George had slipped so easily into her familiar pattern of doing her section of her preparation for the events for the next day that it only dawned on her that she hadn't seen so much of Jo recently. There were a number of ready explanations that she could use to excuse, to justify herself. She was used to the sheer hard work that a protracted trial demanded but these were civil cases where the difference meant whether or not her client paid out or did not large sums of money. It all seemed terrifically important at the time. For the first time in her life, she was the right side of the fence in deciding on the future of a human being in a criminal court. She could understand how Jo got so emotional about such matters even if she didn't share Jo's sentiments. She dare not let herself go and be sure that she could give of her best. In court, she knew only too well that only stone cold objectivity served her client best.In that way, she squared that circle nicely. When it came down to it, she admitted to herself, while Kay pottered about upstairs, she felt bone weary and really not up to socializing. That stray thought betrayed her initial mental preamble as a sheer diversion from what she was really feeling. Blowing out a long breath of carcinogenic smoke into the air, she carefully laid down her thoughts for her to see like a sequence of cards, played from off the top of the pack. She knew that Jo was struggling to hold her head up during the trial but she doubted her own ability to give the emotional sustenance that Jo needed. Well, she answered herself defiantly, she was just going to have to jolly well try despite her misgivings.
In that state of heightened nervousness, she rushed round the house to give it a quick tidy up, put on her coat, grabbed her keys and, as an unaccountable afterthought, flipped a CD from her rack and left it carelessly on the coffee table. She called out to Kay and was gone in a rush of cold air behind her.
"George." Jo called out, "It's good to see you. It's better than staring at these four walls."
The other woman put her arms round her, drew her to herself and kissed her. George could not detect any whisky on her breath and reproached herself for the thought. She would not exactly be overwelcoming to any visitor who cast an eye upon her figure and then her fridge only from the point of view of gauging her non-eating habits.
"I'm not disturbing you in the middle of preparing for the trial, Jo?" George asked solicitously.
"I'm as ready as I'll ever be for the next day so I can give way to temptation." Jo replied with a twinkle in her eye.
"Meaning"
"That I can have a quiet drink or two with someone who is close to me." Jo replied, stretching herself luxuriously. Immediately, warning bells were set off in George's jangled thoughts.
"You had better leave me out from part of what you've got in mind."
"It's not like you to plead the course of virtuous restraint, George Channing." Jo teased in her bantering tone of voice.
"More like the course of practicality." Came George's terse reply. "I've got to be home tonight so I can be ready for the trial. This means that I am really not prepared to chance myself being hauled up in a local magistrates court, lose my driving licence for two years and pay a fearful fine and all for one night's indulgence. If I indulge my pleasures, I will at least ensure that I have something memorably enjoyable to look back on the next day."
The look that Jo shot at George was one of pure wounded hurt emotion at the judgmental harshness in George's tone of voice. She knew that George knew her urge to that recourse to the one surefire cure easily to hand to instill fuzzy feelings of good feelings inside her. In driving away that overwhelming depression, it worked every time for that evening . George was acting as that pitiless wake up call to reality. What made it worse for George was that , behind her firm exterior, was that she would be a fine one to judge when she was performing her own retreat from reality except that, she was sincerely trying to help Jo.
"Look, Jo." She continued gently with a slight smile on the corners of her lips, "I'm as tired as you but I just wanted a quiet evening in with you on the settee"
George felt hugely relieved, as a light seemed to be turned on in Jo's face as she was faced with an alternative attraction. As Jo clicked off the overhead lights, she allowed George to lead her by the hand and settled down on a two-seater settee. It was made for such intimacy as George nestled her head against Jo's neck. They both knew that it meant nothing heavy, just two friends seeing each other through a mutually draining experience of the trial with just that bit of sexual spicing. They could afford to let the time go for just that blessed period of time.
"We're nearly through the trial."Jo sleepily remarked half an hour later into George slightly ruffled blond hair. "We've made most of the running so far"
"We're not out of the wood yet, darling." Drawled that forward looking other voice against her breasts. "but so far, we're winning. Brian really was very foolish to think that he could get the better of the two of us"
Jo laughed lightly into the intimacy of the dim lighting at George's humour. It had been a long time that there was anything worth laughing about.
Kay recalled feeling that now she had been on the stand and seen the way as to how George could get the overdue medical attention she needed, she could afford to have a nice restful night in. George flitted backwards and forwards in a nervous way in getting ready to see Jo so that Kay tactfully stayed out of the way.
"See you sometime." George called out from the other side of the open front door before it was shut. Kay went to answer but gave it up as somewhat redundant. When Lucy had stayed with her, she had acted in a similar manner. Although she was several decades George's junior, the similarities were more than she would have expected. Kay had supposed that the archetypal aristocratic English accent guarantee perfect confidence and self assurance but now she wasn't that sure.
Kay entered what to her was the most comfortable room in the house as central to it was the open coal fire casting an attractive glow in the room while all was cold and dark outside. The coal embers were dying down and only simmering red glow lined the spaces in between the burnt out charcoal. It came second nature to her to reach out for a chopped up piece of log and to lay it sideways across the fire. In no time, yellow flames crackled up around the wood and the fire sprang to life. She could feel the heat on her face and that glowing feeling of being sheltered from the wind and the rain. It was a primitive ritual that gave her good feelings inside, no matter how modern or computerized the world was that she lived in.
It was a little later that her attention was taken away by the CD left out as if casually on the coffee table. It was the only object on display and she would have thought that George's tidy ways would have put it together with her neatly arranged collection. Immediately, she scratched out that last thought. George really wanted her to hear the CD but couldn't say outright. Smiling to herself, she detached the paper from the CD box and closely examined it. On the front, was a posed photograph of four immaculately dressed men and one woman not dissimilar to a high school group shot. She could instantly recognise John, Monty, and, George in the centre and occupying pride of place with a wide smile on her glowing face. The very proud man standing next to her must be Joe Channing
She turned back to the lengthy credits for the members of the orchestra and the images of the human beings crawled out from their neatly typed names and assumed the human dimensions of the real life players whom she had observed in court. At the bottom of the page was inscribed the following dedication to which the passing time had lent the most supreme irony.
"…….we must give special credits to the unfailing kindness of Reverend Henry Mills and his wife, Barbara, without whose hospitality and the use of Chipping Ongar church for the performance and the church hall for the rehearsals, this performance would not have been possible"
She tried not to think of that too much as it surely wouldn't help her out right now. She poured herself a glass of white wine, which she sipped from and laid it on the coffee table. She put on the CD with a deliberate motion and sat back in the easy chair next to the roaring fire to compose her spirits for her best attention to the music.
The opening orchestral chord immediately grabbed her attention and served notice on her that here were no bunch of amateurs as were thought of in the worse sense of the word. She was struck in the instrumental prelude of the figure of the endlessly climbing staircase which had always fascinated her and which was executed to precision. She was equally surprised when the monumental blast of orchestral sound measured the instant that the world stepped into the light.
It was when George took her first solo, that the whole performance became personal to her. That utter self-confident precision of tone amazed her, took her into another dimension and made it look misleadingly easy as her voice danced effortlessly up and down the scales. The sheer purity of sound and spirit amazed her as there was nothing about this highly professional barrister to suggest that she had another potential calling. To Kay, you had a profession that you either performed to the utmost of your ability or else you were just a sloppy cheap chiseller, content to take your salary from Virginia State and to hell with the consequences. It had never entered her head that you could pursue your career and also be attractively haunted by the ghost of a second calling, which might have been an alternate reality. She did not claim to be a music professor but surely this performance was played to perfection. The thought gradually dawned on her that had she been drawn into the world of playing an instrument rather than being merely an interested listener, she could have trod this path. Impossible, she answered herself. There simply weren't enough hours in the day for her to include any hobby and do her job. No, she countered herself, but these guys had.
The flourishes of violins were surely led by John, either as the calm river of sound drifted softly along or were at the cutting edges of the crescendos of chorus and lead singers. She could so easily imagine Jo, Karen and Roisin lending their tones to that massed bank of strings but less so to imagine that so did Brian Cantwell. It wasn't until she heard the first recitative that she heard the deep voice of Neil Grayling being backed by the cellos and the sharp tone of the harpsichord played by none other than Barbara, the woman who was now in the dock. That thought brought her up short as something she realized that she would have to face. It was highly likely that when this CD was produced, Barbara was a free woman and able to enjoy the fruits of her hard work. It also drove home the thought how hard it might be for those involved in the present trial to act normally and treat her as just another case.
Kay was enthralled as her senses let the music flow around her. She heard the instruments talking to each other as well as her, the privileged audience and also a mute George who had just let herself silently in and was transfixed by what she had heard. Since the performance, she had refused steadfastly to play the CD, which had been given to her by Grayling. By contrast, the production of this CD had driven her overjoyed father to master the modern technicalities of a CD player and both the memory of the event and its constant electronic replay had given him vim and vigour beyond his years. In George's case, she had been swallowed up by the day-to-day work, which had swept her far away from that moment in time. George couldn't believe what she was hearing, especially to hear her own voice. She had to admit that if she had been to watch such a performance, she would not feel as if she had been shortchanged. Her musical education enabled her to make that considered judgment that the ensemble was performing at the very top of their not inconsiderable talents. But that was her singing, she remembered, and she sounded really happy and in love with life itself, she reflected ruefully.
Kay was swept up in the performance as it unreeled itself into that celebration of love, in the insistent interflowing lines which cut between Adam and Eve. George listened incredulous that the woman she had been had sung with such heartfelt feeling.
"With thee, with thee, is every joy enhanced. With thee, with thee, is life incessant bliss." "If only it were" came George's secondary speaking voice speaking dully over the pure pitch of her singing voice. Kay laid her finger to her lips and that and the warm smile on Kay's face bade her to continue to listen right up until the end. The ensemble of the orchestra, chorus and soloists propelled the performance to the finale to the accompaniment of that authoritative baton and the sheer joy and spirit warmed George to believe once again that, yes, there was another side of her that she could not deny. Exactly what she might actually acknowledge was another matter as that measure of self-belief meant a faith in a future.
"Have you had a good evening out?" Kay asked casually.
"I've been seeing Jo and talking trial tactics," George answered conversationally before her words rang a little hollow."In fact you might say that I've been seeing to Jo as I've been worried about her. I think she'll be right…for now"
Something about the finality of George's tone told Kay not to pursue the matter further. If it helped George to talk, she would but this was not the right time. Instead, she talked about what was most uppermost in her mind.
"That performance was utterly incredible, George. That was a real meal for the senses. You should"
"Don't tell me, we should go professional, Kay. You do not know what argumentative prima donnas there were amongst the orchestra, well some of us"
Beneath George's self deprecating manner lay feelings of tenderness, which she finally softened up at the end to admit to. There were feeling of positivity and high energy that ran through that period despite the likes of Sir Ian and Lawrence James. She really had done a lot. What got to her was that if she were asked to do a repeat performance, she doubted if she would sustain that energy. From Kay's perspective, George was simply battling with her sense of pride in the performance.
"You're joking, George. If I suggested to some of those I work with, hey why don't we form a band, I'd get some strange looks"
Her mind drifted affectionately across the Atlantic to Marino who, as a devoted Elvis fan, would go as far as running an expedition to visit Graceland but would run a mile away from the idea of playing in a rock and roll band. She grinned when she tried to picture the expression on his face and his choicest scornful expression he would use to disguise his fear.
"You looked so happy in the photograph. You have got a very special talent, George. Don't ever knock it. The same goes to everyone in the orchestra, even that bastard Brian Cantwell"
'That's all very well if I had a future in it." George answered with dread finality.
Despite the warmth thrown out by the supply of logs Kay had thrown on the fire, she suddenly felt chilled to the bone.