hand slightly. His fingers stilled. She ran a finger and thumb along each one, feeling
how slender they were, how hard their bones, how smooth and cool their skin. She unlatched the door. Almost as soon as his grasp had slipped away, the rest of him was on her. He tasted of beer and
smoke and of the cold night air.
Chapter Three
Joanne made it to her desk by eight, and once she had had a coffee and got down to the work of the transcripts, it wasn’t so bad. She was actually interested in the case,
she remembered, even if she did sympathize far less with their own client than with the plaintiff. It was a dispute over property: a man was being sued by his mother for demolishing a building at
the back of her house and putting a restaurant in its place. Their client was the son, who maintained that his mother had signed the building – a mews house – over to him years
previously, granting him permission to do with it whatever he pleased. The mother was in her eighties, and in the transcripts her personality came vividly through; she was determined, she was
elegant, and she was proud. Joanne found herself reading the mother’s words as though they were the lines of a novel with which she had fallen in love; the haughty paragraphs seemed to her
beautiful, the way they rambled backwards into long-ago passages of the old woman’s life. This morning she was going back over the account the woman had given in court the week before of her
relationship with her son, who had been born in East Africa, where the woman and her husband, an officer in the British Army, had been based in the 1950s. Shortly afterwards, they had moved to
Dublin, and her husband had bought the house on Fitzwilliam Square, and then, a couple of years later, very suddenly, her husband had died. At first, the woman said, she had ‘minded
terribly’, and found the house with its four floors and its high ceilings and its huge windows onto the park too much to bear, but in time she had come to love it again. And she knew, she
said, that her son, only a schoolboy when he lost his father, had come to love the house too.
But as he grew up, she said, her son grew fond of the old mews at the back of the house, which had never been renovated, which was still, for all purposes, a stable; downstairs, it still looked
ready for a horse and carriage, and upstairs, it was just a couple of shabby rooms with a fireplace that smoked badly. Rupert did not care about the fireplace, or the damp on the walls. Rupert
liked to invite his schoolfriends there, to have them gather in the narrow rooms to listen to records, or to play card games, or to do whatever it was that boys of his age liked to do. And
Elizabeth – that was the woman’s name, Elizabeth Lefroy – had liked to stand at her own sitting-room window and look down on the mews, and to think of the life happening within
its walls, of her son and his little circle. Slowly but surely, then, her son had begun to move all of his things into the mews, to decorate the walls with photographs torn from magazines, to add
his own books to the squat pine shelves. And the summer after he had finished school – the months before he started at Trinity – he had begun to sleep in there every night. Elizabeth
had worried about him – that he was not warm enough, that he would wake up hungry in the night and have no fridge to go to – but her son had told her not to worry, that he could take
care of himself. And then, while he was at college, he had started, on Sunday afternoons, to do this ‘darling thing’, she said, of inviting her over for lunch, even though there was no
kitchen to speak of in the place; he had ordered in, and together they had enjoyed all sorts of dishes at the rickety little table, and all kinds of wines, and they had talked, and her son had told
her about his plans for his career, and asked her to tell him things he could not know or remember about his father, and about Kenya, and about
how slender they were, how hard their bones, how smooth and cool their skin. She unlatched the door. Almost as soon as his grasp had slipped away, the rest of him was on her. He tasted of beer and
smoke and of the cold night air.
Chapter Three
Joanne made it to her desk by eight, and once she had had a coffee and got down to the work of the transcripts, it wasn’t so bad. She was actually interested in the case,
she remembered, even if she did sympathize far less with their own client than with the plaintiff. It was a dispute over property: a man was being sued by his mother for demolishing a building at
the back of her house and putting a restaurant in its place. Their client was the son, who maintained that his mother had signed the building – a mews house – over to him years
previously, granting him permission to do with it whatever he pleased. The mother was in her eighties, and in the transcripts her personality came vividly through; she was determined, she was
elegant, and she was proud. Joanne found herself reading the mother’s words as though they were the lines of a novel with which she had fallen in love; the haughty paragraphs seemed to her
beautiful, the way they rambled backwards into long-ago passages of the old woman’s life. This morning she was going back over the account the woman had given in court the week before of her
relationship with her son, who had been born in East Africa, where the woman and her husband, an officer in the British Army, had been based in the 1950s. Shortly afterwards, they had moved to
Dublin, and her husband had bought the house on Fitzwilliam Square, and then, a couple of years later, very suddenly, her husband had died. At first, the woman said, she had ‘minded
terribly’, and found the house with its four floors and its high ceilings and its huge windows onto the park too much to bear, but in time she had come to love it again. And she knew, she
said, that her son, only a schoolboy when he lost his father, had come to love the house too.
But as he grew up, she said, her son grew fond of the old mews at the back of the house, which had never been renovated, which was still, for all purposes, a stable; downstairs, it still looked
ready for a horse and carriage, and upstairs, it was just a couple of shabby rooms with a fireplace that smoked badly. Rupert did not care about the fireplace, or the damp on the walls. Rupert
liked to invite his schoolfriends there, to have them gather in the narrow rooms to listen to records, or to play card games, or to do whatever it was that boys of his age liked to do. And
Elizabeth – that was the woman’s name, Elizabeth Lefroy – had liked to stand at her own sitting-room window and look down on the mews, and to think of the life happening within
its walls, of her son and his little circle. Slowly but surely, then, her son had begun to move all of his things into the mews, to decorate the walls with photographs torn from magazines, to add
his own books to the squat pine shelves. And the summer after he had finished school – the months before he started at Trinity – he had begun to sleep in there every night. Elizabeth
had worried about him – that he was not warm enough, that he would wake up hungry in the night and have no fridge to go to – but her son had told her not to worry, that he could take
care of himself. And then, while he was at college, he had started, on Sunday afternoons, to do this ‘darling thing’, she said, of inviting her over for lunch, even though there was no
kitchen to speak of in the place; he had ordered in, and together they had enjoyed all sorts of dishes at the rickety little table, and all kinds of wines, and they had talked, and her son had told
her about his plans for his career, and asked her to tell him things he could not know or remember about his father, and about Kenya, and about
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