The buzzer burned its way through Anthony's pounding head. Four weeks in the High Court working all the hours he could possibly manage before returning home to eat whatever fare Mrs Padmore left on the mat outside his front door and drinking his way into an uneasy sleep had finally caught up with him.
He needed the distraction, not just from the incessant thoughts of Edith but from Len's accusations, still ringing insistently in his ears all these weeks later.
Coward.
Gingerly, he levered himself off the bed and padded to the door. He didn't bother to ask who it was, there was only one person expected, and it became a matter of medical urgency that he silence the electronic trill. He put the front door on the latch and sat at the end of the bed, rubbing his temples. The carpet was coarse beneath his toes.
"You look terrible."
"Lovely to see you too Maud." He frowned at his wife. She leant on the doorframe looking, as she always did, perfectly put together. A factory version of a woman. Poker straight hair, tied neatly back. Plucked eyebrows and bronzed cheeks. Her black dress stood out against the off-white walls of his flat. She brushed a little dust from the sleeve of her jacket. Nothing was out of place. He used to be the same. Presumably she was disappointed with the man her estranged husband had become. She certainly seemed to be as her eyes flicked with thinly veiled disapproval from the unwashed clothes on the floor to the disorderly bed and at the nearly empty whiskey bottle on the table at its side.
Her eyes returned to him with a cool stare, "You're not wearing that?" She raised her hand, "Forgive me, that sounded like a question, which, of course it was not. Let me try again: you are not wearing that, Anthony."
For a moment he nearly asked what was wrong with his outfit, but perhaps navy jogging bottoms and a stained t-shirt with at least two holes were not the appropriate attire for an evening amongst the august surrounds of St John's College Cambridge celebrating the unveiling of one's first portrait. Although, to be fair, neither he nor Maud had any previous experience with such an event. He thought briefly about arguing the point just for the fun of it, but his head still pounded and fun remained an entirely alien, pointless concept.
"No, I will be changing. In fact, I shall do that now, if you wouldn't mind." He directed his wife out of his bedroom. She arched an eyebrow and simply turned around, exchanging one shoulder on the doorframe for the other. "Maud."
"For heaven's sake Anthony, I'm not going to peek, although I would remind you that I've seen it all before."
"Maud, it'll take me two minutes to get changed."
"I want to talk to you."
"We can talk in the car."
"We need to get things sorted before that."
He sighed his resignation, pulled his shirt over his head, "fine. Talk."
"I require a promise from you."
He wrestled his legs into a clean pair of trousers, relieved he'd had the presence of mind to return his tux to a hanger, "And what would that be?"
"If I come to Cambridge with you tonight, you must return to Sevenoaks with me tomorrow."
"You're raising this now, twenty minutes before we have to leave?" He huffed his frustration and looked at his tired reflection in the mirror. He missed a button and his shirt tails skewed comically to one side.
"I've been raising it for weeks."
"But now it becomes an ultimatum - " He bundled his knot of ties onto the floor in search of his black dickie bow, "because everyone expects me to attend with my wife and if I don't there will be questions and sly comments and looks and problematic discussions and - "
"Anthony?" Maud stood behind him, bow tie hanging from her index finger, "top of the wardrobe."
He held out his hand but instead she stepped in and hooked the fabric around his neck. She begun the process of knotting with brisk efficiency, eyes focused on the looping black silk.
Edith had done this a couple of times, somehow just as seductive putting clothing on him as she was taking it. The experience with Maud couldn't compare, neither could any of the other experiences.
"There will be eminent members of the legal profession in attendance, academics, many of your contemporaries, many of mine. I will not mislead them." Maud tilted her head, adjusted the bow and stepped away. She admired her handiwork, "There." She looked back up at him, "And it's not just that. You need to move back. You need to get back to normal. You cannot continue to –" She cast a despairing eye around his bedroom, "wallow."
The fight was out of him. This was the idea of letting Edith go, that he would return his life to how it had been before. The final stage of that process was returning to the marital home, trying again with the woman he had chosen.
"Fine then."
"We have a deal?"
"Yes Maud. We have a deal."
"Looking very sharp this evening folks." The Porter's cheerful countenance stood in sharp contrast to Anthony and Maud who were sullen-faced and silent as they entered the p'lodge. He glanced from husband to wife and continued in the same tone, "here for the big do?"
"Yes, if you wouldn't mind." Maud tried to manoeuvre around the stout man and through the little wooden door behind which First Court was hidden.
"Sorry Ma'am, I'll need your invitation."
"My invitation?"
"Yes."
Her eyes narrowed, arms folded, "my invitation is his face." She stabbed a manicured finger in Anthony's direction.
"Excuse me Ma'am?"
"He's the portrait; he's the guest of honour for goodness sake!"
"He's not a portrait, Ma'am, he's a man, Ma'am and he'll need an invitation too."
"We are already late, we do not have time to be detained by some officious little –"
"Ma'am, I think you'd do well not to say something you regret."
Anthony was altogether too exhausted for this petulant exchange. The headache returned, insistently plucking behind his eyes. He ran a weary hand through his hair, forgetting that he'd waxed it a little to tame its unruly fraying edges and overlong growth. He was about to cut through the bickering with a barked interruption when Len appeared at the door. He wore black tie too, except without the black. His tie was a ridiculous shade of turquoise and his cummerbund was bright pink. Subtlety, even in dress, was never Len's strong suit. It was a miracle he hadn't hired a baby blue tuxedo, or perhaps one covered in rhinestones, like a later incarnation of Elvis.
"Good, you're here. I was beginning to get worried." He nodded a greeting at the Porter, "thanks Stanley, I'll take them from here."
"Right-o, Professor." Stanley disappeared behind the counter, settling back into a comfortable chair in front of a bank of CCTV screens. Maud's eyes fired daggers at his back for the length of the short journey.
Len raised an eyebrow in her direction, "making friends, I see." She set herself for a riposte but he caught her completely off guard by leaning into kiss her cheek, she jerked away in surprise and he ended up catching her lips instead. She flushed and Len smiled in triumph, "good to see you Maud."
The smile was wiped as he turned to Anthony. They hadn't spoken since their fight, Len had telephoned and left messages which Anthony had resolutely ignored. Their friendship was probably lost. The perfunctory handshake certainly indicated as much. Len gave a sharp nod of the head, "Strallan."
A waiter offered them champagne, Len nodded eagerly at the tray and exchanged his empty glass for a full one. Walking across the courtyard his voice bounced off the uneven paving and the crooked walls of the College's oldest buildings, "Masses of people have attended. Lots of High Court Judges, the Lord Chief, Silks, a few barristers who graduated in your year. I corralled some of my better undergrads, although they're all either over-confident or under-confident so I apologise in advance. Lots of art people as well. The Times sent someone and The Telegraph, The Independent too."
Putting a firm hand to his shoulder Anthony stopped Len's brisk strides, "why would the papers send art correspondents?"
"They've heard the rumours."
Anthony's head swirled, "what rumours Len?"
"About the painting and how controversial it is?"
The pavement tipped and swayed beneath his feet. The gaps between the cobblestones were cavernous gorges. Perhaps Edith enacted her revenge via the only medium she had, it was no more than he deserved, "what do you mean by controversial?"
"Well, you can see where they're coming from –"
He shook his head, willing his old friend to understand, "Len, I haven't –"
"Oh, God." Len's eyes flicked up to the heavens and then briefly over to Maud, "you haven't seen it."
"No."
"You'd better see it first. I don't want you being caught by surprise later."
When he realised Maud was following them to the library Anthony stopped, she walked into his shoulder, grimacing. This was a private moment between him and Edith. A silly thought given that Edith was long gone, and in a matter of a couple of hours various luminaries of the legal world and apparently the art world, would see the painting and have ample time to examine its every aspect. But rationality had abandoned him in recent weeks. He didn't want to share this with anyone, least of all Maud.
"You should go to the party, have some more champagne. I'll catch up with you."
Her eyes glanced to her still full sparkling glass, "No. I'm your wife. I don't want to be caught by surprise either."
"I – But –" There was no argument in response to that, if the picture showed him as some horrid devil-man or a lecherous old cheat Maud should be prepared for it too.
They made their way through the stacks, observing the silent command of the many signs, 'Quiet Please'. There was nothing to discuss and Anthony couldn't have managed complete words for all the tea in China. He was a bundle of nerves. Just the smell of the champagne roiled his stomach.
The imposing line of his predecessors glared down at the trio. In front of them the latest addition to their number was propped on an easel, swathed in a black curtain, an ostentatious golden rope hanging at its side.
Len patted him on the back, "I'll leave you to it, don't be too long."
He stared into the black, terrified of what was underneath. The very object that had bought him and Edith together. The last statement on their relationship. He leant on the desk behind his legs, folded his arms, breathed out a steady exhale.
Beside him Maud set down her champagne flute, the glass sent an angry ring around the room. She looked at him and shook her head, "Oh for heaven's sake!" Then, before he could even comprehend moving to stop her, she took a large stride forwards and pulled on the tassel. The curtain jerked open.
It bought him to his feet. This wasn't a moment for sitting; Edith deserved an ovation and what she'd painted positively compelled one. It was everything he wanted, everything he imagined and yet completely unexpected.
As so often proves the case, the rumours were true. There was controversy in her every choice. His head dominated the canvass. The man in front of him looked off into the distance, the hint of a smile playing on his lips. His face and hair were shaped in shades of grey. By any reasonable expectation it should've been dull. But somehow, with the magic of Edith's brush, of her vision, it made him seem full of life. Perhaps it was because she'd chosen one colour to break up the grey of his skin – his eyes – they shone out, a sparkling, brilliant blue. All at once he was young and vital, sage and wise.
The riot of colour he expected from Edith roared in the background. The brief glimpse of his shoulders showed him to be wearing a red thick knit jumper. He had any number of those jumpers, in every colour, he thought, but not red. It was a concession to the red robes she didn't think of him wearing. A wink and a smile to her audience, maybe to him in particular. In the background was a tableau of seemingly unrelated images. The rolling Backs, leading to the majesty of John's, a snowstorm providing a soft white blanket atop the familiar site. A pile of books sat on a table, Archbold, The Bell, Wolf Hall, even Harry Potter; his favourites from her educational list. Balancing atop them, precariously close to falling, was a tatty lever arch file, faded writing scrawled on its spine, R v Brown. Pink ribbons spilled out over the floor and down the edge of the picture, appearing to lose their way underneath the ornate frame before reappearing and wrapping around a whisk and a variety of cooking equipment. On the other side was the edge of a copper bath. A Scrabble board lay discarded near the end of the bath, alongside his battered old wig tin, the one he'd carried around through fifteen years of service at the Bar and refused to replace when he became a Judge, much to the horror of the staff at Ede and Ravenscroft. A stately home took up much of his right hand side, beautiful red brick with Grecian columns. It took him a moment but then he realised what he was looking at - Locksley on a bright summer's day, the light poured across the frontage in shades of lilac and pale blue with bursts of yellow.
Edith said he was more than a judicial clone and she'd painted the portrait to prove just to prove her point.
A choked laugh from Maud woke him from his stupor of awe. He turned towards her. Tears carved their way silently down her cheeks. The guilt hit Anthony squarely in the chest. It mingled with the joy, the relief, the pride, the utter wonder of seeing the portrait.
He whispered and reached for her, "Maud."
"Don't." She exhaled and used her index fingers to try and stem the tears, "I'm not wearing waterproof mascara. For Gods sake: don't." She sniffed inelegantly and shook her head. The rueful laugh accompanying her next statement stood in contrast to her shaking chin, "that's not a portrait, it's a bloody love letter."
Maud had a way with language, her ability to say something precisely and absolutely true in less than ten words had always amazed him. She was right about this: the portrait was a love letter. Edith loved him. And he loved her. Head over heels.
The funny thing about the realisation was how it changed absolutely nothing. He'd loved her, he knew now, from the very start. It had grown and blossomed and become something more wonderful than he could ever have imagined, but it had started from the very minute she emerged from behind his bookcase at Snaresbrook, startling him into silence, startling him into a whole new life. She was the best person he'd ever known. She made him strong. He'd die to protect her. Edith was the answer to all the questions he didn't even know he'd been asking. He could live without her, of course he could, but, God above, he didn't want to. He loved her.
"You're not coming back to Sevenoaks."
"No."
"You love her." It was a statement, Maud was no fool.
"I'm sorry, but I do."