An Immoral Code (18 page)

Her tears subsided, and she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘But you want to lead your own life without being accountable to anyone.’

‘I’m afraid so. Yes.’

There was a long pause, and then she nodded. ‘It’s what you’ll do, anyway,’ she murmured. She was filled with a sudden disgust and anger with herself for being so weak as to cry. What was the point of all this, anyway? It was just Leo salving his wretched conscience. She pushed herself away from him. ‘Then you might as well go and get on with it.’ And she stooped and picked up Oliver from the floor, then went to the kitchen to make supper. Life had to go on.

Domestic trauma of another variety was erupting in Felicity’s flat in Clapham. She had arrived home from the office, earrings still flashing, to find Vince in drunken ill-humour, pacing round the kitchen with a glass in his hand, still in his working overalls.

‘Bloody fucking bastards!’ he said, by way of greeting. Felicity pondered this for a moment.

‘Who is?’

‘Those bloody bastards I work for! Worked for, I should say. They’ve only fucking gone and made me fucking redundant, haven’t they?’

Felicity sat down. ‘Oh, Vince. Oh, God, I’m sorry.’

‘Fucking British Telecom. What a fucking Christmas present.’

Felicity glanced at the table and saw that Vince had drunk
the best part of a bottle of vodka. ‘That’s not the answer, you know. Getting pissed.’

‘Oh, and you know the answer do you? Get out of here.’ He gave her an angry shove and she backed off.

‘Don’t you bloody well take it out on me!’ shouted Felicity, eyes blazing as she pushed him back. ‘Just ’cos you lost your sodding job, don’t go getting at me!’

He raised an unsteady warning finger. ‘Don’t you fucking start, Fliss! I’m warning you! I’m not in the mood!’

‘You don’t raise your finger to me, mate! This is
my
flat, and you don’t warn me about nothing, see?’ She gave him another push. Generally when they argued, much pushing and shoving went on, but it never came to anything more. Usually Vince became sullen, and eventually apologetic. But this evening he was too drunk for any of that. He suddenly raised his fist and clipped Felicity neatly on the side of the jaw, and she fell backwards against a chair, slipping to the floor.

‘Just get off my case, Fliss!’ He stood over her, and she sat dazed, realising that he was quite prepared to hit her again.

‘Get out!’ she yelled, rage and tears quivering in her voice. ‘You bastard! Get out!’

He made another threatening move, then turned, grabbed his jacket, and went out, slamming the door violently. Felicity sat nursing her jaw, feeling the bone tenderly, listening to his footsteps thumping down the stairs. Shaking, she got to her feet, crying and still holding her jaw.

When she awoke the next morning, Felicity realised that Vince was not there, that he hadn’t come back all night. She examined the reddish patch on her jaw in the bathroom mirror. She could easily cover that with make-up. It would be at its worst in a couple of days, just in time for Christmas. She thought of the brief argument with Vince and felt unbearably miserable. She had just decided to ring chambers and say that she was sick
and wouldn’t be coming in, when she remembered the party. She was largely responsible for organising it. Cameron and Henry weren’t capable of getting it together without her. She would have to go in. The last thing she felt like, she reflected moodily, as she searched through her wardrobe for something suitable to wear, was a party. Still, maybe Vince would be back when she got home, and they could make up. She should probably have been more sympathetic. But he still shouldn’t have hit her.

By the end of the afternoon Felicity had recovered her spirits. No one had noticed the mark on her jaw beneath a good dollop of No. 7 panstick, and she had convinced herself that Vince would be there, full of contrition, when she got home. He was always ready to make up. His temper was like that. Up one minute, and gone the next. At six o’clock she was just about to close the switchboard and get things ready for the party, when the phone rang. Her hand hovered in indecision. She could easily just flick on the answering machine. Instead, she picked it up. ‘Five Caper Court,’ she sang in her phone-answering voice.

‘Fliss? It’s me, Vince.’

Her heart rose. ‘Oh, hello,’ she replied, trying to keep her voice stiff and unfriendly.

‘Listen, I’m sorry for all that stuff last night. I was well out of order.’

‘Too right you were,’ agreed Felicity, but ready to forgive and forget.

‘I just wanted to tell you, though, that I’ll be stopping by to pick up my gear tomorrow. I’m moving out.’

‘You what?’

‘Well, like you said, it’s your flat. And I’ve just had enough, Fliss. I mean, it’s been getting to me for months that you earn more than I do, and now I’m earning nothing. I’m sorry I hit you, and all, but I’ve made my mind up. I just want us to cool it.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I dunno. I just want to give it a rest for a while. You and me. Stuff like last night, it’s doing my head in.’ She said nothing, could think of nothing. ‘I’ll be round tomorrow evening, anyway.’ And he hung up.

She had sunk onto her chair as they talked. Now she replaced the receiver slowly, and sat looking stupefied. Vince, her Vince, had dumped her. She was filled with a cold, dead emptiness such as she had never known. They’d been together over a year now, they’d had such a laugh together, really good times. They had ups and downs like everyone, but nothing serious. And now he was telling her it was finished.

‘Coming upstairs for an early snifter?’ Cameron Renshaw, the tall and portly head of chambers, had rolled into the clerks’ room and stood twanging his braces jovially. She stared at him for a second or two, then forced a smile.

‘Yeah – yeah, I’ll be up in a minute. Just got to fix my face.’

He went out, and Felicity sat perfectly still for a moment, listening to the voices and laughter as people made their way to the party upstairs. She would think about it later. What she needed right now was a drink. More than one.

An hour later, as Felicity was downing her ninth glass of champagne, Rachel was busy sorting through Oliver’s clothing drawers and flinging items into an overnight bag. Her own suitcase was already packed and standing in the hallway downstairs. She had decided earlier today that she could not spend Christmas with Leo. The more she thought about what he had said the night before, the angrier she became, and she realised that she badly needed to get away from him, to try to think clearly and objectively about it all. She glanced at her watch, anxious to get away before he came back. She didn’t want to have to talk to him, or to tell him where they were
going. She wanted, for a few days, to be as free from him as possible. Only that way could she face things, make decisions.

She closed Oliver’s bag, picked him up from where he sat chewing a brick on his playmat, and took him downstairs. She zipped him into his snowsuit, buckled him into his seat and carried him to the car. It was bitterly cold, and she huddled her coat around her as she hurried round to the driver’s door and got in. She had tried to ring her mother to tell her she was coming, but there had been no answer. Still, it would be after nine by the time they reached Bath, and she was bound to be in by then. Rachel turned the key in the ignition and pushed the heater switch, shivering slightly. The dashboard glowed as she turned on the headlights, and she drove away from the house with a sharp sense of release.

Henry stood with Anthony, watching Felicity’s behaviour growing louder and sillier. Several members of chambers were becoming rather embarrassed, not good at handling this kind of thing. She was their clerk, after all.

‘Henry,’ said Anthony, ‘hadn’t you better do something?’

‘Me? Why me?’ Henry watched Felicity uncomfortably as she poured herself another glass of champagne with a whooping noise, splashing the carpet. A sprig of holly stuck askew from her curly hair.

‘Oh, you know, because … Well, you live near her, don’t you?’ said Anthony with sudden inspiration. ‘Look, the best thing is if I ring for a cab, and you see her home.’

Henry nodded moodily, and Anthony went to the telephone.

Ten minutes later, Henry was helping a giggling Felicity into the back of a taxi, trying to stop her coat from falling off. He gave the driver Felicity’s address, and as they drove off down Middle Temple Lane she lurched against him, which made her giggle more. The sprig of holly jabbed painfully into Henry’s
face, and he turned, frowning, to try to disentangle it from her hair. As he did so, Felicity laid her head upon his shoulder and sighed.

‘Henry, I do love you,’ she murmured, snuggling up against him. Startled, Henry inched away, but she moved even closer, and he realised that he very much enjoyed the feeling of Felicity’s warm body nestling cosily against his. He glanced down at her face, half in shadow, half bathed in a glow from the street lights. She looked very pretty, her eyes closed, her mouth curved in a smile. He drew in a deep breath and, on a nervous impulse, bent his head and kissed her. She did not, as he had half expected, pull away. She returned his kiss, and then she put her arms around his neck and drew him down so that they were both almost lying in the back of the taxi seat, and kissed him passionately and drunkenly for several minutes. Henry was astonished, delirious. He came up for breath and then kissed her again. She seemed to be enjoying it all very much, so he slid a tentative hand inside her coat, and then dipped his hand into the low-cut neck of her jumper and stroked her breast, filled simultaneously with wild desire and panic at his daring. But Felicity only arched her back towards him and let him caress her as much as he wanted. By the time the taxi reached Clapham, Henry was in a state of ecstatic longing.

The jerk of the taxi pulling up brought him to his senses. He untangled himself from Felicity and sat up, smoothing down his thin hair and adjusting his tie, while Felicity hauled herself upright in an ungainly fashion, tucking in her bra strap and beginning to giggle again. The taxi driver glanced caustically at them in his mirror. ‘That’ll be five eighty, mate.’

Henry hesitated for a long and difficult moment. This could be his big chance, his great moment. She was so drunk that she would probably let him do anything. But the stern morality which guided Henry in all matters came to the fore.

‘I’m going on actually. To Dulwich. I’ll just see my friend upstairs, then I’ll be back down.’

The driver held out his hand. ‘Fiver on account. Not that I don’t trust you, or anything.’ His voice was laconic. He’d had too many runners. Henry rummaged in his pocket and produced a five-pound note. Then he helped Felicity out of the cab and took her upstairs to her flat on the second floor. Felicity, swaying unsteadily, found her key in her handbag and unlocked the door. She turned to Henry and put one sleepy arm around his neck. ‘Don’t you want to come in?’ she murmured, smiling.

Henry struggled with himself. Why not? After ten minutes the taxi driver would just go off, content with his fiver. And he would have Felicity all to himself … But he knew, sadly, that he could not possibly take advantage of her. No, if this evening meant anything, then it could wait until she was sober. Oh God, he hoped that it did mean something, that it wasn’t just the effects of a bottle and a half of Moët & Chandon. Hadn’t she told him that she loved him?

‘You get yourself some coffee and a good night’s sleep,’ said Henry gently, disengaging her arm. Then he leant towards her and gave her mouth a brief, regretful kiss, before going back down to the waiting taxi.

The dregs of the party were drifting into the night. Leo had left long ago, and Anthony was no longer quite sure why he was still there. He had spoken to Camilla a couple of times that evening, and had found himself glancing across occasionally to check that she hadn’t left. There she still was, helping one of the more public-spirited secretaries to pile plates and glasses together. He went across to her.

‘I’m off in a moment. I could walk with you to Embankment, if you like,’ he said diffidently.

She glanced at him. ‘Yes, all right. I’ll get my coat.’

They left chambers together and walked in silence down Middle Temple Lane. A drunken knot of students was roaring and laughing outside the gates, and one of them whistled and yelled at Camilla as she and Anthony passed. Anthony glanced at her, but she was gazing thoughtfully straight ahead at the river. He could think of nothing in particular to say to her, and then suddenly realised that it didn’t matter, that walking in silence with her was really quite peaceable. There was no sense of strain.

After a few moments he stopped in his tracks, and said, ‘Do you know, I’m really rather hungry. I never eat the kind of junk they put out at office parties.’ She turned and looked at him.

‘I know what you mean. I could do with something to eat.’

‘There’s a place I know in the lane leading up to Charing Cross,’ said Anthony. ‘Why don’t we go and have something there?’

‘All right,’ said Camilla.

They carried on in silence to Embankment station, and then walked up to a little Italian restaurant. It was only after they had ordered some pasta and the first glasses of wine had been poured that they began to talk. They began with the party, and then work, the Capstall case, and then mutual acquaintances, their families, and at the end of the evening, when Anthony eventually asked for the bill and glanced at his watch, he realised that they had been talking for three hours. And he felt neither tired nor bored. In fact, he would happily have carried on talking to Camilla for another three hours. Camilla, as she watched Anthony sign the bill, felt exactly the same thing.

It was ten o’clock when Rachel pulled up outside her mother’s little terraced house in Bath, and saw with relief the glow of light behind the drawn curtains. She unbuckled Oliver’s seat and lifted it from the car, then fetched their bags from the boot.
She struggled up the little flight of steps with her burdens and rang the bell. After a few moments her mother opened it and looked at Rachel in astonishment. She was slender and dark, like Rachel, but she wore much more make-up, that of an earlier era, red lipstick and pencilled brows. Her hair was fastidiously set, and she was dressed with the careful attention of a woman who wanted to give the appearance of being a youthful fifty, even though she was older.