Simon Lelic - The Child Who

‘No, no, no. Not at all. I mean generally. By someone else. Because of a case you were involved with.’

Again Dale considered. ‘Well, I… Yes. I suppose I have.’

Leo, ludicrously, felt a surge of relief.

‘More than threatened, actually,’ said Dale and he seemed to brighten at whatever recollection was forming in his mind. ‘I was attacked. When I was a pupil. By the girlfriend of this bloke I was defending.’ Dale grinned. ‘She didn’t like my advice. She wanted to testify, you see, tell the judge what an upstanding man my client was, when the whole point was this bloke, my client, was married – twice, concurrently – and charged with bigamy. We were in chambers, just downstairs in fact, and what happened was…’ Dale fell silent. He had noticed the expression on Leo’s face. ‘It didn’t end well,’ he said, dismissing the story with a gesture. ‘I had scratch marks for a while, just… er… just like yours.’ He twitched a smile, then coughed and looked down. He reached once more for the call button.

Leo raised his fingers to his cheek. ‘I was thinking more about… you know.’ He let his fingers fall. ‘Members of the public. People not directly involved.’

‘Like protesters, you mean? Like that mob outside the Magistrates’ I saw on the news?’

‘Well. Yes. Sort of, I suppose.’

‘I’ve battled my way through a few crowds in my time. Dodged the odd egg; even got hit by one or two. The dry-cleaning bills, I would say, come with the gown. Should really be tax deductible.’

Leo smiled politely. He nodded, as though that was the sort of thing he had in mind. ‘What about letters. Notes. Things like that.’

‘Letters?’

‘Like, um… poison-pen letters.’

‘Hate mail, you mean?’ Dale, incongruously, grinned. ‘We get it by the sackload, my friend. Human-rights protesters, environmentalists, animal-rights campaigners, you name it. When they’re not writing to the Guardian , they’re writing to us.’ Dale glanced across his shoulder, made a show of leaning in close. ‘I’ll let you into a secret,’ he said. Then, in a whisper: ‘Lawyers, in this country, aren’t very popular.’ He held up his hands, backed away. ‘It’s crazy, I know. I, for one, feel misunderstood.’

Leo mimicked the barrister’s grin. There you had it. Exactly as Leo had suspected.

Dale turned and reached again for the call button but almost as he pressed it the lift arrived. There was a ping and whisper of wood and Leo, facing inwards, was greeted by an image of his smiling self. He stepped to meet it, his briefcase a little lighter in his grip.

Their house was on fire.In the midnight dark that had swallowed the evening, that was how it seemed. The bedroom, the kitchen, the hallway, the study: each of the windows at the front of the house was ablaze with light. It was as though every curtain had been hauled back and every bulb angled to fend off the encroaching darkness. The effect, truly, was that the house was being consumed; that Leo would open the front door and be blinded, burned. And it was Megan at home. The woman who had been parentally programmed to turn out the light in the kitchen if she were popping upstairs to use the bathroom. Had Leo come home to find flames feasting on the mock-Tudor timbers, he did not think he would have been any more alarmed.

He did not wait for his change. He spilled from the taxi and hurried up the driveway and rang the bell at the same time as fishing for his key. He found it, found the lock, but when he turned the key the door clung tight to the frame. It had been bolted on the inside, top and bottom it felt like. He rang the bell again and rapped with his good set of knuckles. ‘Meg?’ He listened, rapped again. ‘Meg, it’s me.’

Shuffling, scrabbling – the sound of the bolts sliding back. The door opened, on the chain, then shut again to allow the chain to be unhooked. Finally Megan showed herself, pale and looking frayed in the unrelenting light.

‘Leo. Where have you been!’

‘What? I was…’ He had told her, surely, about his trip to London. ‘In a meeting,’ he said. ‘What’s going on, Meg? You look… Why are all the lights on?’ The question did not come out as intended. It was the tone he might have used with Ellie had he discovered that his daughter had left a tap running or the television blaring.

‘Come inside,’ Megan said. She peered into the outdoors and kept watching until she had sealed them both inside the house.

In the hallway, Leo sniffed. ‘What’s that smell?’ He angled his nostrils towards his wife. ‘Have you been smoking?’ Again, the tone. Christ, Leo.

‘I’m fine, dear husband. Thank you for asking.’ Megan turned away from him and towards the kitchen. Leo followed but lingered in the doorway. He watched Megan set herself behind the counter. On the worktop was a wine glass, half full, and a bottle of red, half empty. There was a saucer beside the bottle containing the charred filter of a single cigarette, and a Zippo, next to the saucer, that Leo had long since assumed lost. Neither Megan nor he had smoked a cigarette in over a decade – since Megan’s thirtieth birthday. So Leo had thought.

‘Megan? What’s going on?’

His wife, to Leo’s surprise, replied with a laugh. She shook her head, picked up her wine and spluttered as she took a sip. She wiped around her mouth with the hinge of her thumb.

‘Where’s Ellie?’ said Leo, casting round. ‘Is she upstairs?’ He took a step into the room. ‘Megan? Will you please just tell me—’

‘Ellie’s at Sophie’s house. I rang and checked. She wouldn’t talk to me, of course. She’s still angry because I made her go to school.’

‘You made her go to school?’ Every question Leo asked seemed to come out as an accusation.

‘What else was I supposed to do! You said you’d talk to her, Leo. Today, you said: two days ago. Yesterday you said the same and then this morning you were gone before dawn and all she’s been doing is sitting and moping in her room! I just… I thought… I just thought it would be better for her…’

‘Meg. Calm down. It’s fine. She went to school. She’s at her friend’s house. Everything’s fine.’

‘Everything’s not fine, Leo! Everything’s far from bloody fine!’

Megan turned. She clumsily set down her wine glass and reached to open the cupboard above the cooker – the cupboard no one in their family ever used. Leo watched, wondering what on earth Megan would produce that would explain things, but the object she brought down solved another mystery entirely. It was a tin, barely big enough to contain a packet of cigarettes. Megan plucked a cigarette from the box. Her fingers shook as she lit it and her face, when she dragged, puckered.

‘Meg? You’re smoking. I mean, why are you smoking?’

Megan exhaled. She glared as though daring him to go on. When he failed to, she propped an elbow on her wrist and dangled the cigarette level with her chin. She started forwards, trailed by smoke. ‘In here.’

Leo watched her go. He looked at the tin, the cigarette packet – and then he followed. In the hallway again he noticed a chair in front of the door to the living room. Not just in front of it: the seat back was wedged under the handle.

‘What is it? What’s in there?’

‘Nothing,’ Megan said. She reached for the chair and scraped it free. She did not open the door, however. She stood aside as though waiting for Leo to go first.

‘Meg?’ He looked at her. When she did not answer he faced the door. He grasped the handle but kept it at arm’s length. The door opened and he held it ajar, then gradually eased it wider. The space beyond was black. It was surely the only room in the house in which Megan had neglected to turn on the light. Leo submerged his hand in the darkness and frisked the wall for the light switch. He found it, flicked it, and braced himself for what he might see.