{A/N} Here's the fourth chapter, I hope you like it! Please let me know what you think :)
She wears her old identity like a delicate gold chain around her neck, falling loosely into the hollow of her collarbone; if the clasp loses its grip, she'll lose her past, her dreams, too.
She remembers that she had worn a little gold necklace the day she drank Aperol spritz on a Chelsea rooftop with Clive. Her jeans showed some skin at the knee and he'd built up the habit of smiling every time he saw her in them (it reached the corners of his eyes; genuine); she felt free, carefree, their gazes flickering, electric, under a canvas umbrella. She never found a pair like that again.
'What do you think love is, Clive?'
/
A vacancy opens up for a barrister at Shoe Lane; CW leaves, never one in one place for too long, and Clive conducts interviews. Her name slides across his desk in bold black letters. Martha Costello, Q.C.
He swallows heavily, his stomach lead. She gets an interview.
Bethany shows her into the conference room, 'Just through here, Miss; he's waiting for you.' Her eyes are glazed with determination, and the almost innate need to survive.
'Hi, Martha.' His gaze is level, slightly authoritative.
She nods at him, smiling tightly. 'Clive.' This is unfamiliar territory for both of them; ignoring all they are, all they were, and the fact that she's fallen asleep in his arms at least twice since returning to London.
Now, she is just a barrister, and she needs to live. If that weren't the case, there'd be no way in hell she'd run back to the place (and the man) that broke her heart, her lungs and her spirit in a single day. She thought her hands would shake, sitting in front of him, doing this, but it is him who is shaking, biting his lip. The room seems too hot; he can't keep his eyes on her for too long.
Conversely, her limbs feel weightless, answers to his questions flying off her tongue (a strange recollection comes to mind then, sitting across from Clive, of their argument after she visited Brendan Kay alone, the anger in his eyes, and the way she just felt so far removed from herself in her charcoal coloured shirt, her silk robes hanging in their room in chambers). She knows who she is again, professionally. This is her comfort zone. 'I don't wear stilettos, Clive. Ever.' She gets the job.
It looks like she's humbling herself, but she's not. She's doing what it takes to claw back as much of herself as she can, washed into the Thames; the Martha she used to know. She's smoking outside chambers, the ash falling like burning rose petals at her feet. This is where she told Billy about her dad, where Niamh told her about Clive, where Billy told her about Amy. And now she's alone; who is there to tell, who does she whisper to (Billy?) that she's come back to Clive, Jake, Bethany; that she's come home?
Clive stands at the window of his office, watching Martha smoke, her sunglasses pushed high up onto her head. His chest is tight; still aching from the tangled emotions stirred up, like they were being pushed from their place, stagnant and deep in his heart, as she crossed the threshold to sit before him.
It felt to him then, watching her arrive for her interview, like they were holed up out the back of chambers after their moot to get tenancy. She'd plugged in her Walkman and he could hear The Smiths blaring out into the empty room, burning her eardrums. Her eyes were closed, his darted around the room, hands carding through his hair. She had it together. He didn't.
It was the same, then, as it was during her interview. It was different too, though, because he knows more than her taste in music now; he knows the woman underneath the armour, the suit jacket and straight skirt, but for her sake, he had to try to pretend he didn't.
They had history. They had form. She got the job, regardless.
/
Serendipitously, she moves back into their room; her old desk. There is no layer of dust gathering in the wooden crevices, drawer handles and picture frames; instead, she sees the gleaming streaks of a damp cloth dragged across her desk. This isn't what she expected.
Part of her expected, or thought she was only worthy of, being shoved back into a corner cupboard, a neon sign on her door flashing pink, 'let's not bother with her, as much as we can get away with, eh?'
But this is home. The old adage her grandpa lived by rings in her ears:
Mid pleasures and palaces
Though we may roam
Be it ever so humble, there's
No place like home
Her own words haunt her too, spoken here, in these walls, the day got everything she ever wanted, or something like that. Her hands shook, she was gasping for a fag, happy to be alive. She believed in the truth of her words.
'They fight, and they hate each other. And they're angry and jealous and foolish, but they stay together.'
She looks over to Clive's desk in the corner, where he sits, poring over a brief for that afternoon. Together, her mind whispers. It scares her, but not as much as she thought it would.
/
They don't talk as much, per se, and the silence, pens scratching across briefs and case notes, late into the night (she got her life back, she realises, elated, walking down Middle Temple at 11 on a Friday night. She buys herself a drink to celebrate.); the silence isn't as companionable as it used to be.
She doesn't fall into the green armchair by his desk, stockings hitched high and skirt riding up mid-thigh to talk about her case, or his. She just walks in, goes to court, goes to cons, does her thing, and goes home to an empty flat full of wine and frozen crumpets.
Martha wishes, sometimes, that the air between them wasn't so cluttered with words. Cluttered, like the pages of the Archbold, the Oxford Dictionary and the Bar Practice Rules were torn into pieces and she and Clive walk through their room, shuffling files and con bookings, the air suspended with convention an expectation and definition when they both wanted to just forget. Forget everything. (They still hadn't managed it, really, even though she knows they both want to resolve things, just without looking the other in the eye.)
/
He still prosecutes, she still defends. Jake clerks, and Martha wishes she'd said no to her brief when Clive sheepishly hands her a rail ticket early one morning, identical to his own. London to Nottingham, return; leaving St Pancras at two in the afternoon.
They're doing different trials; he a big drugs bust briefed out by the CPS, and she's got a messy domestic dispute with fingerprints all the way down to King's Cross, leaving her client's son (she's got the mother) without a father.
She's always loved trains; used to sit atop her dad's shoulders watching them pull into the station, whistles blaring, when she was little. She watched them, too, late at night, sitting with Sean and a bottle of vodka, her legs in his lap. Her eyes would go soft as she watched them rattle past her, and he never worked out what was going through her mind then, simply learned to let her be, in the silence. She loved him for that.
(The light from the headlights of the oncoming train ripples over her features; her nose and mouth seem even more fragile in the half-light, and Sean gets the unmistakeable sense that she is almost a fairy, a gentle presence which is his for a time, but would never really belong to anyone.
He pulls her into his lap, kissing her, hard, as her hands massage the soft skin at the back of his neck. He moans as she kisses him back, her tongue in his mouth. I've died and gone to heaven.)
Martha sits on the train to Nottingham, legs crossed at the ankles and earphones in, watching the countryside rush past her window. She never once turns to face him, seemingly enraptured by the thought of a thousand lives lived as the train clattered past noisily, full of lives itself.
Clive watches her, his sunglasses atop his head, peeking over his copy of The Times to watch the sunlight change, roll across her face. They've played this game for years, watching the other without admitting it, sometimes unable to look away for more than a moment, like the need to breathe. When the train pulls into the station, Clive grabs his jacket and puts down the paper, before realising he never got past the third page.
The summer sun sticks around longer than normal for autumn, and she pulls her hair up into a rough ponytail at the nape of her neck as they get off the train, dragging their overnight bags behind them. Their rooms are next to each other, a single bed and a bathroom each; an awkward nod-smile is exchanged as they unlock their doors. Clive walks into his room, dumping his bag on the bed. Memories shiver their way up his spine, and, next door, hers too. The difference is, she's not scared of them.
Mid-September, early autumn, and the sun's still got a few hours left in the afternoon. Martha unpacks her bag, pulling out her toiletries and opening her case file for the next day. For an hour or two, she fiddles with the brief, reading witness statements and proofs of evidence, stapling and re-stapling. She grows restless; throws on a clean blouse and washes her face before quietly closing her own door and knocking on Clive's.
He opens the door, eyes rimmed with red, his shirt loose and unbuttoned at the throat. She suddenly has the overwhelming urge, in her tight trousers, red toenails and loafers (what are you, Martha, twenty?) to kiss him on the cheek, standing on tiptoe, impulsive and because she means it.
'C'mon, Clive,' she slips past him into his room, throwing him his jacket (he catches it deftly, against his chest; she thinks, fleeting, our kid would've been good at sports with such a father), 'let's go get a drink.'
/
They walk through the streets of Nottingham as the sun sinks below the horizon, looking for a bar. Her hand is wrapped around his bicep, like they do this all the time. Just go with it, Clive, her silent whispers plead him. He does.
The sunlight is golden in her hair, and as she catches his eye, smiling gaily, it feels to him like anything could happen; a strange breakthrough, a contrast to his usual, carefully planned existence. She has life in her eyes, and he wants some of it.
Two drinks, the sun sets, they go home; Clive to his room, Martha to hers. ' 'Night, Clive,' she murmurs, smiling softly, and he feels as if he's been given a glorious treasure, a gift. He doesn't know why; can't explain it.
Martha fights her case valiantly the next day; an aggrieved mother who stabbed her partner to death to protect her son from his abusive father. She's done some reading, lately, and wishes again there was an abusive relationship defence she could cling to, one with which to defend a desperate woman.
Clive's case was a little easier; more straightforward, just long. He takes her out for dinner that night, arriving at her door in jeans and a t-shirt, brooking no argument.
'Martha, come on. You need it.' His hand reaches for hers and his eyes are soft, insistent. She sighs, grabs her phone and follows him out the door.
She picks at her food, silence in her eyes as she looks up, thoughtful, at him as he eats; it makes him laugh almost nervously, his mouth full of food, a grin on his lips.
'What are you looking at, Marth?' He laughs, covering his mouth with his hand. His eyes sparkle, set off by the white of his shirt.
She looks at her plate, a crimson blush washing over her cheeks. 'Nothing,' she whispers. 'Nothing, Clive.'
Clive finishes his food, cutlery falling loudly onto his plate, a glance thrown over to Martha. He slips his napkin onto the table, going to stand.
'Let's go, shall we?' He slips a note under the bill, pulls out her chair and walks her out of the restaurant. She clings to his arm again, he notices, and comes into his room when he offers. 'Drink?'
She's sitting on his couch, under the window, the polish on her toes gleaming where her knees are pulled up under her chin. Behind her, trees rustle in the soft evening breeze; Clive can see fairy lights from a rooftop bar a block or two over.
Martha watches him pull two beers from the fridge, uncap them and hand one to her. Her expression is thoughtful, distant. She's caught in the facts of her case, head spinning, aching. It's an old adage that crimes are motivated by either love or money, and it hurts her chest to think about it: that a mother's love drove her to prison, and Martha couldn't stop them from bundling her into the van, cuffing her wrists. She couldn't do it.
'Do you ever wonder what it takes to love someone enough you'd kill for them, die for them?' (This isn't really what she wants to ask. What she wants to ask is: 'Would I have been a good mother?' 'Would you have cared, really? About me, about us, the baby?' But also, 'Would I have wanted you to care?' 'Does it scare you sometimes, planning everything?') Her words tremble from deep inside her chest, her lipstick long gone as Clive watches her gulp another mouthful of beer.
He sits down across from her, rubbing at the crease between his eyebrows wearily as the five o'clock shadow on his chin catches the light, glinting blond. His answers are usually cop-outs: 'I don't know, Marth,' 'Maybe, not sure,' but he knows that and knows she knows it too; she's holding his gaze steadily. Try me. Do it properly, Clive.
'No.'
He's exhausted, wrung out, finally realising she doesn't know he cried, doesn't know the depth of feeling he's capable of, the way he thinks.
'No, Marth. I don't wonder,' he tells her, catches her gaze. There it is. Here you go, he's saying. Here's my heart, shattered, and my lungs, pierced with bone and blood, the ones that couldn't breathe when you left and are trying to heal now you've come back. Take them. I want you to have them.
Neither of them deserve to ignore what needs to be said.
'I don't wonder because I bloody well know.'
She is silent, the air between them crackling like thousands of minuscule fireworks, all the words unspoken (I would do anything for you, if you'd only ask. 'What if I can't speak?' she replies.). She tucks her hair behind her ears instinctively, nervous. Clive remembers, then, how young she looked to him after cutting her hair short, how her eyes seemed bigger, almost green. His mum used to push her hair behind her ears as well, and seeing Martha do it now sends him back to summer holidays home from Harrow, playing cricket in the backyard with his older brothers and sister.
His mother came outside to watch them, her blonde locks falling around her shoulders, down her back, and twelve-year-old Clive had noticed diamonds dripping at her ears; a plea for forgiveness from a husband prone to infidelity, something everyone knew about, but never acknowledged.
There was love, somewhere in his family, but his parents didn't know where to find it with each other, and the kids had no example to follow. This was where he found it, though, after almost forty years. In a hotel room in Nottingham, drinking beer with a woman who once knew him better than he did himself, but now was a stranger.