But when she arrived at his chambers, white-faced and tear-stained and trembling, accompanied by a rather nervous articled clerk, and seemed about to collapse into the doorway, he had found himself almost unbearably moved by her. And as he put his arm round her shoulders, thinking only to calm her and soothe her and lead her into his own room, he realised that he was actually coming to a sense of involvement with her that was both unprofessional and dangerously beguiling.
The assistant had followed them in and hovered nervously, clearly uncertain what to do; Eliza looked at Toby anxiously.
‘I thought – I thought we could talk alone.’
‘Mrs Shaw, I can’t discuss your case without a representation by your solicitor, however urgent; it would be rather – rather unethical. I might even be struck off by the Bar Council. Unfortunately, Mr Cowan can’t stay for very long, he has another appointment, but he can hear at least some of what you have to say and report back to Philip Gordon.’
‘Oh – all right.’ She was clearly thrown by this, irritated even; but then he said quietly, ‘I’m sorry, I really can’t talk to you on your own. Mr Cowan, do use that table, I know you’ve got other work to do. Let’s begin, and see how we get on shall we? Coffee?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘All the other barristers are in court, including Sir Tristram, so we shall be undisturbed. I will put the kettle on.’
She had imagined that to be a figure of speech, but there was a small ante-room beyond his office, a kitchen of sorts containing a Calor Gas ring, a kettle, a tin of tea and another of coffee and a miniature fridge.
‘They don’t like it, they claim it’s a fire risk, but I want to have my coffee when I want it, not wait for some girl to finish typing a letter or even a difficult bit in her knitting pattern, so I insisted. Tea or coffee?’
‘Oh, coffee I think. I’ve been awake most of the night.’
She looked as if she had, he thought, with eyes that were heavy and dark-ringed, and she had clearly dressed without any thought at all, no sign of her usual style, simply jeans and sneakers and, over a plain white T-shirt, a rather scruffy denim jacket.
‘Good choice. Much more restorative. Now, go and sit down and drink this, it’s very strong.’
‘Thank you.’
And she went over to a deep leather sofa, and sank into it and put her hands round the mug and sipped it gratefully.
‘It’s lovely. Thank you.’
‘Good. Now tell me what all this is about.’
And stumbling over her words at first, then more certainly, she had begun to talk.
It had been the last straw; having to get Mr Horrocks to take the door off its hinges, recognising the extent of Emmie’s misery, so great that nothing, no bribe, no sympathy, no loving words could even begin to ease it.
Emmie had been hysterical for a long time, shivering and screaming that she hated them all, except Granny, she wanted to stay with Granny, she wouldn’t go back to London, why should she when they were so stupid and horrible and wouldn’t listen to her and what she wanted; and after a long time, Eliza said, ‘All right, darling, I expect you can stay, but I must ring Daddy first.’
‘Why?’ Emmie shouted. ‘Why do you have to ring him, I thought you didn’t like talking to each other any more,’ and Eliza had said, ‘I know, darling, but Daddy will be worried and he’ll need to know where you are.’
Matt had been surprisingly subdued when she told him; then asked to speak to Emmie, who refused.
‘I don’t want to talk to him, or you, I want to stay here with Granny and you go away by yourselves. Go away, go away, go away, I hate you.’
And so it was agreed that she should stay at Summercourt for the final few days of her parents’ marriage and their peculiarly hideous mechanics, be spared the endless phone calls, the closed doors, the ‘Emmie, not now, darling, we’re very busy talking to people’.
Eliza had driven up to London, having taken her farewell of a sullen, swollen-eyed Emmie, castigating herself and weeping, a rather dangerous presence on the road, but by the time she reached Fulham she had made what felt like, then, a completely final and constructive decision. She would give Emmie to Matt, on condition she had reasonable access and the quarrelling ceased; at least then Emmie would know where she was, the fighting and the bargaining would be over, and they would all be able to go forward rather than sideways into this hideous ongoing tangle of recrimination and distortion and injustice. Emmie would grieve, but it would be over; there would be no danger of it reaching the papers, for her to read when she was older, and she would learn to accept – as children always did – the status quo. It would be the least she could do for her, after tipping her small, secure world into chaos, and it would be amends of a sort for the wrong she and Matt had done.
She sat there now, occasionally taking a sip of coffee, her voice very shaky, her eyes frequently filling with tears; after a while Gilmour got her a box of the client tissues from his cupboard, and she sat pulling them out one after the other and discarding them on the floor in a way which would have irritated him beyond endurance in the normal run of things, but this was clearly not normal – and told him what she had decided.
‘It’s too cruel, what we’re doing to Emmie. It’s horrible. I don’t know how Matt can go on with it, I really don’t. She’s beside herself, so confused and really, really upset – last night she shut herself in the loo at Summercourt, Mr Horrocks, he’s the housekeeper’s husband, had to take the door off its hinges. She’s still there, with my mother, she says she hates us both, and I would too, if I were her. I do hate us both anyway. Oh, God—’
She threw her head back, and tried to catch back a sob; she failed.
‘Sorry. Anyway, I just think if I give in, if I say to Matt he can have her, as long as I can see her lots, it’ll be settled really quickly and we can all calm down and she’ll get her new little life and it will be difficult for her, but not as bad as this endless quarrelling and telling her we’re doing it so we’ll all be happier soon. God, if I hate that solicitor of Matt’s for one thing, it’s him making Matt stay in the house with me, it’s so cruel, so perverse.’
‘Quite standard though,’ Gilmour said, compelled even in this hour of trial to explain the law to her in all its workings, ‘it happens all the time, clients are advised not to leave the matrimonial home – Mr Cowan, I know you’ve got to go, thank you for your help, can you see yourself out?’
The clerk scuttled gratefully off. Gilmour smiled. ‘Proprieties observed. I’ll get one of my pupils in to join us in a minute.’
‘If he has to. Anyway, then at least I can move out, I suppose Matt will want the house, but I don’t care, I never liked it, we bought it when – after – oh, God, sorry.’
‘After your baby died?’
‘Yes. How did you know that?’ she said, staring at him.
‘I didn’t. Call it male intuition. We are not entirely emotionally illiterate, you know, we men. Even we legally trained men.’
‘No, I see.’ She felt confused. ‘Well – well, like I said, he can have it, and anyway, Emmie should be in it, it’s her home, so that’s best, and this new nanny he keeps telling me is so wonderful can move in – it shouldn’t be a new one you know, it’ll be terrible for her, I might try and insist on Margaret staying – and I think then she’ll be better quite quickly. Emmie, I mean. No danger of any crusty old judges asking her awful things, like who she wants to live with, and as long as I can have Summercourt, then I’ll be all right and I can have her there at the weekends. I can go back to work more days, and once I know how many days Matt’s going to allow me, I’ll – I’ll work round – round – oh, God, it’s all so – so horrible –’
And then she was crying hard, and looking at him in a sort of beseechment, as if he could make things better.
‘I’m not going to get her anyway and there’ll be all this horrible filthy stuff coming out about me in court, most of it not true, but who will believe that, not even you probably, I mean, what must you think of me, smoking pot in the office, like I told you and sleeping around and hitting my child – oh, shit – how did I get into this, how, how, how? I’ve been so stupid, so epically stupid and selfish and cruel and—’
She looked at him then, met his eyes, thinking how cheap he must think her, how genuinely unfit to be a mother, hating herself, and he put down the cup he had been holding, and stood up and she thought he’s going to show me the door, tell me he’s dropping the case, he’s just realised what an awful creature I am; only what he actually did was come over to the sofa and sit beside her: and leaning forward, studying his hands, began to talk.
‘Listen,’ he said, and his voice was slower, more patient than she had ever heard it, as if he was contemplating each thing that he said very carefully, ‘I can’t let you do that. I think what you have just said shows the most generous and the bravest and the kindest heart I have met for a long time, and you deserve to get your little Emmie on the strength of it alone and if only Solomon was here now, he would most surely award her to you. But he is not and therefore you must make do with me.
‘Now then, let’s take it from the top. In the first place, the quarrelling wouldn’t stop, because you would still be, the two of you, on your own, working things out on your own terms, and after a very short time it would be worse than ever. People – and I am afraid this is one of the first lessons I learnt – do not change, and the fundamental problems in their lives do not change unless some fairly radical things happen. You say Matt can have her as long as he agrees that you can see her fairly often. Eliza, who will decide what fairly often is, and who will make you agree on it? While you are both so hurt and Matt is so angry?
‘You say if Matt says you can have Summercourt you’d be all right, but what makes you think he would, if a judge doesn’t order him to? From what you say, he was very generous to purchase it at all, so he will wonder why he should give it to you now. He might, in the first flush of relief at getting Emmie, but then he will think about it and all the money he has invested in it and I think he might very well change his mind. You say you’ll try and insist on Emmie’s present nanny staying, but again, you would be powerless and Matt would do what he thought best for her; he is very against Margaret, who he sees as part of the way you have decided to run things. And yes, no crusty old judge, asking her what she wants, but who will decide in his absence? I fear you think that suddenly you and Matt will become good and reasonable friends, but you won’t. Once you’ve got over the nobility of your gesture and Matt the generosity of it, you’ll feel as resentful as hell, believe me, and he will take advantage. And he won’t quickly settle on some nice, fair distribution of days for you to have Emmie, so that you can get your work life in order, he’ll quibble and fiddle and argue, you’ll actually find it very difficult.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘No, no buts. I know what I’m talking about. That’s what you pay me for.’ He smiled at her, then asked, ‘More coffee? I could do with some.’
She nodded.
‘Right.’ He disappeared into the small kitchen again; she heard the kettle boiling, heard him rummaging for clean cups. He was being very nice. Nicer than she would have believed him capable of.
‘I’m nearly finished,’ he said, coming back to the sofa. ‘The thing about the law, Eliza, is that it is of course very expensive and very dictatorial but it thinks for itself and for you. And then makes rules, which have to be obeyed. You can’t argue with it. The week in court will be dreadful for you, I don’t deny it, dreadful for all of you, and I am hoping of course that the judge won’t ask to see Emmie, but we have to face the fact that he might. But when it’s over, you will know where you are, and Matt will know where he is and that will be it. You will have to do what you are told, sort out your lives as directed and it will be no use Matt saying he’s changed his mind and he only wants Emmie at the weekends or he wants her every weekend, or whatever, because he can’t. Any more than you can argue for her, beg to have her more. Whatever happens, and however unhappy you are, that will be it. The law creates order. Do you see what I mean?’
‘Just.’ She sniffed loudly. ‘Sorry. But—’
‘Listen to me. You and your husband are two very strong-willed people. You are both angry, disappointed, hurt, vengeful, you both love Emmie, you both want Emmie. If you dispatch all of us legal bods now, where do you think you’ll be in a week’s time? Exactly where you were, only probably much, much worse.’
She was silent, not even looking at him.
‘Now, I am fairly confident you will get generous access at the very worst, and I am still hopeful at least you may get custody. Although it will be a very tough week for you, of course. I’ve seen a hundred wives, with their lives dragged into the gutter, their behaviour misinterpreted, their good intentions distorted, all in the cause of winning the case. The law is of necessity gladiatorial as well as orderly. And the portrait Mr Hayward will be painting of you will not be pleasant. Jezebel will appear a saint, for those few days, by comparison with you, as will Messalina, the lady who slept with the regiment. Wife of poor stuttering Claudius.’
‘Oh, don’t,’ moaned Eliza, ‘it’s not funny.’
‘It’s not meant to be funny,’ he said, but he was smiling nonetheless. ‘I am merely trying to tell it how it will be. And perhaps cheer you just a little. But you will survive. Because you are quite astonishingly strong. Not to mention brave. Now – have I managed to persuade you not to go down the rather dangerous path you seemed to be wandering towards earlier this morning? Because, and I hope you will believe me, it is for your own sake that I wish to divert you from it and not mine. Even though clearly I would benefit in some ways, not least—’ He stopped.