Alchemy

Back in the office I was pretty useless for the rest of the afternoon. ‘Well?’ Drew asked as I sat down at my desk.

‘Hard to say really. She seems to want me to get some court experience, shadow the boss to learn how it’s done.’

‘He’s not Marcus Lately. You’d do better sitting in the public gallery.’

‘Can’t argue with the Begum. Theirs to command; ours to obey.’ I got out a file and tried to look busy.

‘Let’s have a quick one when we leave before I go home to the family.’

Drew still lived with his mother and sister. I had been to his home to dinner where we had eaten so many delicious south Indian dishes that the finest curry restaurant in town would have been put to shame. Tonight I didn’t want to join a bevy of lawyers in the Globe downing pints. I wanted to go home and try to make sense of it all but I knew I couldn’t say ‘no’ to Drew.

Later in the pub half listening to his account of a complex piracy case he was working on, I found myself watching a girl, probably in her first job, being sent up by a posse of young suits, becoming flushed and a bit shrill as she tried to hold her own against a barrage of heavy teasing. That’s what you had to deal with if you were straight and pretty. The disproportion in numbers of male and female lawyers makes any girl, especially in her first job, irresistible prey to a gang of young men vying for her attention. If she’s cool and tough enough she can handle it, even enjoy the experience and give as good back. But if she gets flustered then the pack will goad her into unwitting double entendres, to be pounced on and held up to braying laughter until she’s close to tears or takes refuge in a shouting match that only eggs them on. It wasn’t just a broken heart that made me duck out of Settle and Fixit.

Now the days passed for me on leaden feet, alone except for the servants, and the sick people I was charged by my lady to tend at Ramsbury. When Twelfth Night had come and gone and all our sports were over, the wagons and carriages were laden with beds and coverings, clothes and necessaries of every kind, both for the long journey and to furnish the castles fit for my lady to lie there while she attended to her affairs.