling: ‘Why did I ever have so many children?’ ‘Because you never learnt the meaning of the word contraception probably,’ my eldest son shot back at me, causing even more squabbles. ‘You mean they shouldn’t have had us?’ from the younger ones. ‘Yes,’ from the older ones, and ‘That really is not very nice’ from me.

  By the time I got home that evening, I was flustered about the work that I had to do and unceremoniously dumped responsibility for the kids on Susan, who just shrugged her shoulders and got on with it. Her line was always: ‘I know the score.’ My line? ‘I’m being a pain in the neck, I know. Sorry.’

  I finally emerged from the study at ten o’clock and headed straight for the wine in the fridge.

  ‘So, what’s been going on?’ asked a very tired Susan who had just put paid to the final kids’ squabble of the day. It didn’t take me long to explain and when I had finished I thought she was going to stab the kitchen table with the knife she was using to cut up the kids’ sandwiches.

  ‘What is wrong with that woman? Does she really think she is God Almighty just because she is the senior partner in a small law firm?’ Not the most PC thing to say but when Susan blows, she blows. She is three years older than me and, if ever the chips are down, she tends to revert to being the fourth-year medical student who is dating the new boy from the Law Faculty; and, of that, I have never complained. It makes me feel secure, as I know I am. That feeling…her arm around my shoulder, the tears of kindness in her eyes when I got upset by life’s harshness. My wife. My wonderful wife.

  ‘It’s Seb I’m worried about.’ I have always known I can tell her the truth, and that really matters.

  ‘Have you contacted him this evening?’

  ‘Yes, of course. His mum has come over from Exeter to be with him.’

  ‘Do you want to go round and see him?’ He lives in Southampton itself, whereas we live about twenty miles away, in the middle of the New Forest.

  ‘Not now. It’s way too late. But thanks.’

  ‘He needs to get himself signed off so he can stick a medical certificate under the nose of that miserable bitch.’

  ‘I’ll tell him to sort that out in the morning.’

  ‘And tell him that if he needs any help he should ring me. Can you give him my mobile number
please?’

  ‘Sure. Thanks for being so good about this. How was your day?’

  ‘No, Mrs Smith, you can’t have any more antibiotics. You’ve just got a cold. Man up.’

  ‘Man up?’

  She smiled. Susan has a very soft smile and a beautifully soft voice. ‘Pour me some wine. Surely you’ve got some uses?’

  I smiled back: ‘One or two. One or two.’

  Then it was time for the best place on earth. My bed. Our bed. The final frontier. Warm and secure next to my wife – even if we were rocked to sleep with the sound of the oldest kids playing some horrid computer games in the background.

  Chapter Eight

  The following day was spent in court, before a District Judge. I had to cover for one of Seb’s cases in which a local authority sought a care order in relation to a baby boy. The case was only listed for two days because most of the facts were agreed; the question for the court was what should happen with the baby; the local authority wanted to place him for adoption. There was a psychologist who gave evidence that, because of the mother’s own abusive upbringing and learning disability, she needed therapy to surmount the damage of the past. However, the psychologist said, given the delay and the fact that therapy takes time to have an effect, the benefits of therapy ‘were outwith the timescales of the child’. In other words, it was too late now for her to be able to keep her child.

  ‘Do you know why therapy was not offered to this mother when she was pregnant?’ I asked the psychologist in cross-examination.

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘If therapy had been given to her and had worked, are you saying that there is a prospect that she might have been able to keep her child?’

  ‘It’s possible.’

  ‘How much would therapy for a year cost, on average, please?’

  ‘It costs about £100 a session at the moment. So, I suppose that fortnightly therapy sessions for a year would cost about £2,000…allowing for holidays.’

  ‘How much are you charging for giving evidence?’

  ‘Is this relevant?’ the psychologist asked the District Judge, looking uncomfortable.