Anthony laughed at how he must look. Mrs Hughes offered to have the portfolios put in the DX, but he'd refused, as if public funds couldn't stretch to the cost of the legal postal service. Now he was staggering up the second of two flights of narrow Victorian stairs with nine large folders. The corner of the top one was poking into his chin, he held two precariously between his elbow and his waist and the remaining ones balanced on his hands jutting out at different angles. Finally the front door was in sight. But the keys were in his back pocket. He cursed, "Gods sake!" The files tumbled onto the tiled floor. Shaking his feet free from underneath them he stepped over the carnage. He rattled the stiff door to dislodge it from the frame and stepped into his flat; he left the portfolios where they lay. He went to place his keys on a hall table which wasn't there, remembered and hung them on the picture hook he'd hammered into the wall for the purpose. He went into the small galley kitchen, grabbed a large plain tumbler from the draining board and headed into the dining room.
The table at its centre had been salvaged from the refurbishment of the Judges' dining room at Snaresbrook. The beautiful, historic Court had not escaped the scourge of a modernising Government. They could not touch the building itself but they set about making the interior 'fit for purpose'. He'd protested that the tables were exactly that but they'd been cast out in favour of imitation wood which was easily cleaned. Character and spirit and tradition mattered not. It was an accident of circumstance that Anthony needed furniture so he was able save one. It was long and wide, solid oak and dark with varnish. Scrolls of justice were carved into the legs and the roses of the Crown adorned the corners.
It only just fit in the room. At either end it was necessary to turn and shuffle to get round it, even if there wasn't someone sitting there. If Anthony ever held a dinner party the guests on the other side would be trapped. But the dining table was not really for dining. It was his place of business, covered in box files and red books. He set down the glass and pushed the files down the table, he piled several atop one another, making a space by his seat. He took the bottle of whiskey from the mantle and poured a generous measure.
Beside the bottle were two perfectly folded letters announcing the next stage of his life. The first was the one Mrs Hughes had dubbed the 'wink and nod' letter. It informed him, reading between its subtle lines, that he would be appointed as a High Court Judge in the autumn. Discretion was vital because nothing was decided, although plainly it was, save for the three lines containing a coded warning at the very end of the letter. They discussed the past and the future. Pulling away the veneer of language their meaning was obvious - mistresses were to be discharged, or married, rent boys paid up in full for their services and their discretion, business interests should be set right, resignations should be tendered at company board meetings. In other words: affairs should be set in order. There was still time for the position to go to someone else. It didn't matter anyway, Anthony had no affairs. He had Maud, but he suspected that question would have resolved itself by September, that was usually enough time for her.
The second letter was from Leonard Griffin at John's. He and Anthony had been young together. Anthony an upstart undergraduate and Leonard a newly minted research fellow attempting to teach him the maxims of equity. Now Anthony was to be a High Court Judge and Leonard Griffin was the Regius Professor of Law. The wink and nod letter urged discretion but the tightly spun network of the upper echelons of the British legal system made sure that the people who needed to know were aware of the news. Professor Griffin congratulated Anthony and reminded him of his obligation as an alumnus of John's to submit to a portrait for the library. Anthony had spent three years with his head in a book as the beady-eyed Judges stared down at him watching him read their unfathomable judgments. Now he was to be one of them. He had always known it would be so; the thought made him a little sad.
The files were exactly where he left them. Mrs Patmore was peering into his hall with a worried frown. She relaxed on seeing him, "oh, thank heavens, I thought someone had broken in." Her nest of ginger hair was forced under the rim of a small hat and she was wearing a long grey dress with a black trench coat, which was too small. They were two halves of twenty-first century west London. Anthony's flat had been purchased for high six figures with large professional incomes. Mrs Patmore was a dinner lady at the local primary school and inherited her flat from her Mother who enjoyed an old fashioned fixed tenancy, it passed from generation to generation, the rent was only £350 a month. Anthony quite liked the fact that in his little part of London, a Judge and a dinner lady could live side by side. Not to mention the fact that she bought him pies and stews and all manner of baked goods at least three times a week. They came, of course, with a hearty dose of mothering and berating – he wasn't "taking care of himself". She was right, although he'd never admit it, and he was grateful.
"Good evening Mrs Patmore. Sorry about this, I couldn't carry them."
"They're making the stairwell look untidy."
Anthony stooped inelegantly towards the floor and spoke through a groan, "I know – I know, I'm getting them."
"I swept that floor this morning."
"Yes-yes, they won't have dirtied it, they're only art folders."
He straightened up with the first couple arranged in a manageable state. Mrs Padmore's eyes narrowed, "art." she murmured the word, as if suspicious of something so frivolous being, literally, on her doorstep, "well, just see it's tidied." She waved a hand vaguely in his direction and set off down the stairs. Anthony rolled his eyes behind her back.
It struck him as he sipped the liquor that this was the oddest task he'd ever undertaken. His written judgments would be unread or overruled or upheld in the loftier language of a higher court. The portrait, on the other hand, would outlast him, the law and the cases with which he became involved. Seen by generations of students and lecturers. He was not a vain man, but he wanted, he needed, to choose well. He knew nothing about art and even less about portraiture and he felt conspicuously unprepared. He was always prepared but not now, he couldn't tell a good portrait from a bad one. Clasping his hands together he stretched his fingers. He slugged back the last of the whiskey and begun.
Two whiskeys later he was on portfolio number six. More faces stared up at him, some smiling, some frowning, others looked – wistful? Thoughtful? Intelligent? Brooding? He recognised some of them. A couple of famous actors, some mediocre politicians and authors. That was probably supposed to impress him. None did. They were stale and predictable. Good likenesses, but surely the portrait had to be more than that, otherwise he could just blow up his official judicial picture and have done with it.
He looked at the first pictures in numbers seven and eight, only to be confronted with yet more staid posing. With a huff he set them aside.
He opened the final file. The only one which wasn't black leather. It was reinforced, thick, red cardboard. He pulled out the contents and was faced with a blaze of colours and not a face in sight. It was an extraordinary depiction of the Eiffel Tower in bright blue, pointing proudly into a sky of oranges, reds and yellows, a luminous sun at the centre. The metal struts at the base of the tower weaved their way to the ground, the rigidity of the steel warped by the heat from the concrete beneath. The trees were full and green, bristling in a gentle wind. Anthony was in Paris.
His pulse quickened as he looked through the rest. The silhouette of a farmhouse surrounded by a smattering of trees amongst a cluster of hills; through the cloud-strewn sky dapples of light shone down. A forest of silver birch trees in shades of grey. Tower bridge at twilight, somehow humming with the lights and life of London. The beauty and the precision, shaped in dramatic shades of bright and dull colours; life created by the stroke of the brush.
The final one was a photograph of a picture. A large, black dog standing proudly against a backdrop of rolling fields surrounded by a gilt frame, hanging on a dark green wall. Anthony laughed at its incongruity. There were no bright colours or tricks of light and heat. Just a good likeness, he assumed, of a beloved pet. He'd already decided on seeing the first picture that he wanted this artist but the dog confirmed it. There was a range of skill on display; painting him shouldn't present too much of a challenge.
He fished around in the portfolio for the references, covering letter and CV. A single sheet of plain white paper was all that remained. Slanted black writing curled across the page, the fountain pen leaving infinitesimal dots of black ink in its wake. The paintings were submitted for his consideration by one Ms Edith Crawley. Brevity. A Judge appreciated brevity.
He gathered all the other files together and put them in a pile by the front door. Thank goodness he didn't have to write the letters of rejection and find ways of praising their work whilst letting them down gently. The truth was that they'd all been bested by someone superior. Someone interesting.
Returning to the dining room he eyed the tower of lever arches. As ever, there was remaining trial preparation to be done.
He picked up Ms Crawley's paintings and gently moved to put them away. Hesitating he returned just the black dog to the portfolio, he took the others and leant them against the wall above the fireplace. When he tore his eyes away from witness statements and spreadsheets and interview transcripts they were a welcome respite. It had passed him by for most of his life, but Anthony realised with a smile that he finally understood the point of art.
The peace and quiet of his courtroom before all the barristers and defendants arrived never ceased to amaze Anthony. It was usually such a fraught place imbued with arguments and cross words but at 8.30 in the morning, as the cool light of a winter morning streamed in it was difficult to believe it was capable of producing so much as a raised voice. He sat with his feet up on the bench flicking through his morning list. They'd gone easy on him because of the trial starting the following week, just two bail applications and a plea and case management hearing. Things would be very, very different at the Royal Courts of Justice. Mrs Hughes breezed in from the Judge's entrance. She sighed – loudly - and clipped his shins with her file. "Feet!" she chastised in her brusque Scottish tones. He dropped them to the floor and reminded himself that some things would be exactly the same.
"I can leave you here, you know? I can ask the RCJ for a new Court Clerk."
She busied herself tidying her desk and turned on her computer, "You do realise, Your Honour, that you make that threat at least three times a day? It lost its potency very quickly. Besides –" she turned around and handed him the bundle of case law he'd spent forty minutes searching for that morning, "-you'd be lost without me."
He offered a brilliant smile in thanks, "true."
She kept a tight grip on the bundle of papers, "plans for the weekend?"
Anthony was rather fed up of this conversation and he spoke his reply in a serious tone, "rollerblading."
The paper was freed from her grasp, loosened by surprise at his answer, "you are terrible. You're going to be locked up in the flat again, aren't you?"
"I have trial preparation. Twelve-week fraud trials do not run themselves. I need to know the papers, to keep a tight rein on everything."
"That's utter rot, and you know it." Leaning over the bench she started tidying. Archbold and Blackstones were propped up behind the bookstand, files were ordered by case number, loose papers were piled into neat stacks and, all the while, she chastised, "Firstly, you know the papers by now – you must have read them twice through. Secondly, twelve-week frauds are precisely the sorts of trials which run themselves. There will be eight barristers in this room come Monday and countless solicitors, it's a group effort; these aren't the sort of trials which collapse. Thirdly, there will always be a next trial, a next hearing, a next application. There is always preparation, you use it as an excuse not to live and it's not healthy. Fourthly –"
Raising his hands to the ceiling Anthony surrendered, "Alright. Please, please, no more – no more admonishing. No more points. You think I should go out more – this is a familiar argument and you make it well, as ever."
"Well, I've spent enough time around lawyers to pick up a little of how its done." He couldn't argue with that. She'd set out her case clearly and precisely and in numbered bullet points - textbook in every way. He couldn't argue with the point either. His life since Maud left, and for most of the time, in fact, when Maud was still there, was this courtroom. The ascent up the judicial ladder had been his focus. He was finally there; the High Court beckoned. This would be his last real trial and it was prepared. He could call a friend and go for a drink or meet someone at one of London's galleries. Hell, he could go rollerblading if he was of a mind to make an ass of himself. He knew he wouldn't. There was no one to call to provide the company and he didn't idle away the hours. No matter what Mrs Hughes said, the trial papers and he would spend the two days between Friday and Monday in his dining room. They would receive their fourth reading.
He swung his chair around and headed for his office, "oh, Mrs Hughes."
"Yes dear?"
"I picked an artist." He drew Ms Crawley's note from his pocket, he'd been carrying it around with him, "Can you arrange a meeting?"
"Where?"
"I don't know – what do you think? Where does one meet one's portrait artist, should I take her out or do we need to find out where her workplace is and I can go there?"
Mrs Hughes looked towards the ceiling and made a very poor showing of concealing her frustration, "She's painting you. She's getting paid. You're a Judge, you're busy. I'll ask her to come here on Monday, after Court."
He'd have spent the better part of an hour figuring out if that was rude or presumptuous. Mrs Hughes cut through his embarrassed uncertainty and reminded him of the salient facts. Even if he'd wanted to argue she'd long since left the room.