This is the Life (17 page)

Donovan said nothing.

The registrar raised her eyebrows and turned to the question of reconciliation. What was being done about it, she wanted to know. Hughes spoke up.

‘Madam, I am instructed by Mrs Donovan that the breakdown of the marriage is truly irretrievable,’ he said. ‘Every avenue of rapprochement within the marital framework, if I may put it that way, has been pursued and, I am sad to say, exhausted. That being so, Mrs Donovan cannot see how any improvement could be affected at this stage; Madam, sadly, events have taken us past the point of no return. Indeed,’ Hughes pointed out, ‘if Mr Donovan would recognize this fact, we would all be spared these painful proceedings.’

‘I am sure Mr Donovan is aware of that, Mr Hughes,’ the registrar said sharply.

After dealing with several routine matters and grumbling about the Petitioner’s pleadings, the registrar fetched the court diary and set a date for the trial:
2
February 1989. Then
she removed her glasses. ‘There remains little to add at this stage. I must however say this, which I am sure will come as no surprise to all here: namely, that every effort must be made to settle this matter one way or the other. It strikes me that there is room for more, shall we say, realism on the part of both parties. The courts must not be used as a battlefield for marital warfare. The entrenched positions of the parties must, if at all possible’ – here the registrar paused for the first time, deciding on the most efficacious exit from the sentence she had started – ‘be modified. Otherwise this matter will end up causing a great deal of unnecessary suffering and expense – more, I fear, than at present has been bargained for. That is all.’ The registrar put her glasses back on her nose and began writing.

‘Michael,’ I said, when we had come out into the corridor, ‘what –’

‘Arab,’ Donovan said, ‘please. Arab.’

He was, I realized, talking to the woman who had sat next to me in the registrar’s room – the woman I had taken to be Philip Hughes’s assistant.

She did not reply. She turned her back and began walking away with her solicitor.

‘Arab,’ Donovan said again, following her, knocking against shoulders in the corridor, ‘Arab, wait.’ People looked on curiously and the usher walked over to see what was happening. It was his job, after all, to make sure that no ruckuses broke out.

Philip Hughes turned to face Donovan, blocking off the stairway which Arabella quickly walked down.

‘Now then,’ the usher said, arriving on the scene. A whiff of alcohol came from his breath. ‘Now then.’

‘Mr Donovan, I think it’s clear that my client does not wish to talk to you,’ Hughes said.

‘Gentlemen,’ the usher said. ‘Gentlemen. Could you please discuss this elsewhere, please? There’s people that want to use the stairs.’

Hughes said, ‘For myself, I would be only too pleased to talk
to you, Mr Donovan. We’re prepared to settle this matter in the most advantageous terms,’ he said. ‘I really think you ought to hear what we have to offer.’

Donovan gave Hughes a faint smile and said lightly, ‘I know what you have in mind. I’m not interested. And I don’t think you’re serving your client well by advising her not to speak to me.’

Hughes said, a don’t-blame-me tone in his voice, ‘It’s Mrs Donovan who does not wish to speak to you. Those are my instructions.’

‘Thank you, gentlemen,’ the usher said firmly, ‘thank you now.’

Donovan waited for a moment and then turned to me with a smile. ‘Come on,’ he said.

I accompanied Donovan back to his chambers. I had business to attend in the Temple, I told him. It was a sharp, breezy morning with blocks of sky-blue sky overhead. The Strand was ringing with pneumatic drills and tumultuous lorries, and the air reeked with gases. Workers yelled and hammered on the scaffolding that covered the buildings. Everything was strangely clear, and I walked along in Donovan’s slipstream like a vivid dreamer. His gait had not changed. Long, fast strides, eyes front. Struggling to keep up with him, my arms full of flapping papers, trying to catch what it was he was saying before the wind took hold of his words, I could have been back in my pupillage.

We walked through the Temple past Fountain Court and into Essex Court. We stopped at number six.

To my surprise (he had never extended such an invitation to me before), Donovan said vaguely, ‘Well … Are you sure you don’t have time for a coffee?’

I hesitated. I had time. Time was not the problem.

I was about to say, No, no thank you, when I thought, Why not. Yes, why not, I thought suddenly.

I said, ‘Thank you, I will if that’s all right. Just a quick cup.’

For the first time in a decade I climbed the stone steps into
chambers and when I got up I felt a slight wooziness, as though I had just reached some mountain-top. I followed Donovan to the clerks’ room and waited by the door as he checked his pigeon-hole and his diary. The clerks’ room was the same as ever: the briefs piled up against the windows, the telephones dinning, the barristers rushing in and out. I recognized several of them but decided against offering any greetings. What would have been the use?

Armed with coffees, up we went to Donovan’s room, and while he leafed through his mail I looked out of his windows, a briefcase in one hand and a coffee-cup in the other. I still wore my overcoat, unbuttoned. Down in the courtyard the cars were huddled tightly, like metal cattle at a water-hole, around a young tree with a fence around it.

‘Well, that was my first appearance in a matrimonial case,’ Donovan said. When I turned round I saw that he was sitting back in his leather armchair, still looking at his papers.

I did not want to reply to this. I knew it was his way of making light of the situation and that he did not expect a response. But I felt I should say something.

‘Was it?’ I said.

I put my coffee on the window-sill and stayed where I was. Apart from a chair right at the other end of the room, there was nowhere for me to sit down. I did not feel comfortable about pulling that chair all that way across the room. At the same time it occurred to me that I could not remain standing by the window indefinitely.

‘So, James …’ Donovan said, continuing to open envelopes and unknot brief ribbons. Twenty seconds must have passed before I understood that he was not going to follow up on what he had said. He was fully absorbed by what he was reading.

I began to feel an uneasiness. I had never been in this position before. It was the first time that I found myself alone with Donovan in a purely social situation – for that is what coffee is, after all, a social situation. It would have been out of place for me to mention the case, or the hearing that had just
taken place. On the other hand, Donovan himself had referred to it, so maybe it was a proper subject of conversation. But then that was his prerogative, I reflected: it was his divorce, not mine. He could bring it up whenever he chose to.

‘Busy at the moment?’ I asked finally.

‘Yes,’ he said, after a pause.

I drank up my coffee. Donovan continued reading.

‘Doing any books?’ I said. I spoke casually. I did not want to betray my snooping at his desk, or my unduly rapid heart.

Donovan groaned at what he was reading and picked up the telephone. ‘Sort of,’ he said abruptly. ‘Hello, Rodney, what’s all this about the Amoco arbitration?’

While Donovan talked to Rodney I thought, Why should Donovan divulge the details of his new book to me? My opinion did not matter. Doing up the buttons of my coat, I thought about how little Donovan revealed about his private self to me. His feelings about Arabella, his ambitions, his political views, I knew nothing about these things. Indeed, I received the impression that he would positively obstruct any inquiries that I might make in these areas. I did not resent this – how could I? What grounds would I have for such feelings? – but nor did I find it entirely to my liking. I would have liked a closer involvement with him … Not friendship, no – nothing so intimate, one had to face facts! – but maybe something else; maybe a fellowship of sorts.

Donovan continued to talk to Rodney and I waited, buttoned up and ready to go. Still he talked. Then he was put through to someone else. A fresh dialogue began and again I waited where I was, standing by his desk in my done-up coat, my case in my hand. After a few minutes he was still talking so I walked to the door, attracting his attention with a wave and a mimed Goodbye. As he waved back, a kindly expression on his face, I saw that his cup still held a full pool of coffee.

I walked straight back to the office, reproaching myself a little for the unsatisfactory episode in Donovan’s room. It had not gone well, and I did not feel that I had done myself justice. An opportunity had slipped through my fingers. (The
question which I ask myself now is this: Opportunity? What opportunity? Opportunity for what?) Then, as I stepped along the engine-loud pavements, something dawned on me, something which should have sunk in years ago: Donovan was a poor conversationalist. He had no small talk or chit-chat in him at all. It was ironic, because he was one of the most fluent speakers I knew. I could think of no one more articulate.

I stopped at my sandwich bar for prawn and mayonnaise and tuna and mozzarella sandwiches and another coffee. I sat down at a table and contemplated my recent insight into Donovan. As I have said, I am unused to making discoveries of this kind for myself; usually it takes someone else to point these things out to me. I decided that it went down against him as a minus point – a weakness. It was a forgivable weakness, of course, an understandable one, but it was a weakness nevertheless. And then I thought about it a little more and began backtracking. Why should he be a great conversationalist? I thought. He did not make any claims in that direction. He set out his stall as a lawyer, not a patterer. No, I had momentarily fallen into the same trap as Arabella; I had entertained mundane expectations of the man.

Arabella. I slurped at my coffee and considered my first glimpse of her that morning. Somehow the name had lost its lustre and its magical ring. I could no longer imagine it belonging to a little mermaid, to one who might love her prince so much as to give up her fishtail for tender, excruciating feet. No, she was not as I had imagined her at all. As far as I could recollect, she had worn a practical, brownish suit – not a suit, actually, so much as an ensemble. Her short hair was dark, wiry in texture and greying. She gave a capable, sturdy impression, which was why I had mistaken her for a solicitor. Her figure was trim but unremarkable. She looked like a perfectly ordinary woman in her mid-thirties – the sort of woman, dare I say it, with whom even someone like myself might hope to succeed.

What did Donovan see in her?

I signalled to the waiter to bring me some more coffee. He
knows my face, that waiter, from my innumerable visits, so I receive fairly prompt service from him. It was not a minute before I had my drink and a complimentary biscuit in front of me while others vainly waved their hands. I do not set great store by receiving preferential treatment, but sometimes it can be nice.

Yes, I thought again, Arabella. Then I thought, perhaps a little cruelly, If I were a rich and famous barrister I would hope to do better than Arabella.

I hasten to add that in thinking this I was not seeking to denigrate Arabella. Most certainly not. There was no doubt in my mind that she was an estimable woman, a woman of many valuable qualities, and doubtless, too, she possessed many attributes of personality which made her an acceptable, and indeed desirable, spouse. No, what I had in mind was something else. It simply occurred to me that, in Donovan’s shoes, I would seek out someone truly exceptional; I would not settle, if that is not too harsh an expression, for a woman of straightforward and widely available charms: I would try to scoop up the best there was. In other words (I shall be blunt), I would go for a beauty. Arabella, whatever else could be said for her, was no beauty.

It is not difficult to imagine certain responses to what I have just said. Pig! or Brute! might well be among them, and it would not surprise me to hear Sexist! ring out. But can I help my sentiments? And even if I could, can I be blamed? For a start, there are my personal circumstances. Look at me: look at my bald head, at my upside-down face and my small, plump figure: I am not an attractive man. There is very little about me to arouse the interest of a woman full stop, let alone that of a beautiful woman. That is a disheartening state of affairs, because I find beautiful women as attractive as the next man. I hanker after them just like everybody else; my head, too, has turned to lovely strollers during these last, heatwavy, weeks. The difficulty is, I am never going to be in a position to do something about this hankering. My face will always be pressed steaming against the window. Can I be blamed,
therefore, for making beauty a particular priority if I suddenly found myself with Donovan’s options?

I returned to the office. It was not long before I received a call that I had expected. It was from Fergus Donovan. He wanted to know how it had gone.

‘How what has gone?’ I said.

‘The pre-trial hearing,’ he said. ‘How did it go? Tell me.’

I sighed. Mr Donovan tired me out. ‘Why don’t you ask Michael,’ I said. ‘He’ll know all there is to know. It’s not for me to tell you what happened this morning.’

It was all right, Mr Donovan said. He had checked it with his son, and he had said that it was all right for us to talk.