Staring At The Light Read online

  ‘Are you back? Oh, there you are. Do sit down.’

  These days, Ernest Matthewson adopted an elaborate formality with Sarah Fortune. It had come upon him like a cloud, this awkwardness, and he could not shake it off, a mixture of artificial reserve replacing the easy friendship and slightly naughty camaraderie of old, which he missed but could not resume – as if someone had told him she was subject to fits and he was waiting all the time for one to happen. Or as if he knew how she knew his weaknesses and his vanities and he could not forgive either her tolerance or her affection which, once faced with his coldness, simply incorporated it and behaved with the same good nature. Sarah’s a good woman, his wife said, again and again, a good woman with a big heart, and she only makes you feel guilty. Ernest was neither analytical nor introspective. Questioning his own motives was anathema. Ah, yes, the firm was a network all right, like an unruly family drawing to its bosom, via the children, a number of unsuitable friends. Sarah had once been more like a daughter during her year-long affair with his own son, Malcolm. Such hopes Mrs Matthewson had had then, but Sarah was like a fish refusing to be caught and he was aware that he had been punishing her ever since.

  Now, he simply told himself, this was the promiscuous gal who had thrown over his boy, thereby catapulting his wife into an orgy of recriminatory disappointment. As an excuse for a retreat into behaviour that would have suited someone interviewing an upstart applicant for the wrong job, it was adequate.

  There was more to it than that, as they both knew. She was totally unfit for her purpose, for a start. She never had cared a toss about the practice of the law, although after her fashion she was genuinely good at it. Totally irresponsible in the commercial sense. Couldn’t give a fuck, he growled (aware, even as he formulated the word, of Mrs Matthewson’s strictures about bad language). She was immune to lectures, annual reports, training courses on the equation of time spent per hour to cost, and all that invaluable kind of thing, and although he was not fond of modern management systems either, at least he had always had the knack of charging the client until the pips squeaked and making it look convincing. The endless committees that ruled the life of the firm never voted Miss Fortune into partnership, but whenever her severance was suggested there was always this strange reluctance to act on it. She filled a gap: she took on the duffers, the no-hope clients related to other clients; the ones who wanted a spot of divorce or litigation so that they could get on with the business of making money. Clients who had once been rich. The children of clients. Clients they were not supposed to turn away without taking the risk of losing other clients and appearing to have no soul. Nobody knew where she got her clients: she seemed to find them herself and they came by the back door. For absorbing the misfits, Sarah was allowed a generous enough salary, unless it was compared to the partnership Turks – and how Sarah Fortune, glamorous widow, justified her existence remained a mystery.

  She had recovered completely from past traumas, he told himself. None of it was his fault. She was decorative – that much was universally conceded: small, slim, agile up those stairs, watchable, without being classically beautiful. All the men felt better for seeing her around. The women looked out to see what she was wearing today. Ernest’s wife often asked him wistfully to report on it. He suspected they were still friends, talking about him behind his back, but he could not prove it, and it infuriated him. Women were the devil for secrets.

  ‘Are you well?’ he asked formally.

  ‘Never better.’

  Court gear with a bit of pizzazz, he’d tell Mrs Matthewson, the way he would tell her every single detail of his day, especially if she asked. He was observant about women’s clothes. Not exactly a black suit, he would say, but a sort of soft charcoal, with a long loose jacket over a gored skirt, which swung round her ankles. Cream shirt … Why does she always have them buttoned so high up her neck? But an old thing, antique even, with tiny buttons matching the pearls. And a belt? Mrs Matthewson would ask eagerly, waiting for Ernest to shut his eyes and remember. Ah, yes, grey again, but darker, velvet, I think. Broad belt: her waist is tiny.

  She stood in front of his desk with her hands thrust into the pockets of the unstructured jacket, oblivious of his attempts to record the design. He would see it again, of course: she was artful with clothes (she was artful anyway); it would appear in several guises over trousers, over a short, straight skirt with a nice length of leg and, yes, he looked forward to that.

  ‘Do sit down,’ he repeated, the sound of his parlour-maid voice making him cringe, but there was nothing he could do about it. He loved and missed her in a way that made anything else impossible; but, by God, for all sorts of reasons she would have made a terrible daughter-in-law: flouting the rules, both moral and social, was all very well, but not with one of his own.

  She sat. Elegantly, of course, leaning back into the chair with her arm over the back, legs crossed under the fluid skirt, at ease, cigarette lit. Useless to remind her about the no-smoking zone. They had been that route before. Oh, Lord, he wished he was not fond of her. Sarah, for God’s sake, help me out, was what he wanted to say. I’m a half-way redundant old man in a firm that has outgrown me and I need you to act as my protector, the way you do for everyone else.

  ‘How did you get on with Cannon? Our artist?’ he added sarcastically, suddenly remembering that obscure and disastrous client. Where had she got him from? God alone knew. She said he had seen the name of the firm on headed paper on a relative’s desk and come along by chance because he knew no other lawyers, had been sent upstairs because he was scruffy. A feasible but unfortunate explanation. They did not normally deal with criminals, unless purely the white-collar kind.

  ‘Oh, fine. Someone blew his house up.’

  ‘Oh.’ Sarah had this tendency to exaggerate; you couldn’t believe a thing she said.

  ‘And the opposition had toothache and the Master got the giggles,’ she added.

  He was lost, so stuck to his own agenda, changing the subject, not daring to say, You know what you should do with Cannon? Dump him. Dump him like you dumped my son, only I don’t understand why we all still love you. Instead, ‘Still househunting, are you?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘We’ve a new project,’ he announced briskly, after coughing and clearing his throat. ‘Every other leading London legal firm is doing it, so we have to do it too. Get an art collection.’

  As a change of topic, this took some beating. She shook her head to clear her face of incredulity. ‘This firm wants to collect art? For what?’

  ‘Not wants, Sarah. Needs. Helps raise our profile in places where—’

  ‘Rich corporations go in order to raise theirs,’ she finished for him crisply, rallying faster than a Centre Court tennis player.

  He nodded. ‘Part of the image, you see. Doing our bit. We get a few dozen paintings, maybe the odd sculpture or two. Decorate the foyer. Place looks like an empty cricket pitch with walls, anyway. Then we put them on show, oh, wherever these things go on show. Our logo all over the place, of course. It was these Japanese chaps started, buying Sunflowers. Hopefully we make money on our investment at the end of the day. But we can’t have things like that man with his dead sheep in tanks. None of the partners knows the first thing – and none of them has got time. So we thought … you.’

  She laughed. Another reason why they could never bring themselves to get rid of her. This easy, non-contemptuous laughter that embraced them all, without ever accepting the ethic of any one of them. A potential blackmailer, too, of course.

  ‘Is there a theme to this collection?’ she asked. ‘I am not, emphatically not, going out in search of stags at bay in Scottish Highlands. Or dogs on cushions.’

  Personally, Ernest liked the idea of anything featuring food, especially if it was going to include dead game ready for the pot, but he shook his head, then changed it to a nod. The worst was over. She had not said no, or told him he was being ridiculous.

  ‘Investment pict
ures. Modern art, but not too obscure, right? Why don’t you just go to one of the reputable dealers?’ she asked.

  ‘Bunch of charlatans. Take huge commissions. Besides, you’re artistic. Only another mug’s game, isn’t it? You just swot up on it and away you go. Why pay anyone else?’ There was the implied suggestion that Sarah was already paid too much. A slight threat, Do this, or else … He nodded, agreeing with his own wisdom. Nodding had become habitual. He tried to make it look wise rather than foolish.

  ‘What’s the budget and the time-scale? Do I have complete freedom?’ Now she was going too fast for him, as usual.

  ‘Oh, a few weeks at least …’

  ‘Yes. I’ll do it. Three dozen. But I will, of course, need time out of the office. More than usual. I’ll have to go to all the exhibitions, scout round dealers, that sort of thing. Time-consuming. Ernest darling, what ails you? Talk to me, please.’

  ‘The budget’s generous, Sarah. We’ve to prove we aren’t a bunch of Philistines. Get out of here, will you? Just go.’

  She went. Uncurled those slender limbs without a word, and went. It was only after the door began to close behind her that he remembered he had meant to enquire what else she had done with the morning. Without adding the question he never asked – namely, whose bed had she left before she began? Her own?

  ‘Oh, Sarah, one more thing …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You’ve got to get rid of that ridiculous Mr Cannon. Where did you get him from anyway? We simply cannot subsidize our clients. We can’t.’

  She paused delicately, hand on hip. ‘Oh, I don’t think so, do you? He’s a very knowledgeable artist. He’ll help with the collection. He’ll be an unpaid consultant, and where do you ever find those?’

  The door closed softly. Ernest remembered a stray piece of information. The child had grown up in a convent. She could be vigorously clumsy, noisy, ebullient, and yet oh-so-silent. Even when she had the last word. He put his head in his hands and groaned.

  *

  Miss Fortune climbed the stairs to her office, which was a very small place as befitted her almost itinerant status, and a pretty cluttered space in accordance with the way she was. The services of a secretary had been withdrawn. Yesterday’s flowers still looked fresh, but the rug on the floor was crumpled, showing signs of intruders. People stole into Sarah’s room, sometimes to weep, avoid the open-plan, or sleep off the hangover. Space was at a premium in Matthewson’s firm, while privacy was even harder to find. Which, of course, made it all the more ridiculous that they should have such a large foyer as proof of prosperity. The shop-front, like a marbleized cave, long, narrow and high, a perfectly natural art gallery, the rest a custom-built warren. She sat, yawned and stretched. Got up, closed the window, prowled around the room, which took a matter of seconds. Felt, although she had only just come in, the same old claustrophobia and the desire to be anywhere else. Looked longingly at the envelope full of estate agents’ particulars. Pulled a face at herself in the tiny mirror by the door. How the hell, she asked her reflection, did God and man between them ever make a lawyer out of you? Because if it wasn’t by divine intervention, it was otherwise a miracle of misjudgement.

  She smoothed out the charred fragment of letter given her by Cannon. He had told her what the rest of it contained; she had to take his word for it as she struggled to read the remainder.

  … rotting away. I tell you what, if you can keep this up until Christmas, I promise I’ll leave her alone. Promise. Let’s see who finds who first, shall we? But you won’t keep it up. You’ll get careless. You’ll realize what’s GOOD for you …

  Cannon said he believed this promise, and she had to believe Cannon. Someone must. She yanked open the neck of the blouse. Fingered a small, white scar on her clavicle. There were others spread over her torso and arms and, just at that moment, she felt a strange pride. She had taken a look at Cannon’s portrait, and he had not noticed the scars. No-one did. She was proud of that. It was as though they had disappeared. Little white scars, pieces of history. The work of a client. One of Matthewson’s better clients, which was why it was odd that he should be so fussy about the rest. It was not as if they were saints employed to deal with sinners.

  Nothing mattered now, except loyalty.

  The door opened and a young man sidled in. Sarah stifled a sigh. A reputation for a sympathetic ear and a room that doubled as a haven for frustrated smokers was not always an advantage, attracting as it did not only the gossipers, the jokers and the anxious, but also the others. There was no such thing as a legal firm consisting entirely of nice people; there were always the sedulous, the ambitious and the jealous. Andrew Mitchum entered the room as if he owned it, sat without invitation, lit his cigarette and looked round with lazy appreciation. He coveted this room.

  ‘You’ll never guess who I had dinner with at the weekend,’ he drawled.

  ‘Jamie Lee Curtis?’

  ‘Ugh! Darling, how could you? Why waste my time on trash like that? Prince William, more like. No, he’s too young for money either. I only dine with clients.’

  ‘Who, then?’ She was watching a grasping young man, verging on the theatrical in a less than attractive way, convinced he was God’s gift to both sexes while clearly preferring his own. The stories of his conquests bored her, but she was not going to say so. Instead she smiled encouragingly.

  ‘John Smith. Our mysterious Mr Smith. He with all the houses. My God, you should see his. Vulgar, my dear, beyond belief.’

  She kept her face clear of all reaction but polite, impressed curiosity. ‘Oh, and what did he want? Another acquisition?’

  Andrew Mitchum wagged his finger. ‘Secret,’ he said teasingly. ‘A little extracurricular activity is all. Wants me to do a bit of research for him.’ His eyes took in the pictures on the walls, yesterday’s flowers, the heavy blue ashtray, with indiscreet approval. ‘I’m good at research,’ he added modestly. ‘I’ve found out quite a few things about you, for instance. Such an interesting life.’ He sat back and scrutinized her with frank, asexual curiosity, watching the anxiety flicker over her face to be replaced with an even wider smile.

  ‘Not a lot to know, Andrew.’

  ‘No? I don’t understand you. All you had to do was marry the boss’s son and you would have been a partner. What stopped you? Ah, I know. A penchant for the wrong kind of man and entirely the wrong kind of client, I gather. You were the one Charles Tysall fell for, and when you wouldn’t have him he beat you up, right? Tut, tut. No ambition. The man was as rich as Croesus.’

  ‘A long time ago, Andrew. Another country. And he’s dead.’

  She was relieved that that was all he wanted to impart; equally relieved that he was so dismissive of her clients. She did not want him examining their identities and seeing any connection between her waifs and strays and his moneyed men; far better that he should be as contemptuous as he was. His ambition was not distracted by imagination. He fingered his immaculate tie, unembarrassed by the silence.

  ‘So what are you doing for John Smith? Screwing him?’

  ‘If only. The dinner was wonderful, but he doesn’t seem interested in food.’

  If there were more to tell, he would tell it. He would not be able to resist. Ernest had hired this boy but, then, Ernest’s judgement was not always sound.

  ‘I suppose having been attacked yourself is what gives you sympathy with all your dozy victims?’ he said, without really expecting a serious answer.

  ‘No,’ she said, rising to open the window and wishing he would go. ‘Not always. Look, Andrew, take a tip. Do not take money from John Smith for this research. Everything you do for John Smith has to go through the firm’s accounts. You might think Ernest’s a woolly old buzzard, but if there’s any hint you’re raking in a personal cash profit you’ll be out on your ear. Finito. End of career.’

  ‘Oh, ho, ho, occupying the moral high ground, are we? From what I hear, that’s not like you, Sarah, really it isn’t.’

  ‘
Oh, yes, it is. Sometimes,’ she added demurely, smiling again to defuse the malice in his tone. ‘Are you staying for coffee or are you going out to make money?’ She fumbled in the top drawer of her desk and handed him a red apple, slightly dusty. ‘Want one? They’re good for you. The man on the corner …’

  He looked at the mess of letters on her desk, mixed in with estate agents’ particulars, the arm outstretched with the apple. ‘Eve offered Adam an apple, Miss F. I suppose some poor version of Adam offered the same sort of thing to you. Pity about you, Sarah. You could have had it all. What do you want?’

  ‘A house with lots of white walls,’ she said, and sank her teeth in the fruit.

  White. Should be the favourite colour of a dentist like me, William thought. But white, my boy, is a non-colour, a state of nothing, a mixer. White is never white: it is either white mixed with yellow or brown, or bloodstained pink; skin is never white, it is multicoloured; white is never pure, it is muddy or creamy or tinged with grey. Or, at least, it was when it came to teeth.

  He paused, paintbrush in hand, about to advance on the last wall of the waiting room. What colour, then, if he was aspiring to match their teeth? Make them feel at home when they saw their own teeth in a monitor. For God’s sake, paint the place white with a hint of apple green. He paused. Isabella, his ex-wife, would loathe this colour and the thought exhilarated him, although he still wanted her approval. Isabella, the stuff of dreams and nightmares, probably at this very minute examining some new abode with her new, second-hand lover. Isabella, met all those years before in the curtain-material department of John Lewis, he confused by choice, she revelling in it. Houseproud Isabella, to whom the pursuit of perfection indoors was a kind of holy grail. A frustrated designer, a design snob, but what a series of cocoons she had made for them. White shaded green? Dated, yughh!