An Immoral Code (11 page)

‘Anthony.’ He turned at the sound of his name and stared at the girl standing there. It was Camilla, and he hadn’t recognised her. Well, he’d never seen her with her hair up like that, and it altered her appearance quite radically. It made her look poised, feminine.

‘God, sorry!’ he exclaimed. He was about to say that he hadn’t recognised her, then realised that this would sound rather tactless. ‘How nice you look,’ he added. Camilla smiled.

‘Thanks,’ she said.

‘Shall we go in? They’ll be starting grace in a few minutes.’

He followed her through into the vestibule and waited while she took her coat to the cloakroom. In the cloakroom Camilla took a deep breath and stared at herself in the age-spotted mirror. She gave her reflection a quick, unsuppressible smile, then went back out. Anthony glanced round when she appeared, and was quite astonished. Whatever transformation Camilla had undergone since he had last seen her at tea that afternoon, spilling coffee down the front of her black skirt, it was quite remarkable. The sweeping neckline of her dress showed off her pretty shoulders and neck, and she really looked very lovely indeed. One might almost say, sexy. How was it, he wondered, that she managed to conceal her very good figure beneath those awful suits of hers? He smiled in amusement, taking pleasure in the self-conscious smile which she gave in return, and they went into the hall together.

It was part of the Inn’s masculine tradition to divide those
dining in hall into messes of four, ranged along long wooden tables. Camilla and Anthony found themselves seated quite near the high table, where the more eminent and aged members of the Inn were seated, with a tax barrister whom Anthony knew vaguely from the squash courts, and his girlfriend. There were four young men in the mess next to theirs, two Bar School students and a couple of contemporaries of Camilla’s, and they were already beginning to flick bread pellets at each other and indulge in loud hilarity. It was generally accepted that unseemly behaviour would occur on occasions such as this, and even those younger members of the Bar who had not received a formal public school or Oxbridge training in the art of rowdy conduct always seemed to manage to pick it up quite quickly.

The head porter stood at the entrance to the hall and, with an expression of ineffable pomposity, banged his staff twice on the wooden floor. An instant hush fell, and in trooped a self-conscious procession of Benchers, some erect and dignified, some slow and stooped, others even more ancient, in wheelchairs or walking with the aid of sticks, who gave the impression of being mothballed and brought out especially on grand occasions such as this, looking baffled and tired, worn out before the festivities had even begun.

Anthony watched them make their way down the hall between the long tables, some nodding and raising eyebrows to acquaintances as they passed by, like ancient figures out of
Gormenghast.
The impression of cobwebby antiquity was heightened by the vast vaulted roof of the hall, the panelled walls emblazoned with coats of arms, and the dim lustre of the silver chalices and candlesticks on the high table.

When the Benchers and their guests were assembled at the high table, the senior porter banged his staff on the floor once again and the senior Bencher, with an expression of grave dignity, intoned in a sepulchral voice, ‘The eyes of all things
look up and put their trust in thee, O Lord. Thou givest them their meat in due season, thou openest thine hand and fillest with thy blessing every living thing. Lord, bless us and these thy good gifts of thy bounteous liberality through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.’ In a rumbling murmur, all joined in the ‘Amen’, everyone sat down, and a tide of voices rose to fill the air with conversation.

Anthony was not surprised to find that the food was no better than it normally was at dinner in hall, which was to say, fairly average.

‘What do you suppose this is?’ asked Anthony, gazing down at the glutinous sauce which cloaked the portions of chicken. ‘I mean, does it taste of anything to you?’

‘Mushrooms?’ said Camilla tentatively. ‘Tarragon?’

‘Definitely not tarragon,’ said Anthony. He filled Camilla’s glass with white wine. ‘Oh, well, drink some of this and it won’t matter.’ He raised his own glass. ‘To you,’ he said. ‘And to that extremely lovely dress you’re wearing.’

To her surprise, Camilla found that she was not blushing. She had not, since she had taken that last long look at herself before leaving Felicity’s flat, felt at all like the kind of person who blushed. In this dress, and with the unfamiliar coolness of the air around her neck and shoulders, she felt quite composed, not at all gauche. ‘Thank you,’ she said, and smiled at him. She had never properly realised how much difference one’s appearance could make to the way one felt. At university and Bar School she had gone about her studies in whatever clothes came to hand, never paying much attention to the way she looked, unless going to a party. She never classed herself with those girls who spent an inordinate amount of time on their appearance. They belonged to another breed, like female students who had affairs with their tutors. The boyfriends she had had weren’t the kind who seemed to care much about whether she dressed up or
not. When she had started her pupillage, it had seemed to her, as the first female barrister ever to work within the hallowed walls of 5 Caper Court, that she hardly had to make a point of her femininity. Quite the opposite. She wanted to be judged on her intellectual merits, to be accepted as an equal, and it had made sense to her to draw as little attention as possible to the fact that she was female, by dressing in the most functional clothes she could find. She had assumed that wearing make-up, or paying special attention to one’s hair, might be viewed in that all-male bastion with suspicion, evidence of a mind which concerned itself with frivolities. The faintly exasperated, patronising manner with which her pupilmaster, Jeremy Vane, treated Felicity and the other female employees certainly seemed to bear this out.

Now, as she ate and talked, drank her wine and shared the conversation with the other couple in their mess, Camilla realised that the self-confidence which she derived from her appearance was of positive assistance in a social context. It certainly seemed to have an effect upon Anthony, who normally treated her in chambers with big-brotherly forbearance and kindly tolerance. She could not put her finger on the difference in his manner this evening, but there was a certain new regard in it, an interest which she had not detected before. Was this the horrible truth, then – that one won greater respect from men by accentuating one’s femininity, instead of playing it down? The mild feminist in her revolted at the idea, but she began to see that there was something to be said for the notion of making the best of one’s assets, both physical and intellectual. She realised that it was certainly a philosophy to which Felicity would subscribe.

‘What are you dreaming about?’ asked Anthony, breaking her train of thought.

Camilla laughed. ‘Nothing.’ She hesitated. ‘Well … actually,
I was thinking about Felicity, and how she gave me a talking-to the other day.’

‘She’s rather good at that. I’ve been on the receiving end of one or two of those myself. What was it about?’

Now Camilla did blush, just the faintest suffusion of her neck and face. ‘Oh, I couldn’t possibly tell you,’ she murmured, and looked away.

She looked so pretty, smiling in that way, her head tilted, that Anthony surprised himself by lifting his hand, placing his finger on her chin and turning her face back to his. ‘Go on. Tell me.’

His dark, expressive eyes held hers, and she found herself saying, ‘She told me that I don’t make the most of myself. That I’m not – well – especially feminine. You know, at work.’ She could hardly believe that she had confessed this. Too much wine, she told herself.

Anthony took his finger away, but his gaze remained fixed on hers. He smiled and replied, ‘Well, I can only say that if you went around chambers looking the way you do this evening, there wouldn’t be a man there who’d be able to get any work done.’

Camilla looked away, conscious of the almost physical pleasure which this remark, and his look, produced in her. At that moment there was a ragged burst of laughter from the back of the hall, followed by a small hail of champagne corks in the direction of the high table. Heads turned, people half rose in their seats to see what was going on, and a subdued scuffling and more laughter indicated that the perpetrators of the champagne cork volley were being escorted from the hall by the porters. The ejection of a group of overexcited students or junior members of the Bar was a regular event in hall, almost as much a part of tradition as everything else.

A tall blonde man on Camilla’s left was standing up, craning
to watch the rumpus at the back of the hall. He resumed his seat, laughing. ‘Bloody brilliant! Did you see that? That was Ferguson, absolutely pissed. What a laugh!’

‘Who’s Ferguson?’ asked Anthony mildly.

Camilla made a face. ‘Rollo Ferguson. He was at Bar School with me. He’s very bright – or he’s supposed to be – but he just goes around doing idiotic things. He got barred from the Devereux for taking all the pictures off the walls and hiding them in the gents in the Edgar Wallace.’

‘I’m surprised they let him in here tonight,’ said the blonde man. ‘He’s been chucked out of all the garden parties. Bloody funny.’

‘Remember that time he rode his bicycle into the fountain?’ said another of the young men. ‘He was absolutely paralytic!’

‘I don’t know which he’s better at – drinking or pulling women,’ said someone else.

‘Who’s he shagging now?’ asked the blonde man loudly, and knocked back another glass of wine.

Anthony gave them a mildly disdainful glance, but no one took any notice.

‘That blonde who’s at Bar School with us,’ replied one of the young men. ‘Sarah something. She’s knocking off some barrister as well, but that doesn’t bother Ferguson.’

‘Hasn’t anyone told him he might catch something?’ laughed his friend. ‘I know her – she’s old Colman’s daughter. She doesn’t half put it about. Here – watch it!’ He broke off as a wine cork caught him above his ear. The conversation now disintegrated into general hilarity. Camilla had remained frozen throughout it, not daring to look at Anthony. Now she took a large sip of her wine and glanced cautiously at him. His face was completely inscrutable, almost as though he hadn’t heard. But of course he must have.

Anthony felt Camilla’s eyes on his face and was relieved when
she looked away again. Why was he surprised? What did he expect from someone like Sarah, whose personality he had only recently begun to understand? God knows how many men she slept with at once. He drained his wine glass and then poured himself another. He knew he had probably had more than enough, but what he had just heard made him feel like getting properly drunk. Why, he wondered, did he care? He had been toying with the idea of breaking it off, anyway. So why did he feel this searing, burning sense of humiliation and hurt? The fact that he was public property, he supposed. The fact that she had talked about him. He was lucky, he supposed, that this lot on his left didn’t know his name. She had talked about him openly, people knew that she had more than one lover, and that she was sleeping with him as well as this drunken oaf, Ferguson. That was part of it. The other part was that Camilla had heard. And Camilla knew. Camilla, right at this moment, was feeling sorry for him, and he hated that.

A few seconds passed and then, to his relief, someone at the high table stood up and banged for silence, then began to make a speech. At least there was an excuse not to talk, not to do anything, just to let his furious thoughts roam freely. He could not meet Camilla’s eyes, but when he half-glanced in her direction, she was gazing fixedly at the speaker, thank God.

By the time the speech finished, and someone rose to make one in reply, the effect of the young men’s conversation regarding Sarah was beginning to evaporate. Anthony turned to Camilla and forced a smile. ‘Do you know what?’ he said suddenly. ‘I feel like getting drunk. Care to join me?’

She managed to laugh. ‘Not really. But you go ahead.’

The toasts had begun, and Anthony knocked back a glass of wine for each one. By the time the decanters of port arrived at each mess, he was feeling supremely good. So much so that, in spite of the fact that he knew the effect port had on him, he drank several glasses.

‘Don’t you think you’d better steady on?’ murmured Camilla at a pause in Anthony’s drunken conversation with the tax barrister, who was keeping pace with him pretty well.

Anthony leant back, then remembered just in time that the bench on which he was sitting didn’t have a back on it. A crash and laughter from further along told him that some other poor sod had forgotten. He smiled at Camilla and nodded. ‘You’re right. You’re absolutely right.’ He gazed around. The festivities were breaking up, people were leaving their messes and joining others, the more decrepit members of the Bench were making their way out, the more sprightly still passing the port, and a haze of cigar and cigarette smoke floated up into the high vaulted roof of the hall.

He surveyed Camilla’s face tipsily, resisting an impulse to stroke a finger down the creamy skin of her neck, and said, ‘In fact, I think we ought to go.’

Camilla felt relieved. She didn’t particularly want to be responsible for a drunk and incapable Anthony. She rose and said goodnight to her friends, and Anthony, a little unsteadily, rose too and made his farewells.

He waited outside on the steps as she fetched her coat, watching his breath plume out into the cold air as other guests trickled past him, voices fading on the night air. Camilla joined him and they made their way across Fountain Court in silence, largely since Anthony was trying to concentrate on walking straight. They reached the gate leading out into Devereux Court and realised that it was locked.

‘Bugger,’ murmured Anthony. ‘I do this every time. It’s a sure sign that I’ve had too much to drink.’

Camilla had half-turned to walk back in the other direction, but Anthony reached out and pulled her gently back into the shadow of the gateway. He leant against the metal gate, looking at her, then slowly reached up and loosened the hair at the back
of her head. It fell down partly, tumbling in waves over her left cheek.