A/N:
[1] The rating of this chapter is T.
As always, please give me your thoughts :)
iii.
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But I have seen the same, I know the shame in your defeat. But I will hold on hope and I won't let you choke on the noose around your neck.
The Cave – Mumford & Sons
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On the phone to her mum after her dad passed away, Martha lied. It was late afternoon on a Wednesday; she was home, working, took the call and stayed there, silent. Her mother wept (quiet, mournful tears) barely audible on the line. 'I can drive home tonight,' Martha offered, quick, knowing that she couldn't, wouldn't. She had court, the next day. Had a life to get to.
'No, honey,' her mum said. Martha exhaled. 'I'll be fine.'
After Clive leaves, that evening, the waiting game begins. She has a case to get through (her client in deep need of help), before she can go North, visit her mum, and board a plane to the other side of the world. It remains the plan, for now, and as a result, Martha lives on autopilot, waiting until she can get out, can't just leave poor Robin and her mother without a brief. A defence case wouldn't get picked up in Chambers, it'd be returned to some other set, and there's a part of her (ego, maybe?) that can't quite accept that.
It's hard to focus. Exhaustion plagues her days but at night, she can't sleep, brain wired, and when awake, Billy's on her mind all the time. The memories clutter in her brain like reels of a movie she doesn't want to play. Things get mixed up. She has nightmares (daymares, maybe, somewhere at the edge of consciousness): Billy is missing. She's looking for him around town and she's drunk, in a pub, lies on the floor with the taste of blood at the back of her throat. Pain shoots through her stomach; someone laughs, suddenly on top of her. She can only see a form, dark, tries to kick it off but it stays there, hands on her skin, and when she looks to her side, Billy appears, mouth and eyes wide open: dead.
She doesn't know what to do, so she works. Defends.
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She doesn't avoid Clive, not anymore. They were mostly silent, after he made her laugh, that night, but when he offered to stay over again, she declined, swore she'd be fine.
(She's her mum's little girl, after all, too.)
'Half of Chambers didn't vote for you, you know?' she spoke, though, before he left, as she handed him a second beer, sat back down on her couch. He'd just hung up the phone with Harriet, the conversation tense. To his credit, Clive didn't step away to take the call, let Martha listen as he argued, sighing at something Harriet had said. 'With Harriet, you need to understand each other,' Martha added, catching his gaze. Alan had that, with Billy. They had a relationship, something strong, that inspired trust. 'Build some sort of bond, make each other happy. Not look like some couple who argues at every opportunity.'
Clive smirked, raised an eyebrow at her. 'Lessons in Chambers politics from Martha Costello?'
She rolled her eyes, then, but fair, she thought: she's never been quite too good at that particular game. She knows the theory, though and: 'You know I'm right,' she instructed, because in truth, she was.
A quiet laugh left Clive's mouth, nodding after a while, and something resembling a wince crossed over his face when he looked at her, breathed. 'Fuck,' he said, quick, setting his beer down on the table after taking a sip. 'I wish there was, like, a training period, you know? Before you leave,' he paused, nervously rubbing the side of his middle finger with his thumb. 'To learn how to do things without you.'
Martha doesn't know what possessed her to smile, then, look up at him and say: 'I'm still here. For now.'
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They're on the phone every night, after that.
Not necessarily for long, and not that she means it to happen but it sort of does. She's okay, really, but still, she calls him on Sunday night, after spending the day working on Robin's case, going through witness statements and the police investigation, trying to find enough material to support her argument. It's nice to stay focused, think about something other than Billy, or Clive, or foreign hands on her arse for a moment (she's always been the kind of person to find solace in her work, in that ability to concentrate on something and forget the world around her), but when the sky gets dark outside her window, she feels the need to hear Clive's voice against her ear. He offers to come over and shows up on her doorstep with take-away and files to read, only goes home after midnight. There are more lame jokes, and light, shy laughs exchanged. It doesn't solve anything, but it helps.
Clive has a case in the RCJ that week, so they mostly talk about work. They don't talk about the night Billy died, don't talk about anything and Martha's mostly quiet -they're precarious; she weighs every word before speaking and he watches her like milk about to boil, spill all over the kitchen. The bruises on her body turn into a yellowish canvas and she pokes holes in his accusation the way he pokes holes in her defence; she's always liked to see the kind of work that he's able to put in, the way his brain bites into an issue, detached and rational. He says prosecuting is a different side to her angels and as he teases her about it, she wonders if he was the sort of little boy who dreamed himself up as a copper or a fireman, that kind of hero complex engrained in his brain like her need to constantly prove everyone wrong.
(Right and wrong are very versatile elements, she's learnt, depending on where you stand and where you come from.)
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Clive doesn't initiate contact, either physical or otherwise: she's always the one to phone, at the end of the day, and if he did, she's not sure she'd pick up. "I think I'll go see my mum," she tells him, one night. The windows to her flat are open, a light breeze coursing through. She's wearing an oversized jumper over a pair of leggings. "Before I leave."
Clive is silent at the other end of the line. Drinks.
She hasn't been sleeping well, lately, (nightmares, stuck in her brain, she likes to tell herself they'll go away - the sleeping pills, she finds, make them worse) so when Clive comes by, Martha sometimes passes out on the couch while he cooks in her kitchen, likes to hear the sounds generated by someone else's presence. One evening, she hears him letting himself in, coming back from getting groceries; it kind of wakes her up, a vague sense of her surroundings. There are papers, casefiles all strewn around her; she let them fall on her chest when her eyes shut, earlier, sleep deprived. Her dream was sweet, this time around, quiet – she can't quite remember what it was but wishes she could get back into it, turns onto her side, her fists tight on top of the cushions.
"It all happened so fast, you know?" Clive says, shutting the door behind him. She barely raises an eyelid before closing it again; he's on the phone, she can tell. His voice lowers when he spots her on the sofa, barely above a whisper. "With Billy passing and everything, I just – I don't know. The Head of Chambers thing, it hasn't really sunk in, yet."
Martha could signal that she's awake, true, but she doesn't want to interrupt, wonders who he's talking to. She keeps her eyes closed, listens to him move, head straight towards her kitchen. He drops the bags of take away on the island, leans against the counter.
"Thanks, Mum," he says.
She should have known. There was familiarity in his voice, in the tired sigh that left his mouth. Clive's always been a mummy's boy, she knows, remembers mocking him years ago, listening to him cancelling a trip to his parents' full of apologies and Mum-I'll-be-in-next-week-I-promise, after Martha turned up on his doorstep, the day following her thirty-fifth birthday. Her eyes were red, she'd been crying, wasn't quite sure why. It's not like it was unexpected, really, not like it wasn't her fault.
Her suitcase was at her feet, he was coming back from his morning run. 8 a.m. on a Saturday, and sat next to her, unstrapped his iPod from his arm, pulling his earphones out.
'I got dumped,' she announced. His gaze caught hers; he raised an eyebrow.
'Did you tell him?'
She wore Converse trainers, that day, an old pair; the soles mostly grey, partly peeling from the fabric. The sun fell on the façade of Clive's old building, the last days of summer blending into the autumn chill. 'No,' she spoke, her voice soft, exhausted.
Jerôme had been her first real relationship since Sean. (Embarrassing, right? In her bloody thirties.) She'd met him at a conference. The right to a fair trial under the ECHR, children being judged as adults: T. and V. v. United Kingdom, ten years on. He was on the panel, she remembers, quite sure of himself; it irritated her more than the fact that he was right. She argued the devil's advocate's point for a good ten minutes, standing in front of the whole conference room, just to wipe that smug smile off his face. He invited her out for coffee, afterwards, and: 'Just so we're clear: I actually agree with you,' she told him as soon as she sat down. He smiled – not a bad smile, she thought to herself - and nodded.
'I guessed that, yes.'
At first, he wasn't permanent. Not in her life, and not in London. He'd take the train in from Belgium on certain weekends or when his firm would fly him over (she soon discovered that defending children in Strasbourg wasn't his main occupation – 'Competition law,' he said, that night, when coffee turned into drinks at the pub next door. 'Magic Circle.' She rolled her eyes, laughed. 'Please don't hold it against me,') would stay a few days and disappear. She liked that, bittersweet memories haunting her mind after they broke up, wondering over and over what the hell happened that made it impossible for her to just keep him. Clive mocked her relentlessly, called him her 'French beau' (Do you know where Belgium is, Clive?), but in the end, she liked him, she really did.
The firm gave him a six months contract to stay in London on a case involving price fixing in big pharma. Six months then turned into a year. Two years. He started talking about staying, making partner, liked the people he worked with, not the idea of going back to Belgium. He joked about them going steady, kids; she withdrew. Freaked. Fucked up.
She'd spent over two years of her life trying and failing to fall in love with someone who genuinely loved her. Fucking pathetic, Mar, innit? She shook her head at Clive, sighed. 'He knew.'
'Sorry.'
She wanted to tell him that it wasn't his fault. That Jérôme hadn't even found out, he'd found her. Sitting in their living room at seven o'clock in the morning, dried tear tracks along her face. She'd gotten home around three but hadn't found the strength to go to bed, lie next to him. He always got breakfast on the way to work (often did overtime on the weekends – until I make partner, he'd say) so was all ready to go, eyed his coat on the rack before he glanced at her. She thinks he saw it on her face, just sat on the coffee table in front of her, sighed.
Martha shut her eyes, held back more tears. When she opened them again, his gaze was still on hers. He looked like he was about to cry, too. 'I'll just take my stuff,' she said, her voice shaking, nervously rubbing her hands.
'Clive?' It was the only question Jérôme seemed to have. She sighed, didn't say.
'Does it matter?'
'I think it matters to you,' he told her, then. They were both silent; it occurred to her that maybe, it did, yeah. 'We could talk about it, Martha. We can work this out.'
And that's the thing, isn't it? He would probably have forgiven her. She stayed silent, looked to her feet until she felt his fingers under her chin, lifting it up to look at him.
'Je t'aime, tu sais ?' he just said, before he left. (I love you, you know?)
So, when Clive apologised, on his doorstep, Martha wanted to tell him it wasn't his fault, but couldn't push the words out of her mouth. It really wasn't, though, it was all on her. He'd kissed her, sure, but the decision to kiss him back, was all hers. 'Can I stay at yours for a bit?' she asked, after a while, nodding at her suitcase. He chuckled, arched an eyebrow at her.
'Well, since you're already here, I don't have much of a choice, do I?'
She nudged his shoulder, playfully rolled her eyes. 'I'll go somewhere else if that's what you want.'
Clive laughed, then, and wrapped an arm around her, kept her close as he kissed the top of her head. 'Of course not,' he spoke and Martha put her head on his shoulder, feeling the rhythm of his breaths next to her.
They stayed like that for a bit, watching the traffic move in front of his building, London slowly waking up with them. He was sweaty, coming back from his morning run, she sniffed him and frowned, lifting her head to look at him. 'You smell,' she said. He burst out laughing, jokingly pushing her away from him as he stood and helped her up, grabbing her suitcase and carrying it on top of the stairs.
'Oh, Martha Costello,' Clive joked. 'You really know how to win a man's heart over.'
Still, though, he let her in and called his mum, made his apologies and promised not to miss next week's Sunday roast.
Martha can feel Clive's eyes on her, now, in her sitting room years later as he talks to his mother and she pretends to be asleep, keeps her body as still as possible. "Martha, she's –" he starts, stops. "I think we're both a bit lost, right now," he admits.
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On Thursday morning, when her trial ends and the jury retires to discuss its verdict, Muriel hugs her again, standing outside court in the baking hot oven summer seems to have turned the city into. His Honour told them to give up on court dress today so it's funny how what may well be her last day in court, Martha spends in normal clothes.
"What are our chances?" her client's mother asks after watching her daughter being taken back into custody yet another time, looking like she's carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. For the first time in her professional life, Martha doesn't know what to respond.
Usually, she's got this list of phrases she uses, they come out of her mouth rehearsed, calm, no matter the circumstances. 'Don't worry about it now,' she says, or 'what she's going to need, whatever happens, is your support'. And when worst comes to worst, when they insist, she ignores the real numbers in her gut, the ones years of experience and verdicts scream at her and says '50/50,' quick, affirmative,and hopes they won't ever ask again.
Yet, now, standing outside court smoking the last cigarette in her pack, in the back of her head, she can't even muster up those secret numbers she wouldn't ever tell. "I think we did good," she tells Muriel, breathing out. "But, I really don't want to get your hopes up, okay? We'll only know when the verdict's in," she pauses, reads Muriel's next question on her face. "Not before Monday, at the earliest."
Muriel nods, her eyes closed, taking a drag off of one of those e-cigarettes; it leaves a funny scent lingering in the air. Martha catches herself glaring, glances away.
"I'm trying to quit," the other woman explains, taking another drag. "She's going to need me there longer than I thought."
The butt of Martha's cigarette falls to the floor; she kills it with the sole of her shoe. If anything, she'd say the e-cig smells like those chemical bubble-gum flavoured ice creams would, if they actually had a smell. "Yeah, I tried once," she admits. "Didn't stick."
Another puff of smoke clouds the air. "Yeah? How long did you last?"
Her nails are bitten raw, Martha observes, tobacco stains still visible at the edge of her fingers; she can't have stopped longer than a week ago. "Fourteen weeks," she says, the words rolling off her tongue, honest, quick, her glance directed at the floor. It was the first thing she did after stepping out of the hospital, went through an entire pack in one evening. "Listen," she speaks again, stepping away from the door, a couple of steps down, changing the subject. She doesn't think Muriel notices the tension in her shoulders. "I won't be in London tomorrow, but don't hesitate to call me if you need to, okay?" she says, trying to sound convincing. Muriel smiles in response, weak and fragile, nods; Martha makes herself reach for her arm, gives her a touch of support. "I'll call you as soon as I hear anything, alright?"
The other woman nods: "Thank you," she says, looking into her eyes. "Whatever happens, really, thank you, for everything."
Not guilty, not guilty, not guilty, Martha repeats like a motto in her head, watching her. If she believed in prayers or crossing her fingers and all that bollocks, hoping for the best, she thinks she really, really would do anything to give that woman her child back. "You're welcome," she says, faking a smile.
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Sometimes, Martha indulges and lets herself forget that Billy is gone. He's still in email threads she's exchanged recently, on her phone, and because she never steps inside Chambers, it's easy to trick her brain, make believe. Other times, though, she goes to Tesco, takes a bag of ground coffee to the register, wonders how the kid there smiles at her and wishes her a good day, unaffected, like he doesn't know how lonely she feels, how hard it is for her to breathe.
Billy and she didn't always get along, especially the first two years. She's pretty certain he tried to talk Alan out of offering her tenancy and kept that rhetoric going on for months after that. She was dangerous, in court, unpredictable, by all standards, and didn't even have the relations to make up for her behaviour. She wouldn't bring in clients, Billy argued, especially not rich clients, and they were a new set, needed more cash flow than legal aid fees could provide. She overheard the both of them talking, one morning, dropping things off at work before heading to court. 'Clive will do the networking,' Alan said, calmly; she's always admired that about him: his cool and collected self. 'We're keeping her because she was born for this job, Billy. She'll get silk before she's forty.'
There was silence on the other side of the door; Martha leaned against it, a discreet smile on her face, hoped no one would see her, creeping in.
Silk? Really? she thought, her heart hammering in her chest. At the time, it sounded like the most important thing in the world.
'Women don't get silk, Sir,' was Billy's simple, cutting answer.
Years later, he caught up with her at the top of Middle Temple Lane, all dolled up with her fancy new gown and that long, white, ridiculous wig he insisted she wear. 'You've walked all the way to the top, Miss,' he said, a twinkle of admiration in his eye. 'Congratulations.'
He took her out to dinner in a fancy, Michelin-starred restaurant and they shared a bottle of expensive wine; she sipped as she watched him, smiled. 'You didn't like me before,' she pointed out, caught his gaze. 'Why?'
She never could tell what changed, in their relationship, or when it did, exactly. It felt like a gradual thing, like Billy eventually decided she'd earned her stripes, a few years into her tenancy. He laughed, dismissive, let her in on a secret. 'I always loved you, Miss,' he grinned, his hand upon hers. 'Younger men just don't like sharing their feelings, they think it makes them look weak.'
She laughed, rolled her eyes. 'Right.'
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"It'll be fine," Clive tells her, one night, on the phone, his mouth full – dinner time. "You'll get a not guilty and everything will get back on track."
She kind of doubts that, to tell the truth (will anything ever be as it was?) and bites her lip not to crush his spirits. He's just lost his case in the RCJ, works real hard, that night, pretending to remain unaffected by the idea of letting a murderer run free.
"Even if I wanted to change careers," he says, sighs. "I really don't know what else I could do."
She thinks of how proud he sounded, just days before, telling his mum about being elected Head of Chambers. What's terrifying is that no matter how much she tells herself she's leaving this all behind, she really, really, tends to agree.
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Jerôme passed the Billy test, back in the day. He passed the Alan test, too, passed every test there was (well, except hers).
She'd had to introduce him to them all, eventually – after two years, it felt like the right thing to do, - so she'd taken him as her plus one to Shoe Lane's Christmas party, felt his hand behind her back as they navigated around the crowd and she smiled politely, tried to partake in just the right amount of sucking up to get Billy off her back. Jerôme was everything she wasn't - isn't (will probably never be): handsome, charming, almost an accidental smooth talker; the bit of awkwardness in his tone made him less threatening than Clive's sickening levels of self-confidence.
'We should get married,' he said, once; they'd gone to Belgium for the weekend, saw his parents and ate waffles with litres of chocolate on them. She sat in silence – the café was on a street adjacent to the Grand Place – and couldn't figure out what to say. He laughed, after a beat, nodded. 'Okay,' he spoke, smirking. 'A marginally better reaction than what I was expecting.'
Martha frowned, placed her fork by the side of her plate – wasn't quite so hungry, anymore. 'What do you mean?'
'I thought you'd run off and board a train back to London straight away.'
Martha crossed her arms over her chest, tried to protect herself as best as she could. Put distance between them, too. He'd talked about kids, a few weeks before; there was no way left for her to convince herself that he wasn't serious, anymore. 'It's not funny, Jerôme,' she told him.
'No,' he agreed. 'It's not.'
Three months and a dozen more of these conversations later, she was fucking Clive against the door of their room in Chambers (the details of that night, she remembers crystal clear, stone-cold sober, unfortunately), and she thought that was probably a marginally worse reaction than the one Jerôme had been expecting. She drunk a lot, after they broke up, mostly on Clive's couch and dime. He let her live in his flat and drink his booze ('I cheated on him,' she laughed, once. 'I can't also take the flat,') but she slept on the sofa, alone. Nothing ever happened again between them, after that – well, she guesses, not until Nottingham.
She looks back at her Friday night, last week, and thinks that at least, back then, she had someone to turn to. She listens to him every time she calls him, always almost surprised to hear him pick up the phone, sometimes in the middle of the night (she wakes up in cold sweat and needs to speak to someone; yet, she still doesn't dare to tell him, well, anything) and wonders if maybe, somehow, that might still be true.
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It's Alan who ends up phoning her about it, in the end. Martha saw the announcement on Chambers' website a couple days ago but didn't say anything, guesses Clive didn't dare bring it up. He sent their old mentor do the dirty work. "I told Clive he should be the one to talk to you," Alan tells her on Thursday around two after Martha she went home following her talk with Muriel, numbed the void in her heart with daytime TV. "But he said if he called you, there was still a 50/50 chance you wouldn't pick up."
Fair enough, she thinks. That's probably right.
"Will you be at the funeral?" Alan chances, after a bit; Martha swallows heavily, mutes the telly.
"No."
"Then come to the wake at least," he says, but it doesn't sound like he's leaving much room to negotiation. "It's in Chambers at five. We'd all like to see you."
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The thing is: she doesn't own that many clothes. There aren't plenty of days in the year when she's not at work, so apart from her white shirts and plain black pencil skirts, she owns: a pair of green trousers Clive apparently thinks make her look like a vintage lesbian, a pair of jeans so old she can't remember buying them, a couple of evening gowns for sucking up Middle Temple events, and two casual dresses. One of them is black, so that's the one she picks.
Her dad passed away in winter, she remembers (the 3rd of December, date permanently engraved in her brain); their fingers went numb as they stood in the cemetery, crystal, frozen morning dew at their feet. It felt oddly fitting, like the sky, the sun, and the light all knew they had better hide.
Today, in contrast, is warm, obscenely sunny. Martha lets her handbag fall to the floor and stands in front of Chambers, finishing her cigarette in the shade of the plane tree hiding part of her view of the church. It's 5:20 p.m.; she's late, almost couldn't bring herself to leave the house and yet, couldn't bring herself not to, either. The curls of her hair stop just short of the neckline of her dress; she can feel the sun hitting her back, skin hot, shy of burning. When her cigarette dies under the sole of her shoe, she lights another one.
After her father passed away, it felt like she couldn't talk, anymore. It felt like no one would understand. The mess in her head, the melancholy and the emptiness she felt, mixed with slight, culpable relief: she wouldn't have to go home every other weekend, anymore, wouldn't have to answer the same question over and over again. ('Who are you, beautiful?' he'd ask, every time she went up to see him.)
Around seven-thirty in the evening, after she spoke to her mum that night, she called Clive. 'Me dad's gone,' she just spoke, fast, her voice slipping back into its natural tones, the ones it has when she forgets to posh herself up a bit.
'Are you okay?' Clive asked.
He came over. They sat on her couch. He watched her smoke, cigarettes piling up in the ash tray, roll-ups.
'You won't talk to me, will you?' he quizzed, eventually. It was about nine; she'd given him a beer and a bag of crisps. She wasn't hungry.
'Sorry,' she said. Guessed that he was right, that she'd probably made him come over here, an hour-long tube ride away just to sit there in silence while she let the thoughts swirl in her brain. 'You can go.'
He caught her gaze, then, carefully laid his beer down on the floor. She'd bought a rug to hide the holes in the carpet underneath but her moving-in money had stopped short of a coffee table. 'Do you want me to go?'
There was something about Clive, something she'd never quite been able to pinpoint, a stillness in the dark that never appeared to fit his seemingly extroverted persona. She'd gotten drunk, laughed and had danced with him until the wee hours of the morning: Clive was fun, she knew, and a lot of games. Yet, sometimes, he looked at her and it felt like he was seeing right through her. 'No,' she admitted to him, her cigarette dying in the ash tray at her feet. The bare, honest truth, she thought. Martha sat back, her legs folded under her. 'I don't have any friends here.'
Of course, it wasn't like she was realising this just then, but she guesses it had never really bothered her before. She'd always been a lone wolf, even in Bolton, had a handful of people she knew, sometimes confided in her one friend: Jo. Mostly, though, she had Sean. Sean who'd been in her life since she was eleven years old, had pulled her ponytail loose on the first day of secondary school, claimed it was an accident. 'How can that be an accident?' she'd asked, hands on her hips, fiery glare and loose blonde curls framing her face. 'Are you an idiot?'
Clive laughed, in her flat, cleared his throat a couple of times, pointing at his own chest, mouthing: uh, me? Martha rolled her eyes at him.
'You know what I mean,' she countered, quick, reaching for his beer, stealing a sip. She was trying not to drink, that night, her eyes red, tears constantly threatening to spill over. It wasn't that she didn't like Clive per se, it was just that: 'Every time I want to tell you something, I have to stop and think of how you could use it against me,' she admitted, shrugged. The bottle was laid on the floor again; Clive took it back. 'Plus, you want to sleep with me, not be my friend.'
He burst out laughing, an eyebrow raised as if surprised she'd seen through that, too. His eyes were blue, she noticed, bright blue, a kind of cobalt, like the surface of a pool come seven o'clock, when the sun fades in the background. It'd never been something she'd ever found attractive on anyone else before. 'Are those mutually exclusive?' he joked.
She laughed, loosely hit his arm with her palm. It came out in a burst, at first, and he enjoyed the banter with her until she looked around her flat, looked at him, at the beat-up kitchen table she'd had to load into her 1995 Renault Clio (it smelled like a tobacco jar, could barely get to sixty on the motorway); she'd driven it down here from her grandparents' place in Bolton, two hundred miles on the M1 with the windows open and the trunk that just wouldn't close. She took the tube into Chambers for years until she actually got a car that didn't make her look so fucking broke. Money doesn't buy happiness, darling, her father used to say. But it certainly contributes.
The next time she blinked, her father materialised in front of her eyes and for a short, painful second, her laughter turned into a single, broken sob, voice strangled at the back of her throat. A few tears ran down Martha's cheeks; she rubbed them off with the back of her hand. 'Sorry,' she spoke, quick, embarrassed, shook her head. 'I just – I'm just –'
Clive's palm found the back of her hand. She felt it: casual, quick and soothing, fingers slowly tracing the lines of her veins. She wore a long uni jumper, that night; it rode halfway down her thighs and as he moved, she felt the skin of his wrist against her leg, riding down to her knee. His gaze was upon hers when she looked down, let her own fingers interlace with his. There was a moment: quiet, comfortable; she almost forgot her irresistible, panicked need to hide. Another tear ran down her cheek and she let it fall, all the way down to her chin. Clive wiped it off from her thigh when it landed, steady, healing circles against her skin.
'I'm just sad, I guess,' she said.
Eventually, Clive finished his beer. She'd thought he would leave, afterwards, catch the last train home but instead, he opened his mouth and spoke. 'My father cheated,' he said. She remembers listening to him, to the sound of his voice, breath caught in her throat. They'd never really talked about, well, anything before. 'I mean, not like, an affair,' he added. 'Like, half a dozen of his secretaries, a few neighbours, my sister's ballet teacher… Anything that was young, willing, and had reasonably sized tits.' A sad smile reached his face; it mirrored hers, most of the time, these days. 'Mum never left because, well, her view of divorce is –' he trailed off, shrugged. 'Think: the royal family in the 1950s.'
His slight chuckle allowed Martha to laugh, a bit, and it occurred to her that she hadn't heard that sound in his mouth much before. She frowned, curious, raised an eyebrow at him. 'Why are you telling me this?'
His hand was flat against her knee; she caught his stare on her. 'I'm trying to get you talking. Is it working?'
She laughed, again, slapped his arm away playfully, shook her head at him. 'Trading stories? I wonder where you got that from, Clive.'
He smiled; it reached his eyes. 'I only learn from the best.'
She rolled her eyes at the flattery but still, eventually, she spoke, too, that night. He listened. She told him about how her dad knew before they did, kept his GP's office open until he couldn't hide the disease any longer, how she'd found him crying at three o'clock in the morning when she was sixteen, sneaking back in from a party. When her father collapsed, all of their lives did, too. Her mum had to start working; Martha left and waitressed her way through university. What's wrong, Dad? she'd asked, that night, her heart beating fast against her chest. She thought he'd be disappointed in her – he was disappointed in him.
I don't know where I am, Mar.
'I'm sorry,' Clive said, around midnight, took her hand in his again. Her dad used to call her pumpkin, like the one that turns into a luxurious coach. 'I'm so, so sorry.'
Martha kissed Clive's lips, that night – the beginning of a long, beautiful tale – and pushed him gently until she laid on top of him on the couch, shivers running down her spine. 'Stay,' she muttered in his ear; his hands trailed up her skin. 'Please.'
.
On the day of Billy's wake, Alan is the first to notice her presence, outside Chambers. She's caught up in her memories but he's always had a knack for it, even when they were younger. She would purposefully keep the light low in her office, hoping he wouldn't know, and he'd always come in, take one look at her and insist: 'It's past midnight. Go home, Martha.' He leans in next to her, now, facing the church, against the stone railing. "You came," he smiles. Black suit, black tie; they both look out of place, here, in this gorgeous weather, grieving the loss of a friend. It feels like they're both already gone, in their own way.
She turns her head to look at him, nodding, attempting a half smile in return.
"What hap–" he starts, awkward, trails off. He's pointing at her eyebrow - Ah, that, she thinks. It's stopped hurting, now, the bruise around her wound almost faded into her skin, scab starting to itch.
"Oh, nothing," she says. Nothing, yeah, she thinks. This afternoon, she was queuing at Pret and some guy behind her was standing close (too close); she couldn't breathe, had to leave. "I fought the corner of my bathroom cabinet and it won."
"Ouch," he smiles, again, sympathetic. A gush of wind ruffles the leaves of the tree in front of them. Her skin tickles under the sun.
It occurs to her that she could tell him. Could tell the police, could pretty much tell anyone. The part of her brain that analyses this as an event, as a logical, practical problem that needs a solution, the part of her brain that's read books, written essays and been to legal conferences about – well, no, it didn't happen to her, did it? She doesn't want to use the word – that part of her brain tells her that she should probably tell someone, tell the police, too. Yet, when Alan shrugs, Martha shrugs as well, fiddles with the skin at the edge of her nails, and sighs.
"Are you coming in?" he asks, after a while, glancing at the building behind him.
"Yeah, in a minute," she breathes, eyeing her cigarette. It's the third one.
Alan nods, almost turns around to leave before he stops, looks at her again. "She's not here, if that's what you're worried about." Martha raises an eyebrow at him, confused. "Harriet," he says, then. Ah, she nods. "From what John said, she didn't want to have the wake in Chambers. Clive and she yelled it out in the middle of the clerk's room; apparently, he ended up telling her it wasn't up to negotiation and also, that she wasn't invited."
Martha sighs, then, again, watching the end of her cigarette burn at the tip of her fingers. She glances at Alan; knows what he's thinking (thinks it, too): conflict is not good. Not good for Chambers, not good for Clive. She's tried not to care – she really has - but it doesn't seem to work.
"I think he just wanted you to feel like you could come," Alan adds. "If you wanted to."
Martha pulls him into a hug, arms wrapping around his frame. "I'll miss you, Alan," she says and he smiles, holds her tight against him. They miss Billy, the both of them, she knows, miss their friend.
"Me too."
.
Frequently, she thinks in songs. Joy Division plays over memories of Clive and her kissing in an empty courtroom, The Clash over the ones of all the years she spent here, in London, a quiet, long, breathless soul drowning by the river. It's past five o'clock, people pouring out of court into the other offices that surround the area; she watches, her cigarette falling to the floor. A man carrying his robes over a black briefcase looks away from his phone, for a moment, glances at her and nods. Martha nods back, polite, isn't sure she recognises him.
It's always been like this, like clockwork, Middle Temple breathing in unison with the justice system; the morning rush and the afternoon walk back to Chambers, another day done. In a few minutes, some of them will leave for the pub while others will stay in, work on the next case, the next brief. She had a routine, for years, had people in her life that mattered and for the first time in a very long while, Martha realises, she's not quite sure what to do with herself, anymore.
Music is playing in her ears, so that's why she doesn't hear Clive coming out behind her until she sees his bare arm, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, leaning in next to her. She's listening to a ballad, her Spotify Discover Weekly playlist on shuffle – you're used to grey England skies, the singer sings. Cloudy days, colder nights.She pulls her earphones out, steals a glance at Clive, their shoulders almost touching.
"You okay?" he asks. No. I'm not alright, no, her own voice echoes in her head, from that night; she loops the wires around her IPod, keeps it tight in her palm. "Alan said you were coming in, but that was about thirty minutes ago, so -"
He leaves the rest of his sentence unspoken – it's not like him. Clive's logical at heart, likes to voice things out and tell her what she doesn't want to hear. She doesn't know whether to sigh, smile, or chuckle so when a sound comes out of her mouth, it's a mix of all three. Martha looks at him and really, no, she's not okay, not at all, she thinks. "Billy's dead," she tells him, again, because it bears repeating, because her life feels like it's in free fall, right now, and she's not sure who's going to stop it from crashing against the concrete floor. She closes her eyes, for a moment, holding back the tears that clog her throat; Clive's look catches hers when she opens them again, still cobalt blue and oddly soothing (after all these years) - he holds her gaze, doesn't touch her.
"I know." There's a sad look in his eyes, too, she realises, but not the same as Alan's. Clive looks sad on her behalf, like he wants to understand more than he wants to feel, himself; it's calming, knowing that, but also a bit scary, she thinks. "Do you want to walk?" he offers, after a while, when it becomes clear that she won't come in (crowds, she feels, closed spaces, are also a bit difficult for her, these days). His head points to the right, grey, cobblestones under their feet. She's thankful that he seems to get it, at least, that she doesn't want to be here, in Chambers, or tomorrow, at the funeral, mourning Billy in front of everybody like his death is an event like any other.
Martha nods, smiles, weak. "Yeah."
They walk comfortably, past red-brick buildings and through the gardens to stroll along the Thames. There's quite a number of people, there: joggers, tourists, children playing, shouting, laughing. Martha and Clive don't talk about anything other than directions but somewhere before the first bridge they pass, Martha feels herself relax, a temporary right awarded to just be in the present moment.
They make it to a pub, wooden chairs and unfamiliar settings; they're in foreign territory here, too far from Chambers, his place, or hers, and yet, she feels like they belong, sharing a bowl of chips with a pint of lager for him, a diet coke for her.
"How are things?" she asks. "In Chambers?"
She guesses she has a little bit of an edge on him, there, knows things aren't good, from what Alan said, but wants him to talk, to trust her with this if he wants to. She watches him eat; it occurs to her that he reminds her of Sean, sometimes, of the way he was after they broke up, watching from afar as she worked her way through university, always gravitating at arm's length, but never quite far enough, either. She remembers a friend's birthday – was studying for exams, wasn't supposed to come – and Dave apologised when Sean showed up with another girl, as if it was his fault. 'Sorry, I didn't know you'd come,' he said, and: 'Sorry, I also didn't know he'd bring her.' Martha had laughed, then, shook her head.
'It's fine,' she promised, looked at Sean. The girl was tall, lean, fake curls in her hair. Sean looked more hurt than Martha ever did, like he'd lost something he'd never get back.
Clive catches her gaze, now, like the utmost demonstration of a courage she doesn't think she has, anymore, and doesn't lie. "It's just been," he starts, trails off, tries to explain. "It's been difficult, with Billy gone. Every time I step into Chambers, there's an empty chair, I just –"
A hand runs over his face, and all she wants to do, for a little while, is to hug him. Tell him in words that she can't utter that she understands, that it's one of the reasons why she couldn't step inside Chambers, today, like part of her doesn't want to acknowledge that Billy's gone, yet. Clive was right, when he told his mum they're a bit lost, the both of them.
"I don't know how I'm going to do it on my own," he admits, looking down at his hands, fingers joined over the table. Martha smiles at him, reassuring, she tends to forget that Clive has doubts, tends to forget about anyone but her, these days. In her defence, he always looked like he had it together while she never really did.
"You're not alone," she reminds him, fingers wrapping around her glass. It's just ice in there, now, keeps her cool. "You've got Jake, John, CW, Harriet -"
His laugh interrupts her; she rolls her eyes, thinks: well, you're still less alone than I am. He catches her gaze, sighs, admits: "I slept with Harriet."
Well, she thinks, glancing up at him. Yeah. There is anguish in Clive's eyes so Martha spares him a retort about how she knows that, about how they heard him, Billy and she, in bloody Chambers, for fuck's sake. She doesn't act shocked either, though, because in truth, she never was. It hurt like an arrow that was shot a long time ago and was bound to hit eventually, like a weapon she shouldn't have allowed to wound her.
Clive lets out a sigh through a smile, his look still on hers. "It made things, er," he chuckles nervously, shakes his head. "A bit more… Complicated, let's say."
Martha puffs out a laugh, loud, the people next to them throw her a look. Ah, Clive, she thinks, smiles at him until it forces him to smile back. "That is bound to complicate things, isn't it?" she says and he rolls his eyes at her while she thinks: you never learn, do you? He drinks a bit and they enjoy the fun and games like they usually do, that is until something changes, in the way he looks at her; they're only children until they're not, she knows.
"It never did," he points out, setting his glass back against the table. She bites her bottom lip, his eyes making her look up. "Not with you."
At first, she's tempted to disagree. Well, it did, she thinks. When she cheated on Jerôme, when she got pregnant - but yeah, also, she knows what he means: those were outside factors, like when they rowed over cases and didn't speak for days until one of them forgot what they were mad about. It wasn't them. Them always existed and never really changed, through the years, like a lifeline she could hold onto, whenever she needed to. The sex was an added bonus, not "just sex", but not a complication either, just another way to get lost, every once in a while. She knows what he means, what he's trying to tell her, and she hates him for it, for backing her into a corner and letting her fall to the ground. "I'm not coming back, Clive," she tells him, forces herself to remind him of a decision she's already made. He nods but holds her gaze, like he begs to differ. She smiles, adds. "Certainly not to work for you."
Clive laughs, then, fakes a frown. "Why?" he smiles, raises an eyebrow at her. "I'm a great boss. I even share my chips," he jokes, pushing the now empty bowl towards her. She rolls her eyes, shakes her head at him, chuckling.
"Oh, fuck off, Clive," she tells him, kind of secretly hoping that he won't.
.
On the way back, they play a kind of bittersweet do you remember game, eating ice cream by the river and watching city lights twinkle in the distance. She gets some sort of fruit sorbet that tints her lips red under the sunset (she hasn't worn lipstick since that night) and tastes like summer, flowery, just a tiny bit chilly. They exchange memories of Billy and the early days in Chambers, do you remember when we first met? I sure do, a tune floats in her mind as she listens to Clive speak.
'Billy?' she recalls asking, panicked and dizzy at the Bailey after Clive said he loved her, quickly crouched over her, his hand against her cheek. When she opened her eyes, he chuckled; confused, Martha remembered, and smiled at him.
'Should I be offended?'
She laughed as he helped her up, sitting with their backs against the wood of the bench. The room was beautiful, polished; she'd always liked that: beautiful things. A smile reached her lips when his thigh touched hers.
'I don't think I've ever made a girl swoon before,' Clive spoke again, joked. She could have explained that with the alcohol and the fact that she hadn't eaten in a while, her swooning was hardly his doing but he could believe whatever he wanted, she decided.
Martha glanced up at him, made him turn to face her. 'Look at me,' she smiled, then, quiet. 'You've lipstick everywhere.'
She took her thumb to his lips but his fingers found her face just as hers touched his; he pulled her back to him, mouth finding hers. He was slow, deliberate, gentle, before he pulled away.
'Don't kiss me like that,' she whispered. Deserted courtrooms and rushing hearts.
'Like what?'
She was the first to glance away, sat back on her heels and looked to the ground. Almost confessed: like you meant what you said. 'You can trust me, Marth,' he'd told her, once, her hand in his after her father passed away and: Can I? she remembers thinking, like: Did you? Did you mean it, really, Clive?
"When I got silk," she tells him, instead, now, watching a boat cruise past them. "Billy made me walk all the way up Middle Temple Lane," she smiles, recalls walking up the cobbled street, the clerk at her arm, people watching. She steals a glance to her side and Clive is smiling, too. "Wig, gown, everything."
She holds his gaze for a moment, doesn't see any animosity in his eyes, just something bittersweet, nostalgic, maybe. Clive fiddles with the empty pot of ice cream in his hands, a green plastic spoon set on the side. "You always were his favourite," he says, looking at her, smiling. She shakes her head, out of principle, breaks eye contact, sighs. "Don't deny it, Marth, it's true," he insists. She knows it is, if she's being completely honest with herself but looking at how things turned out for the both of them, she's not completely sure that was a good thing. "It's okay," he adds, a grin tinting his words. She doesn't know how he does it, but he catches her glance again. "I'm still Harriet's favourite, so –"
She shouldn't laugh at this, it's lousy and mildly offensive and not even a real joke but she does, anyway, feels an instinct to touch him, playfully shove him away. She fights it, shakes her head at him as he laughs with her.
A moment passes, she feels the both of them go silent. Clive turns his head to face Martha again, something almost shy in his voice. "I'm going to miss this," he tells her, his head a bit cocked to the side. "I'm going to miss you."
For the first time in a while, his voice sounds raw and almost desperate, like he wants to be honest, like the promise they made to each other, once upon a time. He was a bit drunk in her bed, had told her something about a case that he probably shouldn't have. She raised an eyebrow at him and he looked panicked for a second, his hand against her arm. 'Oh, come on, Marth,' he said, sounding a little outraged. 'Whatever we say here is off limits, no?'
She laughed, bit her lip, pretended to consider it. 'You really think pillow talk is off limits, Clive?'
He hummed, smiled, his body close to hers. 'I think we tell each other everything,' he suggested like the easiest thing in the world, made her promise. 'Come on, Marth,' he grinned, placed is hand between them on the mattress, his little finger going up. 'Pinky swear.'
She laughed, shook her head but still laced her finger with his. Kissed his lips. 'Alright, Clive,' she told him. 'Pinky swear.'
"I want to fix this, Marth," he tells her, now, staring straight into her eyes. His voice is firm, affirmative. "I don't want you to hate me, and I don't want you to go."
There is a pause in his speech, and she thinks of what comes next as the start of the game of chess they'll be playing over the next few months, the one where each of them holds a mission statement close to their hearts, advancing pawns like arguments to be made.
Clive is telling her everything when he says: "I'm going to try and convince you to stay."
She smiles at him, nods. Thinks: fair. But also: "I don't hate you," she adds, quick, before he speaks. Wasn't able to get the words out, that night, but she can, now: the noise in her head is fainter, it allows her to think for longer than a couple of seconds, through the anger and the grief of the past few weeks. He looks at her, startled, opens his mouth but she goes on before he does. "I mean, I hate what you did, and I'm angry, and disappointed, and I don't know if I'll ever forgive you, but I don't hate you."
It sort of all comes out in a rush; he looks at her for a moment, thinks, smiles. "I'm not sure if that's better or worse."
She shrugs, honest, smiles back, still. The night lights now reflect in his eyes. "Yeah, I don't know."
"I don't hate you either," he says.
She's surprised. Not only by what he says but also by the weight it seems to lift off her shoulders, the way it makes her smile, makes her feel like, okay, this is something. And there are many things she'd like to tell him, about the bar, and about Billy, about her dad, and about –
"Are you trying to make me talk?" she asks him, the memory of that evening after her dad passed away suddenly playing in her head. Darn, she smiles, he's good.
Clive catches her gaze, poker face on, mischievous. "It's part one of the plan, yeah. Is it working?"
Yes, it is, she thinks, as she bursts out laughing. He's a good lawyer, Clive, learns fast and she's taught him the trick herself, after all. 'Tell her something about you', she remembers advising him: tit for tat, so to speak. 'It really is that easy.'
When they were kids – pupils – she remembers they used to play rock, paper, scissors, betting on drinks, cases, on who would stay up all night doing the nightmarish research due the next day. One, two, three, Clive used to count, as they stood, hands balled up in fists behind their backs, staring into each other's eyes; it's how she came to interpret his sighs, his body language, understand that he wants to know this, but also would never try to force the words out of her mouth.
One, two, three, she counts, now, in her head. Speaks. "He bought me a drink," she starts and just like that: tells him. Looks at the river, at the lights from the London Eye, red and blue twinkles reflecting in the water. Clive is quiet, stands next to her, his arms over the iron railing in front of them. London is beautiful, she thinks. She'll miss that, too. "I went home, after –" after we shouted, after I ran away, after Billy died, after – "Downed a bottle of wine, went to a pub, drank some more. This," she sighs, lets the memory cloud in front of her eyes. She still can't quite distinguish his features. "He bought me another drink."
The words spill out of her mouth, then, unfiltered in the dark; she speaks of Brown Hair and leading him to the ladies, and his hands all over her body, and feeling good, turned-on, and then trapped, terrified, tells Clive about running away. She doesn't know why but she doesn't spare him any details, detached, like it's a case, someone else's case, like it didn't even happen to her. When she stops, Martha looks away; he doesn't speak for a long time, probably thinks she's stupid, she guesses, for getting herself in that situation in the first place.
"If you've got something to say, say it, Clive," she tells him, in the end, when she can't take the silence anymore. "To be honest, I know I probably shouldn't have been drinking –"
"Good God, Marth, no," he cuts her off, mid-sentence; she's never heard him sound so certain of anything in her life. She stops talking, then, looks up at him. There is a strength in his eyes, a degree of confidence; she wishes she still felt that. "Nothing in the world could make this your fault."
Her hands are joined, shaking over the railing, the water quick under their feet. She steals a glance at him.
"It's not your fault. God, you know this, you -" Clive argues, his stare on the side of her face. Tears almost fall down her cheeks; he trails off, immediately. "Sorry, I just meant –" he speaks, fast; she shakes her head, means to tell him it's not his fault, that it's on her, that she'd think the same if she was in his position, not wanting to believe that anyone could blame themselves for this. It's an odd place, she thinks, being in her head and in his at the same time.
"I know what you meant," she speaks, quick. "I just –"
"You need to go to the police, Marth."
She thinks the words leave his mouth before he has time to filter them; they sound shocked, unprepared, like the most obvious thought that's just hit his brain. She appreciates the honesty, the attention, knows that he means well, that he can't possibly think that this could be anything but a first response, the right thing to do. "No," she explains, though, and her voice sounds oddly calm, even to her. He opens his mouth, ready to counter; she doesn't let him. "Even if they found him, Clive, I –" she sighs, tries to choose words that will make him understand. "By all standards, I was -" she begins, thinking of that poor girl in the only rape case she ever did. Her blond hair and her tears, trying to defend herself on the stand. "Drunk, leading him to the ladies," Martha describes, smiles, almost trying to reassure him, let him know that it's okay, that she'll be okay, one day. "Even I'd cross-examine myself to the ground."
Clive's mouth opens at that; she cuts him short of yet another argument, raising her hand between them.
"We both know how it works, Clive."
He hesitates a bit, his jaw clenched. She can see the wheels turning in his head, the case he could build against her until he finally sighs, gives her a quiet nod. Clive smiles at her, sad but empathetic, worried, and she fights the instinctive urge she feels to move away, say she's not a victim, say the worst didn't happen, that she got out of there lucky, that she doesn't really need the support. Instead, she stays close to him and instinctively reaches for him, her thumb tentatively brushing against the back of his hand, biting on her lip to keep her tears at bay.
"I'll kill him," Clive speaks, then, certain. "I'll find him and I'll fucking kill him."
And, maybe, that's what she's always loved about him ever since they met: that ability he seems to have to make her laugh, still, even in the darkest moments of her life. Loud, genuine, probably the funniest thing she's heard in a long while. He sounds serious, when he says it, which makes it even more amusing because while she appreciates the support, she guesses, Clive would also get caught in a millisecond, isn't quite the criminal mastermind he thinks he is. He looks a tad offended by her reaction, at first, until he laughs, too, her warmth contagious, their shoulders bumping against each other. "Thanks for the offer," she smiles, shaking her head at him. "But I've already got one ex in jail for murder, I won't have another."
She realises what she's said as soon as she says it, sees an amused eyebrow go up on his face and rolls her eyes at him. "Is that what I am?" he challenges, almost pleased. "An ex?"
She bites her lip, a bit red on the cheeks, hopes he can't see it. Martha laughs, shrugs, concedes. "I don't know. Maybe?"
"I like it," he says, jokes. "I can work with that." Martha shakes her head at him, playfully hits his arm and for the ghost of a second, there is a part of her that thinks that she might stay in London a bit longer, thinks that she'll also miss his presence next to her, somehow.
On the way home, they're silent, mostly, but there's an awkwardness that's gone, between them, evaporated with the thought that maybe they could trust each other, still. He leaves her at the top of the stairs, her hand leaving his after she held onto it the whole way back, keeping him close to her. He smiles, pulls her into a hug.
"Marth, if you need a friend," he says, caressing her skin. "I'm here, okay?"
And as she said before, she's still here, too. So, she smiles, a soft laugh escaping her mouth, nods. "Okay."
.
.
[1] London Calling by The Clash
[2] England Skies by Shake Shake Go
[3] Do You Remember? by Jack Johnson