In the staff room she changed out of her uniform and into her ragged jeans and plain white shirt, wishing she'd worn something less utilitarian. Hopefully he wasn't taking her anywhere special.
"You know him then?"
Edith was washing her face in the sink and she caught Daisy's eye in the mirror, "yes."
"Is he your boyfriend?"
"No. No he's not."
Daisy snorted, "acts like he is."
"What are you talking about?"
"The way he looks at you all the time. Like he owns you. Typical man."
"That is nonsense!" But Daisy had no imagination for that kind of thing, she only spoke blunt truths. Edith gulped down rising excitement.
Anthony waited, standing as she came up to the front of house, "All set then?"
They approached the car and he reached to open the passenger door. He stopped before he got to the handle. His eyes flashed to her neck and back up to her face, the yellow street lights causing the blue to twinkle.
His scarf. She'd worn it for three days, a tortuous reminder of him, like Sybil's watch, a needless concession to continued angst when she should've been moving on. Her hand went to it, as if she could conceal the offending item, "I was going to give it back."
He chuckled, "if I had a penny for every time a thief had said that in my courtroom!"
She arched an eyebrow, "you'd have?"
"Ten, maybe even twenty pence." The edges of his lips twitched into a smile. They'd fit very nicely with hers and parted so generously when required.
She went to take the scarf off but his fingers brushed the back of her hand and threaded into her palm, pulling it away. For a moment he held it in front of his face, as if he was going to dip a kiss onto her knuckles, like they were in some nineteenth century novel of manners. Instead, his thumb bobbed up and down over them, charting a path across the cartilage peaks and valleys. Then he lowered it and released his grip. She was flushed and disappointed. As though a kiss on the hand might have been an adequate substitute for a kiss on the mouth. She'd stopped breathing at the prospect.
"Keep it, it suits you." His voice was low and his eyes intent. She felt it between her legs, intimate muscles pulsing. She wanted to shout at him: you suit me too.
The journey was a study in small talk. She and Anthony had never needed to make small talk before. They jumped from important topic, to unimportant topic, to comfortable silence, all the while enjoying themselves. It was never a struggle.
This was different. Perhaps because they were not talking about the one thing they needed to talk about. It might as well have been a passenger in the car, a noisy child on the back seat or a loud barking dog in the boot. They were so busy Not Talking About The Kiss that they couldn't quite manage other topics. The silences were prolonged and awkward and when they did talk there was no interest or flow. Edith actually started a conversation about the pink cleaning fluid they used for the tables in the restaurant. It was a disastrous journey.
Finally they were over the river and parking up a dingy alley off Fleet Street. On one side were several haggard looking barristers' chambers, all peeling signs and faded glory. On the other was a 1960s addition to a large gothic building. Pitted, blackened concrete butting up to pale mauve stone.
"Wait here."
He got out of the car and took several large strides down the street to a big black gate an old man in a security uniform emerged from the building and opened the gate. Anthony shook his hand and slapped him on the back. Anthony waved Edith over. It all felt vaguely conspiratorial: the Judge, the Artist and the Security Guard, acting suspiciously in one of London's gnarled side-streets.
"Edith, this is Jack Stanley. He used to be the head of security at Snaresbrook. Now he heads up things here."
"Right, and where is here, exactly?"
Both men looked at her as though she'd grown a second nose.
"You don't know where we are?"
Jack piped up in a broad cockney accent, "Ma'am that's the Royal Courts of Justice." He pointed to the gothic building with the mid-century addition.
London's map fit into place around her. Fleet Street running perpendicular to them. The entrance to Middle Temple on the other side of the road. The double length zebra crossing just about in view. Of course they were at the side of the appeal courts building.
"Well, I'd have recognised it if you'd taken me to the front entrance!"
Anthony smiled and spoke just to her, "Jack's arranged for us to have the place to ourselves for a while."
"And who arranged Jack?"
He mumbled then and looked sheepish, "that would be me."
Jack led them through the 1960s section first. Nasty plastic chairs and low panelled ceilings. She felt sorry for the barristers who came to this part of the building to do their first cases in the High Court or the Court of Appeal. Deeply unglamourous, even in a wig and gown. A set of double doors led them through to the main building, the court as built, as intended. A long corridor with black and white floor tiles and deep mahogany wooden doors and benches. Gothic carvings in all of the stone window surrounds. It was like a film set. It had probably been a film set.
Anthony beckoned her through an imposing set of carved wooden doors.
Edith stopped dead when she finally looked at the room they'd entered. A towering, imposing theatre of justice.
He cleared his throat, "I wanted you to see where I'd be working. To see the difference between the Crown Court and the RCJ."
"That's the lesson."
"It is."
She was disappointed. What had she hoped? That it'd be a lesson in lovemaking at Britain's premier court building?
Of course that's what she'd hoped.
She decided to focus on the suggested task. This court was extraordinarily different. Snaresbrook had been ravaged by modernisations. The Bench was elevated but not by too much. The barristers sat at eminently practical desks, as though children in a classroom. The dock was surrounded by sheets of plastic, flecked with imperfections and smudged with foggy white marks.
The RCJ really bore no comparison. Books lined the walls, an honest to goodness book ladder hung on a rail which stretched around the shelves, there was no other way to reach the top. The Bench stood proud in the middle of the room at the front. The barristers' benches radiated in successive half circles from its base. The room smelt of furniture polish and paper. On the left was the dock. A real dock, tightly packed wrought iron bars enclosing a small space. Edith peered through them. There was little more than a ledge for the Defendant to stand on and then a black spiral staircase plunging sharply into darkness.
Turning back to the room Edith groped for adequate words, "This is –"
"I know. Scary."
"Beautiful too, but, yes, mainly – scary."
Anthony levered himself onto the platform holding the Judge's Bench. Soon to be his Bench. He sat in the chair at the centre. Much more akin to a throne than any chair Edith had ever seen. At Snaresbrook he sat in a large office chair, imitation leather.
"Everyone's so far away, they'll be like ants. I'll need a bell to get Mrs Hughes's attention."
"I'm sure she'll love that."
He laughed and looked over to her, "I'm nervous."
"You'll be great."
"I feel as if this room will chew me up and spit me out if I'm anything less."
"Let me try."
"Try what?"
She jumped down from the dock and walked up to the Bench, levering herself up on the platform the same way Anthony had done, "being the Judge. God above this is difficult."
"Well, traditionally the Judge comes in from his own entrance, he doesn't have to clamber up from the front. Hang on –" His hands were under her elbows and then at her waist pulling her up to the platform. He was holding her and looking into her eyes, then briefly at her lips.
He let go.
"Tell me if I seem far away." He jumped down. Fleeing to safety. She should be grateful; it was safety for her too. The platform was perilously high.
The throne was horribly uncomfortable, "they expect you to sit in this for hours at a time? My back hurts already."
Anthony cleared his throat from behind the barristers' desk, standing from a seated position. He didn't look small. He looked large, tall and proud. Fixing his eyes on her, laser-like, he spoke in his most commanding voice, "My Lady, I appear –"
Edith snorted, "My Lady?!"
He broke character, "Yes. You're a High Court Judge now, you are Ms Justice Crawley and you are 'my lady' as a consequence." But not his lady. Pushing the thought away, Edith apologised and he carried on, "My Lady I appear on behalf of the Appellant in this matter, my learned friend Mr Bates appears on behalf of the Respondent. I am hoping you've had an opportunity to read my skeleton argument?"
Suppressing a laugh Edith nodded seriously, "I have Mr Strallan, yes and I'm grateful for that assistance. Take me to point 11, I think the nub of it is in the argument you raised there." She couldn't help her smile then. They were words she'd heard from on him on many occasions in the few weeks of the fraud trial.
His lovely mouth formed into a pleasing o. He shook his head, "Was that – were you – doing me?!"
"Uncanny isn't it? All those hours in the trial listening to your dulcet tones. I've picked up the essence of His Honour Judge Anthony Strallan – Queen's Counsel."
A faint blush crept up his neck and Edith swallowed her pleasure at the sight, "Apparently."
They carried on, play acting Judge and Counsel.
Eventually she clambered down and he said he wanted to show her one final thing.
To describe it that way made it seem so small. As if she'd find herself looking at his Central London parking space. It wasn't small. Quite the opposite.
They emerged from the end of the courtroom corridor and out into a vast space. Anthony raised his arms, "The Great Hall."
It was King's chapel but larger and without pews or altar, no iconoclastic paraphernalia. Just a vast empty space. Portraits of Judges adorned the walls, the odd statue. In the middle, in a wooden cabinet, the causes list.
Edith looked up at the ceiling, around the walls and then back to Anthony, standing in the middle of the void, looking at her with his crooked smile. Her crooked smile.
"Beautiful and scary as well, I know. I wanted to show you – you like Snaresbrook, but so much of that has been ruined by the changes. This is still as it was intended and I thought you'd like it, that you'd be interested."
She was overwhelmed by an urge to throw herself at full pelt into his chest. To kiss him hard on the lips and fill this hall with sounds from the two of them. He'd wanted her to see it, because he knew she liked old buildings and gothic architecture. He knew her. Flexing her hand into a fist and then relaxing again, she settled for walking to the wooden cabinet and examining the contents.
The causes list was fashioned in ornate calligraphy, except when it wasn't. Amendments had been scrawled on by hand, in different coloured pens, in odd locations with arrows and stars of direction. Most of the family list was typed. Bureaucracy writ large on the traditions of an historic institution.
Each court had a Judge – Mr Justice Popple QC, Ms Justice Sutherland QC, Mr Justice Monk QC. Soon Anthony would be Mr Justice Strallan QC. No longer a mere HHJ. His name would be in calligraphy too. She'd have finished the painting by then and she'd be long out of his life. Her hand rested on the wooden frame of the list and she took a deep breath. This had been a near perfect evening (the absence of kisses being its one, rather significant, failing) and she would not ruin it with these thoughts.
Another deep breath transformed into a sharp intake when she realised Anthony's hand was on her arm.
"Are you alright?"
"Fine. Absolutely fine. Just admiring the lovely text of the list. Someone takes some care over that."
"Undoubtedly."
He turned to face the expanse of the hall, leaning against the glass cabinet. His eyes roamed hungrily around the space and he shook his head, plainly reliving a moment long past.
"What is it?"
"My first case here was a complete shambles. I was late. I ran through security, a sweaty, awkward, long-limbed mess. Barged my way through a gaggle of barristers and solicitors and harrumphing guards." He drew his finger in front of him, tracing the space, tracing his run.
"How old were you?"
"About your age I suppose." He rubbed his forehead, "I ran all the way to the courtroom – number 73 – I've found it impossible to forget even the smallest of details. I found myself in front of the disarmingly charming Lady Justice Hall. She was a beautiful woman – still is, actually, and she adopted a charming smile through the introductions of counsel and my opening of the facts. I outlined my submissions concisely, clearly –"
"I would expect nothing less."
"Thank you. And when I was finished she leant forward, her mouth still in that fixed smile, eyebrow arched and said, 'oh, Mr Strallan. Isn't this is all very Alice in Wonderland? Interesting, provocative, even a little romantic, but ultimately you are asleep on your sister's lap and I am about to wake you up.' She killed me, smiling all the while. It was the worst day." He laughed, "You want to know the truth, Edith?"
"Yes." Any truth, she'd settle for any part of him.
"I've been petrified of this place ever since. No matter how many cases I did here. I was always worried that I was in Wonderland, unable to comprehend the brutal, pragmatic realities of the law. Making the wrong points at the wrong time. I was so afraid that I drove anything remotely provocative, interesting and romantic out of myself. I became a complete cynic to further my career."
"Anthony –" He was an idiot. How could he misunderstand his own character to such a degree? After the weeks they'd spent together. It was blasphemy. She would not be mealy-mouthed; she would not have it, "you know that's complete rubbish, don't you?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"Anthony Strallan! You are the most interesting person I've ever met. You are provocative - thoughtful and intelligent." She couldn't discuss the third criticism, she didn't know how. This night had been amongst the most romantic of her life, whether he'd intended it or not.
She took a deep breath, "you can be cynical, we all can, but that is not all you are. Far, far from it."
"You don't know Edith – you don't know what I've given up – what I've done - to get myself a seat in this place."
"Well, you've sacrificed nearly two decades of literature, film and television – that, I know, is a tragedy." He turned his body to face her, with the crooked smile. He was close, too close, but not close enough, so she didn't step back, "No one is perfect Anthony." She shrugged, "I will spend my whole life trying to recover from a childhood and an adolescence spent at Downton. Telling myself that I am more than an ugly middle sister to be belittled and pitied. There are plenty of days when I think that's all that I am and I might as well give up. But I don't because I believe that I am better than that and I don't want to stop trying. Everyone has something they're battling. You're doing fine. You are a good man Anthony."
The heat in her cheeks gave it away, she had reddened and her chest heaved with the declarations. They'd spilled out like water from a broken damn. His expression was solemn, head tilted, his eyes darted across her face. He stepped back slightly.
She'd scared him away. The retreat was his now. A jolt of acute regret drove at her chest. She looked to her feet rather than into his beautiful eyes.
"You forgot romantic."
She must not have heard him correctly. Her head drew her eyes away from her shoes, up his legs and torso. He held his hand in front of him, large palm and strong fingers in a stationary beckon.
Puzzled, she furrowed her brow, his eyes flashed at her, "dance with me?"
The hand was an invitation. She should refuse. It was too dangerous to do anything else.
"I-I can't dance. I mean I can, but, you know, drunk at gay clubs in Soho. Not the way you're thinking of."
"I confess my experience of Soho's gay clubs and the dancing therein is limited, but no, that's not what I'm thinking." The hand remained on offer, he moved it in her direction, eyes imploring, "I'll show you how."
"There's no music."
"I'll hum a tune."
She clawed for another excuse but disappointment flickered across his eyes and she couldn't bear it. Her hand was within his in an instant.
His fingers closed, trapping her, "Put your other hand on my back." She did. His skin was warm through the cotton shirt. Her heart fluttered. His other hand went to her hip and he stepped into her body. It was as if they were preparing to kiss again. Forbidden touches on untended terrains. He was sunlight in the shade. Her head was thick with desiring him, needing him.
"Good." His voice drew out the vowels, as if calming a nervous animal. "On the count of three, I step forward with the left, you step back with the same foot, follow it with the right and so on. Ready?"
"No."
"Too late – one, two, three."
It was as inelegant a moment as any she'd even experienced. They clattered into one another, his foot standing on top of hers. She was mortified. Exasperated she dropped her hand from his hip. He was going to ruin a perfect day by embarrassing her. This wasn't romantic. Why did he want romance anyway? He didn't want her. They didn't suit, he'd said. This was pointless. Romance was for lovers.
He chuckled and moved her hand back to where it was, "you need to let me lead, Edith."
"I don't know what that means."
"I am going to guide you, you'll be moving backwards, trust me not to push you over or lead you into any obstacles. It's really quite easy, but you must relax."
Edith would have wagered considerable sums that she couldn't master it, but she did. She relaxed into his hold, letting his caresses work their magic on her muscles and he guided her. As his feet moved forwards, hers vacated the space for which they were destined. They spun in steady circles in a loop around the great hall. All the while he hummed a tune, his eyes never leaving hers.
"We're going to try for a spin, ready?"
He pushed her body away from his, their twinned hands rose into the air and she spun under the arch they created. Away from him, and then magically back into his arms.
Breathless laughter filled the hall, "It is a miracle I didn't fall."
"Nonsense. You're a natural."
"Who taught you?" She knew the answer and they spoke it at the same time.
"My Mother."
"Your Mother."
"Locksley had a small ballroom. She wanted me to be able to use it. I was teased mercilessly by the boys at school when someone found out that I spent much of the holidays ballroom dancing with my own Mother."
His hand had crept away from her hip and into the small of her back. The thin fabric of her shirt bowed to his fingers, she wished it wasn't there. Naked flesh instead. An infinitely superior proposition.
Just as he led her around the room without ever seeming to force or cajole, his fingers coaxed her closer to him. She wasn't aware of the physical persuasion, only that she was much nearer to him than she had been moments ago. A deep breath and her nipples would brush his chest.
His eyes traced her lips and up her nose then he was looking intently at her, "until today I hadn't danced with anyone except my Mother."
He spun her again. It was instinctive this time, she knew it was coming from the small shifts in his fingers. Her eyes tracked around the expanse of the glorious hall and then back to him. The moment of solitude heightened the sense of security in his arms. She could dance with him for the rest of her life.
"But you had all those lessons, you must have taken someone out dancing or danced at a wedding or a party – at some big judicial ball maybe?"
"My Mother died when I was 21 and dancing reminded me of her. There wasn't anyone worth dredging up all that pain for."
She was incredulous, "but you're dancing with me?!"
The expression on his face was one of absolute seriousness. It was the same as that he wore when considering a submission of vital importance or hearing crucial evidence or delivering a judgment.
Firm and clear, he spoke, "you're worth it."