Joseph O'Neill - This is the Life

‘Is that wise, Rodney?’

‘You know Mr Donovan, sir. He likes to keep things fairly tight.’

This last-minute arrangement left me a little anxious. Not only was there the risk of Donovan appearing late, it also gave us no opportunity to confer. This worried me because I still had only an imprecise idea of the circumstances of the case. I was in the dark about almost everything and, as I have said, unlike some people, who seem to possess the relevant bat-like radar, I operate poorly in this kind of darkness, where I tend to bump into shapes that loom suddenly out of nowhere. One aspect of this benightedness was that I was quite unable to see a way out of the deadlock which Donovan and Arabella found themselves in: he would not contemplate consenting to the divorce, she would not consider reconciliation. The dangerous thing about the deadlock, of course, was that the longer it continued, the stronger grew the evidence that the marriage had irretrievably broken down. If Arabella could show that this had happened, she was half-way to getting her divorce.

That said, I should also note that my anxieties about my ignorance were allayed by the knowledge that Donovan, at least, had all the facts in his possession; and that was fine with me, because, in all truthfulness, and notwithstanding Mr Donovan’s views, they could not have been in better hands. Clearly Donovan recognized the impasse he had reached and the problem it presented. The only question was, what was he going to do about it? I should say here, for the avoidance of doubt, that I did not resent leaving the conduct of the case to Donovan. Any misgivings which I might have had on that score had been quashed over the weekend, when in reading his new work I had become re-persuaded of the man’s legal prowess. There was no dishonour in playing second fiddle to him. Indeed, it was right and fitting for a man like myself to do so. Some people are more potent sources of influence than others and it was only natural, therefore, that events should flow and braid from Donovan’s actions more than from mine. That was the way of things.

Two days later I was stepping out of the office building on my way home when suddenly someone intercepted me.

‘Why, Mr Donovan,’ I said, continuing to walk.

Smiling, his hand on my back in an avuncular fashion, Fergus Donovan steered and deflected me through the doors of the pub we were passing. He said something I could not hear in the roar of cars and, disregarding my unwillingness, he sat me down at a table and fetched me a pint of bitter (he himself drank fizzing mineral water). He began talking to me as though he were confabulating with an old friend. He hunched his shoulders and lowered his voice. He leaned forward, taking me into his confidence.

‘Well, Jim, I can’t say that things are looking too hot.’ He explained himself: ‘Yesterday I spoke to Arab. I went round to her mother’s place to see if there was anything I could do. We sat down for a coffee, just the two of us, you know how it is.’ Mr Donovan pointed at the two of us by way of illustration. ‘We talked about this and the other for a while. She seemed pretty relaxed and she was looking well. So, anyway,’ Mr Donovan said, ‘eventually I stop circling around the subject and I get to the point. I say to her, Give Mikey a chance. Give yourself a chance, I said. Talk to him. Speak with him at least.’

Fergus Donovan was making a pleading face, demonstrating how he had looked at Arabella. He shook his head. ‘Well, she wasn’t having any of that, Jim. She wasn’t having a bit of that. It was over, she said. She’d made up her mind.’

Mr Donovan leaned back to analyse her reaction further. Then he leaned forward quickly and said, ‘She wasn’t angry, no, I wouldn’t say that: there was no anger there at all — it was like she was resigned. Like she’d quit and that was that. She said the best thing would be if Michael just let her go. I tried another tack — Jim, let me tell you, I’m not a man to give up easily, I’m not a quitter — I said, Arab, tell me: tell me what Mikey’s got to do. You can tell me, you know that, I said. Nothing, she said. There was nothing Mike could do. It wasn’t what he did, it was what he was.’

Mr Donovan slumped into his chair. ‘For an hour I talked to her, trying to change her mind, but, well, Jim, to tell you the truth, I got nowhere.’

I said nothing. Surely he had not imagined that one pep-talk would be enough to patch things up?

Reading my mind, he said, ‘Of course, it was only to be expected. And what can I do? I’m just an old man, what do I know? But you see it’s even worse than I thought. I thought — well, I don’t know what I thought,’ he admitted. ‘I just didn’t know it was this bad.’

He looked downhearted and, for the first time, he looked his age. The visit to Arabella — this whole business, in fact — was clearly upsetting him. I felt sad for him. At his stage of life he needed peace of mind. He needed everything to be settled, in its place.

I said, ‘Michael does not seem to think it’s finished. Otherwise he would not be resisting the divorce.’

‘You want to know something interesting?’ His voice was hoarse. ‘You know what else she told me? She told me the reason she didn’t want to speak to Michael was that she was afraid. You know why? She was afraid because she knew that, if Michael was given half a chance to talk to her, he would persuade her to go back to him. That was part of the problem, she said. Whenever Arab and Michael had an argument or a disagreement, Michael would always come out on top. It’s not that he would win: it’s that he was always right. You see what I’m talking about, Jim?’ Mr Donovan asked. ‘He was never wrong, she said. He would never allow her the satisfaction of being lighter than him once in a while. It’s not that they had arguments the whole time — no, they agreed on almost anything! I know! I saw them together! Jim, they were like two doves! — it’s that when they disagreed, Mike would always be in the right. And Jim,’ he said, ‘I’d like you to imagine what that feels like.’ Mr Donovan looked at the table. ‘Too clever. Too much of a smart-ass for his own good.’

What Mr Donovan said did not surprise me. What chance did Arabella stand in an argument with Donovan? He was a professional arguer. The tricks of apologetics, the ins and outs of pro and cons — he knew them all. When it came to winning over, to logomachy in any form, he was the best. He would be incapable of losing an argument with Arabella for the simple reason that he would only argue if he knew he was demonstrably right: otherwise he would simply agree with her.

‘It drove Arab crazy,’ Mr Donovan said. ‘That and other things, of course. Now she takes him for a monster.’

Drinking my bitter, I began to think that Fergus Donovan’s usefulness as man on the inside and tipster outweighed the drawbacks that his intrusiveness presented. He knew this too — which was probably why he was lavishing this information and these drinks on me. Perhaps he fondly imagined that we might together form a mediatory bloc of some sort.

‘Does Mrs Donovan work?’ I asked (such an elementary question — that was how little I knew!). ‘No,’ Mr Donovan said. ‘She doesn’t work.’ He sighed. ‘I don’t know, maybe that’s it… maybe if she got a job …’

‘What are her finances like?’ I said. I was worried. She could take Donovan to the cleaners.

He regarded me closely, sensing that for the first time I was actively participating in a conversation with him. ‘She’s rich,’ he said simply. ‘Leaving Michael won’t hurt her, her father left her a packet.’

‘Her father?’

‘You must have known of him, he was a judge — Lord Tetlow.’