Undercurrent by Frances Fyfield Read Free Book Online Page A

disguise, was there? After all, Francesca's hardly news any more. We're all trying to forget her. As if we could. Although we should. I can't.'
    'You defended her,' he said flatly.
    'Yes. To be the best of my ability, darling, to coin a phrase. Don't frown so. Yes, you are entirely right in your estimation of me, Edward. I may have qualified as a lawyer but I am profoundly frivolous and likely to remain so, but it doesn't follow that I'm incompetent. I'm just absolutely determined to avoid responsibility. I've done the career bit and the married bit and I don't give a shit. No roof over my head: do I want responsibility? Like hell I do. Sixteen hours a week is what I do for you. . . Quite enough. The crime around here is so boring. Get drunk, get sick, hit each other, was it the left fist or the right. . .'

    'With the exception of Francesca Chisholm. Your cousin.
    Whose ancestor founded this firm.'

    She sipped at the coffee, decorously. Her normally pale face was pink from the cold.

    .
    'Francesca didn't care who defended her. Anyone would have done. And two hours a week was plenty enough to organize the defence of a woman who insisted she was guilty. No debate about it and none allowed. Are you sure, I'd say? Are you absolutely sure? and she'd say, Course I'm sure, I was there wasn't I, I should know. It cost twenty pence to fish on the pier, she'd say, as if that was the whole thing about it which surprised her. And it's the same length as the Titanic. Don't waste money, someone else needs it. Just get it over with for me and tell them I'm sorry. I mean, all I did was get a man to translate that to court as kindly as he might. I check up on her protégé and her friend, small thanks for it. I bring her reports from her own, lost world. She delegated rather a lot of tasks and I do them.'
    'Do you think you might have done a more thorough job if you hadn't been in the midst of divorce?'
    'Get stuffed, Edward. You were supervising. We took instructions; we obeyed them to the letter. That's all we could do. And I suppose you refused to tell that American anything about it?
    Sent him away without a word? Client confidentiality? She needs friends, even if she hasn't got them, and he might just be one. So what if he's a fool?'
    'She doesn't deserve friends.'
    'Deserve them? What's that got to do with anything? She always says, I can't talk now, as if she ever will. Do you know, she's been there almost a year? I hate anniversaries. So will she.
    Where's he gone, that man?'

    Edward considered carefully. 'He's gone for a walk on the pier.
    Listen Maggie, officially we shouldn't tell him anything.'
    'Officially,' she said, picking up the coffee mugs and looking out of the window. Edward sighed again, and fumbled for the cigarettes.

    'He isn't good looking, you know, Maggie. There's no real reason to bother.'
    'He's just another man who fell for Francesca,' Maggie said. 'And left her. Like they all did.
    Like they all do. You're a bunch of shits, really.'

    'Not all of us,' Edward said.

    I treasure the shawl because it was a gift, not for itself, however useful it is. But I suppose I disapprove of sentiment, or sentimental gestures. They get in the way of genuine emotion and disguise it thoroughly. I was trying to make an inventory yesterday, of all the people I've LIKED in my life. I don't mean loved, or adored mean LIKED. There was a man a long time ago whom I adored because he had no idea of how singular he was. I should have kept in touch with him, but I didn't.
    Those were the days when people were expendable. One always assumed there would be someone else of equal calibre. Wrong. Would you shoot tigers with him? My father would have asked.
    Yes, but I went on to prefer the deliberately extrovert and sociable type of male. Then there are the people I adopted because it was so unfair that no one else would. I cannot bear to see loneliness when I can do something about it, but empathy with people who need you is not quite the