Part One Hundred And Eight
The scene was set at Mr. Justice Everard's for the legal profession to collectively relax, bond with itself and to remind itself that, after all, it was a fraternity, albeit with women admitted to the club in line with the changing times. An astute observer at courts up and down the country might suspect that barristers and judges, beneath their theatrical and adversarial robes, were merely actors in their roles. This was confirmed at such a gathering like this where a spirit of bonhomie was artificially stimulated
by discreet waiters holding drinks trays with glasses of red and white wine. All this togetherness need not stop the hidden rivalries, the groups engaged in idle gossip and the turned back to the temporary outsiders of the moment. John Deed, of course, was the one outsider who wasn't afraid to be one and had that force of personality where others came to talk to him.
The setting was the large dining room in the very traditional hotel, where the Judges' digs was now situated, where the old fashioned narrow framed windows were framed by floor length yellow and green brocaded curtains. In one corner was a high narrow bookcase full of hardback books in faded colours in an assortment of titles. On a large side table, a buffet meal was laid out. Only the wide square shaped stone fireplace and the artificial coal fire spoke of anything like the modern age as a reluctant concession. Both the digs and its occupants spoke of a bygone age of gentility and stability, free from the garish neurotic style of this modern age.
Sir Ian, Lawrence James and Lord Justice Everard and his wife made their stately way into the room and looked on in satisfaction at the setting.
"It's at times like these, Ian, that the brethren should feel themselves as one," He boomed, feeling the satisfaction of the nicety of the event as well as a large preliminary whisky already coursing through his veins.
"Am I one of the brethren even if I am on the sidelines?" his large and very formidable wife butted in, in her curiously mannish voice. "Or what am I? It seems to me that it needs a woman to take charge in that recent rape case that we dealt with the other day."
Monty sweated visibly at that memory. The sordid details were something that turned his stomach throughout the trial and he struggled to find the words to describe it. That did not stop his wife's relentless pillow talk on the conduct of the trial that day and lecturing him in what he should do the next day. Alone of all the parties present, she showed a total lack of embarrassment. At some point in time, he resolved to discreetly unload his wife on some unsuspecting souls and he could get entangled in conversation with a separate group.
"I'm using the word as a figure of speech," He replied crossly.
"You think Deed is one of the brethren, Monty?" Sir Ian asked him.
"In a renegade way, even Deed," He reluctantly conceded.
Fortunately Neumann Mason-Allen, his wife, Brian Cantwell and a number of other members of the bar drifted in and the bare room started to fill up and the background buzz of conversation became more noticeable.
"I must socialise with some of the other barristers and do my bit rather than stick in a corner of the room and monopolise you all evening," Everard's wife exclaimed loudly and she detached herself, moving off majestically under full sail to the opposite corner of the room where the barristers politely agreed with the increasingly wine soaked opinions that came off the top of her head. It did not do much for one's career to publicly snub the Presiding Judge's wife, or such a reasonable disagreement would be so interpreted.
Brian Cantwell grinned at the scene in the corner and bumped into George as she entered the room.
"Nice try, George, in the Atkins Pilkinton trial. By all accounts, you did your level best and went down fighting."
George smiled with a flash of her immaculate white teeth and perfectly painted lips. She was wearing a colourful loose fitting dress that suggested the shape of her tiny exquisite figure rather than flaunted it.
"I'm sorry for the way I behaved when I took over the case from you, Brian. I genuinely believed that I could win the case."
"Why did you ever take the case on, George? Was it anything to do with Neil Houghton?"
George shrugged her shoulders non-committally.
"Let's just say that I'm a bad loser. You know that from appearing opposite me," George replied with a hint of flirtatiousness in her manner. Inwardly, she asked herself the same question and for the life of her, she didn't know. Her face had brightened as her memory dragged her to more distant times of the choicer exchanges when she had frequently wrong footed or rattled Brian Cantwell.
"Are you on the waggon, George? I'll get a drink for you as I know your favourite poison." Brian asked more lightheartedly as he took two glasses of dry white wine from the waiter who passed by. Brian Cantwell's actions were not entirely altruistic as he was known to be a heavy drinker and George made him a helpful alibi to knock back another drink without making it obvious. His quick eyes had darted round the crowded room for the waiter and the drinks tray. It was becoming more and more difficult to get to the buffet table and to pick your way through the crowd for the nearest drink.
"Thank you," George said graciously.
Neil gradually made his way across the room, having button holed the Attorney General and was exchanging the latest political gossip as to who was in line for the next promotion and who was due to be dropped from the Cabinet. His eyes focussed in her direction and he veered off from the path he was treading and next moment, the two politicians were talking shop in a corner by the window, their stance totally excluding the casual wanderer at the party, looking for a fresh source of conversation.
Sir Monty Everard's mood was not improved when Deed drifted nonchalantly through the door. He had been manfully acting the part of the genial host to fresh visitors but felt that he could conveniently overlook that Deed character.
"Lover boy doesn't want to know, George," John's melodious voice broke in on George's thoughts. Brian Cantwell had made a bee line for the buffet table which was crowded out with the hungrier gannet population who were picking over the remains.
"Last time we attended one of these soirees, he was giving me plenty of black looks before pretending concern as to how my therapy was going. He couldn't wait to come over in case I was up to no good with you."
"And weren't you?" George laughed.
"You can talk. You were flirting outrageously," John replied in his best mock innocent manner. His gentle riposte was all the more effective as it was perfectly true. In those days, while they both had their respective partners, more or less, they couldn't help but slightly misbehave with each other to ruffle the feathers of their partner of the moment. It was this provocative quality that drew them gently together in the first place.
At that point, John exchanged a few pleasantries with Mr Neumann Mason-Allen while George looked away for a second. Her face fell and the present came back to haunt her. She had come closer to John since the last party only to be aware that his womanising was driving them further apart at the same time, even if she were his mistress, or whatever. It was the "or whatever" that said everything about the two of them. By force of circumstances, John had grown to take everything all too far, especially with Jo.
In a split second, George's smile returned to its accustomed position as she said a few parting words to Mr Newman Mason-Allen before her worst source of bad conscience and tentative friend and work colleague came through the door, Jo Mills.
………………………………………………………………………………………..
George's heart was in her mouth as that symbol of a large part of her guilt was frozen in time for one split second. Then the miracle of parties, that which randomly determines how two or three people meet or fail to meet, came to George's rescue. Her view was blocked as Neumann Mason-Allen and Brian Cantwell converged on Jo to engage her in conversation and stop her dead in her tracks. Immediately after, the crowds parted to allow the portly shape of Joe Channing to bustle over in John and George's direction after pointedly ignoring an ingratiating Neil Houghton.
"George, I hope you don't mind if I talk to John on his own. I'll be back to join you later if you don't mind an old fogey like me."
"Anything for Daddy so long as…"
"…You don't carry out your threat you have made on more than one occasion to horsewhip me." John joked anticipating George's one reservation.
"If I reach for my whip, John, it won't be aimed at you," Joe rumbled, with an unexpected cautious smile in John's direction.
John raised his eyebrows in surprise, having steeled himself for the sort of confrontation that had become habitual. As he sensed the entire absence of this, he felt disorientated.
He went off in a corner with Joe while George flitted about, being the life and soul of the party, as only she knew how.
"I heard from George that that bounder Neil Houghton actually struck my daughter. Did you know anything about this? If you did, and you seem to know most things," and here, Joe gave him a knowing look, "then I would have thought that I would have been the first person that you would have told, at least for 'old time's sake.'"
John blinked at the intonation Joe spun on that last phrase which was half ironic, half meant. A host of old memories that he thought were sealed up and buried rushed to the surface of the early days of his marriage to George. As his own father had cut himself off emotionally from him after his mother's suicide when he was only ten, a part of him reached out to Joe as the archetypal older generation reactionary that he made his life purpose in confronting in duelling verbal debate. Many wine soaked evenings came back to his memory when he'd locked horns in debate with Joe in an atmosphere laden with Joe's cigar smoke. At that moment, he realised that, though times had driven them apart, Joe was still as much a part of his marriage as George was, however problematic.
"I felt that it wasn't my place to tell the story to you, Joe. It would have seemed unsporting," He said slowly, feeling for words.
"You really thought that it would have been bad form, John? Nonsense. You could have told me in confidence but I understand why you did not."
For the first time in their lives, Joe and John actually agreed upon something. It took both of them by surprise and Joe's smile became more open and almost fatherly.
As John made his way back to George, he couldn't help bumping into Neil.
"I've just had a very interesting experience," He said curtly. "I've had a tour round one of Her Majesty's Prisons."
"No doubt you have been up to your rabble rousing tricks there as much as anywhere, bleating on about justice. A pity as there is no honour among thieves, especially the convicted and the guilty," Neil said with a nasty tone in his voice.
"It was Larkhall I went too, you know, the prison that the Atkins/Pilkinton trial was about. It seems that some of the criminals in society are on the outside. You meet such an interesting cross section of society in prison. Even Lord Archer went to prison. With your track record, who knows?" John fired back with a fixed smile, with a low menacing voice and glittering eyes.
Neil slunk away to find other company while Joe just behind him, who had not said a word, kept a sharp eye on Neil.
Jo Mills made her way over to John and they were making light conversation when George made her very hesitant way back, eyes flitting about not focussing on anyone except finally Daddy. She carried a half full glass of white wine.
"I hear that when you went to Larkhall, that you were attacked by one of the inmates, Alison McKenzie. Why didn't you tell me about it?" John demanded sternly.
While Jo put two and two together from her memories of the trial, a part of George was glad that the treacherous undercurrent of the party conversation wasn't about to pull her right under. This bone of contention between her and John at least diverted attention from more treacherous matters.
"Karen wasn't to blame for McKenzy attacking me, John," George reasoned forcefully. "I heard from Karen later on that Fenner disobeyed a direct order from her to keep her away from me and I was present as she tore him off a strip. Karen saved my life in bodily dragging me away from the situation."
"I was concerned for your safety, George. I had entrusted you safely to Karen's care and I was angry as I had supposed that she would be fully capable of looking after you," John replied with rather bad grace.
"Well, I hope you weren't totally horrible to her, John. Even you don't get things right all the time," George retorted with a hint of her habitual combativeness, an attitude which she found so easy to adopt.
"All right, all right, George," John raised his hands defensively. "You aren't going to subject me to your favourite prosecuting barrister's ploys designed to get your own way, whether right or wrong."
"George was actually sticking up for someone else, John," Jo interposed gently, seeing the fireworks start to spark again between the pair of them.
At this unexpected assistance, George smiled her dazzling immaculately made up smile and looked down into her handbag to reach for a cigarette. She fiddled about inside it for some time with a touch of irritation and reached for a cigarette which her fumbling fingers coaxed her lighter to align the flame with the cigarette end. She was muttering under her breath and no one dared say anything lest they draw her wrath on to them. She had that reputation. Eventually, she inhaled deeply and looked into the distance as she blew smoke from the depths of her lungs.
"Well, with what I hear of you helping Jo with the civil case against that odious man, Fenner, both of you seem to be working together as a team. I would not have predicted anything like that happening the last time we were at Everard's party. Let's hope you both are successful and that Fenner has his just deserts behind bars instead of locking up others behind bars," John said heartily, trying to smooth oil over troubled waters.
How can you be so crass, John, George thought furiously while she looked every way but in his direction. There can be no real friendship, much less than teamwork or still less, real love if you go behind your lover's back and betray her with your ex-wife. She blew cigarette smoke furiously while, from long training, she kept a perfect mask on her real feelings.
You could win an Oscar, George, Jo thought. There's something troubling you if you reveal yourself so stripped to your raw emotions in front of me in private, yet in this social gathering, you keep up such a brilliant act so that nobody sees the real you. Does John see that or is he pretending not to notice?
In the meantime, Joe had pulled Neil aside to a private room and jabbed in the direction of the second button on his jacket.
"If I were twenty years younger, Neil, I would horsewhip you for striking my daughter the way you did and don't deny it. ……"
"It was a mistake, a complete mistake, Joe. I have tried to make up with her and apologise…"
"……..but I am not. Nevertheless I have the political power to ruin your career. All it takes is a word in the right ear and it is back to the back benches for you. You will have to say goodbye to the luxuries in your life and to people fawning over you. They will go to the next rising star while you surrender your Ministerial limousine and have to buy a guide map to the London underground and share some dingy locker in the house of Commons."
Neil turned white at the prospect and started to stammer incoherently his profuse apologies.
"You are totally spineless, Haughton. You keep away from my daughter and anyone remotely connected with her or the consequences for you will be unspeakable."
"What do you mean by that, Joe?" Neil's voice rose up the scale, thoroughly panic stricken.
"I would suggest that you should work that out for yourself," Joe retorted enigmatically as he himself was not sure of exactly how far he had set the boundaries. "With your acumen as a Government Minister - for the present - you should be able to apply yourself to working out the answer. Goodbye," Joe finally exploded and turned round and made his way back to George, the feelings of expended anger making him feel very happy with himself. The rumbling volcano of anger had finally burst through the crust and had scattered molten lava in all directions and released his pent up emotions. All through his life, he needed to do that from time to time.
Like a galleon which had gone into battle all guns blazing and was replete with the spoils of victory, he made his way proudly in a victory march back to George.
By this time, the party was at its height. The conversation was loud and hearty as the alcohol had performed its traditional function of oiling the wheels of conversation and it had got to that stage where everyone's hearing had to be especially acute and the other person not too far away or else a moving mouth would be seen and what was said being drowned in a barrage of many voices. The space to move in was getting more tightly packed than ever.
Sir Monty Everard's deep baritone voice was holding forth on his pet subject to Sir Ian who was listening intently. Sir Ian reflected on the point that Sir Monty was a perfectly sound judge who had that innate understanding of the sensitivities of the executive and was realistic. He expounded on the difficulties that he had with that insufferable man Deed who persistently let the side down and Sir Ian's active listening mind switched off or just enough to hear.
"Have you done to Neil what I think you have, Daddy?" George smiled in Joe's direction, John and Joe being otherwise immersed in conversation.
"The man's still living, George. No one strikes my daughter and gets away without retribution," Jo rumbled.
"Where would I be without Daddy to look after me?" George's aristocratic drawl spoke half in irony to cover up her real feelings. She was still Daddy's little girl all the years back to when he had taken her for a walk in the country and her little hand had held his huge, hard shinned hand from far up into the sky. While she was at her expensive boarding school, she had heard about the 'birds and the bees' from one of her more sexually precocious friends. Daddy would have died from embarrassment rather than explain that one.
Sir Monty stalked majestically towards the centre of his party and proudly surveyed the room, lord of all those who attended the party or equal with his political friends. It was who attended his party that made the difference and in due course, he saw his path set out before him to be elevated to the appellate bench to follow in the footsteps of Joe Channing. Recognition had rightfully come his way when the New Years Honours list of a few years ago had resulted in him attending Buckingham Palace and to be admitted to the Ancient Order of Knights. As such, he saw his duty to preserve the foundations of this country from all who would disturb it. His cheeks were flushed from the heat of the party and too many glasses of white wine.
John had temporarily become separated from both Jo and George and found himself isolated. All around him, the sound of many conversations had built up orchestrally as if from the intimacy of two violins criss crossing round each other to an overbearing crescendo. He tried to pick out individual items of conversation as he momentarily closed his eyes but he could not for the life of him work out the sense of the very loud and self assured voices. It felt the same as the time he was at Oxford when the 'baker's boy' had had odd moments of morose lucidity that he was with the others in the party but not of their kind no matter how skilfully he had disguised himself. In middle age, he reflected bitterly on how he still aspired to uphold the values which his old school had taught only to discover that they had sold their birthright in return for the rewards of the modern corrupt age. On his judge's throne, the individual barristers who appeared before him were all more or less bearable. When they were all pushed together in a large room becoming hotter and more airless by the minute, the alienation that he felt came to haunt him. Yet by the same token, it was what kept him up to the mark that he had set for himself and what made him human.
"Hello Darkness my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain,
Still remains
Within the Sounds of Silence.
In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone,
'Neath the halo of a street lamp,
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence.
And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more.
People talking without speaking,
People hearing without listening,
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence.
"Fools" said I,"You do not know
Silence like a cancer grows.
Hear my words that I might teach you,
Take my arms that I might reach you."
But my words like silent raindrops fell,
And echoed
In the wells of silence
And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made.
And the sign flashed out its warning,
In the words that it was forming.
And the signs said, The words of the prophets
are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls.
And whisper'd in the sounds of silence."
It was funny the way those words tinkled their way on the wings of softly plucked, patterned guitar strings. Perhaps it was the fleeting memory of when he was at Larkhall and Karen had told him that Shaz Wiley had played and sung "Scarborough Fayre". There was no rhyme or reason in the way that thoughts were placed in his mind by some unknown presence like sparkling jewels. The problem as he saw it was the lack of control in the way these thoughts appeared as sometimes, they were troublesome and to be kept at bay.
John opened his eyes and saw Sir Monty approach him. A happy note of inspiration had come to his mind from his memory of his tour round Larkhall. He personally thought that this party could do with livening up, himself included.
"Monty, I bumped into a couple of old acquaintances of yours the other day, who told me a fascinating story." Too late, he bumped into John Deed while he was in mid procession, blinded by his self image and saw him too late to avoid him.
"Indeed," he said gruffly.
"You may remember meeting them every Thursday on the dot at eight o clock. Two slim attractive women of easy virtue, very friendly and hospitable with an excellent sense of humour. They gave me a very accurate description of you and said that you went with them as your wife wasn't attractive enough to get you going. Their words, I hasten to add, not mine," John raised his hands as if to be prepared in case the very angry Sir Monty struck him.
"You are impertinent, sir, and defamatory," Sir Monty growled. He kept his voice down in case he might be overheard.
"Doubtless you will remember their names as the Two Trudies. I hesitate to tell you the nickname they have for you," John replied, his face creased in amusement.
"I trust that you denied any possible link between me, a Presiding Judge and two common prostitutes."
"Well, I would deny that they are common. Rather attractive in their way. As for covering up for you, well, you must know me better than that," John's best insolent tones caused Sir Monty to turn round and stalk away back to Sir Ian.
"Have you been getting into more trouble, John?" Jo's amused tones broke in on his thoughts.
"No more than usual," John replied.
"Are you feeling all right, John?" George exclaimed from his other side. "I was watching you with your eyes closed for a minute." She knew of old, John's moments of abstraction as she called it but when she asked him about it, he always made light of it.
"I'm fine, George. Really, I am," John said to reassure her and to smooth things down in his normal style.
It helped George at that minute to express concern about John. This and the whole theatrical performance of keeping up appearances at the party had distracted her from looking too closely at herself and from Jo expressing the sympathy that she felt utterly unworthy of. John looked at these two women, one his ex-wife and the other his lover. It was with blinding clarity that he realised for the first time, that he had only ever felt truly at hhome with George and then with Jo. He had the sudden urge to envelop them both in his arms, to for ever preserve them from any wrong doing, to keep them safe. But he managed to subdue the urge for sake of appearances. It would not do for anyone to resurrect any question of his professional conduct with any barrister who might in future appear before him. Both Jo and George watched him, knowing of old that look of contemplation.
"What are you thinking?" Asked Jo.
"Nothing remotely repeatable in present company," Put in George dryly, which made him smile.
The scene was set at Mr. Justice Everard's for the legal profession to collectively relax, bond with itself and to remind itself that, after all, it was a fraternity, albeit with women admitted to the club in line with the changing times. An astute observer at courts up and down the country might suspect that barristers and judges, beneath their theatrical and adversarial robes, were merely actors in their roles. This was confirmed at such a gathering like this where a spirit of bonhomie was artificially stimulated
by discreet waiters holding drinks trays with glasses of red and white wine. All this togetherness need not stop the hidden rivalries, the groups engaged in idle gossip and the turned back to the temporary outsiders of the moment. John Deed, of course, was the one outsider who wasn't afraid to be one and had that force of personality where others came to talk to him.
The setting was the large dining room in the very traditional hotel, where the Judges' digs was now situated, where the old fashioned narrow framed windows were framed by floor length yellow and green brocaded curtains. In one corner was a high narrow bookcase full of hardback books in faded colours in an assortment of titles. On a large side table, a buffet meal was laid out. Only the wide square shaped stone fireplace and the artificial coal fire spoke of anything like the modern age as a reluctant concession. Both the digs and its occupants spoke of a bygone age of gentility and stability, free from the garish neurotic style of this modern age.
Sir Ian, Lawrence James and Lord Justice Everard and his wife made their stately way into the room and looked on in satisfaction at the setting.
"It's at times like these, Ian, that the brethren should feel themselves as one," He boomed, feeling the satisfaction of the nicety of the event as well as a large preliminary whisky already coursing through his veins.
"Am I one of the brethren even if I am on the sidelines?" his large and very formidable wife butted in, in her curiously mannish voice. "Or what am I? It seems to me that it needs a woman to take charge in that recent rape case that we dealt with the other day."
Monty sweated visibly at that memory. The sordid details were something that turned his stomach throughout the trial and he struggled to find the words to describe it. That did not stop his wife's relentless pillow talk on the conduct of the trial that day and lecturing him in what he should do the next day. Alone of all the parties present, she showed a total lack of embarrassment. At some point in time, he resolved to discreetly unload his wife on some unsuspecting souls and he could get entangled in conversation with a separate group.
"I'm using the word as a figure of speech," He replied crossly.
"You think Deed is one of the brethren, Monty?" Sir Ian asked him.
"In a renegade way, even Deed," He reluctantly conceded.
Fortunately Neumann Mason-Allen, his wife, Brian Cantwell and a number of other members of the bar drifted in and the bare room started to fill up and the background buzz of conversation became more noticeable.
"I must socialise with some of the other barristers and do my bit rather than stick in a corner of the room and monopolise you all evening," Everard's wife exclaimed loudly and she detached herself, moving off majestically under full sail to the opposite corner of the room where the barristers politely agreed with the increasingly wine soaked opinions that came off the top of her head. It did not do much for one's career to publicly snub the Presiding Judge's wife, or such a reasonable disagreement would be so interpreted.
Brian Cantwell grinned at the scene in the corner and bumped into George as she entered the room.
"Nice try, George, in the Atkins Pilkinton trial. By all accounts, you did your level best and went down fighting."
George smiled with a flash of her immaculate white teeth and perfectly painted lips. She was wearing a colourful loose fitting dress that suggested the shape of her tiny exquisite figure rather than flaunted it.
"I'm sorry for the way I behaved when I took over the case from you, Brian. I genuinely believed that I could win the case."
"Why did you ever take the case on, George? Was it anything to do with Neil Houghton?"
George shrugged her shoulders non-committally.
"Let's just say that I'm a bad loser. You know that from appearing opposite me," George replied with a hint of flirtatiousness in her manner. Inwardly, she asked herself the same question and for the life of her, she didn't know. Her face had brightened as her memory dragged her to more distant times of the choicer exchanges when she had frequently wrong footed or rattled Brian Cantwell.
"Are you on the waggon, George? I'll get a drink for you as I know your favourite poison." Brian asked more lightheartedly as he took two glasses of dry white wine from the waiter who passed by. Brian Cantwell's actions were not entirely altruistic as he was known to be a heavy drinker and George made him a helpful alibi to knock back another drink without making it obvious. His quick eyes had darted round the crowded room for the waiter and the drinks tray. It was becoming more and more difficult to get to the buffet table and to pick your way through the crowd for the nearest drink.
"Thank you," George said graciously.
Neil gradually made his way across the room, having button holed the Attorney General and was exchanging the latest political gossip as to who was in line for the next promotion and who was due to be dropped from the Cabinet. His eyes focussed in her direction and he veered off from the path he was treading and next moment, the two politicians were talking shop in a corner by the window, their stance totally excluding the casual wanderer at the party, looking for a fresh source of conversation.
Sir Monty Everard's mood was not improved when Deed drifted nonchalantly through the door. He had been manfully acting the part of the genial host to fresh visitors but felt that he could conveniently overlook that Deed character.
"Lover boy doesn't want to know, George," John's melodious voice broke in on George's thoughts. Brian Cantwell had made a bee line for the buffet table which was crowded out with the hungrier gannet population who were picking over the remains.
"Last time we attended one of these soirees, he was giving me plenty of black looks before pretending concern as to how my therapy was going. He couldn't wait to come over in case I was up to no good with you."
"And weren't you?" George laughed.
"You can talk. You were flirting outrageously," John replied in his best mock innocent manner. His gentle riposte was all the more effective as it was perfectly true. In those days, while they both had their respective partners, more or less, they couldn't help but slightly misbehave with each other to ruffle the feathers of their partner of the moment. It was this provocative quality that drew them gently together in the first place.
At that point, John exchanged a few pleasantries with Mr Neumann Mason-Allen while George looked away for a second. Her face fell and the present came back to haunt her. She had come closer to John since the last party only to be aware that his womanising was driving them further apart at the same time, even if she were his mistress, or whatever. It was the "or whatever" that said everything about the two of them. By force of circumstances, John had grown to take everything all too far, especially with Jo.
In a split second, George's smile returned to its accustomed position as she said a few parting words to Mr Newman Mason-Allen before her worst source of bad conscience and tentative friend and work colleague came through the door, Jo Mills.
………………………………………………………………………………………..
George's heart was in her mouth as that symbol of a large part of her guilt was frozen in time for one split second. Then the miracle of parties, that which randomly determines how two or three people meet or fail to meet, came to George's rescue. Her view was blocked as Neumann Mason-Allen and Brian Cantwell converged on Jo to engage her in conversation and stop her dead in her tracks. Immediately after, the crowds parted to allow the portly shape of Joe Channing to bustle over in John and George's direction after pointedly ignoring an ingratiating Neil Houghton.
"George, I hope you don't mind if I talk to John on his own. I'll be back to join you later if you don't mind an old fogey like me."
"Anything for Daddy so long as…"
"…You don't carry out your threat you have made on more than one occasion to horsewhip me." John joked anticipating George's one reservation.
"If I reach for my whip, John, it won't be aimed at you," Joe rumbled, with an unexpected cautious smile in John's direction.
John raised his eyebrows in surprise, having steeled himself for the sort of confrontation that had become habitual. As he sensed the entire absence of this, he felt disorientated.
He went off in a corner with Joe while George flitted about, being the life and soul of the party, as only she knew how.
"I heard from George that that bounder Neil Houghton actually struck my daughter. Did you know anything about this? If you did, and you seem to know most things," and here, Joe gave him a knowing look, "then I would have thought that I would have been the first person that you would have told, at least for 'old time's sake.'"
John blinked at the intonation Joe spun on that last phrase which was half ironic, half meant. A host of old memories that he thought were sealed up and buried rushed to the surface of the early days of his marriage to George. As his own father had cut himself off emotionally from him after his mother's suicide when he was only ten, a part of him reached out to Joe as the archetypal older generation reactionary that he made his life purpose in confronting in duelling verbal debate. Many wine soaked evenings came back to his memory when he'd locked horns in debate with Joe in an atmosphere laden with Joe's cigar smoke. At that moment, he realised that, though times had driven them apart, Joe was still as much a part of his marriage as George was, however problematic.
"I felt that it wasn't my place to tell the story to you, Joe. It would have seemed unsporting," He said slowly, feeling for words.
"You really thought that it would have been bad form, John? Nonsense. You could have told me in confidence but I understand why you did not."
For the first time in their lives, Joe and John actually agreed upon something. It took both of them by surprise and Joe's smile became more open and almost fatherly.
As John made his way back to George, he couldn't help bumping into Neil.
"I've just had a very interesting experience," He said curtly. "I've had a tour round one of Her Majesty's Prisons."
"No doubt you have been up to your rabble rousing tricks there as much as anywhere, bleating on about justice. A pity as there is no honour among thieves, especially the convicted and the guilty," Neil said with a nasty tone in his voice.
"It was Larkhall I went too, you know, the prison that the Atkins/Pilkinton trial was about. It seems that some of the criminals in society are on the outside. You meet such an interesting cross section of society in prison. Even Lord Archer went to prison. With your track record, who knows?" John fired back with a fixed smile, with a low menacing voice and glittering eyes.
Neil slunk away to find other company while Joe just behind him, who had not said a word, kept a sharp eye on Neil.
Jo Mills made her way over to John and they were making light conversation when George made her very hesitant way back, eyes flitting about not focussing on anyone except finally Daddy. She carried a half full glass of white wine.
"I hear that when you went to Larkhall, that you were attacked by one of the inmates, Alison McKenzie. Why didn't you tell me about it?" John demanded sternly.
While Jo put two and two together from her memories of the trial, a part of George was glad that the treacherous undercurrent of the party conversation wasn't about to pull her right under. This bone of contention between her and John at least diverted attention from more treacherous matters.
"Karen wasn't to blame for McKenzy attacking me, John," George reasoned forcefully. "I heard from Karen later on that Fenner disobeyed a direct order from her to keep her away from me and I was present as she tore him off a strip. Karen saved my life in bodily dragging me away from the situation."
"I was concerned for your safety, George. I had entrusted you safely to Karen's care and I was angry as I had supposed that she would be fully capable of looking after you," John replied with rather bad grace.
"Well, I hope you weren't totally horrible to her, John. Even you don't get things right all the time," George retorted with a hint of her habitual combativeness, an attitude which she found so easy to adopt.
"All right, all right, George," John raised his hands defensively. "You aren't going to subject me to your favourite prosecuting barrister's ploys designed to get your own way, whether right or wrong."
"George was actually sticking up for someone else, John," Jo interposed gently, seeing the fireworks start to spark again between the pair of them.
At this unexpected assistance, George smiled her dazzling immaculately made up smile and looked down into her handbag to reach for a cigarette. She fiddled about inside it for some time with a touch of irritation and reached for a cigarette which her fumbling fingers coaxed her lighter to align the flame with the cigarette end. She was muttering under her breath and no one dared say anything lest they draw her wrath on to them. She had that reputation. Eventually, she inhaled deeply and looked into the distance as she blew smoke from the depths of her lungs.
"Well, with what I hear of you helping Jo with the civil case against that odious man, Fenner, both of you seem to be working together as a team. I would not have predicted anything like that happening the last time we were at Everard's party. Let's hope you both are successful and that Fenner has his just deserts behind bars instead of locking up others behind bars," John said heartily, trying to smooth oil over troubled waters.
How can you be so crass, John, George thought furiously while she looked every way but in his direction. There can be no real friendship, much less than teamwork or still less, real love if you go behind your lover's back and betray her with your ex-wife. She blew cigarette smoke furiously while, from long training, she kept a perfect mask on her real feelings.
You could win an Oscar, George, Jo thought. There's something troubling you if you reveal yourself so stripped to your raw emotions in front of me in private, yet in this social gathering, you keep up such a brilliant act so that nobody sees the real you. Does John see that or is he pretending not to notice?
In the meantime, Joe had pulled Neil aside to a private room and jabbed in the direction of the second button on his jacket.
"If I were twenty years younger, Neil, I would horsewhip you for striking my daughter the way you did and don't deny it. ……"
"It was a mistake, a complete mistake, Joe. I have tried to make up with her and apologise…"
"……..but I am not. Nevertheless I have the political power to ruin your career. All it takes is a word in the right ear and it is back to the back benches for you. You will have to say goodbye to the luxuries in your life and to people fawning over you. They will go to the next rising star while you surrender your Ministerial limousine and have to buy a guide map to the London underground and share some dingy locker in the house of Commons."
Neil turned white at the prospect and started to stammer incoherently his profuse apologies.
"You are totally spineless, Haughton. You keep away from my daughter and anyone remotely connected with her or the consequences for you will be unspeakable."
"What do you mean by that, Joe?" Neil's voice rose up the scale, thoroughly panic stricken.
"I would suggest that you should work that out for yourself," Joe retorted enigmatically as he himself was not sure of exactly how far he had set the boundaries. "With your acumen as a Government Minister - for the present - you should be able to apply yourself to working out the answer. Goodbye," Joe finally exploded and turned round and made his way back to George, the feelings of expended anger making him feel very happy with himself. The rumbling volcano of anger had finally burst through the crust and had scattered molten lava in all directions and released his pent up emotions. All through his life, he needed to do that from time to time.
Like a galleon which had gone into battle all guns blazing and was replete with the spoils of victory, he made his way proudly in a victory march back to George.
By this time, the party was at its height. The conversation was loud and hearty as the alcohol had performed its traditional function of oiling the wheels of conversation and it had got to that stage where everyone's hearing had to be especially acute and the other person not too far away or else a moving mouth would be seen and what was said being drowned in a barrage of many voices. The space to move in was getting more tightly packed than ever.
Sir Monty Everard's deep baritone voice was holding forth on his pet subject to Sir Ian who was listening intently. Sir Ian reflected on the point that Sir Monty was a perfectly sound judge who had that innate understanding of the sensitivities of the executive and was realistic. He expounded on the difficulties that he had with that insufferable man Deed who persistently let the side down and Sir Ian's active listening mind switched off or just enough to hear.
"Have you done to Neil what I think you have, Daddy?" George smiled in Joe's direction, John and Joe being otherwise immersed in conversation.
"The man's still living, George. No one strikes my daughter and gets away without retribution," Jo rumbled.
"Where would I be without Daddy to look after me?" George's aristocratic drawl spoke half in irony to cover up her real feelings. She was still Daddy's little girl all the years back to when he had taken her for a walk in the country and her little hand had held his huge, hard shinned hand from far up into the sky. While she was at her expensive boarding school, she had heard about the 'birds and the bees' from one of her more sexually precocious friends. Daddy would have died from embarrassment rather than explain that one.
Sir Monty stalked majestically towards the centre of his party and proudly surveyed the room, lord of all those who attended the party or equal with his political friends. It was who attended his party that made the difference and in due course, he saw his path set out before him to be elevated to the appellate bench to follow in the footsteps of Joe Channing. Recognition had rightfully come his way when the New Years Honours list of a few years ago had resulted in him attending Buckingham Palace and to be admitted to the Ancient Order of Knights. As such, he saw his duty to preserve the foundations of this country from all who would disturb it. His cheeks were flushed from the heat of the party and too many glasses of white wine.
John had temporarily become separated from both Jo and George and found himself isolated. All around him, the sound of many conversations had built up orchestrally as if from the intimacy of two violins criss crossing round each other to an overbearing crescendo. He tried to pick out individual items of conversation as he momentarily closed his eyes but he could not for the life of him work out the sense of the very loud and self assured voices. It felt the same as the time he was at Oxford when the 'baker's boy' had had odd moments of morose lucidity that he was with the others in the party but not of their kind no matter how skilfully he had disguised himself. In middle age, he reflected bitterly on how he still aspired to uphold the values which his old school had taught only to discover that they had sold their birthright in return for the rewards of the modern corrupt age. On his judge's throne, the individual barristers who appeared before him were all more or less bearable. When they were all pushed together in a large room becoming hotter and more airless by the minute, the alienation that he felt came to haunt him. Yet by the same token, it was what kept him up to the mark that he had set for himself and what made him human.
"Hello Darkness my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain,
Still remains
Within the Sounds of Silence.
In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone,
'Neath the halo of a street lamp,
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence.
And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more.
People talking without speaking,
People hearing without listening,
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence.
"Fools" said I,"You do not know
Silence like a cancer grows.
Hear my words that I might teach you,
Take my arms that I might reach you."
But my words like silent raindrops fell,
And echoed
In the wells of silence
And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made.
And the sign flashed out its warning,
In the words that it was forming.
And the signs said, The words of the prophets
are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls.
And whisper'd in the sounds of silence."
It was funny the way those words tinkled their way on the wings of softly plucked, patterned guitar strings. Perhaps it was the fleeting memory of when he was at Larkhall and Karen had told him that Shaz Wiley had played and sung "Scarborough Fayre". There was no rhyme or reason in the way that thoughts were placed in his mind by some unknown presence like sparkling jewels. The problem as he saw it was the lack of control in the way these thoughts appeared as sometimes, they were troublesome and to be kept at bay.
John opened his eyes and saw Sir Monty approach him. A happy note of inspiration had come to his mind from his memory of his tour round Larkhall. He personally thought that this party could do with livening up, himself included.
"Monty, I bumped into a couple of old acquaintances of yours the other day, who told me a fascinating story." Too late, he bumped into John Deed while he was in mid procession, blinded by his self image and saw him too late to avoid him.
"Indeed," he said gruffly.
"You may remember meeting them every Thursday on the dot at eight o clock. Two slim attractive women of easy virtue, very friendly and hospitable with an excellent sense of humour. They gave me a very accurate description of you and said that you went with them as your wife wasn't attractive enough to get you going. Their words, I hasten to add, not mine," John raised his hands as if to be prepared in case the very angry Sir Monty struck him.
"You are impertinent, sir, and defamatory," Sir Monty growled. He kept his voice down in case he might be overheard.
"Doubtless you will remember their names as the Two Trudies. I hesitate to tell you the nickname they have for you," John replied, his face creased in amusement.
"I trust that you denied any possible link between me, a Presiding Judge and two common prostitutes."
"Well, I would deny that they are common. Rather attractive in their way. As for covering up for you, well, you must know me better than that," John's best insolent tones caused Sir Monty to turn round and stalk away back to Sir Ian.
"Have you been getting into more trouble, John?" Jo's amused tones broke in on his thoughts.
"No more than usual," John replied.
"Are you feeling all right, John?" George exclaimed from his other side. "I was watching you with your eyes closed for a minute." She knew of old, John's moments of abstraction as she called it but when she asked him about it, he always made light of it.
"I'm fine, George. Really, I am," John said to reassure her and to smooth things down in his normal style.
It helped George at that minute to express concern about John. This and the whole theatrical performance of keeping up appearances at the party had distracted her from looking too closely at herself and from Jo expressing the sympathy that she felt utterly unworthy of. John looked at these two women, one his ex-wife and the other his lover. It was with blinding clarity that he realised for the first time, that he had only ever felt truly at hhome with George and then with Jo. He had the sudden urge to envelop them both in his arms, to for ever preserve them from any wrong doing, to keep them safe. But he managed to subdue the urge for sake of appearances. It would not do for anyone to resurrect any question of his professional conduct with any barrister who might in future appear before him. Both Jo and George watched him, knowing of old that look of contemplation.
"What are you thinking?" Asked Jo.
"Nothing remotely repeatable in present company," Put in George dryly, which made him smile.