Alchemy

‘We could always say you wanted to brief me about something. That should be good for an extra hour.’

‘Actually you could do some research for me. I’ll speak to Drewpad. Would Tuesday suit?’

‘Fine by me.’

‘Do you have wheels? We could go out somewhere.’

‘Only two I’m afraid. ‘Then I added quickly in case she thought I was a pedal pusher, ‘A motor bike. You could cling on behind but that would be very undignified and you’d need the space suit.’

‘How exotic. Maybe when we know each other better. I’ll book a table at the Garden. It’s usually fairly empty at lunchtime. I’ll buzz you when I’m ready to leave.’

‘The bosses have blown for you.’ Drew had called me into his office. ‘Mrs Boss wants you to do some work for her. Have you got the time?’

‘I’d better find it, hadn’t I?’ I always joined in his conspiracy that we were both living out the last days of the Raj where the partners were concerned.

‘Anyway you’ll get a decent lunch out of it. Helen always lunches the juniors when they first arrive, to suss them out.’ This was to let me know that I wasn’t the first, so not to let it go to my head. ‘She asked if you were free on Tuesday. I said I’d ask you and let her know. I refuse to take umbrage at being used as a go-between.’

‘You should charge commission.’

‘Your lunch with the boss-lady is all fixed,’ he told me later when we were leaving the building together. ‘She’ll let you know when she’s ready to leave.’

‘My, we’re smart today,’ he said when I appeared on Tuesday morning.

‘Got to make a good impression on the Begum. She wouldn’t want to be seen with anything manky.’

That unmistakable voice called me at twelve-thirty. She would meet me in the foyer. My legs were trembling too much for the stairs. I took the lift, trying not to tweak my hair in its mirror wall.

She looked me up and down as I stepped out towards her, forcing a smile. ‘Nice,’ she said. ‘We’ll take a taxi. Can you get one?’

We stepped out into Fetter Lane. I would find a cab or perish in the attempt. I would be efficient, authoritative. I lost the first to another lawyer, judging by his dark suit, but the next came along behind and I stepped off the pavement determined he should stop.

‘Where to?’

‘The Garden,’ I said as if I knew where it was.

‘Which one?’

‘Portugal Wharf,’ she said, her elegant high heels stepping up into the darkness of the cab. I caught a draught of her scent as I sank down beside her, careful not to let any part of our bodies connect by accident. I just hoped that when the time came I should be able to swallow whatever I’d chosen to try to eat, something I couldn’t choke on for preference. Careful, Jade, I was warning myself, don’t assume she knows, or that this is anything more than curiosity about a junior. After all she can’t have it off with them all, of both sexes. Or does she? I hadn’t been able to ask Drew without seeming to show an uncommon interest and losing my reputation for cool.

The Garden, Portugal Wharf, was an evening place, Helen explained, which was why it was quiet at lunchtime. You could sit out under a glass awning and look across the river where each passing pleasure boat set up a sparkling wash, to the green and silver ziggurats of new riverside apartments beached beside the Thames.

‘It was where the Portuguese wines came ashore,’ she said as we studied our menus with their riverine design of fishtailed Nereides and Tritons on sea horses blowing horns, ‘in this part of Vintry Ward. Most of the port houses were owned by the British, like Blandy’s you know.’

I didn’t know but wasn’t going to say so. I simply nodded in agreement.

‘I thought we should continue our association with water.’

Was I wrong or was she flirting with me? Had I been wrong before? Perhaps it was just her style. ‘Now what will you have? A starter? The goat’s cheese and rocket isn’t bad as that goes. Or the fritto misto.’

I opted for the insalata tricolore and a poached sea bass steak to follow. Helen took her own advice on the fritto misto and a filet mignon. ‘What would you like to drink?’

We agreed on a white wine as less likely to send us into an afternoon coma, and she ordered up a bottle of chablis and some fizzy water. ‘I refuse to be bound by those old ideas of red wine with red meat. Anyway white’s lighter at lunchtime. Convention is there to be broken, don’t you think?’

‘I don’t think I ever had any to break.’

‘A gypsy life?’

‘Something like that.’

‘You’re very lucky. No baggage.’

‘Oh, everyone has baggage, don’t they? Whole attics full of stuff you can’t look at but can’t throw out. A childhood, parents.’

‘Of course. But for some it doesn’t stay there, up in the attic. It comes downstairs and clutters up the living space. Conventions, other people’s expectations. Biology, gender, becoming a parent yourself.’

I thought of Roger and how easily he had managed to slide himself sideways out of all this, letting his wife take the strain for our family as well as her own. It was still easier for men to get someone else to carry the can and free them up. His example had made me hold out for independence. Even more so when he married and I saw Jenny falling into the role of wife, mother, carer, social secretary, writing the letters, keeping in touch, remembering birthdays, taking up the white woman’s burden.

‘So tell me the story of your life.’

‘Not much to it. School, Sussex Uni, in-house lawyer to a property company. Ate my dinners, took my Bar exams.’

‘I hadn’t realised you’re a barrister. Not just a pretty face. We must look after you. How much time have you spent in court?’

I had to admit to my court virginity. ‘We must see you lose it soon. I’ll suggest you go along with James next time he’s appearing, get the feel of it.’

‘I wouldn’t want to put Drew’s nose out. He’s been very kind and supportive.’

‘If you’re to get on you’ll have to get rid of that sort of sentiment. He’s an able solicitor but essentially an office boy. I have other things in mind for you. We need to see if you can perform. Forget all the stuff about truth and justice, that’s for the tabloids or Perry Mason. You need to be able to act like Olivier and interrogate like the KGB, while flattering the judge and jury. I’ll bet they didn’t teach you that at Sussex.’

Was I disappointed? My breath was taken away by her sophistication. The combination of power and control came off her like a flash of static, sexy, heady, a gush of irresistible energy that lit up her whole face as she held my gaze with the intensity of her own, iron drawn to a magnet, Amyntas’ lodestone.

‘Do you like music, real music not pop? James doesn’t. I miss a lot through having to go on my own which means I don’t go, of course. Do you?’

At that moment I would have sworn to enjoying baked toad if I’d been asked. ‘I’m better on early.’

‘Meaning what?’

‘Mozart backwards.’

‘Not too many chanting monks and nuns or nannygoat-counter-tenors, I hope. I can always smell unwashed hair and damp stone.’

‘And then I pick up later. Tchaikovsky, Elgar, Britten.’

‘Strauss? There’s a good production of Der Rosenkavalier by Opera Bauhaus at Sadler’s Wells. I’ll tell my secretary to get us some tickets. She can ring you for some dates.’

Was my new lifestyle going to be all as whirlwind as this? I felt like young Kay in ‘The Snow Queen’, lifted up on wings above the earth. But there was no ice splinter in my heart, rather a glowing lump of charcoal that threatened to barbecue me from the inside. The wine was having an effect after only a couple of glasses, that and my heightened awareness of her every look and gesture. They would have made me drunk just on the deep gulps of San Pellegrino I was taking to try to stay sober. I was glad that at least the spotlight was off me and my past and the conversation had switched to music. I sensed that too much knowledge might make me less interesting to her. I couldn’t see Gateshead or Acton as high on her list of places to visit. She certainly wouldn’t have found my evening job now as a Chinese takeaway courier an amusing occupation.

It must be Amyntas who’s led me into this memorial maze but maybe that’s what I’ve needed to bring to the surface stuff that’s been lying below in the silt and murk, things I haven’t faced, that I was brought up to not to face, Mam and Dad belonging to the old school of so much best left unsaid and ‘what the head doesn’t know the heart doesn’t grieve over’ or ‘no good crying over spilt milk’, a horror of navel gazing or letting go.