Elizabeth Woodcraft - Good Bad Woman

The microwave pinged and I took out the strudel. I cut slices and put them on my blue and yellow Italian plates. ‘Now,’ I said, pulling out a chair, ‘we are going to do some serious talking.’

She nibbled her strudel.

‘First of all,’ I began, ‘where do those bruises come from?’

She picked up her cup and ran her fingers across the blue-painted rim. She took a mouthful of coffee. ‘Heaven.’

‘Yes?’

‘Well …’

The phone rang in the living room.

‘Frankie! You’re in! I was going to leave a message on your machine.’

‘Lena, I’m a bit busy at the moment. Can I call you back?’

‘Well, actually, sweetie, you can’t – that’s what I’m ringing about. I’m just off for three days to Paris.’

‘Paris!’ I turned to raise my eyebrows at Saskia, to see her disappearing into the hall.

‘Saskia!’ I called and heard the front door click.

‘Frankie? Frankie?’

‘Look, Lena, I’ve got to go.’

‘I’m ringing just to say I’m going to Paris with Sophie.’

‘With Sophie? My God. I thought you two weren’t talking to each other.’ I stretched the cord of the phone as far as I could and looked out of the large bay window. I banged on the glass as I saw Saskia heading towards Stoke Newington High Street.

‘She rang last night after I spoke to you and said she was exhausted and –’

‘Lena, I’ve got to go.’

‘You’re not upset, are you?’

‘No, no, have a lovely time, send me a postcard. Bye bye.’

‘It means I shan’t be able to make the film.’

‘No problem. Bye.’

‘OK. Bye. I’m sorry. Bye.’

I slammed down the phone and ran out of the house. At the corner of the road there was no sign of Saskia but a 149 bus was sailing majestically towards Dalston. ‘Shit,’ I said and turned back to the flat. ‘Shit,’ I said again as I realised I was locked out.

‘You look a bit cold, Frankie,’ Gavin said, as I walked into chambers an hour later. ‘You should have come out in a coat.’

‘I should have come out with my handbag, keys and wallet and then I wouldn’t have had to walk most of the way and been frozen half to death,’ I said stiffly. I had found a pound in my jacket pocket but I’d had to get off the bus at Liverpool Street. I had come into chambers because I kept a spare set of house keys in the drawer of my desk. I know most people have a good friend or neighbour who looks after a spare set of keys for moments such as this, but Lena lived in Finsbury Park, which was too far away, and I didn’t know my neighbours very well.

There had been attempts, by my neighbours, when I first moved in to the flat. The woman who lived in the top flat invited me to a make-up party. It was shortly after my split with Kay, and I thought I could buy my way back to attractiveness and social success through cosmetic products. As it turned out, I spent the evening feeling bleak and out of place and signed a cheque for £27.50 for two small bottles of something green for my complexion. I hadn’t spoken to them since.

I felt I could do with something green for my complexion now, particularly my nose, which I knew was red and glowing.

I thought that was the reason for Gavin’s stunned look. ‘I didn’t know you were coming in, so Marcus is having a con in your office.’ He was apologetic. ‘He’s, eh, he’s only just gone in.’

I groaned. Marcus was famous for his two-hour conferences with clients.

‘Think of it this way,’ Gavin said, ‘he’s a sad bloke and it’s the only social life he’s got.’ Marcus was a self-made upper class man. He had changed his voice, his education and his background to become more aristocratic than any of them.

‘Think of it this way: I’m a sad woman,’ I said, thinking of the now cold cup of coffee and the congealing slice of apple strudel waiting to be eaten in my kitchen. ‘I am not Marcus’s social secretary. This means I can’t even get on with my appeal papers.’

I slumped on to a chair.

‘Jenna’s just popped out to pick up some books from the High Court,’ Gavin said. Jenna was the newest recruit in the clerks’ room, our fourth junior clerk. ‘So you can sit there for a moment.’

‘Thank you,’ I said. There was a constant battle in the clerks’ room between the clerks trying to retain their territory and barristers wanting to flop down in the secure and busy atmosphere of the centre of chambers.

‘I think Simon wanted to speak to you, actually.’ Gavin picked up the phone. ‘Simon, Frankie’s in. Didn’t you say you wanted a word? She looks as if she needs lunch … He’s coming right down,’ he said to me.

‘Gavin!’

My life was an open book to the clerks, but Gavin still persisted in trying to get me off with men.

‘I know you’re, you know, That Way,’ Gavin had said to me in the pub one evening, ‘but I also see you as a very open-minded person.’ He had been drunk. ‘Now Simon, he’s just the type of man you could do with.’

‘Does he dust? Does he clean? Would he have my dinner on the table when I got in?’

Gavin blinked at me.

‘Well then, what’s the point?’ I said.

‘No no, he’s, he’s, well, you’re a bit of a thinker, aren’t you? And Simon isn’t. What, for you, could be more perfect? A lot of ladies do find him good looking, you know.’ Gavin had been looking at too many computer screens. ‘Plus, he’s loaded.’

Thinking of the pots of money I knew Simon had inherited only recently after the death of a doting grandmother, his regular private income and his part share in a farm, when he walked into the clerks’ room, I said, ‘All right, Simon, you can take me out for lunch.’ I looked at his wide smile and his good teeth. He really was quite good looking in an old-fashioned way. If he paid more attention to his choice of tie, I thought, he’d be quite a catch for someone.

We went to the Café Rouge in Fetter Lane. As soon as we sat down Simon ordered a bottle of Bourgueuil.

‘Is that just for you, or are we sharing it?’ I asked as the waitress walked away.

‘It’s for both of us,’ Simon said. ‘Oh God, I’m sorry, I should have asked you. You know about wine, don’t you?’

‘I’m not sure that’s the right answer, Simon. If I had been a man I assume, perhaps stupidly, that you would have asked me at least to agree to your choice.’

‘If you’d been a man like Marcus, who knows nothing about wine, I probably wouldn’t,’ he said irritatingly. ‘But I concede your point. I forgot about your knowledge of wine, because you are a woman.’

‘Well, thank you for that,’ I said.

‘Do you hate all men?’ Simon asked.

‘For God’s sake, Simon, what a stupid thing to say. I work with you, don’t I?’

The waiter came to ask if we were ready to order and we both asked for steak and chips, rare.

‘But it’s an interesting thought, isn’t it? Lesbians …’ I didn’t like to think where this conversation might be going. ‘Have you ever thought of starting your own set?’ Simon poured wine into my glass. ‘You could be head of the first women-only set.’

‘Are you trying to get rid of me?’ I asked.

‘Not at all. I like you being in chambers. It’s an idea, though, isn’t it?’

‘I’m not sure what the point would be. It couldn’t be all lesbians, there aren’t enough of us at the bar.’ I had thought before about the possibility of striking out into the strange territory of an all women’s set of chambers, with women clerks.

‘And so,’ Simon said carefully, ‘some of the barristers would have boyfriends or husbands, and they might have boy children.’