She sat down on the edge of the bed and waited. Disjointed voices came from the television. At one point Marcus sniggered. She looked up. He was immersed. She might as well not exist. Her glance strayed around the room. She saw briefs and neatly stacked documents lying on a long lacquered table, evidence of his industrious practice. Everything around her seemed to reinforce her superfluity.
She thought of going downstairs to wait. What dignity would that salvage? She felt so tired. She ached from so much sex. A longing for comfort, for Roger, welled up inside her. She had to steel herself not to cry.
After an age, the bell to Marcus’s flat buzzed. She got up and crossed the long room.
For the first time in twenty minutes, Marcus looked at her. ‘Do you need any money?’ he asked.
Sarah said nothing. She left the flat and went down to the waiting cab.
That Monday morning Sandy was due to turn up especially early at the shop, around seven. Ankit, Mrs Deepak’s son, had to be in Birmingham and wouldn’t be able to do the papers. Mrs Deepak had asked Sandy if he would help out, and he’d said yes. He’d even mentioned it to Felicity over the weekend. But when Felicity got up a little before eight on Monday, she could see no evidence that Sandy was up. His bedroom door was still closed. She knocked on it.
‘Sandy? Sandy, d’you know what the time is?’
There was some muffled response, which Felicity
couldn’t make out. She opened the door and looked in. The curtains were still drawn, and Sandy lay hunched on the bed under his duvet. The floor of the room was strewn with sheets of paper covered in writing. In the stale air hung the unmistakable smell of dope. Several spent spliffs lay in an ashtray on the rug.
‘Oh, Sandy … Come on, you can’t let Mrs Deepak down!’ She shook the lumpen figure under the duvet, and Sandy rolled over, blinking his eyes. Deep shadows were etched beneath them, and his hair stuck up in spikes.
‘I can’t. I can’t go out.’
‘Come on, Sandy – she’s relying on you! If you get up now, you’ll still be—’
‘I can’t go out, Fliss. They’ll get me. It’s not a joke.’ His voice shook with anxiety.
Felicity looked into his eyes. She felt a strange, sinking feeling inside. ‘Who will? Who’s going to get you?’
‘There are people out there, Fliss, who have guns. They have weapons. They want me. They’re after me.’ He looked and sounded like a small boy. His voice held clear conviction.
‘Sandy, no one’s after you. Oh, God …’ Felicity ran her fingers through her hair. She was beginning to feel shaky. ‘Sandy, I think you need to see someone. A doctor. All this dope you’ve been doing is giving you strange ideas.’
‘They’re real. They’re so real. You just don’t know.’ He curled the duvet round himself and lay back down.
Felicity sighed. ‘Look, I can take the morning off. I’ll see if I can get you an appointment with the doctor. I’ll say it’s
urgent.’ She laid a hand on his shoulder. He didn’t move. ‘Sandy, I think it’s for the best.’
‘I’m not going out, Fliss. You think I’m mad, but I’m not. They’ll get me. I’m staying here.’ His voice was muffled by the duvet.
Felicity took a deep breath. ‘Then I’ll get the doctor to come here.’ Sandy said nothing. She glanced at her watch. The surgery would be open in five minutes.
She stood up and went to the kitchen to make some tea. Then she rang the surgery and asked if the doctor could make a house visit. No, she was told, no house visits until after 6 p.m. If it was an extreme emergency, she should ring for an ambulance or take the person to casualty. Felicity hung up. It seemed there was little she could do immediately. She chewed her thumbnail anxiously. It wasn’t as though he was really unwell, apart from his strange paranoia. He seemed unlikely to leave his room today, not in his present frame of mind, so he couldn’t come to any harm. And she had so much on at work … She would leave him for the moment, see how he was when she got home, and then call out the doctor if she had to.
She went back through to Sandy’s room. ‘I can’t get anyone to come and see you. Not right away.’
‘I don’t want anyone to see me!’
Felicity sighed. ‘I have to go to work. I’ll drop in on Mrs Deepak on the way and tell her you’re not feeling well. We’ll see how you are this evening. For God’s sake, don’t take any more dope or pills.’ Sandy said nothing. ‘Will you be all right?’ added Felicity anxiously.
It was some seconds before Sandy answered, ‘Yeah.’
Apart from the stuff about people being out to get him, Felicity didn’t think he sounded too out of it. But he clearly needed some kind of help. Just when she’d thought he might be getting his act together, this had to happen. She sighed wearily, and went to get ready for work, closing his door gently behind her.
Anthony desperately wanted to know how things had gone between Rachel and Charles. He found it impossible to concentrate on work, and several times throughout the morning he was on the brink of calling her. Each time he dismissed the idea, telling himself he would have to wait for her to call him, as she’d said she would.
When at last his private line rang at half past twelve, he snatched up the phone.
‘Hello,’ said Rachel. ‘It’s me.’
‘How are you?’
‘Oh … so-so. Tired.’
‘Did you speak to Charles?’
‘Yes.’
‘And?’
‘I don’t really want to talk about it on the phone.’
‘Can we meet for lunch?’
‘Yes. I won’t have long, though. I have a client coming in at two. Can you come up here?’
‘Of course.’ Anthony glanced at his watch. ‘I’ll set off now.’ He hesitated. He needed to get some faint idea of how things had gone. ‘How did he take it? I mean, just briefly.’
‘Briefly? It was awful. I don’t think he quite accepts it. He’s so …’ She broke off. ‘Oh, Anthony, can we talk about it when I see you? It’s making me too upset.’
‘All right. Sorry. I’ll be with you shortly.’ He hung up, put on his jacket, and went downstairs.
Leo was on his way into chambers, having come from a long morning at the
Persephone
hearing, and met Anthony just as he was crossing Caper Court. Anthony greeted him hastily in passing. Leo glanced after him. He had a good idea where Anthony was hurrying off to. It had been evident from his manner during their conversation last Friday evening that his relationship with Rachel had reached some kind of critical juncture. Very likely Charles had now been told, and Anthony was about to find out how matters stood. Strange, thought Leo, to be on the outside looking in. Whatever was going on between Rachel and Anthony affected him, but was at the same time entirely remote from him. He wondered, as he mounted the steps to chambers, when he would be told of whatever changes were about to take place in Oliver’s life.
He went into the clerks’ room, fished his mail from his pigeonhole, and went back out through reception. Sarah was coming downstairs. She passed Leo and murmured hello.
‘Hey,’ said Leo. He paused at the foot of the stairs. Sarah turned to look at him. ‘Come on,’ said Leo. ‘Upstairs.’
Sarah followed Leo up to his room. Leo opened the door. Sarah went in, and Leo closed the door behind him. Sarah leant against a bookcase.
Leo chucked his letters on to the desk. He put his hands in his pockets and regarded her closely. He’d seen Sarah in every variety of mood, including the filthiest of tempers, but never had he seen her so lacking in essential life and warmth. ‘So – what’s wrong?’
‘Nothing. I had a bad weekend.’
‘D’you want to tell me about it?’
Sarah gazed at Leo, at the chiselled features so handsome above the white bands and starched collar of his court attire, the silver hair brushed back from his temples, the intense blue of his eyes as he studied her face. He was probably the one person in all the world who possessed the clearest understanding of everything about her, but she believed the state of her feelings at present was beyond even his sympathy.
‘Not really. I had a mildly abasing experience at the weekend, that’s all.’ She paused for a moment, then, with an effort at her customary coolness, added, ‘I imagine you think that’s nothing new for me, but this one left a particularly bad taste in the mouth.’
‘Was it to do with Roger?’
She shook her head, and found her eyes filling with tears. God, the one thing she had never done was cry in front of Leo. She took a deep breath in an effort to stem her tears, but her voice shook when she spoke. ‘I’ve been a bit stupid where Roger’s concerned. I think I rather underestimated him.’
‘A lot of people do.’
She brushed her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘Anyway, it’s nothing to do with him. Well, not directly. If you must
know, I got a bit drunk at a party, and I had a one night stand with Marcus – not the pleasantest of experiences – and I’m feeling pretty hellish about it.’ She steadied her voice. ‘I don’t expect your sympathy. You’d probably say it’s just the kind of thing I normally do, but I just wish … I just wish, for once, that I’d—’ She broke off, dipping her head to hide her misery.
Leo gazed at her reflectively. ‘Well, at least you’re contrite. Which, for you, is something of a novelty. But we all do things we live to regret. Believe me, I know. Don’t give yourself such a hard time. Roger doesn’t have to know. I abide by the belief that what people don’t know needn’t hurt them.’
In spite of her tears, Sarah managed a wobbly, challenging smile. ‘You wouldn’t by any chance be referring to Camilla and the small matter of Miss Papaposilakis, would you?’
Nothing like being comradely in misfortune, thought Leo. ‘Let’s just say that I’ve always been too easily tempted for my own good. As regards our relative situations, I’d say you and I would both do well to treat discretion as the better part of valour – don’t you think?’
‘The thing with Marcus … I suppose I did it partly because I had a bust-up with Roger last weekend, and he hasn’t been near me since.’
‘Whatever your argument was about, I suppose it goes without saying that you were in the right?’
‘No. Since you ask, I wasn’t. I thought I was, but I realise everything he said about me was quite correct.’
Well, well, thought Leo in surprise. Someone had
actually managed to chasten the audacious Miss Coleman. And Roger Fry, of all people. ‘In which case, you should apologise, instead of standing here feeling wretched. And forget about your aberration with Marcus Jacobs. Think of all the other deplorable things you’ve done – many of them with me, I might add – and learn from your mistakes.’
Sarah gave a weak smile. ‘Good old Uncle Leo.’
‘Ever ready with a sympathetic ear. Go on, I have some things to do before I go back to court.’
Sarah sniffed and rubbed her nose with her finger, feeling better. ‘How’s your case going?’
‘Well, let’s just say that I don’t think it’s going to turn out quite as everyone expects.’
‘Sounds exciting.’
‘As exciting as insurance claims get.’ He watched her go, pleased that she looked rather less forlorn. For a moment he felt almost fatherly – not something he’d ever thought he would feel where Sarah was concerned. Then he sat down and picked up the phone, preparing to draw up a list of all the colour copying firms in the port of Southampton.
Anthony paced around the reception area of Nichols and Co., waiting for Rachel. At last she emerged from the lift. The sight of her lifted his heart. She looked, he thought, a little paler and more drawn than usual, but the smile she gave when she saw him seemed to light her from within.
‘I’m not particularly hungry,’ said Rachel, as they stepped out into the sunshine of Bishopsgate. ‘I’d rather just go somewhere and talk, if that’s all right.’
‘Fine,’ said Anthony. ‘We don’t have long, anyway. I can always pick up a sandwich on the way back to chambers.’
They walked along the pavement to St Botolph’s Church and into the gardens, where office workers sprawled on the grass with their lunch. Rachel and Anthony found a quiet spot and sat down on the grass.
‘So,’ said Anthony, ‘tell me everything that happened.’
Rachel sighed. ‘I didn’t actually tell him until Sunday. When he got in from Gatwick on Saturday morning he was shattered, so he went to bed for a few hours. When he got up, Oliver was around. Charles seemed in such a good mood … I just couldn’t face telling him. I knew Oliver was going to a party the next day, so I decided I’d wait till then.’
‘And?’
‘We were sitting in the garden, and I told him. I said I realised I wasn’t in love with him any more. I didn’t tell him I hadn’t ever been, not really. I tried to keep it simple. I told him I’d met someone else.’ She put a hand over her face. ‘It was just awful. I knew he wouldn’t blow his top. Charles isn’t like that. He just sat there with the Sunday paper on his lap, looking … looking
stricken
. I told him how sorry I was, and how I hadn’t meant it to happen, that it just had. I was talking and talking, and when I looked at him again, the expression on his face was … sort of … unhappy and contained all at once, as though he was determined to stay in control. I thought I knew what was coming. I thought he was going to say it was something we could sort out, that he blamed his assignment in the States, that he should never have left me …’
‘What did he say?’
‘The last thing in the world I expected, really.’ Rachel plucked at the grass, her face sad. ‘He said – I don’t remember his exact words … something like …’ “When you said you weren’t in love with me anymore, I thought you were going to tell me you were going back to Leo.”’
‘Why would he think that?’ asked Anthony, genuinely astonished.
She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. Anyway, I told him it had nothing to do with Leo. I think I was a little angry. Maybe because I wanted
him
to be angry with
me
… He had every reason. But that’s not Charles’s way. Still, he managed to make me feel pretty dreadful. Which at least is what I deserved. He said that he’d always had the idea I might fall in love with someone, that he’d known I didn’t love him in the way he loved me, that he’d wondered how long it would take …’ She rubbed the plucked blades of grass between her fingers. ‘Which was my cue to say that of course I loved him. Which I do. Just not—’ She broke off, shrugging her shoulders.