A/N: Rated T.
xii.
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They say girls shouldn't be tough and mums should raise their kids at home, but baby I know that that isn't true, 'cause your mum's the toughest person I know. I want to raise you to be like her and watch you show the world how to do it on your own.
Growing Up – Macklemore & Ryan Lewis feat. Ed Sheeran
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Martha Costello was fourteen years old when she started having serious thoughts about her ability to procreate beyond the general expectation that she would marry and have kids one day, own a house and a dog or a cat, depending on what her husband wanted. She entertained these recurring thoughts every four weeks or so, waiting for her period to come with the anxiety and anticipation of a soldier pining for battle. She had friends, she remembers, who wanted families, and babies, and used to say: 'If it happened to me, I'd keep it,' with no bloody idea of what having a child would entail. Her mother had had her at twenty and Martha already looked at her life and thought: not me.
So, she said – to herself, mostly, – 'If the time isn't right, I'll terminate.'
It came over and over again in her head like a motto, every time her period was a bit late or her breasts a bit sore, until she was thirty-seven years old, throwing up in the toilets of a police station and all of that smart talk flew out the window. And then, again, now.
Clive had perfect timing to put an end to them, didn't he?
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The next morning, day two after the break-up (there is also a before and an after this point in her life, she thinks), Martha gets up and puts on an extra layer of make-up on her face, walks into Chambers and pretends that she doesn't still feel like the life has been sucked out of her. She's never been really good at dealing with things, prefers to cover them up, forget they ever existed. If Martha doesn't think about it, doesn't feel about it, there may be a chance that she might not actually break. After all, she's a grown woman, she's been dumped before; it'll be fine. Jo and her cheap psychology courses would probably say to confront things head-on and wallow in self-pity for a little while longer but that's not how Martha Costello does things. So, she sits at her desk and laughs at one of Nick's jokes, watches Billy smiling back at her from his picture frame and adopts the same tactics she did when he passed away: pushing it to the back of her brain in an attempt to numb how much it hurts.
Last night, she must have slept for about an hour or so, between five and six, when her mind finally stopped swirling thoughts around her head like tasteless soup in a pan. Her alarm went off and she felt the anger, and the fight creep back in, thought: you're better than him.
Her bedroom was silent, then, all she could hear were the birds chirping away at the summer outside. A while back, she used to be able to hear the low hum of the refrigerator from here, if she paid attention. She remembered waking up two days ago (before, she muses): the alarm had just gone off and she'd hit snooze forcefully with her palm, turned away from the noise. Clive had laughed, in the background, snuck back in bed with his hair still wet from the shower, kissed her temple and joked: 'Good morning, sunshine!'
She had rolled her eyes behind her closed lids, felt his hand travel down under the sheets between them, his palm stopping on a space over her bellybutton. 'Good morning, you too,' she heard him say, this time, and tried very hard not to smile.
Unlike Clive, she'd never talked to the baby before, was so convinced that she was going to lose it, didn't want to get attached. This morning, though, when she woke up alone in her bed and saw the sun already creeping past the blinds, she set her hand on her stomach and whispered: "Stay. Please."
We're better than him, she thought.
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Martha was seventeen the first time she tried - the first of many, many times - to dump Sean. She made one main mistake, back then: seeing him again. Since it did just so happen that she was in love with him, he apologised, and they compromised, and she took him back. Time and time again.
Eventually, she learnt from her mistakes.
Clive – it seems – did learn from them as well. (Or maybe they were his own, who knows?)
Over the next week or so, he avoids her like the plague. And sure, of course, you could blame serendipity or happenstance on that one but frankly, Martha finds it hard to believe. They usually always seem to run into each other: in court, at the pub – but not anymore. She's always looking over her shoulder - out of habit more than anything else - and everywhere she goes, he's just never there.
She reaches the obvious conclusion that he doesn't want to see her.
Understandable, Martha guesses. A few years ago, after Jérôme broke up with her, she didn't want to see him, either. 'You two need to talk,' Clive said, once (many times, actually), just looking at her over his kitchen table. Her phone kept vibrating with random calls every so often – she kept refusing them.
She'd packed some of her stuff into a suitcase, the day she walked out, but of course, not all of it. Had just snapped the essentials: her toothbrush, most of her work clothes, a couple of pictures of them that she intended to burn. One minute her name was on their shared lease and the other, she'd evaporated from his life.
Martha didn't want to see Jérôme or even talk to him on the phone, so eventually she had to start re-purchasing stuff. Books that she'd loved and had left at his place, plates and tea towels once she moved out of Clive's flat and into her new one. Clive thought it was all a bit ridiculous.
'This break-up cost me a fortune,' she joked, once, and he rolled her eyes as if to say: You brought this upon yourself, didn't you? She guessed that she did.
In court, now, Martha rushes to the toilets to vomit, brushes her teeth when she's done and looks at herself in the mirror. Frankly, she doesn't know where she was going with this anecdote, doesn't know what conclusion to draw from all of this. It's the way her mind works, she guesses: she recalls events from the past and tries to analyse them to inform how she should behave today but this time, it doesn't work. This time, everything just feels like a void. She doesn't know how to react to Clive breaking up with her because she doesn't remember ever being broken-up with and him not being there, cracking jokes, so what is she meant to do when her support system has left her, too?
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The thing is, though: she does see him, eventually. Granted, they're not in the same place when she does, but she does see him, nonetheless.
It's the pictures online. She fucking hates it. Never usually checks Facebook - only has an account with a fake name and a blank photo to stalk people when she needs to; typically, for work purposes. She's an excellent investigator, in fairness (as the Tony Paddick prosecution showed), but sometimes, she wishes she wasn't. Especially when her target is Clive.
Now, she doesn't need to stalk him, her invisible friend. It's not like work, looking for clues about a case; Martha doesn't strictly need to spend hours online, glaring at Clive's different social media accounts, but she still does. He never posts pictures on his own account, of course - Matthew Books (if you know his middle name, not that hard to find, is it?) - but he's on other people's pictures. In clubs. In the background of shots, cosy, little booths and his arm thrown over the shoulders of girls half his age.
'What are you looking at?' Charlotte asks, creeping behind Martha's laptop before she has time to shut the screen. 'Don't do this to yourself,' the clerk adds. Martha sighs.
'What am I meant to do then?' she asks, genuinely, because again, she has no experience in this – thus no clue how to even react. 'I'm fucking pregnant, retching over the toilet every goddamn day and he's –'
'Trying to be a cunt,' Charlotte settles, stepping back towards the door. 'Don't fall for it.'
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She tries not to. Eventually almost succeeds, almost forgets to think about him every minute of every bloody day, until she does – finally – run into him, that is.
That day, she's standing alone in the robing room, making sure the safety pin she now uses instead of zipping her skirts all the way up is still in place – Martha's not showing, yet, but she's bloated and wishes early maternity suits were a thing, already – when he walks in. She's positioned in a way that has her facing the door, in that particular moment, so she's the first thing that he sees, walking in. Clive freezes, instantly, his hand still on the handle.
She looks up, crosses his gaze, looks away. Has to admit it's a small victory to establish that he looks every bit as shit as she feels.
"Sorry," he says, backing away towards the door.
She rolls her eyes, slipping her gown on. "It's fine. I'm almost done, anyway," she says, looking away.
He's got no choice but to stay, now, and the silence is strained between them for another couple of minutes as he stands behind her shoving belongings into his locker. Martha wishes she had, indeed, been almost done or that there were other people in the room for either of them to talk to. Frankly, she feels like she's stuck in a lift with Prince Charles.
An audible sigh comes out of her mouth; she turns around to look at his back as he stands, facing the other side, the little benches between both rows of lockers an awkward fence between them. "I'm keeping it," she hears herself burst the words out, looking at him.
Clive freezes, again, a hand closing up his gown. He doesn't turn around, keeps his eyes trained down on his feet. "Keeping what?"
Martha doesn't answer right away, waits until he finally does turn around to hold her gaze for an instant before she looks away. Turns back towards her locker, fishing in for her wig. He's fucking with her mind, so she'll fuck with his as well, she decides. "The baby," she says, pausing. Wig in hand, Martha turns around again, sets it on top of the binders she'd laid down on the bench before reaching to lift them up in her arms. Clive stays there, a hand on his collar, unmoving. "I thought maybe I wouldn't," she admits, shrugs. "But now, I will." She breathes, holding the files in her arms; it feels good to be holding onto something, at least. "So, if you want to play a role in its life, that's fine, I can't deprive you of that," she adds, pausing. "But I won't expect anything from you."
"Jesus, Martha, of course, I want to be part of its life. I –"
"Then, stop," she says. Her voice is cold, no-nonsense, that of someone who's had enough. She catches his gaze, studies his pupils for a moment and glares. "The partying, the girls –"
Clive opens his mouth to counter, tell her it's none of her business, and in the grand scheme of things, Martha guesses, he's right to do so. She's got no right to tell him what to do about that, about where to go and who to fuck, but –
"The snow," she adds, interrupts before he can add anything else. At that, his jaw clenches. She's got him, she knows, when he looks away. "I can tell when you're high, you know?" she points out, because frankly, under the harsh lights of the robbing room, it's the only thing she can see. He fidgets, sniffles; it's pathetic, honestly. "You want to hurt me," Martha adds. "That's fine. But you need to put an end to this right now, or else I swear to God you'll never see this baby."
Her voice almost breaks, towards the end of her sentence, and he doesn't deny wanting to hurt her but there's that look on his face when she glances up at him, the look of a boy who got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "Marth -"
"Don't," she counters, quickly, because frankly whatever he still has to say, she's not sure she's strong enough to hear it. It almost surprised her, the authority that remained in her voice when she spoke. "I'll, uh," she starts, stops, walks the couple of steps to the door. "I'll keep you informed, then."
And, just like that, from that moment on, the pictures online stop. So does his stupid cocaine habit.
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Over the next month or so, Martha works. She's Martha Costello, the workhorse, the cross between Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa and a small Rottweiler. Her days are spent Chambers and her nights sat at her kitchen table, on the somewhat rare occasions when she finds the courage to make it home. She thinks that if she knew Sean's case back to back before, it's nothing compared to now. She can quote any page from the transcripts and picture all the shots taken of the victim's body from memory, knows everything there is to know down to the exact shape of the blood stain on Sean's jacket. Sometimes, there is another case, a late return or slow burner that was scheduled beforehand and she takes a break, reviews the binder, goes to court, makes her argument, wins it, and then it's back to her room she goes. In different circumstances, she might have seen a bit of truth in the argument implying that she's going completely mad in the head but right now, on the opposite, it keeps her from losing her mind. Keeps her focused.
Nick knocks on the door to her room, one night, with a plate in hand. She smiles, waves him in and throws him a questioning look when he sets it on her desk. It's cake, three slices left, part of what probably used to be a perfect circle.
"What is it?" she asks, looking up from her laptop. She means it like: 'What's up?' but Nick takes the question literally.
"Chocolate, I think," he says, taking a slice between his fingers. He sets it down on a napkin, sits back in his chair, holding the food in his palm. "Was for Latifa's birthday earlier. I think," he explains. She sees him bite in and hum in appreciation, wiping his fingers on the napkin. "Not bad. You should have some," he adds, nodding at the plate.
Martha looks down at the cake. It looks good, frankly, and she's hungry, but if it's just to throw it all up again in half an hour, she'd rather not. "I'm good, thanks," she says, sadly, looking back down at her paperwork.
Nick smiles, pushes the plate towards her. "I really think you should eat," he pauses as she looks up, raises an eyebrow. "Considering."
"Considering what?"
He smiles and holds her gaze, sets his half-eaten piece of cake between them before sitting back in his chair, the low glow of Martha's desk lamp casting a shadow over the left side of his face. "The fact that I haven't seen you drink or smoke in over a month," he says, pausing. "And the fact that I heard you vomiting in the toilet, yesterday. And the day before that."
"Stomach bug," she counters, automatically, barely looking up.
Nick huffs out a laugh, catches her gaze. "Yeah," he says. "Is that what they call it, these days?"
Martha rolls her eyes and sits back in her chair, finally, crosses her arms over her chest. At least he's not commenting on the size of her tits like CW did, she muses. "Okay," she nods, glancing down at her desk. "Well, clearly you also know I can't seem to keep anything down, so –"
Nick laughs and raises an eyebrow. "Even chocolate?"
She doesn't know if it's the look on his face or the genuine concern that seems to filter behind his words but Martha catches herself smiling and okay, she thinks: it may be time for a break. She's been working non-stop since she came back from court at 5 p.m. and the sky is dark, now, so she shuts the screen of her laptop and sits back again, extending her legs under her desk, closes her eyes, and sighs. "It's the smells, really," she admits, looking up at him. "Stuff I even used to like," she shrugs. "Mint. Coconut. Onions. Anything, really," she adds, rolling her eyes.
Nick smiles, leaning in again to grab another piece of cake. "Fine," he chuckles, shoving a bite into his mouth. "I'll eat it all, then."
They end up laughing about everything and nothing for a bit, she rediscovers muscles in her face she'd forgotten since Clive left. So, Nick knows, she notes. From the height of his twenty-four years on this planet, he probably thinks she's just one of those women who always seem to be pregnant. Martha rolls her eyes at the thought, looking down at the paperwork she still has to get through. She meant to come to him about this tomorrow, really, but since he's there, she might as well tell him tonight. "I think you're right," she admits, finally, leaning back in her chair, her hands behind her head.
"'bout wha-?" Nick asks, still chewing on cake.
"We need to argue evidence," she breathes, pushing a paper aside. "I don't care what Sean says. He's lied too much at this stage to make anyone believe he's innocent. We need to argue the law."
Nick looks up at her words, catches her gaze. He'd brought the idea up a few days ago, pointing out the inconsistencies in the case. 'Why call Mickey Joy?' he'd asked, followed by: 'And why disregard his statement, then?' And: 'An anonymous informant found the jacket? Please? Who found this, really, do we know?'
Martha didn't answer that one, obviously, but after turning it around in her head for the last two days; she thinks Nick kind of has a point. The gun, the jacket, half the evidence fell on their lap in the middle of trial, with little to no time for anyone to truly examine it. Fitzpatrick relied on Brannigan's testimony - no questions asked - and if the guy was paid by the Monk family to throw Sean under the bus, the coppers had to know about it. Mickey Joy was wrong about this. It's not the big, bad conspiracy that counts, it's the little details that allowed it to stand. It's an appeal; the judges will have reviewed the evidence, the turn the first trial took already. They'll know the story of the Monk family killing two birds with one stone and they'll either believe it or not, but she won't change their opinions about it. She hates it but she needs to work like the coppers do, now. She's got the narrative, needs to show where the evidence sticks, and where it doesn't. Nick's right: if the evidence falls on irregularities, there's reasonable doubt. And if there's reasonable doubt, Sean walks.
"You think I'm right?" Nick says, smiling, leaning over the desk.
Martha laughs, nods. "For the record, I voted to keep you in at Shoe Lane, you know?"
"Well," he sighs, wiping his fingers on the napkin. "I voted you in here, so we're even, I guess," he adds, pausing for a bit, seems to think about it. "Seriously, though? You agree?"
"I," she starts and lets the syllable rest in her mouth for a bit. Thinks. "I think Sean's an idiot," she smiles, shaking her head. "But I also think he's innocent. The thing is: I've tried that argument before, that and police corruption and we both know how that ended," she breathes. "It's more than that, though. It's this trial being run like a circus from start to finish. It's that copper lying on the stand, it's Mickey Joy going back and forth on his testimony, it's CW being drunk, it's Cl-" she almost slips, shakes her head, sighs. "It's that jacket being found last minute by God knows who, I mean, it's everything, it's just all bollocks really. Even I shouldn't be in there, I'm conflicted out."
Nick laughs, sits back, crosses his arms. "Glad to hear you say it."
Martha shakes her head, huffs a bit of a laugh. "What I mean is," she starts. "We need to bring that down bit by bit. If we just argue innocence, all we have is the blood on the wrong sleeve of that jacket. And yes, that's relevant, and we'll bring it up but believe me, they'll find some other way to pin this on him," she sighs. "We need to burn the whole house down."
Nick stays silent for a bit, purses his lips, lets her words sink in. "Sean isn't going to be happy," he says. "He was, er, pretty adamant on innocence."
"Well, he'll have to get used to it," she sighs. "'Cause right now, I'm all he's got," she pauses. "If he wants to fire me, he just has to say the word," she shrugs, eyeing the clutter around her room. There are dozens of files on her desk, a wobbly bookcase by Vanessa's and curtains that barely filter the streetlights from the outside. Martha leans forward, her hand hovering over her desk for a bit and finally grabs a piece of cake. Fuck it, she thinks. Nick smiles. "So," she says, looking up at him. Hm, she thinks, that cake really is nice. "Are you in?"
"To burn the house down?"
Martha chews a bit, swallows. "Yeah."
Nick smiles, nods. "Always."
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It's kind of hard to believe, as a coincidence, but she's exactly fourteen weeks pregnant when the trial starts. The good news is that the nausea has finally rescinded – which will undoubtedly prove useful during the hearings - but other problems have made their apparition in the meantime. On the Sunday morning before the appeal, she looks at her clothes on their rack trying to find something to wear to go grab some food at the corner shop and decides that this is it: she can't go on like this. She'd promised herself to wait until next week at least - that psychological barrier still high in her head - but then her credibility's at stake. Even hidden under her robes, she can't show up with a blouse she can't close and a skirt that's not even zipped up halfway through. She's showing a lot more than last time, really, which the internet seems to confirm is normal but still, the pregnancy is becoming harder and harder to hide.
So, when 11 a.m. rolls around and the shops finally open, she goes shopping. There's nothing more she can do on the case anyway, and frankly, if she calls Nick one more time to run things past him, she genuinely thinks he might stop answering. It's hot, gross and rainy outside but still quiet in the shops when she gets there, so she spends a lot of time just looking at everything, from tracksuits to work clothes, and chatting with the salespeople in different places, trying to listen to them when they promise that no, that particular item does not make her look fat.
As a general rule, she's always hated fashion shopping – her usual work uniform exists for a reason - but faced with the obvious fact that the pregnancy pencil skirts tend to be very revealing of her bump - which she's not quite sure she wants to own that much, yet - she also ends up picking a few looser dresses, which make it easier to, er, hide things for a little while longer. Even though she's past the twelve weeks, now, considering past experience, she still hasn't found the courage to be open about it, really.
After hours spent going from shop to shop, her back and feet start to truly kill her, so she decides to stop at the pub to sit down and eat before making her way back home. The Crown is this kind of strange place where the busiest days are during the week, with the whole of Middle Temple pouring in every day after six, the weekends being oddly quiet and peaceful. Martha settles down at a table and can't actually see anyone she knows, just a couple of tourists sitting by the door and a few other patrons at the back, reading newspapers or doing crossword puzzles. Pat walks up to her table; she's placed all of her shopping bags on the booth; he throws her an amused smile. "Haven't seen you in a while," he says, handing her the menu. "What can I get you?"
She doesn't move to catch the menu from his hand, just glances up at him. "Full English?"
Pat laughs, checks his watch. "It's 2:30 in the afternoon."
Yes, she thinks, well. She feels like eggs. And beans, and toast. And now that she can finally eat without puking everything back out the next minute, she might as well indulge a bit. She holds Pat's gaze, daring him to say no.
He laughs, shakes his head. "Ice cream and pickles on top, too?" he jokes and she rolls her eyes, glares up at him. "Come on," he says, smiles, laying a hand on her shoulder. "I'm just taking the piss." He taps the table with the menu in his other hand, nodding. "To drink? Sprite? Water?"
"Water's fine," she nods.
She sees him turn around, shout over in the direction of the kitchen. "A full English breakfast and a pint of water coming right at yeh!"
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The food is good, so is the company. Pat lets the young barman they recently hired, Tom, do the service and sits at her table, chats to Martha while she eats. He tells her about his kids, his ex-wife, his mum and brothers back in Armagh. "They don't like me living out here," he jokes, as Martha chews on a piece of toast. "Think I'm a traitor to the cause."
She laughs at his jokes, but as the minutes pass and Pat's small talk becomes the only thing available to occupy her mind, Martha starts thinking about Clive again. It's easy to forget when she's working, pulling all-nighters every other day, but every time she stops, or every time she stands in her underwear looking at her reflection in the mirror with her hand resting against her midriff, he creeps back into her mind. At first, all she could think about was what he said, turning it around in her head, not knowing what hurt more: the break-up itself, or the knowledge that it was her own betrayal that fucked everything up for them. Some days, Martha would wake up thinking Clive was right, thinking she was awful, heartless, careless, and that she was going to lose the baby again due to her own arrogance. Some other days, though, she'd blame him, call him names in her head, shout at him all the insults and recriminations she wishes she could have said to his face.
Now, it's harder. Every time she sees him, runs into him in court or in the street, she remembers how they were, too, before. The I-love-you-s he used to whisper in her hair, the quiet mornings they'd have, visits to his sister's and silly bickerings over her unwashed mugs left in the sink. It's a bit weak, she knows, but she misses him, the smell of his skin and the sound of his voice, the feeling of his hand over hers.
It certainly doesn't help that her hormones are through the roof, at the moment.
"You're in a competition, aren't you?" she hears Pat ask, blinks herself out of her thoughts.
She frowns toying with her fork, pushing the last few beans around the plate. "What?"
"You and 'im," Pat breathes, giving her a slight nod. Martha swallows, quick, shifts awkwardly in her seat. "Who's more miserable?" he asks, catching her glance. "Fifteen minutes ago, I would have said him, but then I go away to put the tables out and next thing I know, you're sitting here brooding and staring into space like a lost fucking sheep."
Martha sighs, looks up, rolls her eyes. She's not here to talk about Clive. She's here because it's hot and humid outside, because she was hungry and because her feet were killing her. Her eyes shut for a second before Pat speaks again.
"He comes here too, you know?" the barman says, trying to catch her gaze. "Every fucking night."
And a heavy sigh escapes Martha's mouth; she clenches her jaw. "I asked him to stop -" she starts, trails off. Told him to stop the drinking, the drugs, thought he had, thought –
"Oh, he's definitely stopped the partying and fucking around," Pat clarifies; Martha almost feels herself glance up. "Nah, he just sits on that stool down there," he points, in the direction of the bar. "And drinks. Never seen him like that before, even had to throw him out a couple times 'cause he didn't want to go home," Pat breathes. "Lost fucking sheep, just like you. Even that blonde Barbie of his doesn't seem interested anymore, haven't seen her in ages."
Martha has to admit that does make her look up; she curses herself for it. Pathetic. "Harriet?"
Pat huffs out a laugh. "See?" he nods, smiling. "You care."
She shrugs, looks out the window to her left. It's funny, it's the exact opposite of what Clive said, isn't it? Claiming she doesn't care, doesn't love him.
"For what it's worth, he said he was an idiot," Pat adds, after a while, and Martha wonders if Clive didn't ask him to plead his cause. Well, at least he knows he's an idiot, she guesses. Doesn't mean she'll ever be able to forget the way he shouted at her that evening. "One night, he said: 'Pat, I'm an idiot,'" he quotes, shrugs. "Which, in my experience with men in pubs, is almost always the case, but you know -"
She smiles, shortly, sadly, feels Pat's stare on her face, his fingers tapping against the table in a rhythm she doesn't recognise. "I miss Billy," she hears herself say before she hears herself think. She doesn't know where it comes from, exactly, or why it pops into her mind uninvited, but she really, really does miss Billy.
"Yeah, me too," Pat breathes from the other side of the table, chuckles lightly. "So does my accountant," he jokes and she smiles, shaking her head at him. "Your man can drink all he wants, he doesn't even come close to Billy's tab."
A light laugh escapes Martha's mouth, like a distant sound or an echo. She wonders what Billy would have said, now, looking at them. She hasn't visited him since telling him about the baby, doesn't know if she lacks the strength, or just doesn't think she wants to spend even more time than she already does listening to the sound of her own thoughts. Billy would have put Clive and she in a room and forced them to make peace like all he'd done was to pull her hair on the playground.
"Do you love him?" Pat asks, catching her glance. "Clive, do you love him?" he specifies and she remembers the way Jo asked, in a pub, too, what feels like a million years ago. The answer's the same, she thinks, will always be the same.
She speaks in a breath – it's a lawyer thing: never answering the question asked. "I need to forget about him."
Pat laughs, then, pushing himself up from the booth, both his hands on the table. Martha looks up at him, crosses his gaze. "Well, that'll be a bit hard with that bun you've got in the oven, won't it?"
.
It's 7 a.m. the next morning and she's dressed for court, light bright in her bathroom, looks at herself in the mirror as she applies her lipstick and thinks: good.
Not great, but good. Good enough. She's had coffee, six hours of sleep and her new clothes look professional, fall over her stomach in a way that makes it less obvious and safer, protected, somehow. CW will open; she will close, one of the immutable privileges of the rule of law. She's got five days to prove a truth and right a wrong, which feels a lot more like five days to disprove a lie and make a wrong look a bit less believable but that, she can do.
She meets Nick outside court, thinks he looks nervous and feels – oddly – calm. Sean isn't, though. She sees him through the glass of his box when she walks in, the way he jitters and bites his fingers, looking from the empty judicial bench in front of him to Nick, to herself, to the accusation. Jumpy as hell, she recalls Clive once said. CW isn't there, yet - probably drinking one last shot before the run through. Setting her bag at her feet, Martha sits down on the wood of the bench, closes her eyes, breathes.
She hears Nick ruffling papers behind her. She hears the usher sitting down. If she really concentrates, she can even listen to the tick-tack of the clock on the wall. CW walks in with someone behind her – pupil? Junior? Martha wonders – their footsteps getting closer, both wearing heels – probably a girl. She sits down, speaks. It's the calm before the storm, Martha thinks.
"Ready for round two?"
Martha doesn't move quite yet, just pictures the room in her head, inhales –
"All rise."
Her eyes snap open, hands on the wood, she pushes herself up, sees three figures wearing gowns walk in front of her.
Okay, the voice in her head says. Here it goes.
.
When she was a child her teachers used to tell her parents about how focused she was. She would sit in silence for hours for the perfect drawing to come out, the perfect sentence, perfect posture. It was as if she could simply shut down, when she wanted to, have her brain aimed at one particular thing, one particular problem she needed to solve. She didn't need food or water, didn't need breaks, could sit on a chair for seven hours straight until the field of flowers on her paper was shaped in just the right way, with exactly the right colours framed.
What she does during those big trials is a bit of the same thing. It's her and the court, and blurry shapes all around. She shuts down. Doesn't look at people, doesn't see them, doesn't hear any noise that's not strictly essential to her argument. She doesn't do it all the time, but sometimes, when it's necessary.
The sun, that week, only exists on her way to court and back; Martha lives in the office with Nick, runs her cross-examinations over and over with the precision of a classical musician playing to the sound of a metronome, and tries not to break. She counts the points she scores versus the hits she takes, CW's voice constantly hovering close to the penalty line. Sean is there, in the box behind her, she knows, but she never looks – never lets herself look – for fear that the glass might break. She's more prepared than last time, has got the luxury to be because Charlotte freed her calendar this week and the week before, told her she needed to win this.
There's a part of Martha that wants to fight that, wants to point out that the only reason her clerk cares is that it would look good for Chambers, but she's shutting down, now, so she needs to choose her battles.
She chooses Sean.
.
Every time she goes to the loo, she expects to find blood on her underwear. Somehow, though, she doesn't. Somehow, by some sort of incredible twist of fate, the little one seems to hang in there, as far as she knows. She's read online that sometimes, their hearts could stop beating without you knowing about it. She's read a lot of horror stories, at night, when she can't sleep, tries not to think too much about it. She doesn't want Clive to be right on that one, telling her that losing their first one over a violent client meant that she'd also lose the other. If what he said was true, it may mean that he's right about everything else.
The first few days go by in the blink of an eye. They have legal arguments about anything from the length of the trial to Mickey Joy's testimony (it's easy, she argues, to just simply disregard the words of a dead man) some that she wins, some that she loses. It's a lot of clever words, a lot of "my learned friend"s from CW, they frankly hurt Martha's ears.
They have one of Sean's mates on the stand one afternoon. He's called by the prosecution. CW claims Sean had subcontracted some cleaning business to him but Martha has an odd, fishy feeling about it. The guy wasn't there at the first trial, looks familiar, somehow, but she can't quite place it. He's nervous, glances at Sean, glances at her a lot, like he's not quite decided on what he wants to say, yet.
"Nick Westlake, Martin Land, Steve Keane and Robin Page," CW quotes, finally, after a good ten minutes of excruciatingly pointless questions about the details of the man's business with Sean. Martha freezes, catches the pen that had been swirling between her fingers in her palm, holds her breath. That's where she knows him from, she realises: he was in school with them, a few years older, dropped out a few months before Sean and she got together. Martha doesn't think he recognises her, really, but he looks like he definitely recognises the names, his glance quickly flickering towards Sean. Either CW is fishing - which is possible, Martha guesses, because everyone's been trying to figure out who these people were for months, after all - or she was told.
If she was, there's only one person who could have told her.
Fuck Clive, Martha thinks.
Sean's stare is digging holes into the back of her head as CW speaks, asks: "Do those names sound familiar to you?"
Frankly, Martha wonders if she would lie for him, were she the one required to speak, out there. An obvious thought hits the back of her head: of course, she would.
And: "No," she hears Sean's mate say, too. Martha breathes.
"Are you sure?" CW counters, her forearm resting against the wood of the lectern in front of her. "We've looked at the records, it seems that you attended the same school. Same school as Mr McBride, shall I add?"
All things considered, Martha believes she, herself, argues her way out of this one with calm, collection and the utmost brilliance. She throws the ball back at CW first, accusing her of testifying for the witness, points out how loose the connection is, even more so considering the number of people who were at that school and the limited time her client actually spent within its walls. From the look on the judges' faces and the way they request CW to move on, it sounds a lot more believable than it should.
CW herself smiles, after she loses the argument, something tight and very Lady-Macbeth-ian, Martha thinks, for the lack of a better word. The other barrister steals a quick glance at Martha before she notes, her voice lower than the last time she spoke: "Yes, Mr Donovan, plenty of people at that school, indeed."
.
A few hours later, they break for the day and Martha is packing up her things when CW smiles at her, toying with the cap of her empty bottle. "You knew, didn't you? Your classmates?" CW asks, looking up at her. "Maybe it's true. Maybe that guy Donovan doesn't know them," she pauses. "But you do. That's why you walked out, last time." There is a pause, in her speech, she catches Martha's gaze. "You should be disbarred."
"I'm sorry, I don't see what you're talking about."
"Thought that was weird, you know? You walking out like that," she adds as Martha keeps packing, shoving her wig inside her handbag and grabbing the files on her desk in her arms. There is a hint of: 'come and get me,' in what she attempts to project, there, a look of: 'prove it,' like a challenge, but when Martha reaches for her purse inside her bag, she feels her hands shake. "I had the pupil look into it," CW adds, gaze still studying Martha. "Our beloved Head of Chambers wasn't happy about that. Insisted there was nothing to find," she pauses. Martha's eyes are trained down, heart racing against her ribcage. "Which, of course, considering the circumstances, I thought was even more interesting."
Against her better judgment, Martha looks up, catches CW's gaze. It wasn't Clive, she thinks. At least, not voluntarily. It was just CW fucking with her head all afternoon until the woman finally decided that she'd had enough, after Martha spent the entire hearing thinking about it, thoughts going round and round in her head, and fucking Caroline Warwick probably knew this the whole time. She lost points, in this mess, nothing too big but it felt like she was gripping at straws all afternoon, all because CW got under her fucking skin. Clive tried to cover for her, for better or for worse, he tried to –
Martha takes her phone in her hand, gathers all of her things under her arm and: "Good night, Caroline," she hears herself say, making a very conscious effort not to just rush out of the room.
The door is heavy as it closes behind her and she leans against the wall outside court. One, two, one, two, she counts, breathe.
.
The next day, things get back on track. CW brings up the jacket, the gun; Martha argues the chain of evidence and drives her point home with at least two of the judges, from what she can tell. She also gets her rematch against the medical examiner, gets her to admit that: "No, Mr McBride isn't left-handed."
She pushes, catches the other woman's glance. "You didn't know this, did you?"
"I didn't, but –"
"But you didn't have time to examine the jacket properly, did you, Miss Buchan? Because it was found in the middle of trial and you were rushed to issue your conclusions, and you know what? I didn't notice it either," Martha shrugs, theatrical. Her gaze flicks over to the bench, then back to her witness. "The police, they had their man, their narrative, and that was enough. They didn't grant me the right I had to counter them, didn't give you the power to do your job properly, and now they're letting you stand here, a year later, trapped in a position where your findings are coming out as incorrect by their fault," Martha adds, pauses, her glance resting on the medical examiner's eyes. "Now, Miss Buchan, how does that make you feel?"
The other woman opens her mouth, closes it, shakes her head. There's desperation in her look, and apologies; it almost makes Martha sad.
"I'll tell you how it makes me feel," she hammers, letting her point make itself. "Cheated. On behalf of my client, and of the justice system you and I both are so dedicated to serving."
The witness clenches her jaw but doesn't say anything, bites her lip and closes her eyes for a second.
It feels like they're alone in the room, when Martha quotes: "One big performance, isn't it?"
And this time, she stands a few seconds more, gives the woman the opportunity to answer, dutifully, but the words never come. Martha sits down, noting, out loud: "No response."
.
It's funny, how quickly the sand can shift under one's feet. She was the runner-up, then toe to toe with the leading filly but after that, when the prosecution runs Sean's background and she argues evidence, relevance, it feels like a whole different race, altogether. The audience's focus isn't on CW, anymore, but on Martha. It feels like she owns the tracks now.
'I just wish things were clearer, sometimes,' she told Alan, once. She was younger; he was wiser. 'That everyone didn't think this is all a game.'
He shook his head, smiled. 'But it is, though,' he declared. 'A serious one, a betting one, but a game nonetheless,' he laughed.
Well, Martha thinks, if this is a betting game, at least here, she knows the tells. When the next day, they have Brannigan on the stand, she gets to go through his accounts, his lifestyle, with the full attention of the room set on her. "You're being paid by the Monk family, aren't you, Mr Brannigan?" she asks, her voice loud and clear, echoing in the room. "You were paid to throw your mate, Sean, here, under the bus."
"No," Loyd says and she sighs, shaking her head.
"So, for the umpteenth time, sir, where does the money come from?"
"I don't know, okay?" he finally shouts, frantic and jumpy, and Martha utters a smile, looks up at the bench and sits back down.
"No further questions."
.
Once night, she receives her first text from Clive in a very long while. She's putting some ready-made meal in the oven, wipes her hand on a tea towel before grabbing her phone. It's funny, really, but when she looks at her screen, the last message before this one is from weeks ago and says I'll see you tonight, then. The new one is just a link, a Guardian article from a reporter covering the trial. Gangland Appeal Takes Highlights Police Corruption in Manchester, the headline reads.
In an unexpected turn of events, the appeal of Mr. Sean McBride, 39 year-old Manchester nightclub owner, in the murder of gang-member Jimmy Monk in March 2014, is now revealing a series of deep holes in a police investigation that may have led to the conviction of an innocent man -
Well, she thinks: at least they've got the media on their side now, that's something. Clive isn't exactly your average Guardianista, though, so she's not exactly sure why he's sending her this, really, especially since they haven't talked in weeks, until he sends her another text, says: I hope she'll look like that. I don't think I've ever looked this good.
Martha frowns, scrolls back up trying to find out what the hell he's on about when - yeah, okay.
The image was loading when she first clicked on the article so she didn't get to see it right away but now, she gets it. The fact of the matter is: this isn't the first time. Martha's had court artists draw her clients before, and there have been a few pictures of her in the press thanks to the Berrian case, but true, this is different. It's The Guardian, and it's a sketch, hand drawn, almost entirely black and white, and Martha's alone in it, standing in court with the wooden decorum around her, a manila file open on the lectern. Her mouth is slightly open, mid-argument, finger adding to a detail by pointing at something on her papers. She's got her hair tied back, wig on; it's funny because she doesn't usually get to see what she projects in court. Martha looks confident there on the sketch, certain, like herself but also someone else, the kind of person she wants to be when she holds onto her desk to keep her hands from shaking. They painted her lips red, she smiles, the only dash of colour in the drawing.
Martha Costello Q.C. the legend reads, representing Mr McBride.
As she scrolls down the article, Martha realises that it is as much about Sean's trial as it is about her. It gives a rundown of the cases she's taken on since she took silk, the kinds of wrongs that she tries to right, the kinds of things that she fights for. When they refer to Sean, it's to point out the flaws in the system. The article is good, well researched.
"We have an adversarial system for a reason," a senior High Court judge told The Guardian, when asked to comment on the McBride case. "The point, the fiction, maybe, behind it, is that we want a person who is accused of a crime to be able to view, dispute and potentially refute the evidence that is put against them. They are innocent until proven guilty," he says and laughs, referring to Miss Costello. "No, whatever she tells you, I don't believe for a minute that Costello truly thinks all her clients are innocent. She does abide by the above principle, though, in all the cases she takes, that's one thing you can give her. She's passionate about it. In that, she's consistent."
Before switching to Klein Chambers last January, Miss Costello was at Shoe Lane, for the better part of the last twenty years. Such loyalty is not unheard of, in Middle Temple, but it is unusual. "When we became a prosecution set," Clive Reader, Q.C., Head of Chambers at Shoe Lane explains. "Martha felt that she had to leave. She doesn't prosecute; it's part of who she is. We were sorry to lose her, but I've always respected that. As a barrister we've had our differences but as a friend, she's probably both the best and the worst thing that's ever happened to me[laughs]. A cross between Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, and a small Rottweiler, as Billy [Editor's note: Billy Lamb, Shoe Lane's former senior clerk, now deceased] used to say."
Martha scrolls back up to the sketch, then, and it's an odd thought, really, one she's very, very rarely had in the past but looking at it objectively, now, she thinks she looks beautiful.
Smiles to herself, quiet in the night. Goes back to her conversation with Clive and types: To be fair, I don't think I ever have, either.
For about a minute afterwards, she sees the dots of the answer he's typing appear and disappear as he hesitates on what to say next. She thinks about his comment in the piece, wonders again, about his use of the word 'friend,' and gives him privacy, sets her phone back on the counter until it beeps.
Now, you're just fishing ;).
A chuckle escapes her mouth but the reality of them downs on her with full force and her fingers hover over her keyboard for a good while, too. She wishes he were here, by her side, and I miss you, she almost types, before deleting her words, writes: Thanks, Clive, and hits send.
She looks strong in that drawing, too.
.
By Thursday, Sean and she are coming up on top but Martha feels exhausted, more tired than she's ever been. The only thing that keeps her going, it feels, is the adrenaline, the feeling of her heart beating fast against her chest as she meets Nick outside court every morning. Today is a big day. Today, they have DCI Fitzpatrick on the stand.
Martha's ready. She's spent hours working towards this, knows her questions by heart, the route from a to b, to c, knows how to nail him lying on the stand like she couldn't last time. She's prepared, hasn't slept. Nick rolls his eyes when he sees the bags under hers, but she's ready.
"How did you come to suspect Sean?"
She's methodical. Questions after question. When she reviewed the case, she knew it'd be her first. Sean got arrested just two hours after the murder, so how did they know? The body was reported by an anonymous 999 call, probably the killer, upon reflection, someone from the Monk family. Someone who might have put the police onto Sean.
"The family mentioned their son had had a business disagreement with Mr McBride."
"So, you relied on the information provided by notorious gang members?"
"Who'd just lost a son. We do this all the time, it's called an investigation."
Fitzpatrick hates her already, Martha muses, which is fine: the feeling is mutual. She thinks of what Mickey Joy said, how they were two sides of the same coin and well: no, she thinks, at least she's not corrupt. "Okay," Martha says, looking up. "So you hear the victim had a business disagreement with my client. What do you do then?"
"We decided we wanted to gather more information so we visited Mr McBride's club."
"Was Sean there?"
"No. His business partner was, Mr Brannigan."
Martha looks up; her pen stops doodling on her pad. "So, you did know Mr Brannigan."
"Met him during this investigation, yes."
"And what did Mr Brannigan say?"
"He didn't know anything. Said that Sean had gone to see Jimmy and that he didn't know where his business partner was, or where his gun was."
"Sounds to me like he did know something, then," Martha hints, smiling. "Almost like he was waiting for you to ask."
One of the judges interrupts, warns. "Miss Costello, you're leading the witness, here." Martha nods, puts her hand up in a half-hearted apology and purses her lips, lets silence fill the room again, pauses to think. It's too soon to attack Fitzpatrick, really, so she shakes her head, changes the subject.
"What did you do afterwards, before arresting my client? Did you check Mr Brannigan's story?"
"We did our due diligence, as always."
Martha smiles, breathes. One, two, three, she counts. "Are you incompetent, DCI Fitzpatrick?" she asks and watches her witness's mouth fall, like facing a cliff.
"What?"
"See, I'm asking the question because Mr Brannigan pretty much confirmed to us yesterday that he took the Monk family's money so, I'm asking you, DCI Fitzpatrick, how could you do your 'due diligence' as you call it, and not know about this? How could you not understand that your witness was playing you, supported by the Monk family to feed his business partner to the wolves?" she speaks, quick, confident, her voice carrying all the way down to the back of the room. "Again, DCI Fitzpatrick, are you completely incompetent or are you lying to us?"
Fitzpatrick glares, jaw clenched, and if he could spit in her face, Martha is pretty sure that he would. "No, I'm not incompetent, Miss Costello. And what you're referring to is a theory that isn't supported by any of the evidence we have. Again, round hole, square peg."
Martha smirks at that, shakes her head, fakes a frown. "So, the fact that we've proven that Mr Brannigan has been receiving bribes for months, now, and the fact that the blood on Sean's jacket actually seems to corroborate the idea that he attempted to take Jimmy Monk's pulse rather than shoot him, and the fact that we have no explanation as to why, despite the high amount of manpower and money that was put into this investigation, the evidence was just produced days into the trial – all of that doesn't mean anything to you, DCI Fitzpatrick? All those questions you can't answer –"
CW interrupts, then, stands up to speak: "The defence is badgering the witness, my Lord –"
Martha is about to retreat, fake another apology when: "No, I don't think, so, Miss Warwick," she hears Lord Hayes respond, to her own total astonishment. Martha looks up, breath coming out a bit short. "I think Miss Costello is asking questions about this police investigation, the answers to which we would all very much want to know. Mr Fitzpatrick, please answer the question."
"Oh come on, you've cooked yourself up your little appeal –"
"Frankly, there are two options here," Martha interrupts, presents, her gaze hovering between him and the bench. "One," she reinforces the count with her fingers: "It's negligence. You decided it was Sean and didn't look twice at the evidence that didn't go your way because you were lazy and wanted this solved quickly," she articulates, staring back. "Or, two, it's fraud. You knew the Monk's family plan from the start, knew Brannigan was playing you, and frankly, DCI Fitzpatrick, I don't know where that leaves us."
"My learned friend is making allegations she can't support and is forgetting that the arresting officer is not the accused, here, my Lord –"
"Well, maybe, he should be," Martha snaps, a bit too loud, covering CW's last words and immediately curses herself for it. She needs to be smart about this, walk the line between irreverence and rudeness like a court jester, these days.
"Miss Costello," she hears Lord Hayes reprimand and bites her lip, apologises, takes a second to think.
Martha's got this thing that she uses sometimes, leaning in closer to the witness as much as she possibly can without actually moving from her spot and staring into their eyes. It makes them think they're alone. His eyes are blue, she notices, a very, very light shade, like that of older men in retirement homes. It might work with him, she thinks, against all odds.
Martha asks a few more questions Fitzpatrick can't answer but her voice is tame, now, and for minutes on end, she refuses to let go of his gaze. He gets aggressive, moans, but she doesn't flinch, doesn't shout back, just lets him get there, patient, like a lioness surveilling its prey, walking him from point a to point b.
"What happened, DCI Fitzpatrick?" she finally asks, again, when the time is right, her voice barely louder than normal speech, a whisper in a courtroom. "What happened in the McBride case?"
He's not fuming as much, anymore, just quiet, and she wonders if that's the card she should play maybe, some sort of intimacy, for now, at least.
"You tell me you're a good cop. So, show it," she adds. Her heart hammers, in her chest, she has to remind herself to breathe out to keep her hands from shaking. "Was Mr Brannigan a grass? Did you know him before?"
"I told you," Fitzpatrick repeats, shaking his head. "On the lives of my children –"
She nods, shakes her head. "So, what then?"
And there, he flips. She feels it, in his look, holds her breath, the room so quiet she hears the sound of her own blood pumping in her neck. Fitzpatrick tries to glance away; she holds onto him and refuses to let go. "You have to understand –" he starts.
His stare drifts to the judges, to CW, confused; Martha shifts at her desk, taps her finger against the wood. "Look at me," she calls and he does, his eyes finding hers again. "Tell me."
And there, she gets him. "We were trying to protect him –" he starts.
This time, she doesn't interrupt. She lets him finish.
.
"Well, shit," she hears in her ear as they leave the courtroom, Nick walking fast behind her. They stop on the street outside, she's shaking from the adrenaline still coursing through her veins, the self-restraint she had to exercise not to betray anything in front of Fitzpatrick.
Martha looks at Nick, thinks: yeah, shit.
They're standing by the gates, close to where she used to smoke when she still could and it's odd, how her heart doesn't seem to slow down. She doesn't want to stop here so she keeps walking, crossing the street to head back to Chambers. Martha feels restless, keeps turning Fitzpatrick's words inside her head. They knew he wasn't guilty, she thinks, from the fucking start. "That was unbelievable, Martha," Nick says and smiles at her.
His features are bit blurry, before her eyes; she blinks, shakes her head, keeps herself focused on avoiding the people walking on Fleet Street until they reach the way down to Middle Temple Lane.
"I mean, I think it would have felt better if it had actually been this great conspiracy rather than them just –"
"Just what?" she snaps, glancing up, her heels tapping a rhythm against the pavement. "Hearing Fitzpatrick admit that the Monk family told them it was Sean, which they believed at face value, rushed to make an arrest because it would look bad in the press if the gang killed him first and then covered up their fuck up? Sean's in jail because of them, Nick. It makes me fucking sick."
Nick stops, is quiet for a bit. They make it through the gates and down the cobblestone path, taking a left towards the church. "Well, when you say it like that –" Nick says, sighs. "It was a great cross, Martha. Best one I've ever seen."
And, she's about to counter with another jab about how it comes too bloody late but strangely, she can't find her voice. They're walking under the archways, just the both of them, trying to cross from Pump Court to the other side – it's ironic, really, how close her new Chambers are to Shoe Lane - when she stops, still. The sun is bright, white light flashing before her eyes, she feels Nick's look on her but can't distinguish his features, can hear her own blood pumping in her ears, again. She thinks of that copper, of Sean, and it goes thump, thump, thump, against her neck. Nick speaks, she thinks, hears a vague echo in her head but thump, thump, thump, her heartbeat goes in her ear, and covers his words. Nick moves, but suddenly, there are about a million arches around her, her head spins, and –
.
Eyes closed, she hears footsteps. Voices, vaguely, like from the other side of a canyon.
"She just fainted –"
"What do you mean, she 'just fainted?'"
"I don't know, okay? She was angry, cross-examining DCI Fitzpatrick, and then I said something and she just –"
"Oh, for God's sake!" she hears one of the voices say before she hears running and feels someone sit down next to her, touching her shoulder. The voice is familiar – of course, it is - and it's not Nick's. She sighs, wishes it were.
"Martha?" Clive says, shaking her a bit. "Martha?"
Her eyes open on his face, vision still slightly blurry. She sees blond hair, blue eyes; her back hurts. She closes her eyelids again. Back to sleep -
"Nick, she's awake," Clive says, too loud; she rolls her eyes. When she looks up again, another face joins Clive's blurry features in her field of vision: dark hair, blue eyes, too.
"Martha, are you okay?" Nick asks, voice full of concern; she lets out a moan, tries to move –
As soon as she rises from the ground a bit, pushing herself up on her elbows, the Earth starts spinning again; she feels someone's hand behind her head before it hits the ground.
Okay, maybe that wasn't such a good idea, then, she thinks.
"Marth –" Clive starts; she hears herself sigh.
"'M fine," she groans. Her back hurts, her head hurts, her neck hurts but the checklist stops there, thankfully.
"Are you –" Clive starts and behind her annoyance, she can't help but smile a little at the worry in his voice. He may not love her, anymore, but he definitely loves that baby, doesn't he?
"'re fine," she amends, groaning as she tries to move her head again. "'f I'd miscarried, I'd know," she adds, the words coming out a bit louder and stronger than she meant them to. It was meant as a joke but Clive doesn't seem to share her sense of humour and throws a worried, questioning glance at Nick, who in turn throws it back at her. She almost lets a laugh escape her lips but it quickly turns into a somewhat painful cough when her body shakes a bit. Her mouth is dry; she's thirsty – hungry, too – definitely doesn't feel ready to get up quite yet, so: "Water," she mutters as she shuts her eyes again, listens to the wind rustling in the leaves of trees and for the first time in months: rests.
.
Clive drives her home, later. They leave her car in the car park near Chambers and take his; she's so tired she falls asleep as soon as her head hits the back of the seat, lolling between the headrest and the window to her left. She only wakes up when the car stops moving, twenty minutes later, parks in the street outside her building.
Martha blinks a few times, warming up to her surroundings. It's summer again, strangely enough, and the leaves of the trees in her courtyard gently shade part of the street, green and lively, breeze slowly rocking the top branches.
"Thanks," she says, stealing a glance at Clive.
There is a moment, there, when she thinks that she should get out, walk back to her flat and try to forget about him again until the next time they run into each other. His glance catches hers, though, eyes slightly green with the light cast by the sun through the leaves of the trees. "You should sleep," he tells her, his voice quiet, not as an order but more as a plea, as someone who cares.
"You're only saying that because you're on Caroline's side," Martha smiles, looking up at him. "I should work is what I should do. Speech tomorrow," she adds, running a hand over her face. She looks at Clive, sighs. "I need to win this."
"From what I hear, you already have."
She rolls her eyes a bit, not at what he says but at what people say, and the things she's been reading in the press. "It doesn't mean anything," she says, shaking her head. "You and I both know that until the verdict comes out –"
"Marth, you're going to win this," Clive tells her, firm, holding her gaze. His hands fall from the wheel to his lap, he turns a bit to look at her. "I know it," he adds, smiles. "Nick knows it. The whole of Middle Temple bloody knows it and is hanging onto your every word."
She looks away, her jaw clenched. "Well, if I do," she says and catches his glance again, like she can't choose whether or not she wants to see his face. "It won't be thanks to you."
Clive takes the hit, quiet, for a bit. "No," he says, finally, looking at his fingers tapping a rhythm against the leather of the wheel. "It won't."
Right. Martha didn't think he would agree, frankly, was gearing up for another fight, so now, she doesn't know what to say, really, sits in silence for a little while longer, studying the stains on the glass of his windshield. Martha likes her cars to be pretty – Clive's made enough comments about that before, joking that she only picked her current one because she looked good in it (he wasn't wrong, in truth) – but at least, it means she has them cleaned regularly. Martha steals a glance at him and it reminds her of the end with Jerôme, how she felt like she was getting pushed out of a train she didn't necessarily want to let go.
Martha didn't necessarily want to hold onto it either, though.
"I'm not on her side, you know?" she hears him say, later, and freezes, her fingers on the handle of the door. "Caroline," Clive specifies, glance trained on the street, in front of them. "You said –" he speaks, stops, shakes his head. "I'm not on Caroline's side," he clarifies, catching Martha's glance, pausing.
Martha acknowledges his words with a nod but doesn't say anything else; she feels Clive's look on the side of her face but it's her turn to avoid him, now, to stare out the window, at the lady walking by with her Jack Russell on a leash. The car goes completely quiet when he pulls the key from the ignition and the low hum of the air conditioning dies; she looks at him but his gaze is fixed on the wheel. She breathes in, breathes out. "What are you doing Tuesday morning?" Martha asks, before she can think.
"I, er, don't know –"
"I have an appointment," she says, quickly. She was trying to push it to the week after, earlier, actually, because it's next week and she's terrified she won't get to be there when the verdict comes in, but they said she was already late, already at fifteen weeks, something, so –
"What kind of appointment?"
There's a hint of worry in Clive's voice when he speaks and looks up at her. Yeah, she guesses, a few weeks back, it could have been that kind of appointment as well.
She smiles, though, now, bites her bottom lip, looks down at her hands. "Scan," she says. It's odd: she feels a bit silly, shy, telling him. "We, er," she hesitates, looks up, catches his gaze. "We get to see it," she breathes, a discreet smile tugging at her lips again. "If you want to come, I mean," she pauses, quickly, shakes her head and rambles on, doesn't want to let him speak, doesn't want to let him say: 'No.' "And again," she adds. "You might be right and I might lose it or it may not even have a heartbeat but –"
She feels his hand on her thigh for half a second before it moves away; it stops her mid-sentence. It feels cold, when he takes it off, like something's missing. "Marth, I –"
"Don't –"
It's the second time she says it, isn't it? The second time she doesn't want to hear whatever he has to say, doesn't know if she'll ever want to hear what he has to say now. Another fight, or an apology, or something in between she just –
"What I want to say is," she speaks, decisive, hands on her knees. "If you want to come, come. If you don't, you don't have to."
He catches her gaze, then, and she sees something in his eyes, something she used to see before he kissed her, sometimes. "I'd love to," he says, smiles.
So: Martha nods, then, her hand on the handle of the door again - this time, he doesn't stop her. "Okay," she tells him, as the car clicks open, the hot air from the outside hitting the side of her body first, before making its way to him. "I'll text you."
.
It's later, after she's taken a bath, eaten and napped for a bit that she opens the bag he gave her. She'd left the car already; he ran after her and put it in her hand before she could even open her front door, asked her not to get mad at him about it and disappeared. It's this kind of solid, paper and plastic shopping bag, coloured a pale shade of blue, the brand written in white script on the front. She told herself she'd open it tomorrow, when the trial was over and it wouldn't matter whether she actually did get mad or not, but Martha's drinking tea, now, sitting at her kitchen table, looking for inspiration to write her speech and when she sees it, remembers it, she cuts the little bit of tape shutting the bag together with a pair of scissors. They're wrapped in tissue paper but as soon as she sees them, she knows why he thought she might scream.
She'd insisted, back then. No maternity clothes before fifteen weeks, at least, and no baby things before then, either. 'I'm serious, Clive,' she laughed as he browsed the Internet for stupid bodysuits that said things like: I was Daddy's fastest swimmer. She broke her promise about maternity clothes, the other day, so really, she can't be mad at him for breaking his.
They're tiny shoes, the tiniest shoes she's ever seen, in fact, the both of them fit in her hand. They're wool, soft, dark blue – almost black - with a line of white lining at the top and bottom, big red pompoms on the front. They make her think of a flower, a poppy maybe. She studies them before closing her eyes and smiles, large and honest, plays with them for a bit, holding them into her free palm.
The thing is: there's a card, too, inside the bag. It's the first thing she saw when she opened it, let the tip of her finger trace over Clive's handwriting and swallowed heavily, closed her eyes, too. She takes it again, now, and smiles, bittersweet.
For January, he wrote, his script quick on the paper. She can picture him, scrawling the words at the edge of his desk in Chambers, on top of a binder, slipping the card inside the bag before rushing into court. Like a secret, like things you can't say.
Love,
Clive.
She reads the words, again and again until she can picture them from memory. Her other hand rests against the bump of her stomach and she feels the rise and fall of her breaths, hopes it breathes, too.
She sighs, her hand against the fabric of her shirt, whispers: "Stay. Please."
I love you, she thinks.
.
.
[1] Hymn To My Invisible Friend by Lilly Wood and The Prick
