‘Good luck then. Let me know how you get on. Night, Andy.’ She turned down the corridor and swung through the heavy wooden door. Lifting her wheelie bag down the stone steps, she set off into the fading light towards Holborn station.
* * *
The tube was packed, as usual. She alighted at Finsbury Park, feeling like she had been wrung through a mangle, shaking out the creases as she strode up the long sloping tunnel to the barrier. Then into Seven Sisters Road, under the old railway bridge, and right into Fonthill Road lined with wholesale clothing shops.
The W3 bus was waiting. It was late enough to get a seat and she collapsed into a comfortable stupor as they weaved around the dusty brick houses. It was a short walk from the bus stop to the front door and she was looking forward to crashing on the sofa with the first glass of red wine and a mind-numbing dose of Coronation Street. But the car was not parked outside the house as usual. And then she remembered. That morning she’d driven Jacob to school and taken a different route to court. She’d left her little Hyundai in East Finchley station car park.
Chapter Five
Natasha
She was alone in the book-lined conference room on the fifth floor. It was cool and quiet, conducive to concentration. She took out her kit and checked her blood sugar. 7.4 was fine but she was feeling faint and shaky. She was probably just tired. She’d been up at five to study the Patel case. Not that Mel appreciated her effort. Keeping track of glucose levels while running a demanding job was not easy. Her eyes shifted from the digital display to the fingers on her left hand, rough and calloused from numerous pricks with her lancet. What she really needed was a flash glucose monitor. She’d still have to do a finger-prick test for driving, but mostly she’d be able to rely on a portable reader. She could even use an app on her phone. No one would notice the sensor on her upper arm because she could pick up the reading through clothes. It would be a huge relief. She’d get one when the money started rolling in.
Taking a deep breath, she untied the red ribbon, unfolded the stiff back sheet in front of her and glanced through the instructions. Her first brief. She felt a tremor of excitement. She could do it well; she knew she could. At Bar School, she’d come near top in advocacy exams. Now for the real thing.
Her client was the defendant, excluded from the family home. He hadn’t been informed about the previous hearing and had simply received an order, delivered by hand, telling him to get out. He was accused of non-violent abusive behaviour, undermining his wife’s confidence, refusing to let her go out, cutting her off from family and friends. There was a GP report recording the wife’s depression. The husband denied most of the allegations and had offered an undertaking if his wife let him return. Natasha hoped she would refuse so she could try out her cross-examination. There were further complications. The couple had a one-year-old baby. According to the health visitor there were signs of serious neglect and the local authority was contemplating care proceedings. A copy of their letter was included in the brief. Natasha took in its cold official language and shuddered. This was the world she had left behind at ten years old. But even at ten she had been conscious of the language, ‘Unable to cope’, ‘inadequate’, ‘safeguarding’, ‘the welfare of the child’. And her knowledge of that world had landed her the pupillage. There was money in it for lawyers. The shudder subsided. It was a physical reaction and she had learnt how to control her physical reactions. She took a deep breath. The threat of care proceedings must be the reason why Andy said the case was complex. If she impressed the client tomorrow it could lead to further better paid work. She refolded the pages and stuck them in her shoulder bag.
* * *
The flat was filled with the aroma of onions, tomatoes and garlic. Luke was cooking lasagne.
‘Hiya, how was your day?’ he shouted. She closed the door behind her and walked down the corridor to the kitchen.
‘Great. Got my first brief.’
‘Fantastic. What’s it about?’
‘Some bloke kicked out of the house for being controlling. You want to watch your step.’
‘Me? I couldn’t control anyone. Certainly not you.’
She threw off her jacket. ‘So, what about you? Sorted out your no hopers?’
‘I wish.’ He turned his head towards her, nudging the vegetables in the frying pan, adding, ‘Don’t I get a kiss?’ She pecked the side of his neck and he turned a little, saying, ‘Mustn’t let it burn.’
‘I need a shower.’
‘Don’t you want to hear? You asked about my day.’
‘Give me ten minutes.’
She could tell from the locked-in voice, the concentration on the frying pan, that Luke’s day had not been good. His days rarely were. He was a social worker, after all.
‘They’re not bad people,’ he would say. ‘Just never had a chance.’
She would disagree.
‘They fucked up.’
‘It’s not as simple as that.’
‘They have choices, don’t they? They don’t have to hit their kids.’
‘Sometimes they… there are forces we can’t always control. Christ, Tash, you of all people should understand.’
She did understand. That was the reason she wasn’t going to have any kids herself, the reason why she wasn’t going to have that conversation tonight.
In the bathroom she removed her clothes and folded them neatly on a chair. She ran the shower, unhooked the old tubing from the set on her abdomen and stepped under the warm water. The knots in her head unravelled. There had been a moment this afternoon, alone in the conference room, when she’d felt the terrors of the past return. It was that letter from the local authority. The welfare of the child. She remembered the time when that’s all she was. The child. Not Natasha, not Tash, not anybody’s special person. Just ‘the child’. She buried the thought. She was good at burying thoughts. And now she was home and safe. Luke was here for her. He was sometimes glum. He might get irritated with her. But he accepted her, believed in her, thought her better than she was, and she knew he would stay with her. He might be upset; he might disapprove. But still he would love her.
She washed and rinsed her hair and stepped out onto the wooden mat, wrapping herself in the fluffy towel that had been warming on the rail. As she filled the reservoir on her pump, she could hear the voice of Leonard Cohen on the sound system. She attached the tubing, peeling off the old set and inserting the new one just above her left hip.
‘You ready?’ he called.
‘Five minutes.’
She dressed and waved the dryer around for a couple of minutes so that her hair was bouncy and thick, the way he liked it. Back in the kitchen, Luke was laying the table, dressing a salad.
‘Your phone’s been ringing,’ he said.
‘It’s not important.’
‘Sounds persistent.’
She checked the name on the phone. Eleanor. ‘It’s my sister. My adoptive sister.’
‘Aren’t you going to call back? It could be important.’
‘She left a text. Ed’s ill.’
‘Your father? Are you going to visit?’