Lover in Law
Table of Contents
LOVER IN LAW
Jo Kessel
Copyright © Jo Kessel 2012
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent publisher.
The moral right of Jo Kessel has been asserted.
For Mummy
I wish you were still here.
Acknowledgements
:
Gillian Stern and Marc de Leuw, this wouldn’t have happened without you and massive thanks to Carolyn Simon and Claire Sanderson for their reading of manuscripts, encouragement and belief. Anna Maxted, you are officially my inspiration; Drs Daddy, Anthony and Maurice I’m indebted to you for all things medical and more; law guru extraordinaire David Sherborne, your input on all things legal as well as Four Finger Freddie was pivotal. KK, KD, Debs, Nathalie Frischer, Fiona Giles, Gen, Emma Howard, Liz Martin, thank you for being there and listening and humouring me. Jill Robinson and Katie Coleman, sharing a couple of glasses of wine together proved invaluable. And it goes without saying, love and hugs and gratitude to Nathalie, Gabriel and Hannah for giving me enough peace and quiet to write this.
JANUARY
Chapter 1
I couldn’t wait for last year to end. Out with the old, in with the new. To wipe the slate clean, start afresh. Not that it was an
annus horribilis
. It just wasn’t my
annus bestis
. When you lose your appetite for sex, orgasms, and champagne, you know it’s all gone a bit pear-shaped.
The first six months were ok. Work (I’m a Barrister) trundled by with modest success. I’m not bad at what I do and won more cases than I lost. I even made it onto
BBC London
as the rent-a-quote for crime being on the up in the capital. My crowning glory! Then it all started to go downhill. For reasons I’ll come on to later, I became distracted, took my eye off the ball. I started losing more cases than I won, for the first time ever. There was no panacea for my decline. Champagne, which used to always hit the spot, stopped doing it for me. Too lightweight! Now only a full-bodied Claret or Burgundy will do.
It’s the first day back in the New Year. I’m late for work and it’s down to Adam. Adam’s my boyfriend of eleven years. We met at college and that was it. The rest of my life mapped out in monogamy. We’re not married, but we do live together. Last year we bought a four-bed Victorian terraced house in Alexandra Park, North London, with plans to fill it with kids. Anyway, yesterday Adam messed up. A good deed turned wrong. I’m not angry. There is a funny side. Let’s just hope it’s not an omen.
It was New Year’s Day. We’d had people round to celebrate the night before and were cleaning up. Adam put on the washing and transferred it to the dryer. Later, when I shoved everything from the dryer into a basket, I noticed something stuck in the metal mesh at the back of the drum. I leaned in, arm-first, yanked it free after several sharp tugs and, following brief inspection, threw it across the room, petrified.
“ADAMMMMMMMM!”
I squealed myself hoarse.
“Ali?”
Adam ran into the room.
“What’s the matter?” he said, looking relieved to see me. “I thought you were being attacked or something with that racket.”
Frozen, rooted to the spot, I pointed to the evidence, flung into the far corner.
“RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT,” I squeaked, piercingly high.
I can NOT do rodents. It’s the long flicking tail that sends shivers down my spine.
“Dead or alive?” asked Adam, approaching it predatorily.
“Well, what do YOU think? I found it at the back of the fucking dryer.”
He crouched over it.
“Dead. Definitely dead,” he nodded.
He picked it up from the end of its tail and dangled it upside down. As he approached my direction I cowed towards the wall by the door.
“Don’t come anywhere NEAR me with that!” I threatened.
Adam pretended to come my way, but changed course at the last moment smiling, heading for our huge, shiny Brabantia bin. He opened the lid and ceremoniously dumped the rodent inside, slapping his palms clean. Calmer now, I pointed to the dryer.
“How the FUCK did that thing get in there?” I asked.
“More to the point, how on earth didn’t I spot it when I put the clothes in?”
Later that day I was getting my gear ready for going back to work and couldn’t find my wig. I’d taken it out, inebriated, on New Year’s Eve, so everyone could play fancy dress. I think it makes me look about as fetching as a pit-bull terrier wearing lipstick, find it itchy and awkward perched on my long, straight black hair, but Adam’s deluded. He thinks it brings out my green eyes and a touch of the sex kitten. Anyway, I couldn’t find it and went into the lounge, where Adam was lying prostrate in front of the TV, to ask if he’d seen it.
“Where’d you leave it?” he asked.
“I thought I’d left it on the back of one of the chairs in the kitchen, but it’s not there.”
He thought for a second.
“Oops,” he placed his hand casually, almost playfully, over his mouth.
“Adaaaaaaaaaam?” I accused.
“I think I might have put my dirty clothes on top of your wig.”
He pulled an apologetic face. I didn’t understand what he was saying at first, but after a couple of seconds I worked it out, ran to the bin, pushed up my sleeve and dug in bravely, brazenly pulling out the rat by the scruff of its hairy grey neck. Only it wasn’t a rat, it was my wig, shrunk to Barbie doll-size by the dryer.
Adam joined me by the bin.
“I’m so sorry. It was an accident. I’ll get you a new one.”
I was upset, it has to be said—the wig had cost three hundred quid and was a present from my parents—but the sight of it, flapping between my thumb and index finger, resembling a well-used Brillo pad, was really rather comic. I sat the offending article on top of my head.
“Do you think they measured me right at the shop?” I joked.
Adam wrapped his tall chunky frame round my gangly boyish one.
“Thank you for not being angry,” he said. As we tilted our heads to kiss, the ratty wig was dislodged from its pew, floated to my feet, landing with a gentle plop. We both burst out laughing.
***
I’m late for work because I had to stop off first at Ede & Ravenscroft, makers of wigs and gowns, in Chancery Lane, to get my head re-measured. And I’m going to be even later because Adam wanted me to research something for him in the law library. I’m waiting for the librarian to bring me an old statute book.
Adam’s a hotshot TV Producer. He works mainly on what they term in the industry as ‘infotainment’. Shows which aren’t serious enough to be called ‘factual’, nor frothy enough to count as ‘light entertainment’. He’s currently developing programmes. When I mentioned some of the silly, antiquated laws that still stand in this country, he thought there might be a germ of an idea there. Like you’re not allowed to fall asleep on a bus in London. Like ladies can’t eat chocolates on public transport. Like it’s unlawful to be drunk on licensed premises. Like it’s against the law to eat mince pies on December 25
th
.
The silly law that amused Adam the most is that a man is allowed to wee in public, as long it’s on the rear wheel of his car and his right hand is on the vehicle. He said he’d love to try THAT in front of a police officer and then wondered if that could be the premise of a fly-on-the-wall spoof TV show. So he asked me to check it out.
I don’t mind. I’ve always loved the library. The smell, the aura, the feel of all those dark wooden shelves and the leather-bound books that they’re laden with, many of which date back a fair few centuries. I often come here just to sit and think and not do any work at all.
The librarian returns, carrying a huge red leather-bound book like a tray.
“Here you go,” she loads it onto my waiting, upturned hands. “The Public Order Act, 1861. I think you’ll find what you’re looking for on page 4005.”
I thank her and head for the nearest available pew. The book weighs a ton. I lay it down on the table, then take off my bag and sit down. First I touch the cover, trace small circles with the flat of my palms. Then I lower my nose to it, and take a deep, slow inhalation. It smells musty and woody. If books were described as wine, this one would be a touch of old berries, with an excess of tannin, and a mellow, earthy finish. I carefully open the book in half, thumbing lightly to page 4005. The first thing I notice isn’t the law that Adam’s after, although it is there, in black and white. It’s a small scrap of old parchment covered with black ink doodles, lodged in the deep fold of the book. I carefully ease it out. A lot of it’s just shapes, triangles, and 3-D squares, that kind of thing, but written three times, one under the other, is the same, smudged Latin phrase. ‘
VERITAS VOS LIBERABIT’.
The law is full of Latin, probably because so much of it and its traditions are archaic. I’ve picked up a bit on the way, but I’ve never heard of this one.