I began. ‘Did I tell you I represented Saskia the other day?’
‘You never tell me the names of the people you represent,’ she said, regretfully. ‘But Saskia … How is she? Why does she need a family lawyer? She hasn’t had children, has she?’
‘Let’s just say I represented her, but there was a man at court who seemed interested in her. Then she disappeared. I thought she might be at Gino’s last night. She wasn’t but he was, so I followed him and he ended up banging into the back of the car and punching me in the eye.’
‘Did you tell the police?’
‘I was drunk, I couldn’t tell them. And anyway, it didn’t seem right to get the police in. It’s all just hunches on my part.’
‘A punch is not a hunch.’
‘No, but in a way it was my own fault.’
‘Because – why? Don’t tell me, you were driving really provocatively. Frankie, I told you there is never an excuse for violence.’
‘Don’t lecture me, Lena,’ I said. ‘I just have to think now what I’m going to do.’
‘You could go and see if the number plate is there, where it happened.’
‘But that means going back …’
‘Well, you’ve got to, because if the number plate is there and you don’t find it, he will and then he’ll be able to find you.’
‘Oh God.’
But in the end it wasn’t him who found me – it was the police. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
When I told Lena where it had happened we agreed that there was no point going all that way back up to Highgate, especially since we were both looking so glamorous for our evening out. As we drove down towards Old Street, we assured each other that there were two possibilities. If we went to Waterlow Park and the number plate was gone, there would be nothing we could do, but it would ruin our evening. And if it was still up there, lying in the road, it was unlikely to be stolen while we, along with most of the population of London, were out having a good time.
At Old Street roundabout I was still trying to convince myself that all this had a logic and was true. When we found a parking space right outside the club I knew we had made the right decision.
The club was still quite empty. ‘This is one of the good things about being older,’ Lena said. ‘We arrive early and so we get a seat. Youth doesn’t arrive, on principle, till it’s standing room only.’ I wasn’t sure I liked being included in her comments about age. I felt I should do something childish and petulant to highlight our age difference, but I couldn’t think of anything, so I sulked.
The room was dark and small, about the size of a living room that’s a good size for a party. Tables formed a semi-circle round a raised dais, each table boasting a flickering night-light. We chose a small table near the front and I went to the bar to order a bottle of Californian Chardonnay. Already the room was beginning to fill up with women who looked the same age as me and Lena, who took all the tables. As I sat down again I was feeling old on my own account, but it meant I could stop sulking. Lena poured the wine. It was chilled and fruity and I began to relax.
Lena knew someone involved in the management of the club so she explained, ‘When there’s no act the stage is where the dancing happens.’ But a small neat woman in a tux stepped into the spotlight on the stage and announced that tonight there was an act, a singer. I was disappointed, I had got used to the idea of a loud band and dancing so I could forget all the things that wouldn’t leave my mind: Saskia and my black eye and my unreliable car and my lack of work.
When the act stepped on to the stage half an hour later the club was almost full. She looked tired, in her late thirties or early forties, and had thick coarse blonde hair. She wore a black beaded sheath which accentuated her full figure, and her black patent high-heel shoes highlighted her good legs. She tapped the microphone and I could see her hand trembling as she adjusted the height of the stand. The piano, her only accompaniment, began to play softly. She coughed and missed her entrance.
My heart sank. Had I left my warm friendly flat with a good night’s TV for this? I remembered I had also left my mother and sat forward, willing the singer to do well.
She sang ‘Cry Me a River’. Her voice was soft and smoky. The longing and loss in her voice touched me and I guessed most of the people in the room. Everyone was silent, no glasses tinkled, no money rattled in the till at the bar. Everyone was transfixed by the beauty she brought to the song. As she sighed the last notes and hung her head in conclusion the place erupted with applause. She looked genuinely surprised and pleased, smiling and bowing, holding her hands pressed together between her knees.
She sang ‘Funny Valentine’, ‘Georgia’, ‘Me and Mrs Jones’ and all those sleepy, sexy songs that make you miss everything you thought you had but didn’t, or thought you wanted but couldn’t.
At the end of the set women were whistling and whooping and the MC, leaping back on to the stage from her position on a stool at the side, had trouble quietening them down. ‘Margo will be back in half an hour,’ she said, and there was a scattering of applause before people drifted to the bar. A jazz trumpet began sobbing softly through the PA system.
I went to the bar to order another bottle of wine. When I got back to the table it was empty. I knew where Lena would be: standing at the side of the stage talking to the singer. I wasn’t surprised. Lena was an old performer, she’d been a dancer and was very good at telling other artists how much she liked their work. Sometimes, as I did then, I sat and watched the recipients melt with pleasure beneath the warmth of her sweet praise. Margo smiled, looking down, frowning slightly with a deprecatory expression. Then Lena gestured towards our table and Margo smiled over at me and I nodded in reply. Lena was explaining something and Margo looked at her watch. Lena wrinkled her nose and patted Margo’s arm. Margo turned and went backstage and Lena returned to the table. ‘She’s going to join us for a drink,’ she said, pulling over an empty chair from the next table. ‘At first she said she wouldn’t but I convinced her that there would only be serious intellectual conversation and dry white wine at our table so she relented. I think she might even have a small interest in you. She said she’d heard of you when I mentioned your name.’ She raised her eyebrows at me and I raised mine back.
Feeling pleased with myself, I sauntered to the bar and called to the bar woman who was waiting as a glass filled with lager. ‘Wine glass,’ I mouthed. ‘For the singer.’ Across the heads of the crowd, she passed me a glass and gave me a wink. The stud in her nose flashed.
I had just sat down when Margo came to the table, moving worriedly through the crowd, smiling occasionally at people who said hello. She was wearing another dress, red, short and tight, with high red sparkling shoes. I felt confident that the Jigsaw suit was good. She sat down and Lena introduced us.
‘You’re a barrister,’ Margo said. I nodded. Sometimes it turns people on that you’re a barrister and I was happy with that.
‘And you’re a wonderful singer,’ I said, pouring wine into her glass. ‘How long have you been singing?’
‘Not long,’ she said. ‘A year or so. Are you a wonderful barrister?’
‘Oh, the easy ones first. I don’t know if I’m wonderful, but I think I’m quite good and I fight hard. Why? Do you need a barrister?’ I hoped she didn’t,
