Bentleys driven by uniformed chauffeurs.
Mr Shires came in at nine thirty. He greeted everyone and walked rapidly into the private office. Lydia gave him ten minutes and then picked up her notepad and tapped on his door. He was standing at the big desk with the waste-paper basket beside him, working his way through the morning’s post.
‘May I have a word, sir?’
He glanced at his wristwatch. ‘Very well. I can only spare you a moment, though.’
Lydia closed the door behind her. ‘I wanted to ask your advice on a personal matter.’
He frowned. ‘That’s a little unusual.’ He walked round the desk to his chair. ‘You’d better sit down.’ He pulled a small white paper bag towards him and helped himself to a peppermint.
‘I want a divorce,’ Lydia said.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘A divorce.’
‘Bless my soul. Mrs Langstone, have you any idea what that would entail?’
‘That’s one reason I’ve come to see you, sir. So I can find out.’ She paused but Shires said nothing. ‘I’m living with my father because I have left my husband. I left him because he hit me.’
‘Dear me. I’m sorry to hear that. Were there any witnesses?’
Lydia shook her head. ‘However, he has also committed adultery.’
Shires leant back. ‘Oh dear. On the surface that would certainly be grounds for divorce. But you would have to prove it.’ He sucked on his mint, and Lydia heard a faint squelching sound. ‘Are you able to do that, Mrs Langstone? And, if you are, are you prepared for your private life, as well as that of your husband, to be discussed in court? There’s no such thing as a quiet divorce, you know, even if you could persuade your husband to — ah — cooperate. There tends to be an unhealthy interest in these matters, particularly if the principals have any connection with the peerage. The publicity would be distressing.’
Lydia noted the fact that somebody had told Shires about her family. Serridge or her father? She said, ‘And the cost?’
‘It would not be cheap. Going to the law is always an expensive business.’ He smiled complacently at her. ‘Fortunately for us lawyers.’
‘If I could raise the money, however, and if I could get the evidence, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t go ahead with the divorce?’
‘These are big conditions. Yes, though. All things being equal. Since the most recent Matrimonial Causes Act, a woman is entitled to petition for divorce on the grounds of the husband’s adultery. Until then a woman could only sue for divorce on those grounds if it were aggravated by the man’s desertion or his cruelty to her. But in your case there might be another complication. If I understand matters aright, it is not he who has deserted you, but you who have deserted him.’
‘Because he attacked me.’
‘So you say. We come back to the question of proof. Or of your husband’s willingness to admit guilt.’
Lydia drew a little gallows on the notepad and adorned it with a stick figure of a man. ‘But if I were able to find the money and the evidence, would you be able to help me deal with this?’
Shires stared coldly across the desk. ‘It is not the sort of work we usually undertake, Mrs Langstone. Nor do I feel happy about the prospect of one of my employees appearing in a divorce court. I have this firm’s reputation to consider. And there’s still the matter of the money and the evidence you would need. These are not matters to be taken lightly.’
Lydia stood up. ‘Then I take it you are not willing to help?’
Mr Shires sighed. ‘I wish you young people wouldn’t leap to conclusions. I haven’t said I will help you, and I haven’t said I won’t. All I have done is point out some of the problems that you will need to resolve if you decide to go ahead with the matter, including the fact that it may affect your position with this firm. What I will say is this: I will consider what you have said and let you know my decision in due course. Now would you be so good as to ask Mr Reynolds to spare me a moment?’
At Cornwallis Grove events began to move fast, as if an invisible brake had been removed. Almost overnight Fenella became full of energy and decision. Rory was afraid that the reason for this was the arrival in her life of Julian Dawlish.
If you had to design an elegant single solution to all of Fenella’s problems, you could hardly have done better than copy the man, inch by inch, atom by atom. He was rich, politically congenial and a gentleman. Like a fairy godfather, he produced flats and jobs at the click of his manicured fingers. To add insult to injury, Rory found himself rather liking the man.
It had been Dawlish who had pointed out that, now the lodger was no more than an unhappy memory and some curious stains on the carpet in her room, there was no longer any need for Fenella to remain at Cornwallis Grove, unless of course she wanted to, which she did not. The Alliance of Socialists Against Fascism was anxious to get itself up and running as soon as possible. The house in Mecklenburgh Square was standing empty. The flat in the basement could be made ready whenever she wanted it. Dawlish had visited an estate agent in Hampstead Village who was convinced that he would have no trouble in letting the Kensleys’ maisonette in Belsize Park for the remainder of the lease; in fact he already had a prospective tenant in mind.
Suddenly, it seemed, there was no reason for Fenella to stay and every reason for her to go. On Tuesday evening, Rory received a postcard from her, asking if he could spare the time to help with the clearing out; the Kensleys had been storing some of his belongings while he was in India, and she would be grateful if he could remove them.
Early on Wednesday afternoon, he took a tram in the Hampstead direction and was at Cornwallis Grove a little after two o’clock. Fenella was alone in the house. She was wearing overalls and her hair was bound up in a headscarf. The hall was still cluttered with the mortal remains of Mr Kensley’s ill-fated hobbies.
‘Work first,’ she said. ‘Tea later.’
As he followed her towards the stairs he stumbled again over the bag of tools and narrowly avoided treading on a crystal receiver.
‘Careful,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘I’m sorry to hurry you, but I’ve got the estate agent coming round next week and I want the place to look as clear as possible.’
She took him up to the box room, a former dressing room on the first floor where the Kensleys had deposited anything they didn’t want but could not bear to throw away. Rory found himself looking at two suitcases, much scuffed and dented, adorned with faded labels recording long-forgotten railway journeys. He had left them with the Kensleys just before going to India in what seemed another lifetime, and one that had belonged to someone else. He carried the cases out to the landing and rummaged half-heartedly through their contents. As well as clothes and bed linen, he found a tobacco jar, books he could not remember reading, chipped crockery, a stack of lecture notes and an embarrassing attempt at an extended poetic analysis of the discontents of civilization written in the style of
‘I’m not going to want much of this,’ he said.
Fenella wiped a grimy hand across her forehead and grinned at him. ‘Nor am I. Why don’t you sort through it and chuck out what you can?’
He spent the next fifteen minutes picking through the contents of the cases. Moth had got into one of them. In the other, however, he found a heavy suit which still had some wear in it. The jacket fitted and the trousers would probably do if he asked Mrs Renton to alter them. By the time he closed the lid of the second suitcase, his hands were filthy and he had had more than enough of the detritus of his own past.
He poked his head back into the box room. ‘I’ve gone as far as I can go. One suitcase can go on the rag- and-bone pile. I’ll keep the other. I can give you a hand in here, if you like.’
‘Thanks. Could you lift down the box from the top of the wardrobe?’
The cardboard box brought a shower of dust with it. He put it on the floor and pulled open the flaps. It was full of dusty papers, letters and photographs.
‘How will you get the suitcase back to your flat?’ she asked.
‘Carry it to the bus stop, I suppose. Less walking than the Tube.’
‘No, don’t bother. Julian’s coming round later in his car. I’m sure he won’t mind dropping it off.’
‘Oh. That would be very kind.’
Fenella dug her hands into the box and deposited its contents on the carpet. A little photograph slipped to
